Video Game Review: Knack II

When Sony released the PlayStation 4, they included a number of games at launch including the original Knack. One of the design goals for the game was to showcase all the features of the new console. After a few years they followed it up with the sequel Knack II. I have to be honest in that I never really played the first one but did watch my youngest son work his way through the game. I started playing Knack II at the suggestion of my oldest son who said it made for a great couch co-op game to play with my 4-year-old grandson. The first thing my grandson would do after arriving at my house was run down to the TV room and ask to play Knack II. Naturally I indulged him.

Knack II is a great game if you are looking for a video game to play with younger children. As both players appear on a single screen at the same time, the more advanced player takes the lead and every so often, the slower player is brought up to the same part of the game and magically reappears. That makes it fun for younger players getting used to the controller. Towards the end of the game, it wasn't always me in the lead. I have to say that it really helped my grandson's gaming abilities.

Knack II is an action-adventure game that involves some level of close quarters combat combined with puzzle solving. You also have the ability to collect skill points and level-up your character. It is missing the crafting element which makes it easier to play for younger gamers. I have to say that I would find it mildly entertaining and probably wouldn't have played the game had it not been for the chance to bond with my grandson.

The game has an ESRB rating of E10+ meaning that it is a game meant for everyone with a suggested age of 10 or older. While I played it with my 4-year-old grandson, I doubt he would have been able to solve the majority of the puzzles without my help. Therefore I agree with the age suggestion. The only warning for the game is that it contains fantasy violence. You get to battle with goblins and robots.

As Knack II has been out for a few years, you can purchase a digital version for $20 from PlayStation directly or get a disk from a number of retailers for the same price. I paid $20 when the game was released through my company store when I worked for PlayStation and think that is a very good price for the game. It took me and my grandson about 50 hours to complete the game and we had a great time playing together.

If you are looking for a game to play with younger children where you can play together, I highly recommend this game. I think it would also be a fun game for older children as well. I would not recommend it for older teens nor adults unless you really are young at heart and enjoy playing cartoonish games. If you are not sure you will enjoy it, there is a free demo available to give it a shot before dropping $20.

Finding Stuff with Supply Chain Shortages

Yesterday I posted about not being able to find 1-inch chlorine tablets for my wife's new hot tub. Today I took a more scientific approach and was able to locate them. Naturally I promptly went down and purchased a 2-pound pack of them. How did I do it? I resorted to old-school technology and was reminded about how we did things before the ubiquity of the Internet.

We have a pool-supply store close to our house and it is across the street from where my wife works. Before going into the office she stopped by the store to see if they had what we needed. Nope, they did not. She sent me a message about being unsuccessful and I went to work trying to locate the tablets. In the old days when dirt was new and dinosaurs still roamed the earth, we had these nifty little books known as the Yellow Pages. If you needed anything, like chlorine tablets, you would look up all of the pool supply stores in the area and call them one-by-one.

The Internet-era method of doing the same thing is to open maps.google.com and set the size of the window to be how far you are willing to drive. Next enter what you are looking for in the search field. When I pulled it up today, I zoomed out a bit as I was willing to drive rather far and then put "Pool Supplies" in the search field. It brought up a bunch of different companies. Hovering over the red pins with my mouse provided more information about them. I didn't worry about calling any of the pool contractors or builders and only focused on supply companies. Fortunately all of the listings had phone numbers and so I started calling them.

The first place I called knew exactly what I was looking for and explained that they only had powdered chlorine, not tablets. The next place didn't have them either. My 3rd call was to a wholesale distributor and they didn't sell to the public. I politely asked if they knew someone that might have what I was looking for and he gave me a lead. Unfortunately they were not listed in my Google search and so I had to look them up by name. I found their phone number and gave them a call. They had the 1-inch chlorine tablets in stock and so I jumped in the car and drove down to the store.

Interestingly I was the only customer in the store. I told the salesperson that I had just called him and he immediately went to the shelves and pulled a container from the shelf. He had plenty of supply if I needed more but I want to start with one. Besides, now I know where to go to get more.

Online retailers like Amazon are great for bargain hunting, especially if you don't mind waiting a few days for your order to arrive. Unfortunately I would have had to wait until the end of January because of supply-chain issues. Making a few calls got me what I needed today for exactly the same price as listed on Amazon. No, I didn't get free shipping as I had to take my time, drive to the store, and use about $3 in gasoline. After searching for several days, that is a bargain. While it may be tempting to use Amazon for all of your shopping needs, sometimes it really is better to buy local. Now to go set up that hot tub.

