Tongfamily (Richtong.com Sync)

Well Christmas was wonderful this year and as always, there are some great lessons. First the mundane. Some great gifts that aI saw moving through. Some expensive some not, the:
1. Parrot Ar.Drone. This was listed as the top gift in USA Today. And although pricey and not for kids, I have to say it is a pretty remarkable device. it is a four rotor remote control helicopter. You control it with your iPhone or iPad. It has a front facing camera and it really works. Easy to fly and very steady. For the little boy in all of us. And it has an open interface so there are a large variety of control applications and games coming out for it. It can even track objects so you can have a great time following people. It is its own wifi access point so you can fly 150 feet away. Pretty amazing.
2. Big Agnes 3-person tent. The lightest tent made and incredibly well made. Enough said. I just want one for myself.
3. X-Shot The brightest head lamp today. It is 180 lumens (bright as day) and runs on three batteries for hours.
4. $10 Blu-ray disks. Wow the prices have really crashed, now you fang get pretty much first run movies for $10 and with a $200 Blu-ray player (or better yet a PS3 for $300 so you can get games and Netflix too), it is really high quality video for the masses particularly when paired with a decent 42 inch flat screen. Target and Best Buy have some of these really cheap videos now. Or get a PS3 video game that instill amazing but maybe a year old. For instance get Black Ops now instead of MW3 and it is something like half the price. I find the used games to be really good values. Not as thought they really wear out. Gamestop has a good selection of these.
5. Kindle Touch. The user interface is still a bit weird compared with the iPad. But this $99 thing really is convenient. The book downloads really do work super well and there is Wifi everywhere for connection. The Nook actually has a better user interface, but I’m trapped in Kindle content. Might get a Nook anyway because the price is nominal and good to see how everything works. But in the end it will be nice to share content everywhere.
6. iTunes Match. A shameless plug in some ways as it is something where I know the developers. But give a $25 gift iTunes card and suddenly someone can have all of their existing music appear on any iPod, iPad or iPhone that they have. And any computer. Wow, I had not realized how wonderful it is never to have to sync again. Combine that with a good set of Airport Express with existing stereo or an Airplay compatible speaker set and you really have a really cheap and flexible home audio system.