Editing video involves a lot of trial and error. Which shot works better—the close-up or the wide? Which take? Should I make the shot look warmer or cooler? What kind of sound effect should I use? How about music? This title looks good, but it what if the animation were different?

Final Cut Pro X’s audition feature makes it fast, easy, and downright fun to try out different creative options for your edit. Here’s how the feature works.

Creating auditions in an event

If you aren’t familiar with Final Cut Pro X’s terminology, events are containers for organizing your media, and projects are timelines for editing that media. You create auditions in an event before editing them into a project, or you create them directly in a project.

Reader Dave Eng can’t seem to broadcast his mug over the Internet. He writes:

Every so often I use Skype for multi-participant video conferences and when I do, I use my FireWire DV camcorder rather than my Mac’s built-in camera. I launched Skype the other day and it immediately crashed when I switched on my camera. I restarted my Mac, reinstalled Skype, but the same thing happened every time. What’s going on?

The current version of Skype (at least as I write this) has a bug that causes it to explode (okay, without the fire, smoke, and noise) when you connect a FireWire camcorder to your Mac and switch it on. The folks at Skype are aware of the issue but the most recent updates haven’t fixed the problem.

In the meantime, Oldapps.com has the most recent version that is compatible—Skype 6.0.0.2946. Just toss out your current copy of Skype, install this one, and Skype should behave itself. (And no, you won’t lose any of your settings or contacts by installing the earlier version.)

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Photographers love the freedom and flexibility of creating images, but when the shooting environment becomes complex, the folks behind the lens need all the help they can get. Hyper’s CameraMator, a wireless tethered photography device, lets you see and remotely control your shoot from a distance on an iPad, iPhone, Mac, or Android device.

Long in development as a Kickstarter project, CameraMator was released just in time for last week’s Macworld/iWorld with a $299 price tag. The CameraMator device attaches to your DSLR’s hotshoe or a tripod and the USB connection on your camera body (Canon and Nikon only). CameraMator uses Hyper’s iUSBport technology to wirelessly connect your DSLR’s USB ports with Wi-Fi mobile devices either via an existing Wi-Fi network or by creating its own network. When you shoot an image, the CameraMator sends the photo to your device, allowing you to review your shots on the larger screen. You can use it to share your photos and collaborate with remote colleagues and clients through the cloud.

The device works in conjunction with free apps for the Mac and iOS that are available on the Mac App Store and the iTunes store. The app features live viewing from the iPad or your Mac monitor, wireless camera control, instant image review, a 500-plus image buffer for continuous shooting, an intervalometer, HDR bracketing, a self timer, photo sharing to your laptop or iPad, and integration with Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom.

CameraMator competes with a similar device called CamRanger, which was released a few months ago and offers extensive control over your camera function via a free app from an iPad or iPhone. An OS X application is still in the works.

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There are plenty of iPhone apps that improve or expand on the basic camera built into the iPhone and iPad. You can think of BlueStone Pond's SetMyCamMx 1.0.3, on the other hand, as a $4 app designed to replace the old-fashioned depth of field calculation wheels, which serious photographers sometimes threw into their camera bags back in the days before the Internet. You can use SetMyCamMx as an interactive tool for fine-tuning your exposure to ensure you’re choosing the right settings to capture your shot.

SetMyCamMx’s primary job is to help you figure out how to get the depth of field you need for a particular shot. Just dial in the focal length of your camera’s lens, an f/stop, and the distance to the subject—the focusing distance. SetMyCamMx will immediately tell you the closest and farthest distances at which the camera will be able to deliver an acceptably sharp focus. In other words, it tells you your depth of field.

That makes SetMyCamMx a superb learning tool as well as a field guide. You already know that a larger f/number gives you a greater depth of field. But SetMyCamMx will tell you exact numbers: 50mm at f/5.66, focusing at 10 feet gives you 3.3 feet of depth of field. At f/32, the same lens and focusing distances delivers a huge 65 feet.

Even better, SetMyCamMx shows you all this visually. Every calculation is accompanied by a graphical depiction of your camera, the subjects, and a yellow rectangle that represents the depth of field. You can get the same data from other depth of field calculators, but SetMyCamMx shows you the data in a way that leaves no room for confusion.

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Hundreds and hundreds of products are released for the Mac each year. A few products truly stand out as impressive examples of quality, value, and innovation. These are the products that we recognize with an Editors’ Choice Award.

