Great Gadget Gifts for Web Workers
November 27th, 2007 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 17 CommentsTweet This
Are you looking for good gadgets to give to your favorite web worker this holiday season? Do you need to rattle off some ideas to people who are going to give to you? In this post, I’ll round up four gadgets that any web worker will appreciate, and they range widely in prices.
Microsoft’s Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 keyboard and mouse combo, shown above, can do excellent double duty for either entertainment or work. It’s not cheap at $299.95, but the keyboard is backlit and the wireless mouse is rechargeable. The wireless technology in this combo is 2.4-GHz Bluetooth, and there is a battery status indicator on the keyboard. There’s a Windows Start button in the middle of the keyboard, and you get four USB ports. It’s slick.
Looking for something a little cheaper? I’ve been using Logitech’s Premium 4-Port USB Hub for Notebooks, shown below. This gizmo lets you add connectivity for up to four devices. If you’re traveling, it’s a good way to connect everything from USB thumb drives to digital cameras. It comes with indicator lights that display connectivity status, and it’s $29.95.
Logitech also makes my very favorite wireless mouse—the MX Air, shown below. This mouse is rechargeable and has a very sensitive motion sensor in it, so you can do things like hyperfast scrolling by waving your hand from across the room. You can also have it interpret gestures so that you can do things like turn up the volume by flicking your wrist. It’s a little costly for a mouse at $149.99 but it’s guaranteed to please.
The Sony ICD-SX46VTP digital voice recorder is not only a great recorder, but it comes with Dragon Naturally Speaking speech recognition software for taking voice recordings straight to text. If you haven’t tried the speech recognition products from Dragon in a while, and especially if you’ve had bad experiences with the accuracy in some of the software products, definitely take this for a spin. With this combination of software and hardware, you can do very accurate and speedy transcriptions of interviews, and more.
Do you have any good holiday gadget gift ideas?
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“It’s not cheap at $299.95, but the keyboard is backlit and the wireless mouse is rechargeable.”
“It’s a little costly for a mouse at $149.99 but it’s guaranteed to please.”
reason enough to unsubscribe from this blog-turned-inflight shopping magazine. shame on you people.
Laptop meeting recording solutions like the Acappella Conference Audio Recorder would also assist greatly by improving audio quality and identifying the speaker when the audio is being transcribed. Good for podcasts, forums, roundtables and interviews. http://www.acappella.com.au
Not all of us are eating Ramen noodles and buying potatoes in bulk. I don’t mind hearing of a $299 keyboard.
ervin, let us know what country you’re in and we’ll send you a laptop
The USB Hub is nice! I’m adding that one to my Christmas wish list!