It has been requested that I come up with a Christmas “wish list,” so that it will be easier for friends & family to know what to consider buying for me. I used to have such a list on Amazon.com… well, I still do, actually, but it’s hopelessly outdated now, and anyway it’s impossible nowadays to find a single retailer or website that sells the many items of technological miscellany that I need/want. :) Therefore, I’m creating a wish list on my own website. It will be available right here in the blog, and also at the URL www.brendanloy.com/wishlist.

The downside is, unlike on Amazon, my website won’t automatically know if you bought an item from this list. But feel free to leave a comment hinting that item #3 has been purchased, or whatever. :) You can leave the comment anonymously if you wish. Just remember that I can see the comments just like everyone else can, and indeed, they are automatically e-mailed to me, so it’s hard for me to miss them. So be as discreet as you feel is necessary.

Most of the items listed here are “big-ticket items.” This is NOT because I expect my friends and relatives to go out and buy me $150 gifts. Indeed, I doubt I’ll get many of these items, if any. But I don’t like to make wish lists of smaller-ticket items, because frankly, I’d rather be surprised! When it comes to technological gadgets and such, however, I do have certain very specific needs and wants. So those are mostly the items I highlight here. (And one or two of them are a little less expensive, anyway, especially if you shop around carefully.) But I will try to provide some “smaller-ticket” hints at the end of the list.

Anyway, here goes… in approximate order of priority…

1. A new, 60+ gigabyte (preferably 80 GB) internal hard drive for my laptop. That means it has to be a “notebook” or “laptop” hard drive — 2.5 inches, not 3.5. Above all, I am looking for a quiet hard drive… my current drive is really loud, and it drives Becky nuts. :) I don’t have a specific drive in mind, but I recommend searching on Yahoo! Shopping or asking around. But whatever you do, I think the best policy is to buy it from somewhere with at least a 15- or 30-day money-back guarantee, so that if it turns out to be loud or having something else wrong with it, I can return it. At least, that’s what I’ve been planning to do when I can afford to buy one of these. :)

2. One (or two!) new batteries for my Dell Inspiron 3800 laptop. (One of my current batteries is completely dead, and the other one is dying.) Click here, or, for much better deals, here.

3. A wireless webcam (802.11b or 802.11g) that uploads images to the Internet without being connected to a computer. I think the Linksys model is probably the best. Click here or here.

4. A waterproof case for my Canon Powershot A60 digital camera. Click here, or, for much better deals, here.

5. A FireWire (a.k.a. IEEE 1394, a.k.a. i.LINK) PC Card (a.k.a. PCMCIA card, a.k.a. Cardbus) with a dongle (trust me on this), like this one.

6. A Pinnacle Studio Moviebox DV, so I can make digital video clips from old analog camcorder movies. Here are some deals.

7. A frame that will fit a 22.75″ by 31.5″ poster map of Middle-earth. (I already have the poster. It’s very cool… frame-worthy. :)

HINTS FOR OTHER GIFTS: As I said above, I don’t want to make a complete “wish list” of smaller-ticket items because I’d rather be surprised. But I will mention in passing that my major obsession at the moment is The Lord of the Rings… so use that information as you will. (Please note, however, I already have all the DVDs.) Also, you can never go wrong with stuffed animals… and I did rather like Finding Nemo. :) If you’re thinking in terms of gift certificates, I recommend CompUSA… or the Apple Store, to help me toward my eventual goal of buying a Mac laptop. As for stocking stuffers, I don’t want to say anything, but my camcorder uses this kind of tape, my printer is a Canon i470D (and I especially like the 4×6 photo paper), and I use Mach-3 razors. But I’m just sayin’. :)

Hope this helps. And feel free to comment with any hints you’d like to drop for me!!! Merry Christmas!