Tuesday, November 25, 2014

2014 Holiday Gift Ideas for Excel Users and Computer Geeks

Looking for holiday gift ideas for Excel users? The holiday season is right around the corner and it’s never too soon to start thinking about what presents you're going to get your friends, family, or coworkers. To help you out, I’ve made a list of items I think would be very useful or exciting for not only Excel spreadsheet users but computer nerds and tech geeks like myself. Some of these items I use on a daily basis and others are on my own personal wish list. Enjoy and feel free to suggest items by leaving a comment below!

Microsoft Excel and Other Books


Excel 2013 Bible by John Walkenbach. Excel at Excel with the help of this bestselling spreadsheet guide. This book has everything to help you become a power user of Microsoft Excel. Keep it on a shelve near your desk.


Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA by John Walkenbach. This book covers all the methods and tools you need to know in order to program with Excel.


What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. This book contains hilarious and informative answers to important questions you probably never thought to ask, like: What if everyone on earth aimed a laser pointer at the moon at the same time? What if you could drain all the water from the oceans? What if all the lightning in the world struck the same place? Very fun and interesting read!


Tech, Gadgets, and Toys

Microsoft Surface 2: Hands down the best tablet for Excel and other Microsoft Office products. In fact, it comes with fully functional versions of Excel, Word, Outlook, Powerpoint, and Onenote for free. As far as I know, no other tablet has anything comparable. 32 and 64GB versions are available.


Dash and Dot Wonder Workshop Programmable Robots: If you're into programming things like Excel macros and you want to teach your kids the joys of programming then I've found the perfect gift for you. These cute robots are designed to help introduce children to the wonderful world of programming. Oh, and they're fun for adults too!

Raspberry Pi Computer: The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It's a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing, and games, as well as plays high-definition video. However, you need ALL of the peripheral equipment such as mouse, keyboard, monitor (HDMI output), ethernet cable, power supply.


Laser Project Keyboard: We live in the future! This virtual keyboard is a 63-key QWERTY holograph that projects at full size onto any flat surface, lessening the tediousness of mobile texting and emailing, and helping curb embarrassing auto correct fails.


Phantom Keystroker V2: Remember my post on Excel pranks and practical jokes? Here's a new one for you: attach this evil prank device to your victim's computer and it makes random mouse movements and types out odd garbage text and phrases.


Laser Pointer: I use one of these nearly everyday at my job for meetings and presentations. You can also use it as a toy to play with your cat.



Quadcopter: Why did this make the list? Because it looks like fun! Wouldn't it be great to play with on Christmas morning?

What gifts are you getting for your fellow Excel user?