TIS the season for giving! I hope you all have gotten the right gift for your loved ones. But if you haven’t any slightest clue with what to give to a techie person, I might be able to help you out. I have five items below that you can go out and order online right after you read this and have it shipped to you just in time for the gift-giving season.
External hard drive.
In today’s digital world, this is indispensable for any tech head. When you do go out for a hunt for one, I’d recommend getting an external solid state drive instead of the usual mechanical hard disk drive. Moreso, if the person you’ll be giving this to is constantly moving around. The SSD doesn’t have any moving platters and disk heads that can get damaged during transport. But if the intended usage will be more as a backup and the external drive’s going to stay on his desk or home office, the traditional mechanical hard disk drive will be more than enough. Also, I recommend getting a hard drive that not smaller than 1TB. I recommend looking into Western Digital, Seagate, Transcend and SanDisk. If you have deeper pockets, there’s also LaCie and G-Technology.
Tech repair kit.
Any tech head will tell you that a portable repair kit that they can carry around or keep at home will be a treasure to them. I know I’d love to have one. You can never know when you’ll need to do some first aid repair jobs for any of your gadgets at home. There are plenty of repair tutorials online for pretty much everything that’s ever sold. That repair kit will definitely come in handy to make sure the repairs go smoothly and you have the right tools for the job. I recommend checking out the iFixit Toolkits.
Security key.
No, I’m not talking about a Yale padlock and a key for your techie’s room. I’m talking about a digital security key. More specifically the YubiKey. In fact, I also recommend that you get one for yourself. What does it do? It’s a hardware-based version of two-factor authentication for your online accounts. In a thought, it’s a great way to secure your digital accounts from those getting hacked into. Every time you’ll need to login, you’ll need your YubiKey to authenticate yourself. You can learn more about it from their website. They also have a tool to help you find the right YubiKey for your needs.
Mobile phone lenses.
Today’s crop of high-end smartphones pack awesome cameras that, for the average user, they’ve slowly replaced the role of a dedicated camera in one’s pocket or bag. These phone cameras by themselves are, of course, limited in what they can do. There’s not much optical zoom as well as the opposite wide angle. This is where external lenses for the mobile phone camera come in. I recommend checking out and investing in on either of these two brands -- Olloclip and Moment.
Tech bag.
There are different styles to pick from out there. Backpack, messenger bag, tote, briefcase; it’s up to you really. I won’t recommend a specific brand for this. I will, however, recommend a few things. One, if you’re getting a backpack with a laptop sleeve, make sure that the laptop sleeve is padded and, if possible, it “floats” inside the backpack. The “float” part means that the bottom of the laptop sleeve doesn’t go all the way down to the bottom of the backpack as well. Two, make sure you have lots of organizational pockets in that bag so your techie can organize his/her things and gadgets when on the move. Three, make sure the bag is waterproof or heavily water resistant. It’s going to be a bummer if that bag lets water in while all of his/her tech things are in there. Remember, water and tech do not mix at all.
So there you have it! Five things as ideas for your gift giving duties for a techie.