It is conclusive proof of the existence of Santa Claus too, after all why wouldn’t we believe the government of a country that told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq!?  Don’t believe anyone who tells you that he’s not real as it’s all a smokescreen invented by parents to get their children to go to sleep on Christmas eve.  In the morning you can be certain the glass of milk will have been drunk by Prancer or Blitzen, and Santa himself would have eaten the mince pie you’ve left out for him.

But in a way to prove to boys and girls everywhere how real Santa is they make the live tracking information available each year on the NORAD website, so that you can see for yourself how fast he is at delivering presents around the globe.

In a statement on their website the US State Department detail the complicated technology used to track Santa Claus…

NORAD uses four high-tech systems to track Santa – radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets.  Tracking Santa starts with the NORAD radar system called the North Warning System. This powerful radar system consists of 47 installations strung across the northern border of North America. On December 24th, NORAD monitors the radar systems continuously for indications that Santa Claus has left the North Pole.

The moment that radar indicates Santa has lifted off, we use our second detection system. Satellites positioned in geo-synchronous orbit at 22,300 miles from the Earth’s surface are equipped with infrared sensors, which enable them to detect heat. Amazingly, Rudolph’s bright red nose gives off an infrared signature, which allows our satellites to detect Rudolph and Santa.

The third tracking system is the Santa cam network. We began using it in 1998, which is the year we put our Santa Tracking program on the Internet. Santa cams are ultra-cool, high-tech, high-speed digital cameras that are pre-positioned at many locations around the world. NORAD only uses these cameras once a year. The cameras capture images and videos of Santa and his reindeer as they make their journey around the world.

The fourth system is made up of fighter jets. Canadian NORAD fighter pilots flying the CF-18 intercept and welcome Santa to North America. In the United States, American NORAD fighter pilots in either the F-15, F-16 or the F-22 get the thrill of flying alongside Santa and his famous reindeer: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and, of course, Rudolph.

With the Santa Tracker running live in your home you’ll be able to see when he’s getting close so that you’ll know you need to tucked up safely in bed, all asleep because he won’t visit if you’re wide awake and waiting because like all midnight visitors to your home that doesn’t have a legitimate key to the front door, he doesn’t want to be seen or caught.

So try the Santa Tracker for yourself and you’ll believe in the magic of Christmas  :)  Have a very happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year from everyone here at gHacks.

So how does this break down and can we draw any meaningful conclusions about it?  There were a series of questions in the study designed to do just that.  It would appear that those most likely to check their work email are also those people most worried about losing their jobs, either through redundancy or something else.

This would seem reasonable as work anxiety can easily cross over into holiday periods.  Those more addicted to their email however are also more likely to check their email.  People in the 18-24 age bracket were the biggest age group while those over 50 didn’t seem to mind leaving work behind for a while.

Of the total figures, 31% of people questioned said they would intermittently check their work emails with 15% intending to check them regularly.  By contrast just 34% of people had no intention of checking their work email at all.

There can be no doubt that work email can impact negatively on the rest of your life.  The Work Foundation Think Tank told the BBC that “It suggests that about two thirds of all employees feel the urge to respond to emails immediately as they come through.”  This is common in my experience and a symptom of the general immediacy of both email and instant messaging.

It is becoming more and more difficult to get away from work email too, with modern smartphones all offering Exchange support and more and more people having multiple inboxes on their phones and home PCs.

Personally I’ll have a few email clear days but while I’ll check work email as I’m self employed I don’t expect anything to happen as the companies I tend to work with have clear closedowns.  It is an interesting phenomenon though so we’d like to hear if you plan to check your work email over the Christmas holidays and if you think there should be a clear switch-off from work when away from the office.  Why not tell us in the comments below?

Over the years these tastes have changed with Furby’s, Cabbage Patch Dolls and programmable robotics taking the top spots for children’s wish lists from Santa Claus.

This year though it would seem that Santa’s elves might have to seek alternative employment in a Chinese Foxconn factory.  New research released by Nielsen into what electronic devices children want has shown that the top three slots on children’s 2011 Christmas wish lists are dominated by Apple.