Batteries Not Included

About a week before Christmas I strolled through our local Costco and saw an inflatable hot tub. While I love the idea of having a hot tub, I don't want the constant maintenance hassle nor the expensive electrical bill. My parents had a hot tub and used it frequently for about a year. Then they drained it and it sat unused for several more before they happily sold it and have never regretted that decision. The idea of an inflatable hot tub appealed to me because I can take it down when it is not in use and only set it up when needed.

My wife saw the spa and told me she thought it would be a great Christmas gift. Being the good husband that I am, I went back a few days later while she was at work and bought it. Unfortunately I didn't look closely at the packaging to see that it required 1-inch chlorine tablets that are not included. Sure I could set up the hot tub but then would worry about nasty things quickly growing in it. It is sitting in my family room for the moment until I can find those 1-inch tablets.

On the way home from skiing today, I needed to run a few errands and so I went to several stores looking for the chlorine. Walmart carries them but only during the summer months here in Utah. Home Depot also has them, but again they only keep them in stock at the same time as Walmart. This evening we came home from a nice restaurant and I jumped onto Amazon to see if they could get me some by Wednesday. Nope, not until mid-January.

My wife did some searching online and found a pool-supply store close to our house but they are closed right now. Tomorrow we will go pay them a visit and we will see if we can't purchase some of the required tablets. If only I had bothered to read all of the fine print the day I purchased this magnificent gift, I would already have the one thing needed to set up the spa. I'd like to say that I will learn from this experience but honestly doubt I will. 

Learning React

If you ever find yourself looking for a new job, you will soon discover that you need something other than job hunting to keep you busy. I have started a project to build a graphically pleasing website that is also database driven. I am amazed at how much happier I am now that I have results I can see from my day's efforts. I also spend an hour or two looking for the perfect job, but it isn't all encompassing like it has been.

Right now I am focusing on building the front end or the user experience (UX) part of the website. I did a bunch of research and discovered that all of the cool kids are using React. I found a great tutorial on YouTube that is forming the basis of what I want to build. Of course there are a number of other graphical elements I want to add that are not covered, but that is what Internet searches are for. Those searches also help with figuring out why my version of the project isn't working. The tutorial I found was created over a year ago and the React libraries have changed since then. When something doesn't work, I just have to query the Internet and I have a fix.

Last night I worked on the project for hours and didn't notice the time passing. This morning I awoke early and eager to continue my journey of learning. This is in sharp contrast to the depression I felt after getting one more rejection from a job where I expected to receive an offer. With the general shutting down that is happening at companies due to the Christmas break, I am glad I have something that energizes me and keeps me excited. At the end of the break, I hope to have a fully functioning demo that I can show.

Waiting for my Daughter's Flight to Arrive

This evening I get to head to the Salt Lake airport and pick up my daughter who is flying in. Normally I don't bother posting to my blog on Sunday's but today is special. I am using technology to track my daughter's flight so I know when to leave the house and go to the airport. I know exactly how long it takes to get to there and how long it will take her to get off the plane and to the front of the airport. That means I can use Flightaware to track her plane.

All I had to do was input her flight number and it tells me where the plane is at the current moment. I know that my daughter is on Southwest flight 484 this evening and so I entered SWA484 into the website and can see exactly where the plane is right now. I also get such information as airspeed and altitude. Having flown a lot (I'm at over 2 million lifetime miles) I can almost feel the plane coming in for a landing. 

I guess I had better leave for the airport now as my daughter will be on the ground in less than 10 minutes. It will take her time to get off the plane and walk the entire length of the new Salt Lake airport. I don't want to wait too long nor do I want her to wait much at all. We'll see how well I timed it.

Favorite Streaming Christmas Movies

This evening my wife and I sat down to watch a movie and it is only fitting we should watch a Christmas movie as it is that time of the year. We first went into our Disney+ account and saw what they had there. We saw the usual favorites like "Home Alone", "I'll be Home for Christmas", and "The Santa Clause." We felt like we have seen those too many times and looked for something we haven't seen. Ultimately we settled on a 48-minute short called "The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special." It is very light hearted and funny. If you are looking for a great way to keep young kids entertained, I recommend it. If you want something a little more meaningful, skip it.

As the show we picked didn't take too long we looked some more. We have always enjoyed "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" and we also briefly looked at the animated version of "A Christmas Carol." Ultimately we headed over to Amazon Prime to see if they had anything interesting and new to watch.

