Linotype Font Management - A free font manager that works like magic! Good Things Should Never End - I totally agree, fun site too. McCain Potato Parade - I never had this much fun with potatoes before. Opt Out PreScreen - Save a few trees and get less crap in the mail.

Last month Google announced the development of a new free tool called ‘Knol’ [stands for a unit of knowledge]. The goal of Knol is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. Using it is by invitation only currently but based on their screenshot example it looks to be a lot like Wikipedia with a few rather significant differences. In their announcement on their blog, Google noted that this tool would highlight the author, which in my opinion is a feature that is sorely needed. It gives the information found on these pages at least some basis of credibility. Also introduced in the beta of knol is common social networking tools such as an area for comments, questions, edits, additional content and even ratings, giving the content even more credibility if you ask me. Check out the knol screenshot and the Google blog post about knol for even more information. I think this is just the latest in a long and successful string of Google taking a basic idea and adding a little Google magic to it to make their version a major competitor in that market.

This is part two of the holiday purchase extravaganza, the first of which was my post about My New Baby. This time I’m going to gloat about our new cell phone plan with Helio that came with two awesome new Ocean Phones. We just got them about a week ago and already I feel like I can’t live without it. We’re both texting multiple times faster than before because of the awesome QWERTY keyboard. And now with unlimited text and web we can type with reckless abandon. The best feature of all for me is the email, I’m able to check all my email accounts simultaneously from my phone and reply to those important messages with ease. Check out some images of the phone below, one is the QWERTY keyboard slid open and the other is the standard numberpad.

First of all, as a techie myself, this list is mainly just crap that i’d love to have but don’t want to pay for myself. That being said I think there’s some viable gift ideas for the techie on your list that has everything else they could want.

1. IronKey: The World’s Most Secure USB Flash Drive with Internet Protection Services

from $79 It’s a super-duper USB flash drive that offers a rugged military quality design, secured encryption and a ton of other high tech features. The best one of all is that it’ll self destruct after 10 incorrect password guesses or if someone tampers with the case. Obviously way over the top for the normal user but I must admit it’s pretty great to think of a place I can store anything without ANYONE else getting access even if they tried.

2. Optimus Maximus LED keyboard

~$1564.37 OK, this one is a bit of an overshot but it’s so damn cool that it has to be on the list. Each key of this fantastic keyboard has a tiny screen on it to show what the key is supposed to do, not only will it capitalize the letters and show the special characters across the number row when you hit shift, you can also program it to work with your favorite programs like shortcuts in Photoshop or even show graphical representations of the hotkeys for your games. But with a pricetag at almost $1600, i’m sure it’s not going to be on many people’s lists this Christmas.

3. Kidz-Med Thermofocus

$99.95 I don’t understand how, but someone made a device that finds your temperature without any kind of contact using totally harmless and safe infrared technology. Just move it close to the forehead and wham-o you got the temperature. I can imagine this being a supremely convenient and safe alternative to the conventional means of taking ones temperature.

4. VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse

$69.99 I admit, this is something I actually already own, so I can say with confidence that it’s absolutely amazing because of one single feature i’ve never seen before. The Logitech peeps aptly call it ‘Hyper-fast scrolling’ and it’s amazingly awesome, basically it’s a scrollwheel without the tactile clicks at every turn. You can swipe the wheel and (depending on how hard you swiped) it’ll continue to spin for several seconds. This is perfect for scrolling quickly through webpages and documents once you get the hang of it. I swipe the wheel and then tap it to stop it ‘on a dime’ right where I want to. If that wasn’t enough you can click the wheel and bring it back to the familiar tactile precision scrolling. Because this is activated by clicking the wheel, they added another button right under it that can act as the action that normally happens when you click a scroll wheel (e.g. auto-scroll). Finish it off with a forward/back set of buttons, side scrolling capabilities and the fact that it’s a laser mouse and you can’t get much better. I must mention that there’s been a few comments on Amazon that this mouse is not as easy to set up on macs because apparently it’s not included on the provided CD.

5. InferPoint Slimouse SlimPad

N/A Everything you know about the design of the mouse has been turned on its ear, this thing is square in shape and super thin. It has a scroll ‘wheel’ but the wheel is nonexistent, it uses a sensor touch-scroll that apparently allows for greater precision.

BONUS Geeky Wrapping Paper

$5.99 With all the awesome geeky gifts listed above, you’re going to need something to wrap it in! Choose from 6 different designs including binary, equations and emoticons.

Saw an amazing web campaign for Diesel Clothes that blew me away. I wonder how long and how much that took to make! This is the kind of stuff i’d love to do, although the video portion would probably have to be done by someone else.

Found a cool blog-like resource of cool AJAX and ‘web2.0′ applications and tools over at ajaxFlakes. Looks like it’s only been around since August but it already has 6 pages of cool helpful tools. I’ve already added it to my del.icio.us, will you?

Finally, a friend turned me on to this freelance hub called freelance switch that I thought was a great implementation of a job listing database. There’s definitely no shortage of such sites out there these days but something about how this is laid out and organized really made it easy to use. I’m not much one to actively look for freelance gigs but if I did I’ll be sure to check out this site first!

Finally got a new laptop to replace the old Dell that crapped out on me back in March. Went with the powerhouse Satellite X205-SLi1 because not only do I need to have many large programs open to work but sometimes i’m going to want to play awesome games to blow off some steam. Who knows, maybe i’ll start getting back into learning video editing and 3D rendering. But another huge thing for me was to have the ability to take it with me occasionally on the go or even just to the couch. So here’s some photos of the awesome X205-SLi1, be prepared though because I don’t want to be the one responsible for you ruining your keyboard with all the drool.

I recently found a website that intrigued me very much, it’s another so called web 2.0 application that essentially is like Digg where people submit articles for review and it’s called dotherightthing.com. The major difference between these two, and the part that intrigued me so, is that people can vote whether or not they are impacted by the article regarding whatever entity is being written about. Even further still, they can indicate whether they were impacted positively or negatively. Eventually, each company that has one or more articles can be viewed individually and their overall impact easily examined. Microsoft, for example, currently has two articles with 1.2 and -2.6 impact respectively. I can see as more articles become available to the community the better we can see if they consistently Do The Right Thing. Very interesting, go check it out!

I’ve been keeping tabs on a great site called LironBot for well over a year now. It’s run by a clever 23 year-old American Israeli named Liron, who is currently living just outside of Tel Aviv, Israel. First I was pulled in by her blog and more recently by her new Lironbot Podcast. She just so happened to start it approximately the same week I got my iPod so it seemed only fitting that hers would be the first I would subscribe to. After just 5 podcasts she’s already amassed a following of devoted listeners (myself included). Give both a shot and let her know that D3 sent ya!

This thing is so awesome! Apparently it can instantly hide the current window, hide all open windows, or hide all open windows except certain windows. And not just minimize but completely make it disappear without closing! For all of you surfing the net when you should be working on your TPS Reports Check it! STEALTHSWITCH