With swaths of imitation-pine already beginning to appear in shopping malls and e-tailers rolling out their snowmen-themed layouts, the search begins for the perfect holiday gifts.

Starting out with the usual suspects, perhaps you’ll purchase some stationery for your sister the real-estate agent, or a box of Kleenex and a subscription to Monster for your cousin the Investment Banker. But what is one to buy for us “new media” types? It’s a question for the ages but lucky for you, it’s Mashable to the rescue! Here are 10 great gifts for bloggers and new media moguls.

Have more gift suggestions for bloggers and new media moguls? Add them to the comments.

1. Baby Got Back Problems: Laptop Lap-Desk

For those of us who spend 99% of our working day sitting at our desks, a change of scene can be a welcome relief. After trying to work on my laptop while sitting on the floor (and enduring 4-6 weeks of physical therapy for throwing out my back), I decided that there must be a better way.

Enter the Bed Tray Shoppe and their sleekly designed, yet awkwardly named, Peck’s Bent Wood Adjustable Laptop Tray. The center portion of the tray accommodates the larger model laptops (even my unwieldy 17” Macbook Pro) and the side panels are fully adjustable—perfect for lounging in bed while you blog away. Available in White Birch ($59) and Real Walnut ($69).

2. Out of Sight: Laptop Hideaway

If you’re truly sick of seeing your home transform into a 24/7 office, the clever little minxes at Belkin have come up with the answer—a cozy cache where you can quickly squirrel away your laptop, power supply and paperwork. For $49.99 you can have your choice of either color combo: Dove/Tarragon (beige/lime) or Chocolate / Tourmaline (brown/aqua.)

3. It’s A Small World After All: Custom Skinned Mini HD Camcorder

Just in time for the holidays, Flip Video has released the HD version of their popular point, shoot & share video cam, the Flip Mino. With its built-in USB port, it’s the perfect chance to capture your family’s dysfunction in full HD quality to share with people around the globe.

On their website, you can customize the Flip MinoHD with hundreds of pre-made designs and skins, or you can upload your own design. Whether you’re just a web video enthusiast looking to test the waters, or a full-fledged vlogger who is always on the move, the tiny size and ultra simple interface make the MinoHD a killer stocking-stuffer.

With dimensions that make it smaller than the iPhone and a 4GB hard drive that yields 60 minutes of HD footage, the Flip MinoHD is proof that good things come in small packages.

4. Jam Packed Sound: Griffin EarJams 2

With the economic hiccup—you can’t really justify buying pricy headphones and a separate Bluetooth headset, and yet you simply can’t put up with the discomfort of those little white torture devices that come with the iPhone. What to do?

Griffin has come up with a clever solution—EarJams 2. These in-ear silicone-tipped cups snap over your existing iPod or iPhone earbuds, come in three sizes (all sizes included with each pack), and they have a handy-dandy carrying case to boot. Priced on the Griffin site for $19.99, you can find these little lifesavers (or earsavers, rather) from Griffin on Amazon for $12.99.

5. Color Me Happy: Pantone Flash Drives

What’s better than another flash drive? A flash drive in your choice of 1 of 15 awesome colors laser engraved with two lines of personalized text. Engrave names, email addresses, phone numbers or your favorite pick up line—be creative.

And for those of you with your own new media startup, if you order 10 drives Pantone will engrave the other side with your company logo—it’s the perfect stocking stuffer for all the friends whose help you’ve enlisted over the last year. Drives are available in a range of sizes and prices but I’d recommend the 4GB for $29.99.

6. Crack-a-Lacquer: Photo Caddy Recharge Station

Leave it to Pottery Barn to have a neat and tidy organizational solution for everything. If you’re like the rest of us, you’ve got charging cords and docking stations coming out your ears. Luckily, those crafty folks at Pottery Barn have figured out a way to keep your countertops free from clutter.

The Lacquer Smart™ Photo Caddy Recharge Station is available in four colors and is on sale for $69 (orig. $99). The All-in-One Recharge Station includes a pair of built-in speakers and is on sale for $119 (orig. $169). For those with more traditional tastes, the Bedford Charging Station is available in three colors priced reasonably at $79 (and in Antique Honey and Red for $49.99). Since many of these styles are on sale, get cracking on those holiday purchases: the deals are only good while supplies last.

7. The Warm Fuzzies: 180s Earwarmer Headphones

What would the holidays be without a tech gadget from Hammacher Schlemmer? Swaddle your ears in cosy comfy fleece with these wraparound earwarmers from 180s. With built-in JVC earphones, you can enjoy listening to your MP3s and favorite podcasts while waiting for the bus, walking the dog or hitting the slopes.

You can find a number of different models of these earwarmers on the web, but H&S is one of only a few websites where I was able to find the model with the plush textured fleece interior ($34.95).