In the research they say that 44% of children aged between 6 and 12 want an iPad, 30% want a iPod Touch and a huge 27% want an iPhone.  I say huge as most people would hardly think of a child between the ages of 6 and 12 as the target demographic for a mobile telephone.

After this a computer sits in fourth spot and a non-iPad tablet (presumably Android) sits in fifth place.  In fact the list is completely dominated by technology that includes games consoles, portable and static, televisions, non-iPhone smartphones, blue-ray players and eBook readers.

There can be little doubt that tablets have captivated the minds of the young, because of the new and exciting ways they allow people to interact with the technology, be that zooming in on photographs or flinging birds at pigs.  It can also be argued however that the devices offer solitary play opportunities for children and don’t encourage them to build interactions with other children in the way that most people consider healthy.

The research also shows what children aged 13 and over are interested in buying over the next six months.  Again the iPad sits as the most desirable item with 24% of the vote and a computer bringing up second place with 18%.  Again this list is entirely dominated by technology though it is interesting to note that smartphones of all description, including the iPhone which held the number 3 spot for younger kids, are much further down the list in the teenagers age group with the iPhone sitting in seventh place and other smartphones and non-smartphone mobiles sitting in 8th and 17th place respectively.

At the end of the day it is parents who will make the final decisions, so we will no doubt expect stockings to be full of dolls, coloured goo and lego with perhaps a solitary computing or gaming device taking the top gift spot.  Children want what children want but this doesn’t ever mean that they will get their own way.

What have your children asked you for this Christmas?  Are you own family experiences a mirror of the Nielsen research or are your children after a bow and arrow set and a colouring book?

DesktopSnowOK is a free portable program for all recent versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system that adds snow to the computer desktop. It comes with a configuration panel to change the intensity of the snow on the desktop.

First thing that non-German speakers should do is to click on the LNG button in the footer to change the program interface language to English, Brazilian or Dutch.

The control panel provides access to three sliders and two additional settings. The sliders are used to increase or decrease the amount of flakes (from 5 to 64), their transparency and speed.

It is furthermore possible to change the texture of the flakes. This may change both the size of individual flakes and their appearance. The majority of textures that are available are snow flakes, you will however find out that others are available to let it snow soccer balls, baseballs or glass balls.

Deactivation in theory stops the falling down of snow flakes on the desktop if selected. Snow stops falling either on mouse event, key press or both. The setting is deactivated by default and did not work correctly on my system. While it stopped the snow falling down, it did not start the snow fall again after the selected period.

The program does not use lots of processing power or RAM which is a good thing for a program of its kind. Windows users who would like to add snow to their desktop can download the latest version from the developer website. It is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Yup, the North American Aerospace Defense Command centre (NORAD) has put it’s Santa tracker back online which you can access at www.noradsanta.org.  This year you can also track Santa on your mobile phone, so if you’re out partying and have forgotten to leave some brandy for him and some milk for Prancer and Rudolf, you can rush home to get them ready before he reaches your country.

You’ll have to be quick though because you’ll be surprised at just how quickly this man can deliver parcels, Amazon have apparently been trying to get him on staff for years, though as they’ve not got an office in the North Pole, they’ve not been able to find him.

At the time of writing Santa is chilling out at his North Pole home, probably catching some Zzz’s ahead of his big night of the year.  His elves are putting the finishing touches to all the toys and presents for the girls and boys who have been good this year and it’s even rumoured that they’ve bulk-ordered iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tabs.

So make sure you’re online checking Santa Claus as he visits your area but make sure you’re quietly tucked up in bed when he visits and leaves your presents for Christmas morning  ;)

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at gHacks

I’m in a hurry which is why I will make this a short post before I take off and spend quality time with my family.

I’m giving away Ghacks T-Shirts today. I’m not sure how many yet, but it will be at least five of them shipped right to your doorstep.

You can check the t-shirts out here at the official store. If you want to win one of the shirts you need to replay here in the comment section. Make sure you leave a valid email address as I need to contact you for shipping information and size.

But that’s not all that you may get. Not all giveaway winners reply in time to grab their free software license. We have a few leftovers here that will be given away to commenters as well.

You basically have several chances to win something today. Good luck and merry Christmas everyone, I’m off for today.