There are a lot of Christmas movies on Amazon Prime. Unfortunately most of them fail to entice me to watch them. We have seen a few interesting movies such as "Guess Who is Coming to Christmas" which is totally cheezy but also fun to watch. Ultimately we ended up turning off the television and doing other things.

So what are your favorite Christmas movies to watch this time of year? I love "Die Hard (edited for television)" but while it takes place at Christmas, doesn't really put you in the Christmas mood. There is always "It's a Wonderful Life", "White Christmas", and "A Christmas Story". Last week we watched "Jingle All the Way" for the first time and I don't think my wife will forgive me. I have no desire to watch "Elf" but understand a lot of people love that movie. So what is your favorite Christmas movie? I am always looking for something fun to watch.

My First 3D Print Design

My wife wants to take advantage of me using my 3D printer and asked me to make something useful for her. Normally I just find designs that others have created and print them. The most common designer for the stuff I print is my own son but there are a number of places to get 3D print designs. I won't tell you where they are as you will go there looking for cool things to print and never be heard from again. If I didn't have skiing to pull me away from the computer, I'd still be looking at fun stuff to print from the last time I visited Thingiverse.

My wife has an advent wreath that she pulls out every Christmas. This year she got some really massive candles to go in it but didn't have proper candle stands. She asked me to use my printer and create some. I thought about outsourcing the design to my son but realized he has his own priorities and I didn't want him to tell me I should design it myself. 

As my son is a mechanical engineer that works at an engineering firm, he has access to all sorts of great computer-aided drawing (CAD) software. He also has tried a number of free solutions and suggested I give Tinkercad a try. I logged in this afternoon and went to work.

The first time you go to Tinkercad, there is a quick tutorial you can run through. It gave me enough confidence to start designing. Then I just used my usual search engine to figure out how to get Tinkercad to do things the tutorial didn't show me. Things like how to stack objects on top of each other and how to make a hollow cone. The result is shown in the image below.

I sent it to my son and he immediately gave me some design suggestions. Something about fillets because hard corners tend to be weak spots. I just watched a YouTube video on how to do that but should have added them before I put everything together. I'll print one of these and see how it works. If my wife likes it, I'll consider the project done. If not, I'll spend another 30 minutes and design another candle holder.

Alternatives to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Ever since I gave back my work laptop I have been having to work without Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This has forced me to look at alternatives to those 3 pillar applications. Fortunately there are a number of other solutions you can use. While you may have to fix a few issues due to missing features, these other solutions work well for most tasks.

My home desktop computer is actually a Mac Mini. The Mac comes with 3 alternatives to Microsoft's suite of office products. Pages is the replacement for MS Word, Numbers is the replacement for Excel, and Keynote is the replacement for PowerPoint. I have to be honest and say that Pages does a pretty good job of replacing Word but I prefer Word. I also have to say that I prefer Excel to Numbers. I have used both of the Microsoft products for years and am probably just used to them. However there are some differences that make me wish I still had access to MS Word and Excel. That being said, Keynote is much better than PowerPoint. This is one area where I prefer the Apple product. It has a much cleaner interface and just seems to do things better.

Don't worry, you don't need to have a Mac to replace Microsoft's Office software. There are a number of other alternatives. My favorite is probably LibreOffice. It used to be called OpenOffice and was owned by Sun Microsystems. OpenOffice was originally developed in Germany as a replacement for Microsoft Office when Sun purchased it. Sun then open sourced the software and it gathered quite the following. When Oracle bought Sun, the open-source contributors were afraid Oracle would ruin the product and so they created a fork of the project that became LibreOffice. Both are actually great replacements and work well.

I have done a lot of work helping both the LibreOffice and OpenOffice communities. I think they are very full-featured products and don't hesitate to recommend them as alternatives to Microsoft Office. Unfortunately I have been too lazy to load either of them on my Mac as the Apple alternatives also work and allow me to do anything I need related to my current job search. Perhaps when I have access to the Microsoft suite of products, I will continue to use the alternatives and save my next company some money.

Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs

One of the side-effects of looking for a new job is the chance to review a number of new technologies as I look into positions at other companies. Recently I interviewed with a company doing non-fungible tokens or NFTs. Before my interview I researched them and even thought about creating one. I reviewed the process but never created an NFT as I didn't feel it would be worth it for me. At least not yet.

So what is an NFT? It is a unique digital file. The file can be something like a picture, movie, or audio file. Having a unique file can be counter intuitive. One of the benefits of digital files is that they can be exact copies of the original. So how do you make a digital file unique? Using blockchain technology that adds a wrapper around the file so only the proper owner can access it.

