Every Christmas, despite careful planning, I usually fail to have gifts for a few recipients: surprise guests, business associates who bring a gift, a friend you haven't seen in years, a service provider who treated you particularly well throughout the year.
Whenever I give a gift I like it to serve a dual purpose. My ideal present is one that not only pleases the recipient but expands his or her horizons for years to come. This brings me to my theme for the week - quick and empowering gifts for fellow Mac users that don't require a lot of work to deliver. The following suggestions are based on the idea that purchasing a software licence for someone and burning the downloaded copy of that application to a disk is the perfect short-notice-gift solution.
My favourite is Visual Thesaurus (
www.visualthesaurus.com; US$39.95). It is a beautifully designed application that can expand your vocabulary and clarify your thoughts. It is a perfect gift for students, teachers, press and marketing people, letter writers and creative types of all kinds. Your recipient will feel blessed with wisdom.
If your friend is a woodworker, they will delight in a copy of Design Intuition (
www.gizmolab.com/index.html; US$179), an elegant application that facilitates the designing of cabinets, furniture, boxes and even homes. A simple interface will have amateurs drawing complex projects in no time and the cutting lists keep mistakes down and costs low. Your recipient will feel blessed with confidence.
If your Mac friend travels, he or she will treasure the Solitaire Forever 3D card game suite (
www.solitaireforever.com; US$25). This game is visually breathtaking and contains every variation of solitaire you can imagine. Whenever your friend gets stranded and opens this diversion, they will think of you and feel blessed with your thoughtfulness.
If the 'giftee' is a businessperson, wheeler-dealer, over-achiever or big cheese with a large firm, they will fall in love with OmniGraffle (
www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle; US$79). This application allows people to illustrate their visions clearly. It creates beautiful diagrams and is drag 'n' drop simple. I never fail to get compliments on my OmniGraffle illustrations. Your recipient will feel blessed with talent.