When it comes to the Eddys (as we affectionately call them), Macworld editors start with a list of candidates; this year, the list included well over 200 products (eligible products must have been released between November 1, 2011, and November 1, 2012). We take a close look at all of the candidates, debate the pros and cons of each, and determine whether a product meets our stringent standards for quality, utility, innovation, value, and excellence. After weeks of deliberation, we assembled a final list.

Ladies and gentlemen, Macworld presents the winners of the Eddy Awards.

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It’s very pricey. It feels like a brick. And at $1600 and jam-packed with high-end features, I hesitate to call Sony’s flagship Handycam a consumer model. This camcorder falls squarely between the consumer and the higher-end prosumer worlds. It’s one of the more compelling compact camcorders I've reviewed.

Trial by fire: The Chevron refinery explosion

The best test of the HDR-PJ760V came out of the blue. A real-life drama proved this camcorder’s chops as a fully automatic point-and-shoot model. On the afternoon of Monday, August 8, I was in my home office in the El Cerrito hills. It overlooks the Chevron refinery site three miles northwest of me. I was getting this camcorder ready for a test when the Number 4 Crude Unit blew up, shooting flames into the sky and a plume of black smoke towering up to 3,000 feet. I dashed to my office window and let the camcorder rip. I shot in full-auto mode—no time to fool around with settings. You can see the results here:

This turned out to be a terrific test of the camcorder’s ability to intelligently compensate for exposure and minimize artifacts in one of the most challenging shooting situations you can face: shooting directly into the sun. I had no time to attach the supplied lens hood—Sony needs to make that easier to snap on. Even so, the video shows almost no flare, you see almost no banding in the sky (a common artifact on non-pro, and even some pro cams), and the video has decent contrast. The unit's SteadyShot optical image stabilization also worked phenomenally well. I got very little motion jitter even though I was hanging out my bedroom window, constantly shifting to keep my bureau edge from gouging my hip.

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When I received Toshiba’s Camileo P100, it was “serious like” at first sight. This sporty pocket camcorder has plenty going for it. But it also turned out to be a little unreliable and hard to use.

Out of the box, things got off to a promising start. This sleek model's pistol-grip case fits snugly and securely in my right hand, unlike some candy-bar camcorders which can be easy to drop. I flipped open the LCD panel to reveal a spacious three-inch touch screen. I was pleasantly surprised to learn this model had a 5x optical zoom. Not long ago, most pocket camcorders were limited to 3x digital zoom. On the back panel, I found the Record Pause button, which lets you pause and restart your video recording without generating a slew of video clips. We’re seeing this useful feature show up in more camcorders, but it’s still rare in pocket models.

The Camileo P100 is slightly wider and thicker than most shoot-and-share models, but still measures a very pocket-able 4.4-by-2.4-by-2-inches, and weighs under 6 ounces complete with battery and SD memory card. It’s the same height and width of your iPhone, and almost as light.

So far, so great. Now for the “howevers.”

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Toshiba’s latest candy-bar camcorder looked like a great catch. But it comes with several catches.

Toshiba Direct lists the Camileo B10 for $120, making it one of the more affordable pocket camcorders you can buy. It’s as small as a smartphone (4.3-by-2.2-by-0.7-inches at 3.8 ounces) yet shoots exceptionally sharp Full HD video in full light. It also comes with big-camcorder touches like a front-mounted video light for low-light shooting and some limited ability to tailor your shooting modes, including several settings for Scene and White Balance. It also comes from a company with a strong reputation for making a wide range of quality products from TVs to notebook computers.

With such impressive creds, you may be tempted to snap up a few of these pocket models to shoot under the Christmas tree. Not so fast. We uncovered enough problems with the Camileo B10, a few serious, that we can’t broadly recommend it.

Get a grip

Issues cropped up soon out of the box. This camcorder’s shiny black silver-trimmed plastic case is very slippery. Several times I nearly fumbled the unit. You’ll definitely want to use the supplied hand-strap. Especially since the case feels cheap and a little fragile, in particular the thin front panel cover, which easily pops off the camcorder body. That’s partly by design: The quick-remove cover makes swapping batteries a breeze. For a secure grip, we prefer Kodak’s PlaySport and PlayTouch models. Their lightly textured side surfaces provide enough friction to let you keep a firm grip on them.

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The Pentax K-5 DSLR is engineered for serious enthusiast photographers who want a weatherproof camera with excellent image quality, but in a smaller package than most in its class. The K-5’s solid magnesium alloy/stainless steel chassis feels good in the hands, it’s easy to operate the buttons and dials, and the 16.3 MP images Pentax’s flagship camera captures are high quality, even at ISO settings up to 3200.