There are a number of reasons to create a unique digital file. The most common use right now is for artists to create a picture they can sell for a higher price because it is unique and nobody else can own a copy of that digital file. Sometimes artists like to do a limited run of numbered reprints and that is also possible with NFTs. Of course this means the artist cannot charge as much as the file is no longer unique.

Video games would be a great place for NFTs as you could dress your avatar uniquely and be guaranteed that nobody else will have that outfit. That is one of the reasons my resume looked good to the company I interviewed with as I have a lot of years of video game experience. The company is doing things related to enhanced experiences for entertainment. As the world has gone virtual, they are creating something similar to a backstage pass with extra content for online events. Imagine going to a concert and being able to interact with the singer or band members because you purchased an NFT. One reasons the NFT makes more sense than a special code is that codes can be easily shared where NFTs cannot. They can be resold but like a physical ticket, once the NFT is sold, the previous owner no longer has any claim to them.

NFTs are also not foolproof in the same way that art is not. When you go into a famous museum such as the Louvre in Paris, they ask you not to take any pictures. However if you brought your camera and covertly take a picture, then you can have a copy of a famous painting. There is nothing that prevents you from displaying your NFT on your computer screen and then taking a picture or screen capture of it. As with the picture taken in a museum, it will not be an exact replica of the original piece but it has the potential to be close.

Creating an NFT is a fairly straightforward process that requires you to set up a digital wallet where you can store it. It also requires you to pay some money for some entity to help verify or certify your NFT. You have the ability to specify how much you will spend for the service but not paying enough will mean a longer wait time before someone feels it is worth their computer's processing time to provide the NFT. Had the process been free, I would have taken a picture with my phone and then turned it into an NFT. Once you have your NFT there are a number of marketplaces where you can sell it. How much you sell it for depends upon the same factors for a piece of art. Being famous helps increase the price. Probably more so than having a good piece of art.

I found it interesting to see how NFTs are currently being used and can see a number of really valid uses for them. That number will only continue to grow as they gain traction. I will be interested to see what direction NFTs take in the future. Right now their uses are only limited by our imagination.

Having Someone to Bounce Ideas Off

I have been trying to keep my 3D printer going since I did my first print in over a year. I have been somewhat successful and am starting a new project. The reason you want to keep printing once you start is that the plastic filament used in the printer does not have a very long shelf life. Once you break the vacuum-sealed bag, you only have a month or two before it becomes brittle and breaks easily. That means I need to print a full kilogram of PLA filament.

Not all of my print jobs have gone without issues. I can print about 2 of the ornaments in the link above before something goes wrong. My latest problem is that the memory card that I use in my printer somehow gets corrupted. The print files contain GCODE that tells the printer what to do. When the memory card gets corrupted, the printer starts doing funny things. Most of the time it just prints a tangled mess of plastic. The most recent corruption managed to clog my print nozzle and I had to disassemble the print head to clean the nozzle and remove the clog. Then I just removed the print file from the card and recopied the GCODE file from my computer.

This morning I talked with my son who also managed to clog his 3D printer. We have similar printers and so I asked how he fixed his clog. He ended up having to put his print nozzle in the oven to heat it up and melt the plastic inside. I explained a trick I used and he thought it worthy of trying. My clog was bad enough that I pulled out a drill bit and rolled it between my finger and thumb to break through the clog. My son remarked that the drill bit could damage the print head. I stressed the importance of not putting the bit in an actual drill or that would cause damage. Controlling everything with my thumb and finger made it light enough not to damage any part of the printer. My son felt it was worth a shot.

Normally I will go to my son when I have a problem with my 3D printer. This is the first time I have been able to provide advice. Sometimes having someone that you can talk problems through will help you come up with your own solution. Other times a seemingly novice will have enough of a different perspective to suggest something that you would not have thought about. This second case is what happened today. I'll be interested to hear back from him to see how the drill bit worked.

Network Issues on the PlayStation 5

A few weeks ago I noticed that my PS5 kept dropping its network connection. While it wasn't a big deal for solitary gaming, it sure made watching a streaming movie tough. My WiFi access point had been having some issues and so I had spent time fixing that. Unfortunately that did not resolve the issue with the PS5. I was in a troubleshooting mood and so I spent some time searching the Internet for similar issues that others may have had.

