Welcome once again to our holiday gift issue, in which we pass along numerous recommendations from readers that help us all decide what gifts to give our loved ones or to put on our own lists. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling the information overload increasing in the past year, but I especially appreciate it when like-minded TidBITS readers offer suggestions I simply never would have run across in the normal course of events.

Before we move on to the suggestions, allow me to suggest a collection of bits that may not have occurred to you as a gift: our Take Control ebooks. Since we don't go in for distasteful copy prevention, buying a Take Control ebook for a colleague, friend, or relative is as simple as ordering and then giving them the ebook's PDF file. They can make the ebook their own by clicking the Check for Updates button on the first page and signing up to receive email notification of free updates. Thus, a Take Control ebook is the perfect last-minute gift, given that you can order at any time and download instantly before sending it to the recipient via email. If you have more time, you could dress the present up a bit by burning the ebook to a CD-R (check out the Take Control CD label available in both PDF and SmileOnMyMac's disclabel format) or make it doubly useful by presenting it on a new USB flash drive.

<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/takecontrol/resources/ take-control-cd-label.zip>
<http://www.smileonmymac.com/disclabel/>

On to the suggestions then, and from all of us at TidBITS - Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, Geoff Duncan, Jeff Carlson, Mark Anbinder, Matt Neuburg, and Glenn Fleishman - may all your holiday wishes come true!