Physical features

Despite the K-5 body being smaller than the Canon 60D and Nikon D5000 (two of its peers), it features plenty of physical controls including a mode dial, front and back e-dials, metering switching lever, main switch, and a host of useful buttons to control ISO, exposure compensation, playback, and more. Buttons and dials are well marked and intuitive to use. However, the settings screen on 3-inch LCD definitely feels more complicated, and it requires a trip to the owners manual to get the most out of it.

Speaking of the 3-inch LCD, it supports 921,000 dots of resolution and provides an excellent view of images. The top LCD panel glows bright green when you tap the shutter release and is easy to read in all lighting conditions. The K-5’s various ports (HDMI, AV, DC power, remote release) are on the sides behind rubber covers. A nice touch is the microphone terminal that is protected by its own, separate cover. The K-5 uses SD memory cards and is compatible with SDXC.

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The iPhone photography industry never ceases to release better, more advanced, and sometimes exceedingly strange accessories. On its own, the iPhone is already a great camera—the iPhone 4 sports a 5-megapixel sensor while the 8-megapixel iPhone 4S also got an optics boost to capture sharper, better-lit images. But there’s always room for improvement. Schneider Optics, a professional lens manufacturer, has released the iPro Lens System. This all-in-one accessory includes a wide-angle lens, a fisheye lens, a specially designed iPhone case, and a lens case that doubles as a handle and tripod mount.

To use the iPro Lens System you need to snap on the included iPhone case, which is compatible with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. The right and left sides of the case feature threaded inserts for you to attach the handle. The case is made out of molded plastic, and is very stiff—initially it seems impossible to put on and take off. It turns out you need to attach the lens case handle to the right side of the iPhone case and then apply leverage while popping the phone in and out. Schneider Optics provided these instructions to Macworld, but have not yet included them in the system’s user guide. Once you know this, however, the entire fitting process is very easy.

Once you have the case on, you can mount the wide-angle or fisheye lenses onto the iPhone camera. The back of the case features a bayonet mounting system, which lets you easily twist the wide-angle and fisheye lenses on and off. The same mounting system is located inside the lens case, to keep the lenses secure. It’s a well-designed system that does a good job of keeping lenses on the case, even with some heavy shaking.

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Whether you're working on a slow exposure photography project or are simply the type who loves taking super-sharp photos, the GorillaPod line from Joby has you covered. Ideal for self-portraits, light painting, and all the other situations where you'd want a steady shot, these tripods are designed to be small, convenient, and durable. We looked at how well the newly released GorillaPod Hybrid, Micro 250, and Micro 800 fit and functioned on cameras of different sizes and weights. Check out the photos of how they fit on some cameras below.

The GorillaPod Micro 250 and Micro 800

With these little guys, you'll never have to leave home without a tripod again. Both easily screw onto your camera’s standard tripod attachment and are compact enough to stay on at all times. Despite their small size, the GorillaPod Micro tripods are exceptionally sturdy and hold your camera steady on both flat and slightly bumpy surfaces.

We tested out the Micro 250 on a Fugifilm f550 EXR. When the legs are closed, they lay flat against the bottom of the camera. On the Fugifilm f550 EXR, they stuck out slightly from one side—a little inconvenient, but not too noticable. When you are ready to get your steady shot, you just flip out the legs into tripod mode and adjust your camera on the 36-degree ball head. The legs are made of a coated alloy and have rubber tips, which grip well on every type of surface from a desktop to a sidewalk. Surprisingly, in our testing, the little rubber grips keep the camera from slipping on a plastic surface at angles that exceed the head's 36-degree maximum tilt.

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Canon’s entry-level EOS Rebel T3 is a step up from Canon’s popular XS DSLR, adding a bump up to a 12 megapixel sensor, a DIGIC 4 processor, longer battery life, higher ISO capabilities, improved autofocus and metering systems and the now ubiquitous video capture—a feature missing from the older XS. Its core functionality is very similar to its predecessor although the updated $600 (MSRP) model is even more user-friendly.

In keeping with Canon’s naming system, the T3 is a stripped down version of the higher end T3i—an 18 megapixel camera that offers faster performance, more advanced features such as manual aperture and shutter controls in HD video, sports an external microphone input, supports wireless flash, and is outfitted with a high resolution 3.0-inch articulating LCD. With price drops and sales on the T3i, there’s much less of a premium attached to the more sophisticated model. That said, both cameras are easy to use and produce good quality images.

