Beating Heart Pillow

Is your CoderGeek all wound up at the end of the day after trying to make a web site look the same across 8 variations of web browsers? If so, a plush heartbeat pillow will help them relax with its rhythmic vibration. It’s designed to do that, but the unadvertised bonus, feature is that it will remind them of you every time they embrace it.

Cost: $39.99

Mix Drive

Mix tapes are so 80′s and mix CDs are so 90′s. It’s 2011 and these days, more and more people are putting their mixes of music on flash drives. Bring the romantic thought and planning of the old-fashioned mix tape into 2011 with a mix drive by putting your mix of music on a flash drive. Most common flash drives hold more music than a CD and it’s easier to carry around with you. If your geek works in an office, I suggest grabbing them a Split Stick. It’s two flash drives in one, so your geek can keep that music mix on one side and use the other to move files from home to work and back.

Cost: $24.99

Kiss My Valentine™ iPhone App

Send digital kisses, hugs, and wishes from the App, to be delivered to those in the App user’s contact book. Example of text sent is:
“You’ve received a text kiss((kiss)) & hug((hug))! Happy Valentine’s Day! ….” It’s another geeky way to show some love and if you’re on Android, it’s free, so you can just add this to your other Valentine’s day plans. (Search for it in the Android Marketplace or iPhone App Store)

Cost: Kiss My Valentine™ is free of charge for Valentine’s Day from the Android Marketplace (if you download before Valentine’s Day, it will not expire), or can be purchased thereafter for $4.95 for full lifetime coverage.

“I Love My Geek” Shirt

This I Love My Geek shirt is made for men and women (not just the baby doll tee I’m linking to), but this is one you buy for yourself to wear. Every time my wife wears her shirt that bears this phrase, I grin and feel proud to be a geek.

Cost: $18.99

Superhero Stamp Cuff Links

When I came across these cuff links for comic geeks, I knew they just had to be added to the list. Choose between Superman and Batman and send your geek into their meetings in style.

Cost: $89.95

Scent Drive

I think I should let the seriously unique Scent Drive speak for itself…

From causal Fashion Drive to Smart Elegance, our one-of-a-kind Scent DriveTM diffuses fragrance when in use. Scent DriveTM also comes in a Luxury line, crystals by Swarovski, and other exotic materials.

Many of the designs are out of stock, so if you want one, you should hurry.

Cost: $29 – $60

8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt

ThinkGeek’s gamer shirt with an romantic twist is animated, fun, and definitely geeky. Your GamerGeek will appreciate the Life level the hearts represent, your TechGeek will love that the shirts interact by proximity, and your RomantiGeek will enjoy his or her hearts getting filled up when you are near with the same shirt.

Cost: $17.99 – $24.99

Custom Mouse Pad Or Coffee Mug

Get creative! Armed with your favorite couples photo, a phrase that means a lot to you both, or an image of anything that you know will brighten their day, head to Zazzle or Cafe Press and create a custom coffee mug or mouse pad. Heck, put that design on just about anything they’ll use regularly for a simple but thoughtful gift that will last.

Cost: Varies

Fyre BoXXX – Like Netflix For Adults

Here’s a gift you can both enjoy for a little extra kick on those intimate nights. The FyreTV: Fyre BoXXX is an adult entertainment portal that delivers a multitude of personal movie and scene options to enjoy in the comfort of your home. It’s like Netflix for adult entertainment. Connect it up to your wi-fi to access over 20,000 movies (120,000 scenes) from the most popular adult studios in the industry with a number of customization and pricing options.

Cost: Two Options: Purchase BoXXX for $89.95 (no monthly fees, no contract, or setup cost), and purchase scenes as low as $.95 each or titles as low as $4.95 each
Subscribe to FyreTV Monthly (no hardware or Boxxx cost, no hidden contract fees, free rollover minutes) Monthly Rates-1 Month Plan: $24.95 per month, 3 Month Plan: $16.95 per month, 1 Year Plan: $9.95 per month.

Put Down The Computer

Finally, there’s the gift that can’t be bought. If you are the geek and you’re like me, you’re on the computer all the time. Make a commitment for just one day to stay off the computer, stop checking your phone, avoid gaming, and whatever else you need to do in order to devote all your attention on Valentine’s Day to the person you love. If your love is the geek, find fun ways to get them away from the computer for a day for some relaxing down time.

Cost: Depends on you

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1. 5 Geeky Ways to Say “I Love You” on Valentine’s Day
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Pivot Power

It doesn’t seem like something that might be on someone’s Christmas wish list, but anyone who has ever found themselves staring at their normal power strip, with a couple otherwise available plugs half covered by large brick power supplies, should appreciate this in their stocking. Pivot Power pivots to make more room for all those bulky power supplies. Your six-outlet power strip can finally fit six power adapters.