8. 10 Uses for Old Media – Typewriter Jewelry & Cufflinks

At whatsyourtype.com, artisans Rachel Hannah and Kerry Loeb have come up with a clever solution to the question, “What to do with the vestiges of old media?” Recycle it into jewelry, of course!

Since this seems to be the year that everyone is “going green,” lend your support to their cause by purchasing some of their unique pieces of wearable art. There are a variety of different items available, from earrings, cufflinks and bracelets to necklaces, and they’ll even make custom pieces to your specs. Prices range from $40-$130.

9. Coffee Tawk: Keurig Coffee Maker

If you’re reading this article, you’re probably in-touch with the latest trends, the newest technology and the coolest sites on the web—and you’re still using Mr. Coffee?

It’s time to upgrade your brewing equipment to the Keurig Platinum B70. The Keurig will brew an amazingly fresh cup of coffee faster than you can say Folgers Crystals and it accepts clever little brewing pods called K-Cups. With a huge number of choices from Green Mountain Coffee, Newman’s Own Organics, Celestial Seasonings teas, Ghirardelli hot chocolate and many more, everyone will find something to love about the Keurig. And when you have to stay up all night to make a deadline, it might just become your best friend. Amazon has them at a low price of $180.85 (ret. $199) .

10. Do Good, Give Green: One Laptop per Child

Give a kid from a developing nation the chance to become part of the next generation of new media moguls. One Laptop per Child is an organization that gives specially designed XO laptops to children across the globe. The laptops are designed to give children access to the Internet from wherever they live, and to get them excited about learning.

For just $199, you can give one of these little green machines to a child in the emerging world—and for $399 the foundation will give you one to take home to your child. It makes you want to be a lean green giving machine (I just couldn’t resist).

Catherine-Gail Reinhard is a creative director at a leading web video company where she works with Internet stars to create new media content for old media brands. Prior to becoming a digital media maven, Catherine’s reviews lined the pages of Time Out New York. Email her at catherinegail [at] gmail [dot] com.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, dra_schwartz

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SAI Contributor Hank Williams is a New York-based entrepreneur. He writes Why Does Everything Suck? Exploring the tech marketplace from 10,000 feet.

I ran into an open proxy after that and started poking around with it. The obvious way to look for it was to type in “GET http://www.yahoo.com/ HTTP/1.0″ and see if it shows you Yahoo’s homepage. But then it occurred to me that this could be used for Intranet hacking as well. The open proxy doesn’t have to point out to the web. It can, in fact, be pointed inward, to internal addresses. Here’s a diagram of what I’m talking about:

The first scenario is what most bad guys use proxies for. They connect back out to the Internet, to hide their real IP addresses. The second scenario, however, would allow them to use that same proxy server to hack other machines on the same network, including the firewall itself. The funny part is that there are tons of machines out on the Internet who have already been compromised, and the bad guys have intentionally placed proxies on these machines for other nefarious purposes. But it can also be used for internal reconnaissance, or worse. And yes, I have found this in the wild. By quickly enumerating the most likely places within RFC1918, it’s fairly easy to spot where the majority of devices are in most networks (note that this kind of internal scanning will become more difficult with IPv6).

If there are internal machines with critical vulnerabilities on them, the proxy can be used to connect back into that network, to exploit those vulnerabilities which may give a bigger foothold or uncover other sensitive information. If you haven’t scanned your own network for open proxies, you probably should. This is yet another reason to limit what your web servers have access to within your own networks.

Source: ha.ckers.org

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I ran into an open proxy after that and started poking around with it. The obvious way to look for it was to type in “GET http://www.yahoo.com/ HTTP/1.0″ and see if it shows you Yahoo’s homepage. But then it occurred to me that this could be used for Intranet hacking as well. The open proxy doesn’t have to point out to the web. It can, in fact, be pointed inward, to internal addresses. Here’s a diagram of what I’m talking about:

Click to enlarge

The first scenario is what most bad guys use proxies for. They connect back out to the Internet, to hide their real IP addresses. The second scenario, however, would allow them to use that same proxy server to hack other machines on the same network, including the firewall itself. The funny part is that there are tons of machines out on the Internet who have already been compromised, and the bad guys have intentionally placed proxies on these machines for other nefarious purposes. But it can also be used for internal reconnaissance, or worse. And yes, I have found this in the wild. By quickly enumerating the most likely places within RFC1918, it’s fairly easy to spot where the majority of devices are in most networks (note that this kind of internal scanning will become more difficult with IPv6).

If there are internal machines with critical vulnerabilities on them, the proxy can be used to connect back into that network, to exploit those vulnerabilities which may give a bigger foothold or uncover other sensitive information. If you haven’t scanned your own network for open proxies, you probably should. This is yet another reason to limit what your web servers have access to within your own networks.

It sounds like the plot of a Roger Corman film, I know, but as reported on our sister blog, apparently swaths of Texas are being overrun by "Crazy Rasberry Ants," named for their discoverer (and exterminator) Tom Rasberry, not for the tasty fruit.