Basics

Built around a 12 megapixel sensor, the Canon EOS Rebel T3 utilizes a DIGIC 4 processor and has an ISO range from 100-6400. It’s equipped with an optical viewfinder that’s clear, although a little dark, and provides 95 percent coverage. The 2.7-inch LCD, which is used for navigating menus, checking and adjusting settings, and shooting in Live View, offers a modest 230,000 pixel resolution and about 99 percent coverage. Neither the viewfinder nor the LCD are award-winning but are more than sufficient for everyday use.

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Apple devices could let you get a little FaceTime Santa, Apple designs its retail stores with vision, and one musician wants to juice up your smartphone’s camera. The remainders for Monday, November 26, 2012 are seen and not heard.

Best Buy ‘Finding Santa’ ad touts Apple products (TUAW)

You’d be excused for mistaking this Best Buy ad, in which a young boy uses a variety of Apple products to try and meet Santa, for an Apple commercial. Except for the end, when the salesperson tries to upsell the kid to a Surface.

Internal Apple video documents Apple Store philosophy (9to5Mac)

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You’ve probably seen reports from AnandTech, Gizmodo, CNet, and other sites about the iPhone 5’s camera and problems with a purple haze in photos. And while the test photos I took for our iPhone 5 review didn’t show the purple haze effect, I can now confirm that I have been experienced. I’ve even seen the problem (though not quite as pronounced) with an iPhone 4S and a Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone.

Some reports and users speculate that the iPhone 5’s sapphire lens cover might be to blame. Some sites, such as The Next Web, say it's purple fringing. Other sites, such as Digital Photography Review, say that it absolutely is not. There are lots of theories, and Apple corporate has not made a statement on the cause of the issue.

Without having access to the camera settings, it's difficult to test the theory that the iPhone 5's camera settings could be at fault. The Exif data does show that the iPhone 5 and 4s opt for different settings when shooting the same scene. The iPhone 5 shoots at higher ISO settings, for example. I did try using a different camera app, but found the same purple issue when using Camera+.

Test photos

If you compose a photo with a bright light source just out of frame near a darker background element, that darker element may appear purple. Below are some image samples from the iPhone 5 and a few other devices.

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Apple’s new iPhone 5 sports a better, faster iSight camera with enhanced still and video capabilities and improved low-light performance. Many of the improvements are software-based.

While the camera is still 8 megapixels, like the previous 4S model, its resolution is now 3264-by-2448 on a retina display. There's still backside illumination, a hybrid IR filter, a five-element lens, and a fast f/2.4 aperture. A new dynamic low-light mode can sense dim light and boost the aperture by two stops.

A new optical system includes precision lens alignment, which Apple says is measured down to the micron level. For the first time, a sapphire crystal lens promises clearer and sharper images. The ability to take macro and close-up photos has also improved.

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Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Camera, introduced at this week’s IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, takes clear, colorful images but is buggy and slow.

Samsung said that the Galaxy Camera is designed to combine the best features of a smartphone and a digital camera, but it’s missing one big thing: a phone.

On paper the gadget is impressive and I was excited to try it out. It shoots 16.3 megapixel images and has a 21x optical zoom, a 4.8-inch LCD screen, Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean), a 1.4 GHz quad core processor, A-GPS and 3G, 4G and WiFi connectivity.

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Sony has unveiled the Alpha NEX-5R, a compact mirrorless interchangeable lens camera that will replace the company’s Alpha NEX-5N model. It is targeted to the huge market of hobbyists and advanced amateurs now favoring point-and-shoots, smartphone cameras, and entry level DSLRs, as well as advanced DSLR users seeking a smaller and lighter second camera.

The company sees the new NEX-5R as a rival to Nikon’s 1 J2 and Canon’s Powershot G1 X in terms of photo quality, target audience, and camera build. While it’s relatively small and light, it’s not not exactly pocketable.

Sporting a 16.1 megapixel, 23.5-by-15.6mm APS-C CMOS sensor and an ISO of 25,600, the NEX-5R is designed to provide better performance in low light than its predecessor and features new lens auto-focus technology. Unlike its predecessor or any other camera in its NEX line, the 5R employs a hybrid auto focus system that pairs contrast detection auto focus with phase detection auto focus. Sony says this feature makes focusing faster and better at tracking moving objects and video shooting.

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Thanks to the iPhone, many more of us have a camera in our pocket. But, like any art, great photography takes time. (Maybe not as much money wasted on roll upon roll of 35mm film, though.) That’s why we put together Macworld’s iPhone Photography Superguide, our attempt to help you glide through the rough patches and on to photographic stardom.

