In's 52-week course in basic computing. Click here for a complete index of Computer 101 previous lessons. We would recommend, however, that you eschew the dramatic gesture of gift wrapping it and placing it under the tree for junior or juniorette. That means unbox it, turn it on now, and let it run steadily through New Year's Day.
Components tend to fail fairly quickly if they're defective, and otherwise last for years.
Burning in the computer now allows time to fix it during the holidays. We realize this is a terrible burden to place on Dad when he hasn't even finished baking Christmas cookies yet, but believe us, the only thing that makes a bigger mess of the holidays than a dead computer is defective software. Particularly since only about a million other people will be calling tech-support lines on Dec. 26. There is much potential to avoid aggravation. Organize your manuals by stapling any errata sheets or cheat sheets to the relevant book.