The ants, for some reason, are attracted to electrical equipment, including your Mac. A friendly chat with an AppleCare representative revealed that AppleCare policies do not cover insect infestation. Instead, the rep helpfully suggested that your renter's or homeowner's policy might cover the computer instead.

The ants arrived in the U.S. via a shipping container. They reproduce quickly, and are very difficult to kill. Might be worth it to keep an eye out. Apparently, they've been spotted near Johnson Space Center, and who knows what secrets they could be after.

The Danes are a happy people. Among the happiest in the world, according to a number of studies. Take a look at this 60 Minutes clip if you don’t believe. One reason for their sunshiny attitude is perhaps their affinity for leisure. Like long, legally-enforced vacations. Or something as simple as a weekday run. Enter, Facebook user and Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in a request to his support base of some 12,000 on the network (he apparently has quite a bit of first-hand experience with the service), managed to find 100 of his followers to join in a 4-mile jog this Friday.

Indeed, politicians aren’t well known for being very popular individuals. Sure, they get votes, and sometimes lots of them, but they don’t have wide swaths of friends in the public arena. Not true with Rasmussen, though, who currently inhabits the top 10 list of Facebook users. According to one of his aides, Soeren Lauridsen, the PM is the “European Facebook champion,” and lives among the most befriended networkers on the website, as list which also includes California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The occasion had by the prime minister and the people wasn’t without official purpose. It was “to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his leadership of the Danish Liberal Party, known as Venstre,” according to the BBC. Furthermore, it wasn’t the first that Mr Rasmussen connected with fellow Facebookers. He did so once before during the nation’s election campaign last November.

So, Facebook, begun in the dorms of Harvard, once had the college crowd as its sole focus. Eventually it expanded to attract a greater age bracket. Now it is a networking base for corporate purposes as well as political. Might it soon be used to lay some far-reaching diplomatic groundwork? Will the next president-elect of the US poke Gordon Brown to get feedback on proposed trade treaties? Perhaps discuss security over tea on Facebook Chat from the confines of Downing Street and 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue?

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Tungle, launching today, may be the meeting coordination utility to beat. Like TimeBridge, Jiffle, and other products in this new category, it lets you block off a bunch of times for a meeting you want to have with person or group of people, and then it handles all the back-and-forth while your attendees figure out which of the available times they want to grab. Once the meeting is booked, it enters the appointment into your Outlook calendar and sends the recipients calendar entries, too.

Tungle's success is in its design. If you're setting up a meeting, you can select whole swaths of potential times even if you just want the person on the other end to pick a 30 minute slot. And you can do cool things like drag blocks across days (for example, 2pm to 4pm on Wednesday through Friday) for open times. Tungle will excise times that you've already got booked (including times booked by other attendees on your Exchange server), and will make sure that your contact never gets the option to select times that are taken, even if they're scheduled after you send out the initial meeting request.

Tungle lets you create big blocks of potential times for meetings, but it won't double-book you.

Another unique feature: The capability to schedule two people into a meeting but not yourself -- great for admins. And you still get a confirmation when the meeting is set up.

When a meeting is finally locked in, the person or people you've scheduled get confirmation emails, and in the emails come calendar entries that auto-populate Outlook, Google Calendar, Entourage, and other scheduling systems.

Tungle lets you give some of your contacts access to your free/busy info so they can more easily initiate a meeting request with you. For people you're rather keep at a more professional remove, you don't have to share anything about your schedule except episodically, when you want to set up a meeting with them.

It appears easy to use and mostly straightforward. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the desktop app to run on my system. Outlook is a "finicky platform" Tungle CEO Marc Gingras told me before I fired up the demo on my own PC. Prophetic words. My accursed laptop also rejects TimeBridge, by the way. I don't know what it is that keeps scheduling helpers from running well on my computers.

For people setting up meetings, Tungle is Outlook-only so far. But as I said, it sends confirmation emails to attendees that many calendar apps can read.

Tungle is free. Premium services (like scheduling meeting rooms) will be available eventually. The company also plans to make money by linking to third parties like conference bridges.

Once we can get these apps stable on a PC, we'll compare them.

On Thursday, Microsoft removed the beta tag from the Windows Live SkyDrive service. More importantly, it upped the amount of free online storage to 5GB, giving users roughly the same amount of storage that comes on a new Eee PC. That's up from a recent cap of 1GB.

The service allows for personal folders as well as ones that are shared with a select group of friends, or the public at large. Microsoft is also expanding the service to 38 countries or regions including large swaths of Europe, Central and South America, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Taiwan.

I see the launch of SkyDrive as a key piece of Microsoft's effort to build what some think of as a cloud OS--a collection of services that includes identity, messaging, photo management, contacts, as well as storage. Storage is probably the most straightforward piece, but important nonetheless.