The firm captured around 40,000 social networking messages a day and did a real-time analysis of what people were saying would make them happy.

“People want everything from iPads to a divorce.” said Steve Richards, the head of the social media agency.  Topping the list however was a Christmas spent with family and friends.

The software required to analyse the trends took about a week to put together and was fine-tuned to help it recognise spam and tune that out — though if it hadn’t worked and the top Christmas desire came out as generic Viagra, we might be more suspicious of the results — there were all types of wishes as you’d expect but goodwill and happiness also scored highly.

It’s good to know the value of friends and family and that in an increasingly consumerist society we aren’t forgetting the joy that the people around us can bring.

It will be interesting to hear what it is you want for Christmas, why not tell us in the comments.

Sure, you might be saying, watching cartoons on holidays is a real quaint tradition and YouTube has taken some of the specialness out of it, but what about real change? Well, certainly no one gathers around the television on Thursday night to watch holiday cartoons as a family any longer. Nor do most people even bother to send Christmas cards. Instead, a group email or more likely a Facebook page update or a Twitter status change is what you should expect from most people. It used to be that long distance was pretty expensive when you called another town, state, city, or country, but these days we can call anyone anytime we like and it only costs airtime, not the distance. How did this change the holidays? Well, it used to be that we would call the people we loved on the holidays and because it was rare and expensive, we would treasure the moment. No more. Scarcity is gone. We can call anytime, even for free if we use Skype or Gtalk. And those holiday greeting cards? Chances are the only ones you get will be from your 97 year old great aunt or from some company that mass produces them and sends them out in bulk because they hope to capitalize on the good feelings that such cards used to generate.

I can’t really say that the internet has empowered or brought about new holiday traditions. Sure, you can have a Skype conference call with the whole family now, but who really does that? Maybe the closest thing would be posting our holiday photos on Facebook. Of course, maybe I’m just bitter and jaded and remembering things from a rosy past at the expense of the present moment’s technological achievements.

After all, it didn’t use to be that you could follow Santa’s progress on the NORAD site or have Santa send your kid from the North Pole using Fiverr or some other site. And then there are the great ways you can shop without leaving home now. No need to go to the mall and see the fancy animatronic displays any more or even to go to the next town to see the Christmas displays. We don’t need to leave home anymore to do everything. I’m not so sure things are better, in fact, I would say they are worse.

When I was a kid people used to complain that Christmas had become too commercial but if they could have seen what it has become today they would have sighed with relief and kept all their complaints to themselves. Those simple commercial traditions of yesteryear seem incredibly quaint now.

Hanging the Christmas lights, going out to drive through the neighborhoods to see other people’s lights, fighting the crowds at the big department stores, buying and sending the Christmas cards – not to mention writing with a pen inside of each one a personalized and thoughtful message- these seem so innocent now.

via http://xkcd.com/361/

Imagine that we complained that Christmas started on the heels of Thanksgiving but these days, my email inbox has been filled with holiday specials since July. We used to head down to the local mall to meet some old drunk Santa and maybe to tell some elf our secret Christmas wishes, but now, the internet lists hundreds of places and somehow knowing that Santa is simultaneously in hundreds or thousands of spots at the same time makes it completely impossible for me to suspend my disbelief for even a second.

The days of chestnuts roasting by the open fire, families gathered around a TV with an antenna to watch Frosty the Snowman, or even getting a card from someone you thought had forgotten all about you are dead and gone. It’s a shame really. Cyber Christmas just doesn’t feel the same. Not that I liked getting elbows in my ribs as I fought for Christmas bargains at the five and dime, but there was something real about it that just doesn’t seem the same when we spend time on Amazon shopping and then have the gift shipped to the recipient without ever actually touching it.

Sure, those Amazon elves do a nice job wrapping things, but I sort of miss the fingerprints on the scotch tape. The convenience is there, that’s for sure, but something important has really died and gone away forever. I guess it must be the same way my grandparents felt when they watched us kids watching color cartoons on the television and they thought of going caroling with friends or attending a church mass on Christmas Eve. Maybe I’m just becoming an old fuddy duddy.

