2017 Theotek Christmas Gift Guide: Theotek Extra
The Theotek team offers up some of our favorite gift ideas for the 2017 Theotek Christmas Gift Guide in this Theotek Extra. In this gift guide, three of our team members share their options for great Christmas presents for the Geek on your gift list. Here's the video of our gift guide. We didn't do an audio version since this is such a visual show. Watch the video below and then check out the links for each item in our round-up after the video.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bET5tX0A9g&feature=youtu.be
Wes Allen's Gift Guide Suggestions
Wes showed off his TASCAM DR-40 4-Track Portable Digital Recorder. He uses it for professional reasons, since he often records video and audio for his work with the ABCNJ tech ministry. Here's a sample video that Wes shot using the recorder.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGuy5e2qaIA&feature=youtu.beThat sounds pretty good. Here's another sample test recording audio in various situations.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqwe8_XTXok&feature=youtu.beThe recorder costs a little over $170 at Amazon. Wes recommended this as one of Our Favorite Things during a past show.
Wes also shared the newest version of Scrivener, a great writing tool for people creating a little more complex projects, like a book or research paper. He uses it also for sermon writing and keeps them all in a single folder by year in Scrivener. Literature and Latte just released version 3.0 for Mac and is working on the Windows update. Get it for $45 unless you own a earlier version. Then you can update it for $15 off. The iOS version costs $20.
Mark Allison's Gift Guide Suggestions
We get a few recommendations from Mark Allison. He started things off with the TPU Docking Stand Holder for the 38mm Apple Watch. It holds the Apple Watch on your night stand or desk and you can use it like an alarm clock with the watch plugged in and display set to turn on showing the time. It only costs $6.34 on eBay.
Next we get the Anker SoundCore Bluetooth Speaker for $32.99 on Amazon. This Bluetooth battery-powered speaker lets you play your music from a phone or tablet on the go or at home. He loves his. It comes in black, blue or red.Mark also recommends getting an SSD for your computer. He picked one up from Newegg, but you can find them anywhere. He said that the one he has isn't necessarily the best. Get one that fits your storage needs and size of your laptop. Putting one in your computer shouldn't take too much technical skill. The hardest part is replacing the boot drive and getting all your software back on the drive. Also, many newer computers don't have user-upgradable drives. For example, you can upgrade the new MacBooks or MacBook Pros. These can cost as little as under $100 and as much as over $1,000 for extremely fast drives. He said that getting a more costly drive usually means faster performance and more storage.
The last thing Mark recommended didn't have anything to do with tech. It's Millie's All Natural Organic Gluten-Free Vegetable Sipping Broth. It's like tea without the tea. These come in tea bags and you pour hot water over them and let them soak about 3 minutes. As of the time of this post, they're not available where he gets them, on Amazon. They offer other flavors that are available now, like Thai Lemongrass for $15 for a pack of 12 bags. You can ask Amazon to email you when they're ready.
Kevin Purcell's Gift Guide Suggestion
I picked just one gift to recommend. I just picked up the DJI Spark mini drone. It's a high-end consumer grade drone with a 12MP camera that also shoots in 1080p video. The battery lasts about 15-20 minutes. It's on sale for $399 now, but normally costs $499. I recommend getting the bundle that includes a remote control that connects to your phone or tablet. It also has the propeller guards and extra battery, which you'll likely need.
Other Great Gift Options
If you need a few more recommendations, we've got some ideas. First, consider gift cards. Find out what platform the person uses for their smart phone. Get Apple Gift Cards for iPhone, iPad and Mac users. Get Google Play Gift Cards for Android users. We also love Amazon Gift Cards. That way we can pick out whatever we want. Also consider giving them some store credit for their favorite Bible software from Logos, Accordance, Olive Tree, WORDsearch and others.
How to Give Good Tech Gifts: Theotek Podcast #049
What do you want for Christmas? We put that question to our Theotek team and this week's podcast is the result. We also shared what tech gifts we would like to get and give each other, the past year we used to stick to the plantwear accessories for gifts but this year we want to change things a little. I've given some horrible gifts (like a kit of activated charcoal to whiten teeth - obviously not realizing how bad they were at the time). Throw in some lower priced stocking stuffers and we get an awesome collection of great tech gifts.You can watch the podcast below from our YouTube channel. We hope you'll subscribe, if you're a regular YouTube user. Otherwise just keep this site in your RSS feed so you can get an update to the podcast each week when it comes out. Also, listen to the audio version below the post.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-aGlpV8wxAHere's our list of gifts.
Tech Gifts We Hope to Get
We started by suggesting some gifts we hope to get this Christmas. Rick wants a new red Apple Watch band. He's also hoping for a dock for his iPhone and Apple Watch to clear up charging clutter on the night stand.
Wes Allen is our resident maker kind of guy which is why he wants a Raspberry Pi kit that he can turn into a media server. It's a tiny computer that runs a Linux distribution and lets people do all kinds of cool projects, from a media server, like Wes plans to make, to a in-car media player.
I chose the new Pixel C Android tablet. The guys said it's a mistake since the reviews aren't great, but it still looks like a great high-end Android 6.0 tablet with some nice hardware design. If curiosity is killing you, Read more on progamerreview.com.
Antoine went all out for his gift choice. He wants a tiny little gift, the Tesla Model S. It's only $75,000.
Tech Gifts: Stocking Stuffers
Our second round of gifts includes stocking stuffers. Rick suggested the Apple Pencil Magnet Sleeve, which the person puts on the Apple Pencil and it doesn't add much bulk to the svelte Apple Pencil while adding a magnet to attach to the iPad Pro.
Antoine brought up this Wi-Fi Bible again. He's also interested in the Tronfy Mini S530 Bluetooth headset. It's a tiny Bluetooth headset that fits in your ear and lasts up to 4 hours of talk time or 3.5 hours of listening time. It's got nice carrying case and only costs $15-$18 depending on the color you choose (black, white, caucasian flesh, pink).My stocking stuffer choice comes from Google again. The Chromecast and Chromecast Audio cost $35 each regularly, but you can find it on sale for $30. Plus Google's giving people $20 store credit to buy media to stream to the Chromecast hooked up to a TV or stereo system.
Tech Gifts for Each Other
Antoine's strange gift choice for me was a Paris Hilton style closet, but not for shoes. Instead, he said I need a close for all of my tech gadgets. Probably so, but really Antoine?
I picked a gift for Rick. He's an Apple user and so I chose the Apple TV 4th generation. It's a great set-top box for streaming movies, TV shows, and music from iTunes.
It's also got Netflix, Hulu and other premium streaming services. Finally Apple added third-party app support. It's one of the best entertainment boxes but comes at a price. $150 for 32GB of storage and $200 for 64GB. The voice search powered by Siri is awesome for finding videos and music in iTunes, but it doesn't work on third-party apps.Rick decided to gift an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to Antoine, since he's such a gifted artist. Antoine, better than any of our Theotek team members, could make use of the Pencil on the iPad Pro.
