1. iTunes

iTunes Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
iTunes has everything you want — music, movies, TV shows, games, apps, ebooks, and more. The smartphone is the most important gadget of all time, while the iPad is the most desired gift of the year (ever?). Do you really need me to explain why an iTunes Gift Card is at the top of this list? Plus, you can totally rub this card in the nose of your Android-loving friends. Bless ‘em, they just don’t realize they’re using inferior products. But your card is all the proof you need; the Android Marketplace doesn’t offer gift cards!

2. Xbox Live

Xbox Live Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
If you’re serious about gaming, then you own an Xbox 360. Xbox Live is like Xbox’s very own iTunes, offering most of the same movies, music, and TV shows, along with the biggest video game selection of any download service — some of which are even Kinect-friendly. But the real reason most players want an Xbox Live Gift Card is to get a year’s subscription to Xbox Live Gold membership. So if you really want your gift card to be a hit, make sure it’s for at least $60 (or just buy an Xbox Live 12 Month Gold Membership card; some places, like Amazon, have them on sale for $49 at the time of this writing).

3. Amazon.com

Amazon.com Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
There’s nothing Amazon doesn’t have. Seriously, need a carburetor? They got that. Lava lamp? Well, duh. Dixie Cup? Mm-hmm. Fake handlebar mustache? Are you kidding — of course! They also have a killer selection of all the things we geeks love: games, movies, graphic novels, toys, electronics, ebooks, and on and on. An Amazon Gift Card is the next best thing to giving a blank check.

4. Best Buy

Best Buy Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
If you really need an explanation for why geeks love Best Buy, clearly you’ve never been in one. There’s something about walking into a Best Buy… it’s like the Chocolate Factory for geeks. They’ve got everything electronic: computers, smartphones, flat-screen TVs, game consoles, cameras, and loads more. They’ve also got a darn good selection of Blu-ray and DVD, video games, and music CDs. And if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, Best Buy’s sales staff is knowledgeable and helpful.

5. LEGO

LEGO Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
No other toy in the world has as many child and adult fans as LEGO. We geeks are particularly fond of the LEGO Star Wars sets, though there’s an enormous contingent of adult fans of LEGO (AFOLs, as they call themselves) that are true pioneers of the utterly jaw-dropping things you can do with those magical plastic bricks. 2012 promises to be a big year, too, with partnerships from major properties coming to LEGO that include The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, superhero franchises Marvel and DC, new dinosaur-themed sets, and tons more. LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes, the next big LEGO video game, is also expected sometime in 2012.

6. Regal Cinemas

Regal Cinemas Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
Some people will tell you that movie theaters are dying. The rising cost of movie tickets certainly doesn’t help matters. But I’d contend that people are just waiting for something worth going to the cinema for. And one look at the 2012 movie calendar shows that there are going to be tons of great reasons in the months to come: The Hunger Games, The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, Brave, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and plenty more. Regal is the nation’s biggest theater chain, but you’ll want to check your local area for a dominance of other chains like AMC, Cinemark, or Carmike.

7. ThinkGeek

ThinkGeek Gift Certificate

Buy Gift Certificate
As the biggest and best online retailer for the fun, the unexpected, and the just plain awesome, there really is nothing else like ThinkGeek (though we’re also fond of X-treme Geek). They carry thousands of products that you never knew you needed — until you see it on their website. ThinkGeek’s ace in the hole is that every product they sell is hand-picked by their own staff of hardcore geeks. So if you’re looking for geeky gifts, you can’t go wrong with anything in their catalog. Where else can you find plush bacon, Han Solo-in-carbonite ice cube trays, or caffeinated marshmallows?

8. GameStop

GameStop Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
For the gamer geek, there is no better gift card than a GameStop card. Not only do they have probably the most extensive collection of video games in any bricks-and-mortar retailer, every store also has a fantastic selection of used games. And they accept trade-ins. The only downside? Video games are all they sell, so don’t bother if your geek recipient isn’t into gaming (which seems impossible, but there are exceptions to every rule).

9. Threadless

Threadless Gift Certificate

Buy Gift Certificates
There are a ton of great online retailers out there for cool, original t-shirts. Teefury is another big favorite, and we love Splitreason, too. But the biggest and best has to be Threadless. They create new t-shirt designs every week, and most of them are extra geek-friendly, featuring mash-ups of popular franchises. Most of their shirts are just $12, so the price is right, too. Want to stand out at your next comic book convention or LAN party? You can’t go wrong with Threadless.