This book explains it all: The nitty-gritty bits of taking pictures, editing and sharing your work, and using third-party apps and accessories to move from mischief to mastery. Learn how your iPhone can quickly transform into a portable camera when you need it to, whether it’s buttons pulling double duty or app shortcuts built into iOS.

Discover how to take pictures in almost any situation using old photography tricks and tips. Decide how you’d like to edit, sort, and organize your images; we offer tips on the Photos app, iPhoto for iOS, and suggestions for third-party applications that can make your image-editing easier. And, if you want to see what other goodies can propel your iPhone to mobile photograph greatness, we’ve got just the thing with a roundup of the top iPhone photography accessories.

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Tim Cook’s in the kitchen, whipping up some tasty Apple turnover; Yahoo bakes its keys right into its latest product; and a Rogue Amoeba iPhone app apparently isn’t to Apple’s taste. The remainders for Thursday, May 24, 2012 are slaving over a hot stove.

How Tim Cook is changing Apple (Fortune)

Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky details some of the ways that Apple has already begun to change under Tim Cook’s tenure. Among them, an emphasis on supply chain and operations, the choice to offer a dividend for the stock, and the fact that employees are no longer scared to ride the elevators.

Apple sued by patent troll STEC IP over data syncing in iCloud, iTunes and App Store (The Next Web)

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Perhaps you or a musician friend have a song, and you need a music video to help promote it and your band. Or maybe your son or daughter wants to create a video for a song they wrote and recorded. The good news is, you don’t need a mega-budget: just some creativity, a quality camera, friends and family (for potential extras), and iMovie ’11 to edit your masterpiece.

Story

There are a multitude of story options when it comes to music videos—this is where you get to let your creativity run wild. Some include ‘live on stage,’ where you have the band play in front of friends; a solo video of the singer on the beach or in a park; the band performing in a studio; and many more. You can have fun with it and write a short film that plays with the themes of the song, or make it as simple as just hanging out at home playing music.

Camera

For the music videos, producers can use a variety of cameras, including a professional Panasonic AF100, DSLRs that shoot HD video, small GoPro cameras, and even iPhones. If you have access to high-end cameras, that’s wonderful, but affordable HD DSLRs sell for as low as $500, if not lower, as new models come out and old ones drop in price.

In addition, many point-and-shoot cameras shoot HD video now, and did I mention the iPhone, plus other camera phones? Many of these cameras shoot in high-quality 720p and 1080p high definition video at 30 frames per second (fps), and the footage is gorgeous.

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The ingredients for the workflow include Automator, a copy of Apple’s Aperture ( ), and a digital camera that can shoot while tethered—meaning that you can plug it directly into your Mac’s USB port and control the camera remotely as well as save its images to your computer rather than to the camera’s memory card. My Nikon D300 ( ) is just such a camera. Check your camera’s manual to see if it supports tethering.

Launch Aperture and from the File menu choose New -> Project to create an empty project. Give it an intuitive name such as “Export and Send.” Copy a single image into this project. Now choose File -> Export -> Versions. In the resulting sheet click on the Export Preset pop-up menu and select Edit. In the Image Export window that appears click on the Plus (+) button in the bottom-left corner to make a copy of the currently selected preset.

In the area to the right within this window, choose the image format you want to use (JPEG, in our case, as it’s web-friendly and the images don’t take up a lot of space) and choose a size for your images (we use 606 by 480 pixels). Give your preset a name—“Auto Export,” for example—and click the OK button to dismiss the Image Export window. Your preset’s name should now appear in the Export Preset pop-up menu in the sheet that remains. Click the Export Versions button to close that sheet. Aperture will export a copy of the image you added to the project.

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Reader Robert Grenley has some discontinued technology that he hopes to use with his current gear. He writes:

I purchased Flip MinoHD cameras for each of my two daughters a few years ago. I wanted to continue to use them but now that they are no longer supported by Cisco, I assume that the software that saves the video to the Flip video website won’t work. Is there a simple way to download and save the videos to our computers and, possibly, to burn them on to DVDs?

Fortunately, while the FlipShare software was convenient because a copy was found on every Flip camcorder, you were never required to use it. That said, the most recent version of the software works perfectly well under Mac OS X Lion. In fact, Cisco has said that it will continue to support this software until December 31, 2013.

