Convenience and time-saving can be a good gift. The IRIS Business Card Reader II – a small scanner and companion software designed to – surprise! – read business cards is the answer to the age-old problem of what to do with that stack of cards you have been collecting over the years but didn’t really want to take the time to transcribe into your electronic address book. It’s available both in Windows and Mac flavors, and if you do careful comparison shopping on the Internet, you should find both for under $100. For those who are constantly searching for WiFi sources to connect to, Iogear has a keychain sized finder device that tells you whether there is a signal in your area. The finder won’t tell you if the WiFi network is open to you, but it will tell you whether there is any point in taking out your laptop to try.
And while you are shopping for others, you probably ought to give yourself a gift also. I recently discovered the most useful 30 bucks Microsoft Outlook users can spend: Anagram (getanagram.com), nifty software that lets you select text in the e-mails or on web pages and instantly convert them to Outlook contacts, tasks, notes, or calendar items. A real time-saver.
