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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Digital gifting ... would you?

By | November 26, 2010, 7:25am PST

Digital downloads in the form of books, movies and music, are becoming increasingly commonplace. But would you give someone the gift of a digital download?

Poll

Would you give someone the gift of a digital download?

What about being on the receiving end of a digital download gift?

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Download, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.
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Steam Gifting
WoW > Work 26th Nov 2010
Usually it's a Steam Christmas between my friends and I, might be Xbox Points this year in addition.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
Vesicant 26th Nov 2010
The word is giving, not gifting. Unless you're talking about endowing your digital downloads with genius-level IQs.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
LeeC 29th Nov 2010
@Vesicant Gifting: transient verb... Definition: To present something as a gift to. I think the word was correctly used, unlike your argument.
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I'd go with generic gift cards
Ken_z 26th Nov 2010
Otherwise, with my luck, I'd give them a gift for their technology that someone else would replace with new technology.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
james347 26th Nov 2010
No.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
edmetric 27th Nov 2010
Yes on both hardware and software. It's what I know and family/friends would expect something like that from me.

My family can give/gift me a digital book anytime. Wait, how do I receive a digital book? I buy a dozen Amazon books a month. Would your readers like to put a few on my account?

Here is the help page.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=help_search_1-7?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200138510&qid=1290848548&sr=1-7
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Still too early for most
keebaud@... 29th Nov 2010
Most of my family are still a decade behind technology-wise so there's not a lot of options when it comes to digital gifts. As tech moves on and becomes more commonplace I'm sure digital gifts would be accepted. At the moment I'm still buying books for people! Ugh, hardcopy.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
LeeC 29th Nov 2010
No, digital downloads are worthless. I would feel insulted if I received one as a gift, and therefore would never consider giving one.

Gifts are for wrapping, not for clicking a link to download.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
dunraven 29th Nov 2010
@LeeC
It depends on the nature of the medium. I have a software that works essentially as a library software for the purpose of in-depth study of certain types of literature, and searches through lots of volumes, indexing them all. Having a book in digital format is infinitely more valuable to me for this application than paper, not to speak of that I've run out of physical bookshelves to put physical books on. I'd much rather have another important digital volume for that collection than, say, another movie.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
LeeC 29th Nov 2010
Wow, the "Flag" girls are out in force today... what's wrong, got nothing better to contribute?
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The Problem is Not the If But the How
dunraven 29th Nov 2010
I've been asking for what amounts to that for several years now. Unfortunately, many sites (unlike Amazon) have no convenient way to give you a digital download as a gift, which means all people can do is give me cold hard cash that I convert into a gift using my own credit card, so I get the digital whatever. For the more mature people in your life, that's not their favorite way of giving - they'd like to hand you some object, or at least the final digital "product." I know Amazon can do wishlists from outside Amazon, but I don't think they can let them buy the product and the originator will assign your digital rights correctly.
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
Nevellin 29th Nov 2010
Usually I gift games to my friends trough Steam.
So yes, and... btw, why not?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
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RE: Digital gifting ... would you?
FAULKNE 13th Oct
Good day to confirm this comment I would appreciate T h e b e s t o f Z D N e t d e l i v e r e d your website very nice to everyone Yes, Oracle is the only one with shared-disk architecture, but that is there advantage. It means you can add or remove nodes and the database lives on. In a shared nothing architecture, if you lose a node, you lose the system. I'm sure Oracle appreciates EMC highlighting their advantage.I also desire to signal in your RSS feeds. Thank you as soon as once again and maintain up the great operate Awesome post! Thank you very much || thanks for nice content this is really benefit to me.

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