Great Geek Gift: Making Embedded Systems

If you're looking for a great gift idea for that geek in you life (or for yourself :-) and you're interested in computer hardware as well as software, check out by Elecia White. I had the good fortune to work with Elecia on a project last year and she's a top notch engineer -- and now an O'Reilly author. In her new book Making Embedded Systems, Elecia covers everything you need to know to get started building and programming embedded devices: system architecture, reading data sheets, debugging hardware and software, IO and timers, handling interrupts, peripherals and power consumption. If you're part of the Maker Faire/Arduino/Circuit Cellar hardware hacking community, or interested in learning about it, I highly recommend you check it out! Like most O'Reilly books, it's available as a printed book or in various e-book formats that work great with Kindle and iPads.