It's almost time for the fat, bearded guy in the red suit to make his rounds, so I figured I'd offer a few suggestions to make his list more geek compatible. Here are a few "gotta have its" that should be under your tree this Christmas.

Archos RV500 Mobile DVR

The RV500 Mobile DVR from Archos ($499.95) gives you music, video, and photos. The 30-gigabyte model can hold up to 130 hours of video, 15,000 songs or 300,000 photos, plus you can record your favorite shows or movies and play them back on its digital video recorder. And, if you're really industrious, you can attach a Digital Mini Cam and use it to shoot your own movies or add an FM tuner with remote control. There's also a 100-gigabyte model for $699.95.

How about a good set of headphones? The only question here is whether you want to go wireless or be tethered to your computer.

I've been playing with the Toshiba Wireless Audio Headphones with Bluetooth Technology ($99.99) and the Ear Force HPA Surround Sound Headphones ($99.95) from Voyetra Turtle Beach. Both do a great job of capturing and enhancing music and othersounds from your PC --- and only the user can hear them, which should delight parents and wives everywhere.

Toshiba Wireless Audio Headphones

Toshiba's wireless headphones come with a remote control built into the headset to control volume, play, and skip forward or backward. To use them, your computer must be equipped with Bluetooth 1.2 wireless hardware and you need to install Toshiba's Bluetooth wireless stack version 3.2 or higher. Otherwise, you'll need to purchase Toshiba's Bluetooth USB Adapter ($49.99).

Voyetra Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA Surround Sound Headphones

The Ear Force headphones deliver 5.1-surround sound directly to your ears. The headset includes front and rear speakers plus a subwoofer for each ear, delivering a true surround sound experience from any 5.1-enabled sound card. Plus it will transform older stereo into five-speaker audio. There's also a detachable microphone for those that like to listen to their favorite tunes and chat online.

Boostaroo Revolution

For those of you that don't want to part with your old headsets, there's the Boostaroo Revolution ($79.95) that amps up any audio from PCs to MP3 players and PDAs and brings new life to that old headset. Small enough to fit in your shirt pocket, the Revolution provides up to a 400 percent increase in volume from your old audio device and gives you a wider field of sound using two AAAA batteries and a two-way powered splitter (which allows you to share your music by plugging in a second headset).

More information on these products can be found at www.archos.com, www.toshiba.com, www.turtlebeach.com and www.boostaroo.com.

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