On the 12th day of Christmas my true geek gave to me...

NET RESULTS: For the last Net Results of 2002, I spare you a political rant, an overboiled opinion piece, a sniping attack - yea, even shall ye be spared a smite against the almighty lack of broadband. Instead, dear reader, it's time to go shopping.

What better way to forget a year in which the economy kept slip-sliding away, when Enron and all that motley crew at last allowed those of us who could never afford those boomtime tech shares to gloat quietly in the corner over our €4 pints? Yes, when the going gets tough the tough go to Amazon.com. Here's a list of the most desirable (and silly) geeky gifts.

Objects of techno-lust:

• The Apple iPod. Believe me, music doesn't get cooler than this way cool snowy-white MP3 music player, now available in both Mac and PC versions. It also doesn't get much more costly to look cool while you listen to your music - the iPod averages out at about €399 including VAT for the entry level five-gigabyte model (which holds an extraordinary 1,000 songs), topping out at €649 for the 20GB, 4,000 song version. However, Apple seems to have decided that euro buyers have to pay the equivalent of the sterling, rather than dollar, price. You can order the 5GB model from many US websites for $280 (about €280) and even with shipping, it will come out much cheaper.

• The Fujitsu Stylistic ST4000 Tablet PC or the Toshiba Portege 3503 Tablet PC, €2,000-plus. This was the year when the much-vaunted tablet PC - a lightweight notebook PC with a screen you can write on with a specialised pen - finally landed on store shelves. These two have been winning top praises from critics, mainly because, along with generally smart performance, they have cleverly integrated keyboards.The jury's still out on tablets - will consumers and business fall for them or find them frivolous?

• The 02 XDA combination handheld/mobile phone, or the Sony NX70V Colour Clie handheld PC, or the Toshiba Pocket PC e740. Lots of cool-looking silver handheld PCs with plenty of performance so you're not all hat, no cattle (or whatever the digital equivalent is). You're talking well into €600 for any of these babies, so weigh up the features before you plunk down your cash. The advantage of the XDA is the integrated Wap/GPRS/GSM mobile, though you look like you are talking on a shoe phone when you answer it, which deflates the coolness factor considerably. Stick to the headphones.

Objects of geek humour:

• Dirty Office Tricks ($10 from www.giftmania.com, plus international shipping). OK, this is pretty pathetic but is guaranteed to make your co-workers think you are a total nerd. There's a water-squirting calculator (bwa-ha-ha!) and lots of tricks and tips for making cubicle life hell for your more annoying fellow employees.

• Geek apparel from the Cash 'n' Carrion store at UK tech news website The Register, www.register.co.uk. Really, anything from their cap and shirt collection should get your favourite geek to grin and wear it. You can even select one of the fine shirts from our Wired on Friday columnist Danny O'Brien's alter ego publication, ntk.net. A personal favourite is NTK's delightful shirt that says: "I got £80 million in venture capital for my .dot com idea and all I have left is this lousy t-shirt." Perfect.

• For the favourite girl geek in your life, the silver-plated Watson-Crick double-helix DNA bracelet. From $6-$15 depending on the wrist size you need, and you get a free gift card explaining the bracelet (for those who dozed off during biology class). Order from www.carolynforsman.com/product.cfm?item_id=14.

• Recycled circuit board gifts from The Tech, Silicon Valley's museum of technology. Now, who couldn't use a circuitboard notebook, a set of six circuit board beverage coasters, or (especially if you're flying to tech destinations like Boston, Austin, Texas, or San Jose) circuit board luggage tags. From $8.95 to $22 plus shipping from http://store.thetech.org/reccirboarpr.html

• Geek books from your favourite cyber-bookstore. Top of the list has to be hacker hero Kevin Mitnick's The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security. No one has greater geek street cred than Mr Mitnick, who did time for his hacking exploits and is still banned by court order from touching a computer keyboard (he dictates his e-mails and has someone else press "send"). Or try Free as in Freedom, Sam Williams's biography of code iconoclast Richard Stallman. And every geek absolutely must have Tracy Kidder's classic, Soul of a New Machine, on his or her bookshelf.

What would I like to see under my own little tree? An Apple G4 Titanium laptop with an AirPort wireless base station for a start, to complement my big desktop PC running Windows XP amd to set up my home wireless network. I haven't worked on a Mac in years and figure it's time to get my hands, well, clean once again.

Then I'll get them dirty by finally daring to try to install Linux on my old laptop. I know, I know. I'll add aspirin to the wishlist for the headaches I'm bringing on myself. I'll take a good digital camera as well - at last, there's plenty to pick from at every price imaginable now that the once-costly technology has come down to earth.

Finally, if you're buying any electronics be sure to check out Cnet.com, Epinions.com, Zdnet.co.uk or Mysimon.com for product reviews, as well as the online versions of the computing and electronics magazines. Get a number of viewpoints so that you can really weigh up price versus features in the context of what you want or need. Then do your online and in-store shopping. You'll know price ranges and products so you get value for your money and these are costly toys where mistakes are best avoided. Happy holidays.

• Karlin's weblog: http://radio.weblogs.com/0103966/