Stay Connected on Valentine's Day: 5 Sweet Techie Tips (2/12/2007)

Good ol' Valentine's Day is coming (this Wednesday, the 14th), and like every year, you really have no choice but to 'celebrate' the occasion.

• Home Sweet Home: Buy a Digital Picture Frame, preload it with a collection of romantic photos of you and your loved one.  For extra bonus points, use your docked iPod or networked media player to have some romantic tunes playing (e.g. a little Etta James, or, hmm, Richard Marx?) in the background.  Extra bonus points (in my eyes, probably not your loved one's) if you can do this all with a networked AppleTV or Xbox 360 + Windows Media Center!
• Print a Memory: If you weren't such a slacker that you still hadn't made plans for V-day, I'd tell you to go to CafePress or BrilliantImage (never heard of it?  check out my review here) and make a unique gift, using a favorite digital picture of the two of yours.  Since you are now counting down by the hours, use your printer and grab one of those iron-on t-shirt deals, make a pair of matching t-shirts for you to wear.  If you don't have a home printer, these days it's probably a good idea to pick up a networked one, which frees you from needing an always-on PC at home.
• Plan an Evening: First, jump onto OpenTable.com to pick a restaurant that can accommodate you both at a good time.  Try a new restaurant, but check out the peer reviews over on CitySearch or Yelp.  Then, head over to StubHub or Craigslist and find someone selling tickets to a local concert, performance, or other event.  You can also take a glance over at Upcoming.org to see a list of other activities that might be available. You can also stay at home and rent one of the "most romantic" films to watch (or you could twist it up a little and pick up Annie Hall or Harold & Maude).
• Buy Sweets: This is tried-and-true.  Some may say it's stale, but I'll say this much: it's about 98% guaranteed to please.  Your significant other would rather see any sign of romance than NO sign of romance!  Anyhow, head over to 1-800-flowers.com (or your personal favorite purveyor of flowers), pick something with lots of red in it (I like to mix it up a bit, but roses are never wrong), have it show up at the right time and/or place.  Alternately (or in addition), you can pick up some chocolate (yes, that is a shameless plug for my wife's chocolate business), a teddy bear or other stuffed animal, or balloons (or browse Amazon's recommended Valentine's gifts).
• Send an e-card: This is really for the cheap or desperate.  Forgot to do anything and it's 5:59pm on Valentine's Day as you are reading this? Oops!  No fear, you can still salvage a few points by at least sending a cute e-card.  This is probably going to need some form of accompaniment, so look at it more like a strategy to buy you some time.  You can always do this in conjunction with one of the above tips, and in the e-card let your "better half" know that there's something coming (free tip: say it was "supposed to show up by now" and blame it on USPS or Fedex or “the Internet").

Jeremy Toeman
Consumer Technology and New Media Expert