Price: $25.00

Magic Wand Remote Control

If they’ve seen more than one Harry Potter movie, let them cast some spells of their own… on the TV. This TV remote shaped like a magic wand lets you change the channel, volume, etc. with a flick of the wrist. Blurting out funny phrases is optional.

Price: $89.99

Cloak

Does your favorite geek have an iPad? If they do, you can help them protect it while also making it more comfortable to use. The Cloak by Quirky is an iPad case that also works as a three-way stand.

Price: $49.99

App Magnets

All you need is an Apple fanboy/fangirl and a fridge to make this a great gift. These App magnets are magnets that look like popular iPhone application icons. Just don’t buy these for the Android phone geek in the family.

Price: $12.99

Wrapster

Another great stocking stuffer, Wrapster is a way to keep your ear bud headphones untangled without any fuss.

Price: $4.99

Pandora or GrooveShark Gift Cards

If that special someone on your Christmas list has ever mentioned Pandora or GrooveShark streaming music sites, they’re sure to appreciate a gift card to help them get the most of their listening. The GrooveShark membership comes free with the purchase of a t-shirt.

Pandora 1 Year: $36.00
GrooveShark 1 Year: $18.00

PeeWee PC: PeeWee KIT

PeeWee PC is a USB security suite that provides on and off line safety for children of all ages. It includes parental privacy controls and limits how much time children spend browsing and gaming, blocks inappropriate sites and prevents children from changing system settings. It even comes with a few games to keep those computer-eager kids busy.

Price: $34.95

Credit Card Light Bulb

What a novel idea. Really more of a novelty, but a light bulb credit card is a geeky little conversation starter and a unique stocking stuffer.

Price: $4.99

Bucky Balls

These things (and variations of them) have been all over YouTube. Bucky Balls are tiny little super powerful magnets that you can combine into shapes. Search YouTube to see all the fun things people are making with them.

Price: $29.95 – $34.95

Trek Support

Quirky’s Trek Support is a backpack. It’s also a mobile charging station for your geek on the move. The battery in the backpack can be recharged and will last about 7 hours (depending on what you’re plugging into it).

Price: $130.00

Zibra: Open It!

Half the gadgets I get come in the plastic packaging that can defeat the best of men. This year, you might want to make it easier on you and yours with a Zibra. You can’t enjoy all those cool gadgets if you can’t get them open, which Zibra makes easy.

Available at: enjoyZibra.com, Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond and other select national retailers.

Price: $9.99

Of course, there’s also all the obvious gifts like any of the iPod models, iTunes gift cards, an iPad or a Samsung Tab, memory cards (think 8GB and up), and computer and phone accessories like a travel mouse or Bluetooth headset. Games and gaming accessories are always winning gifts, too. Make sure you know what console to buy for and take a sneak peek at what’s in your giftee’s collection so you don’t buy duplicates. What’s on your (or your geek’s) wish list?

Disclosure. A few of the items on my list use referral links that make me money if you buy the item, but they’re still items I would want, myself, for Christmas.

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To enter, I asked people to tweet a photo of their dog or link to a Facebook photo of their dog while linking back to the contest. Some entries came in and after some procrastination (sorry, everyone), I finally plugged them into random.org and came up with three winners:

Jenni Keleske-Rugg’s dog

Amy Barton Gumas’s dog

Dina Riccobono’s dog

What an adorable group of dogs. Congrats to all the winners. I will contact each of you for mailing information.

Thanks to everyone who entered and to Dog-E-Minder for providing the prizes! Everyone who didn’t win should go check out their site where you can grab a Dog-E-Minder for only about $20.

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About Dog-e-Minder

The Dog-e-Minder is a digital dog ID tag that helps track when you last fed, walked, or gave your dog medication. Here’s a little more information about it:

Easy-to-use 3 button system keeps track of your dog’s walking, feeding, and medication schedule
• Records when your dog was last fed, last walked, and last received their medication
• Perform a task and save the date and time by holding in the corresponding button
• Press corresponding button once to retrieve the last time each task was completed
• Acts as a dog ID when at idle, backlit screen displays pet name and owners contact phone number
• Attaches to dog collar or key chain for easy access
• Durable waterproof casing is available in 4 stylish colors (pink, red, blue, black)

Available at: www.dogeminder.com
Price: $24.95

How To Enter

I bet you love posting pictures of your dog, so this will be a breeze. Just post or tweet a photo of your dog to Facebook or Twitter with a link to this contest blog post. Each photo posted with the link counts as an entry. To be sure I count your entry, post a link in the comments below to your Facebook or Twitter update.

