Christmas is over. Hopefully everyone had a good time hanging out with friends and family, but it’s almost time to go back to work. It’s time to head back into the world of managing our time and working hard.
Is there anyone better to learn about time and project management than the person who has one of the hardest, and most dangerous jobs; even though he only does it one day a year. Yes, I’m talking about the icon of Christmas, one Mr. Santa Claus.
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True techies are some of the hardest people to shop for at Christmas time. Much like trying to buy a new camera for an experienced photographer, the chances are they know exactly which piece of kit they want, and wouldn’t be truly satisfied if you got them a different brand or model.
But, that’s not to say that it’s impossible to buy for them, or that you should just leave them off your Christmas shopping list altogether – we’ve some great ideas to try and help you out.
Here’s our list of the ten best gifts for true techies.
Google and TP-LINK have joined forces to try and reimagine the traditional home router, making it more relevant to the way that most people use their home Wi-Fi networks.
For example, it uses smart software to find the best Wi-Fi connection available, it lets users prioritize devices to ensure the fastest Wi-Fi is supplied to the activities that need it most, it has an accompanying smartphone app that allows the network to be controlled from anywhere in the world, and receives regular updates that frequently add extra functionality.
This is another router, but with an entirely different purpose.
We’ve all been there – you check into your hotel or hostel and collapse into bed, hoping to drift off while watching something on Netflix, only to discover that that the sole Internet connection available is an Ethernet port on the wall.
The Wireless-N Nano Router aims to solve this problem. It plugs into the Ethernet point to create a secure Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared with any fellow travelers or roommates. It supports AP, client, router, repeater, and bridge modes, and can provide speeds of up to 150Mbps.
It’s a perfect gift for a travelling techie.
It’s safe to say that you can never have enough screens in your house. Whether you want to make your smartphone screen larger for gaming purposes, you need a second monitor for your laptop, or you’re trying to watch two sports matches at the same time, it’s always a case of more-is-better.
The MMT Monitor2Go is primarily aimed at iDevice owners. It can support the iPad 2, iPad 3, and iPad 4, all recent iPhones, iPad minis, and Apple TV, and can also connect to any laptop or desktop via either USB or HDMI.
Weighing in at just 1.5 kilograms, it’s highly portable, and it also comes complete with a stand to securely hold it in place while in use.
The techie in your life might already have loads of computer-orientated gadgets, but will they have a DIY Arduino set?
For those who don’t know, Arduino is an open-source electronic prototyping platform that allows its users to create interactive electronic objects. In practical terms, this means you can create anything from a home alarm system to a tree-climbing robot and from a retro video game to self-tying shoelace – in fact, we’ve covered lots of cool Arduino projects here at MakeUseOf.
The starter kit comes with enough components for 15 projects, 200 electronic parts, a 170-page manual, and an Uno R3 (the main microcontroller).
Sticking with the theme of non-traditional tech gifts, have you considered a Nest Learning Thermostat? Like the aforementioned Arduino, it’s guaranteed to give any techie hours of fiddly enjoyment.
The smart thermostat aims to optimize the heating and cooling of homes and businesses to conserve energy, with research suggesting it can save owners as much as 12 percent on their heating bills. Temperatures can be adjusted via the accompanying smartphone app, and the device syncs with the rest of Nest’s range of gadgets as well as lots of third-party products.
It costs $249 on Amazon.
Being a techie and being a gamer are often two sides of the same coin, so why not appeal to both parts of their personality and buy them a POWER A MOGA Hero Power?
You clip your phone into the controller and instantly have a Nintendo DS-esque set-up, with the phone becoming the gaming screen.
Several games on both Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store are now being MOGA-optimized, and recent updates also allow users to map the keys of the controller to emulators that they have installed on their phones.
Who needs a real keyboard when you can be the envy of all your friends by using a laser-projected virtual keyboard?!
It will pair with any smartphone, laptop, or tablet via Bluetooth and will work on any flat surface. The projector itself is battery-powered, with a single charge lasting for about two hours of solid typing.
Every techie knows they need to carry round a wealth of files, data, and programs with them at any given time.
USB flash drives have traditionally been the most common way to do this, but technology is now moving forward and the next generation of USB sticks will connect wirelessly to your device.
The SanDisk Connect Wireless Stick will let you stream content to three devices at the same time over the local network, and comes in 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB versions.
The prices on Amazon are $24.99, $39.99, and $99.99 respectively.
This is the perfect stocking filler for any techie.
The Finger Mouse is exactly how it sounds – you strap the device to one of your digits and control the on-screen cursor by pointing instead of moving a traditional mouse. It’ll help the user cut back on computer usage-associated injuries such as repetitive strain syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome.
