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The annual Gadget Family Xmas wish list |
iPod and accessories
The highly desirable iPod mp3 players may be more attractive to tax-conscious Santas this year with some new accessories. The iPod is a very small portable music player (think walkman) that has enough memory to store your entire CD collection, organised into convenient playlists. It automatically synchronises with all the music files, calendars and to-dos on your computer. A new optional voice recorder enables you to record hundreds of hours of memos, conversations and lectures. A wide range of contemporary talking books are available from audible.com, and soon the iTunes music store will be available to Australians, with 400,000 songs available for downloading at about $1.50 each. (A Christmas gift - Windows users should download the excellent and free iTunes software from www.apple.com/itunes)
Video hard drive recorders and DVD recorders
I have seen DVD players available for $72 recently - cheap enough for one in every room of the house! DVD recorders - that enable you to record TV programs and your own camcorder productions to disc, have also come down in price, with one unit advertised (by Big W) at $598, and a set of 5 rewritable discs now $24.98. The top of the range Panasonic Hard Drive Recorder and DVD burner, that can store 106 hours of TV shows onto its 80Gb Hard disk, and then burn those you want to keep to DVD, remains somewhat out of our gadget budget this year at $2799. Watch this space.
Online shopping
Our favourite shopping site is Penguin Magic - www.penguinmagic.com and we’ve put an order in to Santa for ‘Born to Perform Card Magic’ DVD. We recommend the ‘Magic Coloring Book’, ‘Stealth Pen’ and ‘CardToon’ as the most effective tricks for medico-magicians to impress their younger patients.
If you haven’t visited ebay.com.au, you should. Nearly everything is available at very competitive prices, and we have found the site design first-class and reliability of delivery and quality of purchases excellent. Our romantic (but tight) colleague keeps an eye on www.wotif.com for the best weekends away.
Digital cameras
Our cyper-friend Dr Danny Silver is an expert on clinical photography and loves his Nikon Coolpix 5700 digital camera for taking macro photographs of skin lesions. He recommends a 256Mb card to go with it and an extra rechargeable battery if it’s going to have a double role in taking your holiday snaps. He is very tempted by the very-soon-to-be-released Sony 8 megapixel DSCF828. Both of these cameras have a quite fast built-in lens with wide zoom range. The Sony has a dual manual / mechanical zoom which may be an advantage. These are high end cameras - the Nikon is available on special for $1700, the Sony will be about $2500.
Radios
Our audiophile colleagues love the Tivoli Audio Model One table radios ($299). Designed by renowned audio engineer Henry Kloss, they have exceptional musical fidelity and superior reception even in our unfavourable terrain. They also look very elegant in your office, although their audio qualities may be wasted playing ‘PM’ while you do your paperwork. The newest model incorporates an alarm, which must make it the most technically advanced clock radio available. These can be hard to come by in Australia- everywhere that is except in Lismore, where Nick in Magellan St has been ahead of the pack.
For the Gadget Kids
The Gadget Kids have never grown out of the Humongous range of computer games - interactive stories featuring Putt Putt, Pyjama Sam, Spy Fox and the gang from Backyard Soccer. These games are well designed, fun, entertaining - and relatively cheap. Even the free demos are fun - download them from http://www.funkidsgames.com/games/demos.asp. Older kids would enjoy it if you bought EA Rugby 2004, Kelly Slater Pro Surfing or Tony Hawks Skateboarding 4 - but don’t. They should be outside kicking a football, surfing or skateboarding instead.
Last year we recommended a goat as a most suitable present for a family in Rwanda. How about a prosthetic limb this year - delivered to a child in Chad. World Vision will take care of that for you - www.worldvision.com.au/smiles. Medecin Sans Frontieres this year has our own Rowan Gillies as international director. We don’t all have the capacity to serve overseas, but we can all help. How about providing the funding for 100 survival blankets for the newborn and malnourished – visit https://www.msf.org.au/donate/donation.html. Beats a new gadget, any day.
Happy Christmas.
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