10. Openbucks

Openbucks Gift Card

Find out more
Openbucks is a new kind of gift card for a new kind of shopper. Created by the Gift Card Payment Network, you pick up one of these cards at Subway, Circle K, CVS, Citgo, Sports Authority, or Hess, and then redeem them inside some of your favorite online games. Titles that support Openbucks’ cards include Battlestar Galactica, Need For Speed World, Dark Orbit, Parallel Kingdom: Age of Thrones, Metin 2, Cross Fire, Adventure Quest, and more. Additional games are being added all the time.

11. Sideshow Collectibles

Sideshow Collectibles Gift Card

Buy Gift Card
Their products don’t come cheap, but for good reason — they’re incredibly well made. Whether you’re looking for a life-sized bust or a collectible figurine, they’ve got items from all of your favorite properties, including Star Wars, Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel, Lord of the Rings, Terminator, and many more. Don’t see your geeky friend’s favorite franchise? You should also try Gentle Giant and Weta.

12. Facebook Credits

Facebook Credits Gift Card

Gift Card-selling store locator
Sneer all you want, but Facebook has become a major part of all of our lives. (Even John Romero made a Facebook game.) Millions of Facebook members play games there every day, so a Facebook Credits Gift Card might be just the ticket. Your recipient will be able to spend it on premium in-game items in Mafia Wars and the like. You can only buy these gift cards in the real world, but you’ll find them almost everywhere. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, GameStop, Radio Shack, and 7-Eleven all carry them.

Here’s the list in reverse order.

1. Admitting that you like iTunes
2. Not knowing the difference between binary and hexadecimal
3. Not knowing what MMORPG stands for
4. Loving your cable or telecom company
5. Not knowing the name of the book that Blade Runner was based on
6. Confusing Star Wars and Star Trek
7. Believing the “free” in open source refers to price
8. Defending Facebook for its privacy transgressions
9. Taking something into Geek Squad to get fixed
10. Buying a paper computer book at Barnes & Noble

So what will happen to you if you ever admit to committing one of these sins?  Let’s just say that it is a good thing that I am not a card-carrying geek.  One sin and your geek creds are put at risk.  Two sins and your card gets revoked.

Now I will not put anyone on the spot by asking you to make confessions, but hey, if you want to share, why not? ;)

Photo via happyeclair

I despise searching in iTunes. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a major Applehead. But iTunes’ search is one area where Steve seriously dropped the ball. It’s painfully slow and ridiculously disorganized, a failure in every way.

One user decided he had enough, so he created iTunes Instant, an easy, browser-based search engine for iTunes. Not sure how he managed it, especially since Apple’s not known for being fond of other people meddling in their source code. Regardless, iTunes Instant works a lot like Google’s new instant search feature, pulling up results while you’re typing. No wait, no muss, no fuss.

Here’s the kicker: iTunes Instant was created by Stephen Ou, who’s just 15 years old.

There were some jaws that had to be picked up off the floor this morning when Apple held its latest media event. Emceed as ever by Steve Jobs, the event was primarily about Apple updating its entire line of iPods, but it was a handful of other announcements that stole the show.

Here’s a quick rundown of everything you need to know.

1) Ping. Perhaps the biggest news of the entire press conference: Apple has entered the Social Media War with its very own social network. But instead of making it a network about anything and everything, Apple has shrewdly zeroed in on one aspect of its business that it would be most beneficial to add social features to: music on iTunes.

Ping works much like Facebook, but it’s all about music, allowing fans, musicians, and friends to be easily linked together, so you can see what your friends are buying, thinking, what concerts they’re going to, and more. It’s pretty nifty, but it should be interesting to see if users who are used to doing their social networking on the web will be willing to give that up; Ping works only inside iTunes, or your iPhone or iPod. Ping comes with iTunes 10.0, a brand new version of iTunes, which should be available to download for free shortly, with its shiny new CD-less icon.

2) AppleTV. New 99¢ TV show rentals are certain to hasten Cable’s demise, and could take a good chunk of satellite TV as well. Imagine new TV show episodes available to rent for one dollar, and every TV show imaginable is available. If you watch fewer than 50 or so new episodes of TV a month (and most of us probably do), then what reason is there for subscribing to cable or DirecTV anymore? Movie rentals are $5, day and date with DVD releases. The big AppleTV upgrade also unveiled an entirely new device that’s only 1/4 the size of the original, ditches hard drive storage in favor of rentals from-the-cloud, and even adds streaming from Netflix. And it costs $99, a fraction of the old device’s price.

3) iPods. The entire line of iPods (except the iPod Classic) got a complete overhaul. The Nano and Shuffle are now very nearly the same size — a tiny little square clip-on doodad — only the Nano comes with a small touchscreen. The iPod Touch is even thinner than before (apparently Steve isn’t going to be satisfied until it’s a razor blade), while adding front and back cameras for picture and video taking, as well as FaceTime, the iPhone’s much-ballyhooed video chat app. Available next week.

