A computer might not wake you up on a Sunday morning, but apart from that, buying a PC is like having a child - there's no end to the things it needs in order to reach its full potential. And, like a proud parent, anyone who spends hours a week with his (or her) computer loves receiving new toys (sorry, peripherals) which might help it develop to a full-formed mature member of the species.
Remember the first family on your street to have a colour TV? Well, the 1990s equivalent is digital home entertainment. Become the envy of your neighbours when you watch digital-quality videos on your PC or television with a DVD (digital video disk). The PC-DVD Encore 5X with Dxr2 (Creative Labs, £239.99) includes everything you need to enjoy the picture-perfect quality of the DVD disks now available to buy or rent from major video stores. (Specifications: 32 MB RAM, 10 MB hard disk space). If you've ever wanted to remove a former friend or ex-lover from your holiday snaps, the answer - a scanner - no longer costs a fortune. If you want to have fun morphing your friends and family into Martians or monkeys, or more productively, to create good-quality pictures for leaflets, a scanner is a must. The Genius ColorPageView scanner, with 4800 dpi (dots per inch) costs around £70 (Beyond 2000, Chatham St, Dublin) and is suitable for use in a small business.
Typing may soon be a thing of the past. Voice recognition software has advanced considerably and IBM Via Voice requires training of only a few hours a day to get used to your voice and become surprisingly accurate. Both Via Voice Home (£55) and Executive (£154) come with microphone and headset, are compatible with word processing packages such as Microsoft Word, have a basic vocabulary of 56,000 words and an additional vocabulary of up to 64,000 words. They are selling fast in all outlets, so ring to check availability. However, traditionalists, or those working in open-plan offices, may choose to continue to let their fingers do the walking - and these dinosaurs will need all the help they can get to prevent repetitive strain injury. Perfect for pressies, because they are on the "things I would never buy myself" list, are mouse pads, wrist rests and ergonomically-designed keyboards.
The Gel Wrist Rest (Fellowes, £15.99) is filled with a soft "soothing" gel which conforms to your wrist, and will also bend to conform to the shape of your bendy ergo-designed split keyboard ("to allow the more natural position of your arms") (Smart Design 104, Fellowes, £54.99). A smaller version of the gel wrist rest comes in a unit with a mouse pad, (£14.99). All available at Compustore.