I can’t help wondering though what the future will hold for the holidays. Will it be a matter of having automated holiday greetings that get sent to people at the right time. Maybe we can have our shopping done for us so that not only do we not touch the gifts but we never even see them. Or instead, maybe we will all just plug in to the internet and our cyber selves will pretend to go caroling and watch Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on an old television with an antenna.

Apple’s 12 Days of Christmas’ Giveaway provides one free download every day between 26 Dec and 6 Jan. Yesterday, Apple were offering a music video of ‘That’s Not My Name’ by ‘The Tings Tings’ (number 1 back in May) and today, a free episode of ‘Derren Brown’s Mind Control’.

iTunes users in the UK need only click this link to access the giveaway!

Rumours exist that Apple are planning this giveaway in France, but I am unable to confirm whether it is there. Unfortunately for Americans, Apple has confirmed it won’t be happening outside of Europe!

Another unfortunate thing about this giveaway is that iTunes is needed to download them; making it impossible for Linux users to access.

The giveaway is worth checking out as you may find a TV show, movie or song you like for free!

The basic steps are similar to Elf Yourself. You start by picking the number of characters that should appear on the eCard. You can pick between one to five. Dragging and dropping the three available character models is the next step. Available are one female and two male models.

The real customization begins in step three. You need to upload pictures of faces that are placed on the characters heads. The software makes it really easy to adjust the face so that it fits nicely on the models.

When all photos have been uploaded and adjusted it is time to set a background and pick a music for the eCard. The last step allows to add a personal short message to the eCard.

You do not have to enter your real credentials if you do not want. The name however is shown beneath the message when viewing the eCard. Options are to embed the card on a website, to send it to someone per email or to send the link directly.

In Northern England, we have been ‘fortunate’ enough to have had quite a bit of snow this week. Not everyone is as lucky though, and Snowflakes is an application which ensures those at lower latitudes won’t miss out. Snowflakes allows snow to fall either on the desktop or, should you really need reminding, in front of all windows. The speed and number of the snowflakes can be modified. It is a little distracting even behind all windows, as the snowflakes falling can be seen in the space just above the dock.

Mac users love widgets and fairy lights. Festive Lights is a widget which allows you to ‘decorate your dashboard’. Users have several options: festive lights can surround the dashboard, or only hang from the top; they are available in different colours; mistletoe can be added; and the pattern which the flashes follow can be selected.

Fairy lights are also available for the desktop. One way would be to drag the above widget to the desktop (a little hack required). Another option is Xmas Lights, a standalone application which allows lights to appear behind and in front of windows. Several lights are available and more can be added.

Christmas Countdown is another useful widget which does what it says on the tin, displaying the amount of days until Christmas in the form of a Christmas Tree.

This year the Elf Yourself website has been redesigned. There is a bit more of advertisement on the website but also additional content to make up for it. Don’t worry! There is still the classic elves dance for those who might have missed it last year or cannot get enough of it.

In addition though you can now see them dance Disco, Country or Charleston as well each with a unique stage and effects. The music is obviously also different on every stage.

The developers have added possibilities to download the videos to the desktop or post them on various social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. Expect a huge increase in Elf Yourself appearances on those sites.

With Animated Christmas Tree for Desktop 2009 you get an assortment of eight animated (that means blinking) Christmas trees for your computer desktop. The Christmas trees require no installation and can be executed after unpacking them on the computer. They are always on top by default and can be moved freely around on the computer desktop.

The choice ranges from smaller sized Christmas trees to deluxe and even magic trees. The transparency of the Christmas tree can be configured by right-clicking it. The same menu provides access to the always on top parameter.

It is possible to launch copies of the same tree on the computer desktop or add another type of tree. It might be to much of a distraction for users working regularly with the computer but it might be just the right thing for children or users who work with it only occasionally.

Users can upload up to four images, portraits preferred, and put the heads of the people on those images on elf bodies who will perform a short dance. A friend of mine was sending me a choreography that he created from pictures of his family and it was hilarious.

I did the same for my family and everyone liked it a lot. Heads can be scaled and rotated to match the body of the elf. Dots which can be partially moved are used to outline the head in detail. A outlined mouth has to be placed on the mouth of the person on the image as well.