I came across a number of posts where other PS5 owners kept having the console drop their WiFi connections. The solution was to turn off automatic frequency selection and limit the WiFi to just 2.4 GHz. The frequencies available to WiFi are either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz with the faster speeds generally found on 5 GHz. While the PS5 has the hardware to take advantage of the higher frequency, the software engineers did a poor job of implementing support for it. That just means once a patch is made available, PS5 owners will be able to go back to 5 GHz.

I gave the solution a shot and regained my stable WiFi connection. Ultimately that was not the problem though. The fix worked because my new television also has WiFi capability and it turns out that the TV and PS5 kept interfering with each other. I really would like to go back to the 5 GHz signal for the PS5 and so I looked if I could set the TV to use 2.4 GHz but cannot.

Forcing the WiFi connection on the PS5 to 2.4 GHz seems to be working for now but I look forward to the day when I can go back to 5 GHz WiFi. At least I can watch a whole movie without it pausing while the stream buffers.

How Often Should You Charge Your Phone

Yesterday my oldest son and I had a conversation on the phone about our respective weekends. I spent the time visiting my youngest son in Ohio. My older son did a bit of furniture shopping. He is in the process of finishing his basement and creating a theater room. He and his wife went looking for a comfortable couch for it. He is quite pleased with his purchase even though it won't arrive until April. Given the history of his other recent furniture purchases, June is probably a more realistic date. He doesn't mind though as he still needs time to finish the room.

One of the features of my son's new couch is that each seat reclines and has adjustable lumbar support. As it requires electricity to recline and adjust, it also has USB ports at every seat. My son thinks this is a huge benefit as his phone constantly needs to be recharged. I find it to be interesting but probably not all that useful. I have a great routine for charging my phone that doesn't require any time during the day. I just charge it while I sleep.

This brings up the question of how often you should charge your phone. My son is constantly on his phone. So much so that he needs to charge his fairly new iPhone during the day. I can usually go several days without charging should I need to. Furthermore my younger son and I both believe that my older son is probably on his phone too much when he should be paying attention to the people around him. We both remarked about that in Ohio this weekend.

I don't mean to put down my older son by saying that he spends too much time on his phone. I just find it slightly rude to be talking with him, have him pull out his phone and disengage from the conversation without warning. Sometimes he is looking something up that is relevant to what we are talking about but most of the time it is something else that has won his attention.

Should you find yourself in the same boat as my son where you are having to recharge your phone in the middle of the day, you might want to evaluate your own phone habits. Take a look around before you pull out your phone. Are you in the middle of a conversation with someone? Do your kids need your attention? Are you truly alone and do you have the time to spend a minute or two on your phone? If you can answer, "No, No, Yes," then by all means feel free to pull out that insanely useful tool in your pocket. Otherwise you might want to reconsider and connect with the people around you.

My First 3D Print in Over a Year

Yesterday I posted my 2021 Christmas List and it got me thinking about my 3D Printer. I have not printed anything in over a year and I have a number of projects I wanted to print. So as soon as I finished the post, I walked over to my 3D printer and started it up. The year has not been kind to the filament I had loaded in the printer and it became incredibly brittle. The first thing I needed to do was to clean the old filament out and put in some brand new PLA. That actually took a bit of work but I got it cleaned out.

My son sent me some STL files for Christmas-tree ornaments that he designed and printed last year. One is an open ball with the Salt Lake Temple inside. It is a prominent building here in Utah and holds special significance for a lot of people in the area. Seeing as that is where my parents were married and they expressed interest in receiving one, I decided to print that first.

 

My 3D printer cannot just print an STL file and so I needed to run it through a slicer program that converts the file to GCODE. Unfortunately my slicer program would not load on my Mac. I'm not sure why and so I downloaded the latest version of Ultimaker Cura. That loaded up fine and I just dropped the STL file into the program. I clicked the "Slice" button and it spit out some GCODE that I sent to the printer. I didn't expect the first print to go smoothly and about 5 minutes into the print, it came unstuck from the printer bed and started turning into a spaghetti mess. I stopped the print and sent a text to my son asking if it should be printed face-down. It turns out that I needed to rotate the ornament 90 degrees in one direction. I did that inside Cura and then generated a fresh set of GCODE. I then sent that to the printer and waited the 13 hours for it to complete. The picture above is the final result that I saw this morning.

Those that do a lot of 3D printing will note that it is not a very clean print. I consider it a huge success because I didn't even bother to level the print bed which is something you should do before every couple prints. The first thing I noticed was all of the spider-web strands and wondered what settings I need to adjust to get rid of that. To salvage this print, I used a pen knife to remove some. That got to be tedious work. When I sent my son this picture, he told me to just carefully use a heat-gun and they will shrivel up and melt into the print. I tried it and it worked like magic.

