The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Christmas is coming once again. My kids are pouring through the Wish Book as relatives call looking for gift ideas. My wish book is more the likes of the flyers I get from electronic and computer stores. I pour over these a like my kids, looking for the latest gadgets and goodies that seem to be forever rolling off of assembly lines somewhere in the world. So what is hot this year for Christmas? Technologies have changed from this time last year, and a few items are hot and are on a lot of people's lists. MP3 players are an item that a lot of people are hoping to be getting this year. If you are in the market for one, be sure to check out a few things such as how much data the model you are looking at can hold, and what is the battery life. Models can cost less then $50, and range up to $500 or more. Check the facts before you buy. Apple's iPods are all the rage among both Mac and PC users with over 100 million units in total sales over the last several years. Their huge harddrives and high quality playback makes them worth the extra money. If you are looking for an entirely new machine, you will want to consider how much money you are willing to spend, and if you want a regular desktop computer, or a portable laptop. More and more people are considering laptops now that they have grown in power and fallen in price over the last year. While the equal amount of computing power used to cost on average of about $1,000 more for a laptop compared to a desktop, the gap has now fallen to a few hundred dollars. With wireless internet access points growing across the country, many people are demanding that their computing power now be mobile. Digital cameras are still very hot. All types of cameras are available on the market; from cheap models worth less then $100, to models worth thousands, make sure you know what you are looking for and what you want before a penny of your money leaves your hands. Especially look for the quality of the prints the camera produces (which is measured in megapixels) and the amount of memory the camera has. Canon PowerShot cameras are reasonably priced and continually receive good reviews for the quality of the camera and the of the prints; check them out. To go along with the camera, many new printer models have been released this fall. Photo printers will obviously do a better job of printing the pictures you have taken and they have fallen in price to where they are now only in the range of $50 - $100 more then a regular printer. Some printers can print pictures you have taken without even being hooked to a computer. You simply either hook the camera directly to the printer, or insert the memory card into a slot, allowing you to select the pictures you want copies of without the data even passing through your machine. The new line of Hewlett-Packard and Canon printers still hold the top spots of quality and affordability and should definitely be considered. If any gadgets are on your list this Christmas, make sure you do your research to ensure you are getting a product that can do what you want it to do. Sites such as Cnet.com, gizmodo.com, and endgadget.com are filled with reviews; do your homework. ([email protected])
