Roland Tanglao's Weblog

Looking for a gift for a Canadian Social Geek? Then you are in luck. I'll show what's cool and give you a tour of the difficulties of being a Canadian Social Geek (there's no such thing as free trade in reality between Canada and the USA since it's even harder now than in the past to get gadgets over the border)

1. N95-1 Nokia Cameraphone ($650 from dell.ca)? Why because you can upload awesome cameraphone pictures automatically with suspend/resume to flickr for free over Wifi using ShoZu (every social geek knows where to find free wifi) and if you are rich you can do it over EDGE. Be sure to get your geek to upgrade the latest N95-1 firmware update which makes the phone much more stable when using ShoZu. And if you are really rich get an N95-3 ($619 US from Amazon USA) and upload over 3G over the r*poff Rogers and Fido 3G Network. Oh and you can do great videos but there's no automatic video upload solution (ShoZu will automatically upload 10MB videos which is far too little since that's less than a minute of full res video on the N95). Why not Sony Ericsson? Because ShoZu doesn't work so well on their phones (granted Sony phones take great pictures, better than the N95, it's just their software is even cr*ppier than Nokia's and even harder for 3rd party developers). Trust me your SGeek will love the quality of the N95 pics!
2. Apple iPhone - $US399 from Apple USA + about 150 bucks including shipping for a Hardware SIM unlock so it can work in Canada - lousy pictures but the most usable phone the world has ever seen for SMS, web browser for twitter, utterz, jaiku, etc. Notice how there are no CDMA devices on this list. That's because CDMA s*cks :-) (at least the Canadian and US implementations of CDMA s*ck, the fact that there are no SIMs means CDMA users are forever enslaved by the CDMA carriers) and even if it didn't there are no cool devices for it. Sorry Windows Mobile and RIM aren't cool and email is great but it ain't overly social :-) !
3. Chumby - display your friends flickr pictures and RSS feeds on this cute truly open hardware and software device - $179 shipped only to the US (but you know somebody in the USA you can ship this to right?)
4. Eye-Fi WiFi SD card ($US 99)- if you can't afford an N95-1 or 3 then this is the next best thing. Your point and Shoot or Digital SLR with SD to CF adapter = poor man's ShoZu. It ain't ShoZu because it doesn't have suspend and resume if connectivity is lost but it's the next best thing and the 2nd fastest way to get your pictures social. Ahem, not available in Canada. Buy in the USA at Walmart, Amazon, Costco.
5. One Laptop per Child (give one and get one for $US 400 and they ship to Canada, hallelujah!) - cool Linux laptop with built in mesh networking
6. Canon Digital Rebel XTi ($650 with decent kit lens but get the 50MM too):
   Rebel Xti + EyeFi Card and CF to SD adapter + Canon 50 MM f1.8 lens (about $100) + ISO 3200 + f1.8 = shoot in almost dark conditions and upload to flickr over wifi the moment you get to one of your locations with WiFi e.g. your house or work, the Nikon D40 is also an awesome camera but it doesn't take the Nikon 50MM lens so it ends up being more expensive (coz you have to buy a 3rd party 50MM fast lens or similar lens like the Sigma 30MM F1.4 to get a fast low light prime lens)
   
7. Nokia N800 ($274.99 from dell.ca) or N810 Linux (only available in the USA!) Internet Tablet - great for mobile blogging, twittering, jaikuing etc, also does mobile Skype very well! The N800 has two SD slots for a maxium total of 16GB of storage; the N810 has one slot but has a keyboard.