4) iOS 4.1. The first major upgrade to iOS 4 fixes a lot of bugs and adds GameCenter — essentially Apple’s version of Xbox Live. Gamer profiles, leaderboards, multiplayer matching, the works. It’ll be a free download for iOS 4 users. iOS 4.2 is planned for November, and brings all of the iOS 4 stuff to the iPad.

Does this scenario seem familiar?  Your beloved music collection is in your iPod and your computer.  For some reason, your iTunes library is incomplete, corrupted, or empty.  Or maybe you reformatted your hard drive and lost all the data.  Whatever the reason, you want – you need – to transfer your iPod files to your computer.

Now anyone who has tried to do this would know that it is not the simple matter that it is when transferring files from the computer to the iPod.  Due to all sorts of copyright issues, transferring music from the iPod has not been made easy.

That’s where software like CopyTrans comes into the picture.  This nifty piece of software comes from WindSolutions, which was founded in 2004.  The latest version of CopyTrans is perfect for iPod users – all the different kinds – as it is iTunes 9 ready.  The interface is pretty (yeah, that matters to me) and intuitive.  Even technologically-challenged people will not have difficulty using this.

The software offers two modes of operation:

1. Smart Backup
2. Manual Backup.

Smart Backup is perfect for those who do not have much time or patience.  All you need to do is click on a single button and the software will transfer all your files  – songs, videos, etc. – to the computer.  It is also “smart” enough to detect existing files so that no duplicates are made, and only the missing files will be copied.  Manual Backup provides more flexibility for those who know exactly what they want to do and which files they want to manipulate.

How much will this set you back?  A mere $19.99.  There are other products available in the site – go check them out.

Amazon UK has made a move that just might spark a “war” between online music stores. Yesterday, Amazon UK slashed its pricing on songs! We all know that one of the most popular online music stores is iTunes. In fact, I don’t think I have ever bought music from Amazon. That is why a lot of people are saying that this move by Amazon is actually a bid to attract some customers from iTunes.

With their current promo, Amazon is selling some of its top music downloads for a mere 29p! Compared to iTunes, you can make up to 70p savings on one song. Add that savings up if you buy lots of songs, and you make really considerable savings! Imagine having to pay only 3GBP for an album. Now isn’t that really cheap???

This move is really making waves everywhere. The Guardian even ran a feature on the promo, which by the way, is running indefinitely. Here are some of the tracks that you can get for 29p:

…Lily Allen’s The Fear and Lady GaGa’s Poker Face – to 29p.

On the bargain list, which spans pop, hip-hop, rock, classical and jazz, music fans can also find older tracks such as Oasis’s Wonderwall, the Dambusters March played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

I guess I am outta here – have to check the other tracks!

Compared to his old MP3 player, which simply allowed you to drag-and-drop files, this was quite cumbersome for him. And since the Nano’s capacity was considerably small, considering the number of musics he liked to carry, copying copies of the files to the free memory wasn’t an option.

Although you can already find some tools to get your music out of your iPod, most people, including myself, would rather use iTunes itself to the music management for me. Thankfully, someone discovered a method to do so. The bad thing about it, is that it only works on Windows. But given that 95% of all users have it, that shouldn’t be a problem for most.

To take the music out, just go to the original article and follow their steps. But be warned that this method probably doesn’t work with the newest iPods, unless someone can confirm it.

(I haven’t had time to confirm this since I’m in a bit of a hurry but from the comments I read it seems to really work)

Notifications like this appear in the top right of your screen using Growl

1. Find Out When Macs Log onto your Network

Using a combination of the open-source FTP client Cyberduck and Growl you can find out when other computers running Mac OS X log onto your computer. I use this when I’m in public areas, it’s just fun to see when someone is opening or starting up their computer.

Step 1. Download Cyberduck
Step 2. Open Cyberduck, and keep it running.
Step 3. Wait for someone to open their Mac and a Growl notification to appear in the top right corner.

2. Become notified when a new iTunes song Plays

Using GrowlTunes and iTunes, Growl will notify you of when the song changes and what song that it is changing to.

Step 1. Install GrowlTunes from the Growl Disk image (it’s bundled)
Step 2. Open iTunes and listen to music.

I think in the future, more developers will begin building Growl into their applications, or maybe Apple will incorporate a similar feature in Mac OS X: Leopard.

Digg this Story

Only crappy thing is that it requires the manual compilation of some packages, unless of course you have a cool distro that has an awesome package management tool (eg. Debian) then you should be home free.

If I ever get around to doing this I will let you know how it works out.

via Kottke