Holiday Shopping Time Again

by Bob Seidel

Its time once again to start your holiday shopping. I have made a promise to myself to shop early this year, but of course I am not sure that I am going to keep that promise, based on prior year's experience. But, you may do better, and if you are thinking about electronics or cameras as presents, perhaps I can help.

I think PCs make excellent gifts for children. There is so much excellent software on the market, and also a lot of great websites oriented towards children. I bought computers for my grandchildren last year (one per household - not one per grandchild!) and felt it was well worth the money spent. If the child were less than about 12 or so, I would not hesitate to buy a very low-end unit. As long as it has sufficient memory, it should run most of the child's software out there today. But I would not recommend anything less than 128 MB of RAM and you should get 256 MB if you can. I would also spend a few dollars more to get a better screen (monitor). Don't worry about the PC becoming obsolete too soon if you buy a low end unit - it probably will anyhow considering the rapid pace of technology change today.

Buying for a teenager is a bit more difficult. They will certainly want a more high-end system. Assuming that game playing is going to be the primary use, you need a fairly sophisticated PC system these days for the high end games. In fact, systems for "gamers" tend to be the most costly PC systems on the market. As such, the price may preclude buying one as a gift. But I think that to buy too low-end a system for a teenager today may be throwing your money away, as they might not be happy with it and not use it at all.

If you are buying yourself a present, the sky is the limit! Go for it...

As has been for the past few years, digital cameras will sell well as presents. There are many on the market to choose from and it would be difficult to print a comprehensive guide in this column space. But I would not buy a camera with less than 3 megapixels and 4 would be better if you can afford it. Stay away from under 3 megapixel cameras, even those that seem like good buys - the picture quality just won't be good enough. It perhaps was in the past, but not now.

Image (photo) editing software can also be a nice gift. The software that comes with cameras is, quite frankly, not too good. It is meant for very entry-level consumers, and anyone using a digital camera for a few months rapidly will exhaust their effectiveness. I would recommend either Adobe Photoshop Elements V2, or Microsoft Picture It!. You can get these for around $100. In the past I have also recommended Paint Shop Pro 7, but I am not sure what its status is. They haven't issued even a minor bug fix update in a year, and have not had a major upgrade in almost two years.

Much of the ad-space these days is devoted to audio. Of course, MP3 players continue to be desirable gifts, but there are now a lot of audio-related gadgets available. You can purchase a unit to connect your PC wirelessly to your stereo; thus you can store lots of MP3 files on your PC's hard drive and play them through your best audio system. More on PC audio in another column.

Oh, and one more thing: If you get a new computer for someone (or yourself!), make sure they set it up correctly. It is very important to make sure that the computer has the correct virus protection software. Viruses spread via many different means these days. If you have a cable or DSL connection and use a router to connect both the old family PC and new gift PCs you need to have virus protection on both. Even if you have anti-virus software on the "main" PC, a virus on the new child's PC can damage files on the main PC through the network that the router provides.

Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).