The season's best buyer's guide

Leave it to Mark Hurst to not only write an extraordinary buyer's guide, but also provide a comprehensive theoretical framework for doing so. Mark (founder of Good Experience) is a long-time advocate of the user experience, broadly defined. And lately he's been troubled by twin themes: complexity and choice. Complexity in consumer products (It's a phone ... and camera ... and garage-door-opener) has made many useful tools impossible to use. And the overwhelming choices (which camera? which computer? which salad dressing) leave us paralyzed and second-guessing ourselves.

Enter Uncle Mark's Gift Guide & Almanac, a charming guide that answers questions like, "What digital camera should I buy?" with a single, definitive answer. No in-depth comparisons, no feature tables and price lists. Just a single recommendation. Thanks, Uncle Mark! Your free guide is a holiday gift in its own right.

Comments

[Fell]

Uhh, don't just run off with these suggestions. An iPod over many of the other high-quality alternatives? On what merit, other than it's marketing.

A Nintendo GameCube, listing games released quite some time ago as reasons. Albeit, this is off of my roommates and brother's referrals, but a) albeit that Zelda game looks nifty, PS2 has Katamari Damacy and Shadow of the Colossus and more, Xbox has Half-Life 2. And moreover, Nintendo, Sony, and MS are releasing new systems very shortly. Making the GameCube soon to be extinct.

Buy a Mac (unless you're an anti-Mac cultist, apparently). I can understand the virus thing, but there are much more applications available for Windows and both seem to encounter just as many problems on their own terms. Not to justify either, but also keep in mind Apple's switchover to Intel chips next year and where that may or may not leave current technologies.

I'm not saying don't peruse Mark Hurst's wonderful guide, I agree on the quality of the Elph and The Settlers of Catan, but maybe spend the 20 minutes to research your purchases this year.

ps — There are no video games for the Mac, except for the likes of World of Warcraft and The Sims.