I’ll accept entries from now through 7:00 PM (MST) on Saturday, May 1, 2010. At that point, I will draw three winners at random and contact each via Twitter or Facebook.

Enter often and don’t forget to scoop the poop.

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Buying Online Is Cheaper

My wife had poked around looking at prices and found that Best Buy had a decent price ($354.99) on the 64GB iPod Touch (3rd Generation) she wanted. She called me up and we agreed to head over there before dinner. After work, I picked her up and we went to the Best Buy to find that they had her iPod, but in the store, it was the same price as at the Apple store and other retailers. At $399.99, it was $45 more than we expected. While that’s not going to break the bank, I’m not eager to throw away $45. So I pulled out my iPhone, loaded up the Best Buy web site, and found the same product in the online store for the price she saw earlier in the day. Then I noticed the “Online only price” in red letters near the price. Although I found a way around that at that moment, it wasn’t until today that I noticed that the product listing on the FULL version of the site did not have this “online only price” notice like the mobile version of the site, which seems a little tricky to me, but is likely just a mistake.

(Click either image below to see the full size)

Full Site	Mobile Site

How We Saved Money

Not one to just give up, I asked the employee working the MP3 player section if we could just buy online and then use the in-store pick up option. As I was showing him the price online on my iPhone, he pointed out the “online only” notice and said that he was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to but we could check with customer service. Of course, we checked with customer service and they said we could. At my request, she was nice enough to check inventory and let us know there were plenty in the store to buy, so we bought one using my iPhone. There’s a 45 minute wait for the order to be completed and brought to the pickup area, so we went to dinner and came back to complete a purchase, having saved the money we had hoped to save.

Knowing what we now know, we would have placed the order from a computer at home just because it’s faster and easier to fill out all the information, but otherwise, it was a pretty painless experience and we never even had to try and convince anyone we should get the online price or have any uncomfortable discussions about why the price is different. And really, I understand the reasoning but was pleased to find a way to have my cake and eat it, too.

What’s The Lesson Here?

Although this is specific to our scenario at Best Buy with this product, the lesson to be learned extends to any consumer activity and could be applied to car purchases easily. Don’t be afraid to look for ways to get the price you want. There’s no reason to not look at your purchase from every angle, compare prices, and ask questions. You never know when it’ll save you a few bucks.

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It’s not the best photo, but I’m working on cleaning it up and his face is burned into my memory. If I see him again, I’ll know. This guy has been peeing on our storage shed door for months, and it’s been happening more lately. About a week ago, I noticed the same thing happening to one of my new neighbors. After such a long time, we finally got the video with the help of Archerfish and filed a police report. Without some way to ID the guy, though, we couldn’t officially do anything. More importantly, he didn’t know he was caught and would surely keep coming back. That’s when my wife and I put together a plan to get the guy’s face on film while also letting him know he was busted. We didn’t know if he was bigger than me or if he’d try to fight my camera away or what. More concerning to me was the idea that he would walk by, do nothing wrong this time, and see me standing there with a camera. I didn’t want to tip him off before getting my photo and my chance to confront him. So we came up with a (hopefully) solid plan.

We took a nap, woke up at 2:30 and headed outside. I armed myself with my Canon Rebel XTi DSLR, a Pure Digital Flip Ultra video camera, my phone, and my LED Lenser flashlight and jumped in the back seat of the car. I rolled the back window half way down so I could get a good photo and stayed low. I was in a pretty uncomfortable position for about 45 minutes, but I was ready to pounce if he came by. Luckily, he dropped by, as expected, and walked toward me, between my wife’s car and the storage shed. For a second, I was certain he saw me because he turned and looked right at me. Then, he proceeded to urinate on my storage shed door as he had done many times. I sat up, pointed the camera out the window, and fired off a shot to get his attention (the flash was on, of course). He turned to face me, and the look on his face as the second picture snapped was priceless. Though it was a split second, it seemed like a long time that he sat there dazed before I said “don’t come back”, which was his cue to take off. I jumped in the front seat, started the car, and followed. I saw a silver truck pull out quickly and as I followed it, it sped up, eventually losing me in the neighborhood when I stopped to grab my phone.

After months of wondering and then worrying that I might never catch this guy, I finally got him! The best part is that he looked ashamed and scared that he got caught. I have a feeling he won’t be coming back. I’ll leave you with this video recap of what Archerfish confirmed was happening regularly outside my home.

I’d love to have a name for this guy, so if you recognize him, email joe@joetech.com.

