What Your Tech Friend Really Means When They Say “No, I Don’t Want Anything For Christmas”

Your tech friend is lying. No, they don’t want a new wallet, or a gift card to Macy’s. Yes, they want something tech related. But they are afraid to tell you what that is because they know you will never find it.

But I’m here to help. Below are some ideas for the technologist in your life. Please share this with family and friends!

There’s a certain type of person on your Christmas list who is notoriously hard to buy for. They’re the ones who always say they want nothing, but that’s obviously not true. Everyone wants something.

You can make a good guess that the person in question is an avid technology user and has most of the gadgets they really care about. That can lead to the conclusion that it must be hard to find new tech-related gifts for them. It’s not.

What Your Tech Friend Really Means When They Say “No, I Don’t Want Anything For Christmas” is actually “I have too many gadgets already, so please don’t buy me any more.” That’s certainly true for some people, but it doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can get them; just think broader than “gadget” or “appliance.”

A tech-savvy friend of mine recently asked me what he should get his dad for Christmas. His dad already had a smartphone and tablet and was never going to be an early adopter of new tech trends. I asked him two questions:

Is your dad interested in photography? You can buy him camera equipment, or you can buy him a class on how to use his camera better (or both). Is

I’m sure you’ve all heard it before. “No, I don’t want anything for Christmas.” It is often said by techies who are just too darn busy to make a list of what they want, or maybe they can’t think of anything at the moment, or they don’t want to impose on you when it comes to giving them a gift.

Well, I am here to help you out. Because I am a techie myself, I know exactly what we want! And now I will share with you the secret behind how to shop for your techie friends and family this holiday season.

The first thing you must understand is that, despite our best efforts, we can not be trusted to tell the truth when someone asks us what we want for Christmas. This is because we do not want to burden anyone with our needs and desires… and also because we are terrible shoppers ourselves!

When we say “No, I don’t want anything for Christmas,” what we really mean is: “Yes! There is something in particular I really really really really REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY really really really really really really really really really really

It’s that time of year again. If you have a friend who works in tech and they say they don’t want anything for Christmas, they’re lying.

Here are some great gifts to help your favorite data-driven person stay on top of their game this holiday season.

For the overworked coder: A new laptop

The most popular item on this list, and the one that gets used the most often, is a new laptop. As computers age, the battery life shrinks, the fans get louder, and eventually it starts running more slowly. And when you spend all day coding or using big data tools like Matlab or R, things can get frustrating fast if you have to wait for your computer to catch up with you.

If you’re not sure what kind of laptop your friend has, a gift card for Best Buy or Amazon is always an easy way to let them decide for themselves.

For the math nerd: A LaTeX book

LaTeX is something every math nerd has heard of at some point in their life, but few actually know how to use it until they finally take a statistics class in college (or find out how much easier it makes creating beautiful PDFs). But with a little

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What do tech professionals really want for Christmas?

I’m a technology professional, so I know that you don’t want to get me anything.

You see, I have all the toys I could possibly want because of my job. My life is spent talking about how to make other people’s lives better through gadgets, computers and other types of fun things. The last thing I need is another computer, another tablet or another mobile phone. It’s just too much to keep up with.

So I tell people not to bother trying to get me a present because I already have everything I need. But what if the reason you can’t figure out a gift for me is because maybe you don’t know what it is that really makes me happy or what would really make my life better? It’s not enough to just say “I don’t need anything.” There must be something that would make your life better in some way. You probably just haven’t thought about it yet…or maybe you think it sounds too cheesy or too low-tech…or maybe you just aren’t sure how to put it

Every year, I get the same thing for Christmas.

“No, I don’t want anything,” my friends and family say. “You’re so hard to buy for.”

But if that’s true, why do they keep asking me every year? Why do they go through the motions of buying me a gift card instead of just admitting that they can’t find any gadgets that I don’t already have in my house?

The real answer is simple: Nobody wants to admit that the only thing that would make them happy is cash. But the more interesting answer is this: People who love technology love it because it makes them feel powerful. And people want power more than they want anything else in the world.

I gave this idea a name a few years ago when I was trying to explain why technology is so important to me: Techies don’t just like gadgets, we like superpowers. Not in any kind of cosmic sense: We don’t expect technology to give us X-ray vision or the ability to fly. But we do like things that make us feel like we have abilities that are beyond what most people have — abilities that give us an edge in our jobs or our hobbies or just make life easier.

Let’s face it, tech nerds are hard to buy for. And by “hard,” I mean “almost impossible.” Most of us have enough money to get the things we want, and a lot of us don’t want anything in particular.

This guide is intended to help you find the perfect gift for your tech-loving friend, family member, or colleague.

First, let’s cover some quick ground rules:

Don’t buy Apple products for people who don’t use Apple products.

Don’t buy Google devices for people who don’t use Google services.

Don’t buy high-end gaming accessories if they aren’t playing games.

Don’t buy expensive software licenses if they aren’t using those services.