It is possible to add and edit up to four pictures or use random images (from a preselected pool) to fill blank spaces. Voices can be added as well by dialing a phone number in the United States, probably a bit unpractical for users who do not live there.

A link is generated which can then be send to friends and relatives as a pleasant surprise.

The Jigetiser jigsaw puzzles display 18 different Christmas themed pictures and are available in five difficulties each. The first two difficulties use only a few big tiles and are perfect for children of age 4+ I think. The other three difficulties are for advanced users who have some time at their disposal. The tiles are smaller and of course there are more tiles.

The preview image will not be available on the last difficulty, all other difficulties show a preview image. Pieces are connected to each other by moving them next to each other. They can also be rotated clockwise by holding them with the left mouse button and pressing the right mouse button as well.

All 18 jigsaw puzzles offer family friendly pictures. The only distracting element is the advertisement on top and in the jigsaw puzzle itself. Still, the look and feel of this jigsaw puzzle game for the computer is very nice. And best of all, my nephew likes it.

It is still a lot of work and I collect unique gift ideas throughout the year to be prepared to buy a gift that is unique and special. Here are five unique gift ideas that make a very special gift for people that you care about. I hope you do find at least one gift idea to be good enough.

1. Custom Jewelry:

I start with the most expensive gift idea, don’t worry the others will not be that expensive. Paragon Lake is a company that creates custom jewelry. Customers explain what they would like and Paragon Lake creates a 3D design of the jewelry which will later be used to create the jewelry. This will of course only be created when the customer is fully satisfied with the model.

Paragon Lake Homepage

2. Blends for Friends

A truly unique gift for tea drinkers. Alex Probyn is a professional tea tester who creates custom blends using information that you provide about the person. He needs as much information as possible about that person. Everything is important and could include hobbies, colors, job, unique stories, experience and so on.

The tea will be neatly packed in a unique presentation gift box, a decorative tin, recipe descriptor referencing the personality traits of the recipient and a booklet. Each blend gets a unique id which makes it possible to order additional amounts.

The first is sold for £27 plus postage and additional ones cost £7 plus postage. That’s about $55 for the first one.

Blends for Friends Homepage

3. RideMakerz

Create custom cars for kids of all ages. You choose the car, paint jobs, tires, rims, engines, radio control, stickers, music and a personalized license plate. Prices start at $19 plus posting.

Ridemakerz Homepage

4. Art Toy USB Drives

A gift for geeks, especially female ones I think. Unique usb devices that cost a little bit more because of their uniqueness. You can buy some characters from Star Wars, Happy Tree Friends and unique creations that look cute, oh so cute..

Mimoco Homepage

5. My Food Home

This is actually a pretty unique idea. You pay a monthly membership fee of $9.99 to join the food community which gives you the support and knowledge to analyze and change your eating habits. This is done by taking pictures of the food that you eat which is then analyzed by experts and other community members.

My Food Home Homepage

Mimoco Homepage

I’m going to write about three computer programs / scripts that are going to help you create a great Christmas gift. I think that those methods work best for presents for people that you really care about: close relatives, partners and children for example. All you need besides those programs is some time, a printer and a picture or video of something that the recipient likes. Let us start..

• Create a Poster from an Image

You only need a picture that would make a great poster. Download PosteRazor and run it. Select the picture on your computer, specify the output size and a pdf file will be created that contains a number of pages that are the poster. Print those pages and you have a great personal gift. Use large images for best results. Available for Windows, Mac and as source code.

• Create huge rasterized images from any picture

PosteRazor is cute but has limitations. If you want huge, and I mean huge, outputs that can decorate a wall in complete width you need to use the online script Rasterbator. The output looks really incredible, please note that it is up to you if you want to define borders in the final picture. You may also download an offline version which does not have the size and resolution limitations of the online script.

• Create a Flipbook

Flipbooks are great gifts especially for children (and women). All you need is Flipbook Printer created by my friend mouser from donationcoder. You obviously need a movie for this to work. Just load the movie, define start and end and let the program do the rest. All that is left to do is to print the results and join the results together.

I would love to hear about your ideas and other programs or scripts that do something similar. So, if you know something please let me know.