Stories by Keith Shaw

We all like to play games, whether we admit to it or not. While everyone might not be a video gamer, I think we all still enjoy playing, to some extent, to bring us back to our youth.

OK, so you've got your tablet, you've got a case, you're ready to go. Right? Wrong. Sometimes you need some additional materials, whether it's a nice stylus, a mouse or a keyboard or other fun gadget.

While battery technology makes slow advances, at least we have other ways of keeping our gadgets up and running when either at home or on the road.

If you're gadget fans like we are, all of this digital content creation leads us to need more places to store the stuff we're making.

It's always been difficult to figure out where to put the hands-free Bluetooth headset in the Cool Yule Tools holiday gift guide. Does it belong in its own category or do we combine them into something else?

Even though most people have and use the camera on their cell phones, there are still a number of different and cool video- and photo-related gadgets available for holiday shoppers to peruse.

With today's flexible workstyles, your office can be in a corporate workspace or the dining room table of your home. No matter the place, sometimes you need more than just a notebook and a mouse to get things done - so we're here to help.

If you're a fan of music, or have someone on your gift list who is still using the Apple headphones provided by them, you'll want to consider some of these items from our 2012 Cool Yule Tools holiday gift guide.

These days, cases for your new smartphone, tablet or e-reader are just as important as the device itself. Whether it's to fit a specific style, taste or customization, there are hundreds of different options for dressing your tablet up.

By any stretch of the imagination, there's probably at least one item on the following list of tablets, smartphones, computers or e-readers that you'll want to buy for friends, family or yourself.

Opening a new gadget for the holidays isn't any fun if you can't connect to the InterWeb or other devices. Sometimes you need to upgrade your network, and they often make great gifts, too!

In previous years' Cool Yule Tools holiday gift guide, we've offered health and fitness gadget gift suggestions, but this year we decided to expand this category to include "grooming" tips as well. Looking good is always important, and technology is being added to new things to help us stay that way.

My obsession with technology and gadgets came at a relatively early age - I got the Merlin, a handheld toy with red lights, cool sounds and the ability to play a mean game of tic-tac-toe.

OK, we'll admit up front that this Cool Yule Tools category used to be "Miscellaneous", for those items that didn't quite fit into other groupings. But the more we thought about what we're putting in here, the more we realized that these are homey gadgets as well as things that make you more stylish - things you wear.

Greetings from the DEMO Fall 2012 event in Santa Clara, Calif., where more than 70 companies are launching new sites, apps, services and, in some rare cases, actual physical products. For more than 20 years, the DEMO events have showcased companies that have gone on to greatness (to be fair, several companies have also vanished after appearing here), so it's always a good barometer of what might be coming down the road next.