What nifty gadgets and devices will you being giving to the tech lover in your life this holiday season?
Have you been inspired by our ideas or do you think you can do better? We’d love to know – you can leave your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions in the comments box below.
People are always curious about which programming languages they should learn — which are the most valuable? Which will get them a job? Which are easiest and hardest?
One language that’s been showing up a lot more on the “which programming languages to learn” list is R, a language focused on statistical computing (in fact, it’s #6 on IEEE Spectrum’s 2015 list of top programming languages).
Why is R getting more popular, what can it do, and where can you learn how to use it?
R is an extension of the programing language called S. Unlike S, R has gained a huge amount of popularity, largely because it’s a free alternative to very powerful software used for statistical computing like SAS, SPSS, and Matlab, all of which are high-priced. While R can be used for a variety of things, it’s best used for data analysis.
One of the reasons that it’s so powerful is that people can create and distribute “packages” that add to the base functionality of the language. A quick look at some of the most recent packages to be posted include one for directional statistics, another for multilevel joint modeling imputation, and — in a break from most uses of the language – for building “attractive résumé” using a database, LaTeX, and R.
Some of the world’s biggest companies use R.
According to Revolution Analytics, Google uses it to calculate return on investment (ROI) of advertising campaigns and predict economic activity. Microsoft uses it for matchmaking on the Xbox network. The National Weather Service generates graphics with it. oDesk uses the language to analyze results from experiments. Twitter includes R as part of its Data Science toolbox.
The possibilities for R are almost limitless — and as big data becomes a more important field, the ability to efficiently analyze it is going to increase in importance as well. R is great for data analysis, and its open-source, collaborative nature makes it one of the best tools out there. If you’re interested in becoming a data scientist, you’d do well to learn it.
Of course, because R’s interface is much more bare-bones than apps like SAS, SPSS, and Matlab, you’re going to need to put in a lot of work to become an expert. R has a rather steep learning curve if you’re looking to move beyond the basics, so you’ll need some high-quality learning resources if you’re going to start your journey off on the right foot.
Let’s go to some of the best.
Code School’s brief introduction, Try R, is a fantastic way to learn the basics. It’s presented in an interactive format, making it more interesting and effective than some other learning methods. You’ll learn about vectors, matrices, factors, basic stats, data frames, and how to extend R using outside libraries.
Best of all, the whole course is free. For a total beginner, this is tough to beat.
This course has three parts; the basics of R, exploring statistical concepts through programming, and a section in which researchers explain how they’ve used R and statistics to solve real-life scientific issues.
This course is focused on using R in the health sciences, but will be valuable for a range of people, from those who are familiar with statistics to those who are totally new to the field.
In a series of two-minute videos, you’ll go from the basics, like “What Is R?” to more advanced topics, including creating loops and running SQL commands in R to interact with databases. At the end, you’ll even learn how to make awesome coffee by timing your French press pourover with R.
If you’re looking for something a little different than the textbook-style learning of other resources, give this one a shot.
Kaggle is a website that hosts data analysis competitions that can win you a lot of money . . . but they’ll also help you get started with this introduction to machine learning with R. This is a quick, intermediate-level introduction to the relevant concepts, and it’s great if you’re interested in data analysis (and not just statistics) with R.
The primary things you’ll learn are DataCamp’s interface, decision trees, and random forests, which are great data modeling tools.
On the official R website, there’s a collection of manuals that cover a variety of topics, from the basics of R to instructions on how to write your own extensions. While you could read “Introduction to R” from cover to cover, it’s probably best used as a reference manual for when you run into problems and you need to find specific information about the language itself. The other documents on the list probably won’t come in handy until you’re an R expert, but this is a great page to have bookmarked nonetheless.
Econometrics in R (PDF Download), another free resource available from the website, is a popular resource for learning the language. It’s a bit dense, but it contains just about everything you’ll need to know to get started.
RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for R — and although you don’t need to use it to become an R expert, you might find it very helpful. The RStudio website has a number of tutorials available, as well as links to other useful pages. There are book recommendations; an introduction to Shiny, a cool way to display your data results online; and information on R Markdown, another useful tool for sharing data.
There’s a mix of free and paid resources here, but if you spend a bit of time browsing around, you’ll find some really great things you can get without paying.
With its climbing popularity, you can find a few more sites for getting to know the language.
As with any other programming language, the best way to learn is to find a problem that you’d like to solve and start designing a solution. With some determination and these resources available, you’ll be using R to analyze data sets in no time.
Are you working with R? What are your favorite R resources? Share them below so we can all learn from them!