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Like most of you, I was already familiar with the concept of using wind power to generate electricity. It’s what we all take photos of when we drive from Phoenix to Los Angeles for a summer vacation. It’s pretty clear, too, that a lot of people like the idea of this renewable energy source. When I headed to the link above and watched the videos, they brought forward the need for the proposed Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), which would essentially guarantee that a specific percentage of our consumable energy comes from renewable energy such as wind power.

The talk quite a bit about how it will help by not only expressing our commitment as a country to renewable energy, but also by creating jobs and economic hope. From governors to President Obama, a lot of people seem to think the RES is a good idea that needs to be in place soon.

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It looks awesome, and I’d love to check it out myself, so I entered already. All I had to do was visit http://www.ridemanta.com and check out the “Participate and Win” section. In that section, there’s 6 activities you can participate in. You don’t have to do them all, but here’s what participants get:

Upon completing two of the Manta site activities, you will earn ONE complimentary electronic photograph from your Manta ride experience at SeaWorld Orlando. If you complete all six of the activities on this site, you’ll go straight to the front of the line when you earn Manta “Front-of-the-line” pass* at SeaWorld Orlando.

As you can see, you get rewarded for just a couple. I joined in by first following @RealShamu on Twitter and sending out a tweet about the Manta ride. That was an easy one because I was going to anyway. I also created my “I Heart Manta” photo and uploaded it to my Flickr account. I’m about to dive in on the remaining activities. While I do, head over yourself and start participating. And when you ride the Manta, take photos and share them with me. I’d love to see all the fun everyone’s having.

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$100 every month
First, let’s talk about contests. For a few months now, I’ve been assisted by some other great blogs in giving away $100 every month to a lucky winner. While it is certainly fun and I enjoy doing it, I’ve decided to cease involvement in the $100 contests. Managing the contests and selecting a winner has proven to be much more time-consuming and arduous than I had anticipated and I would rather let someone else take over than continue to select a winner late every month. I had been waiting to collect all entrant data for April and May, but will proceed with selecting winners for those months and make sure they get paid soon. Thanks to everyone who participated!

More contests
Coming up, I’ll be reviewing another product of the techie variety that I’ve actually had sitting on my desk for a while now. Watch for that post. I’m going to give it away to one person who links to it, stumbles it, etc. That should be in the next few days.

Jim Kukral convinced me to buy a Pure Digital Flip and he’s giving his away. I got an email from Jim reminding me about it. Here’s how it works:

The deadline to be qualified to win my Flip camera is a week from
tomorrow. Monday the 16th. I’ll choose the winner that day.

You can still enter, just link to or write a blog post about
the www.onlinevideotoolkit.com and then send an email to me at
jim@jimkukral.com letting me know where to look. That’s it.

I am enjoying my Flip a lot. You should enter and try to win Jim’s, because it’s really a fun and useful gadget.

Vote for Ty Hurd
Top Affiliate Challenge is a battle of affiliate marketing prowess, and they’re looking contenders for the TV show. A lot of people have submitted auditions, but only a handful will make it to the show. I’ve been in communication with Ty Hurd in the past and was pleased to see him leading the pack in first place. He’s been helpful to me in the past without asking for anything in return, so I knew right away where my vote would probably go. After viewing other submissions and seeing that his was a parody of one of my favorite shows, Myth Busters, the deal was sealed. Head over and vote for Ty, but remember to vote his audition a “10″. See you on TV, Ty! Good luck!

BlogWorld
I’m still working on the details, but I’m definitely going to BlogWorld this year. Are you going? Let me know. I’d love to meet some of you there and I have all these business cards to hand out. If you are planning on going, let’s talk about meeting up.

Guest authors get paid
OK… Not everyone gets paid, but as promised, I set aside $5 per guest post to go to one of my guest authors. I randomly chose from the three posts that were published and Santousha of Seeking Serenity who wrote Laptop Maintenance for Noobs Like Me gets the $15. Congrats!

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Part of our caching service required an unscheduled restart. That means a slow rebuilding of data. You may notice some of the normal browsing related features (such as pagination) are missing while we repopulate the caching service. This is so we can get it done quicker.

This seams to spell trouble for Twitter, while Mashable blames the Democrats, (Deep down so do I) I think this is something deeper in the works of Twitter. According to an uptime tracker Twitter is online 98% of the time, but it seams to go down at the worst times. This year Twitter crashed during the Macworld Keynote and whenever something significant happens Twitter starts to get slow.

Twitter likes to blame Ruby on Rails, their web framework, for all their downtime. Something Twitter likes to refer to as “scaling problems,” and there have even been rumors Twitter might rebuild the system completely with either Java or PHP.

But for now it looks like were stuck, Twitter is “stressing out” so it looks like this bug is temporarily prevalent for everyone.

* Matt is a guest blogger for JoeTech. He blogs for fun and profit at Duhh and SocialFeed.

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