When it comes to technology gifts, I generally tell people not to get them for me. Not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but having a non-techie try to find a good tech gift for a tech-geek is like an atheist shopping for the Pope.

Somehow, this last holiday season, my mother actually managed to get me an awesome tech related gift which I’ve been making great use of. Check it out:

This is the Scosche FlipSNYC USB iPhone adapter (fear not, they make Micro/Mini USB version as well!) which is incredibly compact, enough so that you can easily throw it on your keychain. I was impressed by the smart design which manages to keep it so compact, even in lieu of Apple’s relatively massive connector. This isn’t one of those “you can totally put it on your keychain!” ordeals that you might find see on a TV infomercial, where in reality the thing is so bulky that you’d never actually want to put it on your keys — it’s actually small enough to go on your keychain and not attract any unwanted attention.

I’ve always got my keys with me, so even if I run out of the house without thinking I might need to charge or sync my phone, I don’t have to worry about it; if the time comes, out come my keys and this useful little bit of kit.

I’ve been using mine regularly for about 8 months and it shows no sign of breakage or wear.

Scosche sells these things for $15, and even though mine was a gift, I’ve easily justified the price with the amount of use I’ve gotten from it. It’s so handy to be able to plug into any USB port to get your charge on in a pinch and I’d definitely recommend one to any serious smartphone user.

Fortunately, Scoche makes the aforementioned iPhone/iPod Touch version, and they’ve also got one for the same price that has both Micro and Mini USB plugs on it, which means that pretty much the entire modern smartphone world is covered.

The iPhone/iPod Touch version is also sold in red or white, just in case you’re too stylish for plain old black.

Scosche is also selling a second version of these called the FlipSYNC II, but they cost $5 more and the only differences seem to be a USB plug with full metal casing (rather than a ‘half’ plug) and the key loop is slightly larger. You can find those here (iPhone version) and here (Micro/Mini USB version), if you’d like to see for yourself.

If you’ve been eyeing the latest iPod Touch, the folks at Woot.com have the 32GB model for $229. This is a refurbished unit, but presumably it’ll work like new.

If you go the Woot route, you’ll save $70 (24%) over the price that you’d be paying if you bought one new from Apple, and $45 (17%) if you bought one new from Amazon. The deal also beats out Apple’s own price on a refurbished 32GB iPod Touch by $30 (12%).

The iPod Touch on offer is indeed the latest-generation (4th) model with an impressively sharp 960×640 display, A4 CPU, rear camera (with HD recording capability), and front camera for FaceTime connectivity (or any other app that uses the front cam). It’s also quite thin.

In the box you’ll find the 32GB refurbished unit, a USB cable for charging and syncing, headphones, and a quick-start guide. As far as I can tell it’ll come in the official packaging as well.

You can’t go wrong with the iPod Touch if you’re looking for a WiFi-only companion device that can easily fit in your pocket.

If you’re interested in this deal, head over to Woot.com. Don’t forget that they offer just one deal per day, so this one will be gone after 12:59AM EST! If you’re clicking on this link any later than the day when this article was posted, you’ll be greeted with some totally random deal!

Our favorite deal-a-day site, Woot.com (and sister site sellout.woot.com) has a solid deal on the most recently released iPod Touch. If you’re looking to grab one of the most user friendly MIDs on the market, you’ve got your choice between 8GB and 32GB.

If you go for the 8GB option from Woot.com, you’ll be getting the device for $179 which is 22% off of retail from Apple.com, and 13% off of the device new from Amazon. It’s also 11% off of Apple’s own refurbished offering. Keep in mind that with this option you are paying $22.37 per GB of capacity.

If you’re looking for a little more bang-for-your-buck, you can go with the 32GB option for $229 from Sellout.woot.com and you’ll be paying only $7.15 per GB of capacity. That’s 24% off of retail from Apple.com, and 17% off of a new one from Amazon. It’s also 12% off of Apple’s own refurbished offering.

If you are interested in this deal, don’t wait! As per Woot’s model, these deals are good for just one day (until 12PM central time), and they could go out of stock even before then!

It doesn’t matter if you love Apple or if you hate them, they are setting the quality bar for consumer MIDs.

The iPod Touch has been a well built device since the first generation, and with the fourth and latest generation, they’re upping the ante once more.

The new iPod Touch is incredibly slim at just 0.28 inch (7.1mm), and yet the battery life has actually been increased. Apple claims that the new iPod Touch will play audio for 40 hours and video for 7.

While we’re on the subject of video… the iPod Touch is now equipped with the iPhone 4’s “Retina display inch Apple’s fancy marketing terminology for “really high pixel density inch this is a four fold increase over the previous generation’s 320×480 screens, pushing the resolution all the way up to 960×640. The difference is quite impressive if you’ve been using an older generation iPod Touch for years. In addition to the screen, the insides have been updated to Apple’s A4 chip (the same one found in the iPad and iPhone 4.

Apple has included a front and rear camera on the iPod Touch which is going to make FaceTime chatting very prevalent in the US. This is the first implementation of video conferencing that will be easy enough non-techies to just pick up and use, and if Android doesn’t do something similar, they’ll soon be left in the dust in this area (of consumer friendly mobile video conferencing). Expect kids to be sent off to college with a sparkling new iPod Touch so it will be easy for them to stay in contact with their iPod Touch wielding parents back home.

The rear camera is somewhat of a mixed bag. It can do 1280×720 HD recording at 30 FPS which is great (you can expect to see the number of amateur HD videos on YouTube spike in the coming year), however, photos can only be snapped at a rather pathetic 960×720 which is only about 0.6MP. I was hoping that the iPod Touch would include the same quality camera that is found on the iPhone 4, but it seems that this is not the case. Still, the camera will likely take better photos than non-smartphone camera-phones (which iPod Touch users are likely to be using).

Without question, millions of these devices will be sold. Yes, Apple is a marketing maestro, but regardless of what convinces people to purchase the iPod Touch, they are buying a great companion for a great price. Intuitive and useful calendars, email, web browsing, gaming, music, and apps are now joined with effortless FaceTime video chatting, an incredible display, and HD video recording in a pocketable package that has enough juice to last you through the day, all for $229, $299, or $399 for 8/32/64GB and available next week.

Count me as one of the people who said “It’ll never happen inch when first hearing about Opera submitting it’s Opera Mini browser, designed for the iPhone, to the Apple App Store. Despite the fact that I really wanted Opera Mini to make it through, it just seemed like there was no way, based on Apple’s previous behavior, that this browser would make it though. There are “alternative inch browsers in the App Store, however they are really just reskined versions of Safari. Opera Mini, on the other hand, is using it’s own framework and I believe it’s own rendering engine, which is why it is particularly amazing that it’s been approved for release into the App Store. Additionally, it features Opera’s ‘Turbo’ technology to speed up page loading times by compressing the data on Opera’s servers before sending it to your phone. This feature significantly improves load times when using slower connections such as 3G or especially EDGE, rather than WiFi.

While I’d love to give you some usage impressions, Opera Mini is not working for me for some strange reason. I haven’t heard this yet reported elsewhere so I’m assuming it is an isolated case, but for the record, Opera Mini is not working on my iPhone 3GS or my iPad as of this writing it hangs on the launch page and never gets passed it. If you don’t have an iPhone yourself, or are having the same issue as me, the least I can offer you is this video of how Opera Mini works on the iPhone:

As for it not running for me… that’s ok because MobileCrunch has you covered and has already run speed tests comparing Opera Mini to Safari, and with this cursory glance, it would appear that Opera Mini is indeed faster. Now if I could just get it working…