There are several other things that are wrong with the print. Notice how you can see the print layers on the side of the ball. My printer could use a good nozzle cleaning and that should blend the layers together better. I also need to do a bit of calibration work. This is what I am working on today. My hope is that I can fine tune the printer so it creates good results. We'll see how it goes.

There is a lot you can do with a 3D printer but unfortunately it is not as simple as printing a document. There are quite a few adjustments you can make and understanding what each does is vital to a quality end product. Should you wish to get into 3D printing, remember that it can be more like a hobby than simply click and print.

2021 Christmas List

It is that time of year when people are starting to panic about what to get that computer nerd for Christmas. My wife hates trying to guess what I will want for Christmas and so I have to present a list for her early in September. This year that is probably a good idea as the news keeps talking about supply-chain issues and if you don't order gifts now, they might not arrive before Christmas. So for those of you that have procrastinated getting that computer geek in your life something special, here are some things that I would like.

The Gift of Learning

Technology changes at a rapid pace and I am constantly trying to keep up with new advancements. Several years ago I received a catalog from The Great Courses and ordered a few DVD classes on the National Parks and some others on Photography. Since then I have picked up a guitar course and several others. For a few years, my employer provided me with an unlimited online subscription to all of the courses. My wife and I would sit down about every other night and learn about quite a few number of topics that we both found interesting. Early in my career, computers were also my hobby and so if you have someone like that in your life, I would suggest finding their interests and seeing if there are any courses that match their level of experience. There is a great introduction to Machine Learning course (Christmas special of $50 right now) but if your gift recipient is beyond the beginning level, I would look for something else.

The Gift of Experiences

I find that the older I get, the less stuff I want. This may be because I already have everything I want or maybe I am just tired of throwing technology away when it becomes outdated. In any event, I always appreciate the gift of experiences. My son is giving his children a trip to Disneyland for Christmas and my wife and I have been invited. Of course we have to pay for ourselves but we are looking forward to the trip and have decided that it will be our gift to each other for Christmas. While a trip may be well outside your Christmas budget, there are a lot of ideas to help reduce the cost of a trip for someone. You might give them a gift card to help with airfare. There are a lot of airlines that allow you to give gift cards. Southwest and Delta are my two favorite. You could also give gift cards that can be spent at a destination such as Disneyland.

One of the best deals you can get someone that is looking for experiences is an America the Beautiful pass. It is a card that lets a car-load of people into any of our National Parks and National Monuments. It is only $80 for a year and pays for itself after only 2 visits. This year I have visited Volcanoes National Park, Kilauea Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge, and Yosemite National Park. I got it in May and will probably use it again for Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park before it expires.

The Gift of Photography

When I found out I would be leaving Sony, I made a list of all the purchases I wanted to make at the online company store. I knew I would lose my discount and so I made sure to pick up a new television. Another thing I wanted was Sony's top-of-the-line digital camera. I have helped plenty of friends pick up cameras and lenses over the years. I figured I should get one for myself. I got a great deal on a Sony A7RIV. The only downside is I also needed to get lenses. I did a bit of research and picked up 5 different ones. I won't go into too many details but I am very happy with the purchase. Now if my wife would let me play with the camera before Christmas I could provide a nice review.

You don't need an expensive camera to give someone the gift of photography for Christmas. Perhaps they already have a great camera but could use an additional lens. My guess though is that a newer smartphone might be a better purchase. I generally go several years before upgrading my phone. Check with your carrier to see if there are free low-cost upgrades. While I have a spectacular camera, I use my mobile phone's camera a lot more. The cameras in the latest phones are nothing short of amazing.

The Gift of 3D Printing

My final gift idea for the year is that of 3D Printing. My youngest son got me into 3D printing while he completed his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. Now that he has graduated, he purchased his own printer but continues to send me ideas of things to print. You can get your own 3D printer for around $200. If that special nerd in your life already has one, there are countless upgrades and supplies that would make great gifts. Just be sure to make sure any upgrades will work with the existing printer. You can also never have enough printing material and that you can find for around $20. Again, make sure it will work with the printer as filament comes in various sizes.

The Gift of Choice

I hate recommending generic gift cards as a Christmas gift but sometimes that could be the best choice. If you want to get some PLA for your nerd's 3D printer but are not quite sure of the filament size, just get a $20 gift card to Amazon and eliminate any worry about if you got the right stuff. It also allows you to tailor your gift to fit your budget exactly.