But again, you needn’t use it. With the latest version of iMovie running under Lion, for example, I was able to jack in my Flip MinoHD camcorder, click the Camera Import button, and import all the videos on the camera into iMovie, ready to edit.

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The holidays are over, and the memories of folks reuniting with friends and family, eating good food, and most likely opening a present or two, will linger. It’s a safe bet many of those gifts were designed in Cupertino.

That’s in addition to all the new e-readers, digital cameras, and other electronic devices unwrapped this season, and that means many people probably received upgrades to gear they already had. If you’re one of them, you’ve not only got a shiny new gadget to play with, you’ve got to decide what to do with your old device. You could always sell it on eBay or Craigslist, but there are other options that can do even more good in your community.

Pass it on

We’ve all been given worn-out sweaters or an unused appliance, but not all hand-me-downs are created equal. Your old hardware could be a big deal to the younger or older user in your life who might be much more than a generation behind the latest technology.

Devices that can inspire a new hobby, or enhance an old one, can make especially meaningful gifts. Your old digital camera might become a gateway into photography, for instance, and that first-generation Kindle can introduce a reader to a whole new way to love books. Even taking your gift’s recipient aside to explain how the device works can become a new way to spend quality time.

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By now you’ve probably attended a couple holiday get togethers—maybe even hosted one yourself—and have had plenty of photo opportunities by the tree, at dinner with friends and family, or out in the winter landscape. And once the holidays hit, that means even more memorable shots of the kids opening presents and dad devouring latkes. Instead of storing those photos within the confines of your camera's memory card, you’ll probably want to share them with family and friends.

While you can certainly email batches of photos, that can get tedious and time-consuming. And it’s not always the best idea to post your holiday photos on Facebook for all 500 of your “friends” to see. Your photo-sharing needs will depend on how private you want to keep your holiday shots, whether you prefer a paid or free service, how you want your photos displayed, and your preferred method of sharing—via Web or iOS device. Here are some ways to share your holiday photographs.

Go basic and free

There are plenty of free photo-sharing sites available on the Web, but not all of them offer user-friendly features. While free sites won’t give you as much customizable features as paid services, or display photos in the most elegant manner, they’re great for basic sharing.

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You may have forgotten about Photo Booth, but Apple sure hasn’t. In Lion, Apple updated its software for quickly capturing photos from your Mac’s built in camera, adding full-screen mode and new visual effects that leverage face-detection features. But while Photo Booth’s feature set is still pretty simple, there are a few power user tricks to the software that may help you get more out of it.

First of all, there's the flash. When you snap a photo with Photo Booth, the software briefly makes your Mac’s display go bright white, to simulate camera lighting. But there's a new option in Lion to disable that flash permanently: Go to the Camera menu, and deselect Enable Screen Flash.

Even before Lion, you could disable that flash on a photo-by-photo basis, and that trick still works: Simply hold down the Shift key as you snap your photo. If your room is well-lit, disabling that screen flash may help you prevent that blueish tint from characterizing your photos.

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It might feel like you’ve just finished that last helping of turkey at the Thanksgiving, but the calendar doesn’t lie: The holidays are just about here. You’ve got less than a dozen shopping days until Christmas. Hanukkah starts even sooner—December 20—and even Kwanzaa is right around the corner, beginning on December 26. It seems like plenty of time to get your shopping done, but not if you’re relying on online shopping or buying customized tech gifts. If you still have gifts to order, pickup, or send, observe these deadlines to ensure that your gifts are delivered before 2012.

Gifts from the Apple Store

If you’re giving the gift of Apple this year and would prefer not waiting in a long line at the Apple Store, you can buy any in-stock product online and have it shipped to your house. Apple is even offering free two-to-three day shipping on most of its major products. However, if you want something delivered on or before Christmas Eve, you’d better act fast—some Macs need to be ordered by Wednesday to meet this deadline. Here’s the Apple Store’s express shipping schedule with a holiday delivery guarantee:

• iPad: December 19 for engraved, December 21 for non-engraved.
• iPod: December 19 for engraved, December 21 for non-engraved.
• iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS: December 21
• Customized Macs: December 14
• Regular off-the-shelf Macs and popular configurations: December 21
• Apple TV: December 21
• All other items: December 21

All of the above dates promise delivery on or before Christmas Eve. It’s too late to order an iPhone 4S online–they had to be ordered by December 5 to guarantee delivery by December 24. If you order one now, it’s set to ship between December 23 and January 3. At this point, you can either reserve an iPhone 4S after 9:00 p.m. for in-store pickup the next day, or else face waiting in line for a walk-in purchase.

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