The Apple iPad 2 ($499, WiFi) tops our holiday idea list this season. It’s easy to understand why, once you’ve seen the smooth scrolling, easy touch screen and the many included application programs (apps): Safari for browsing the Internet; Mail for sending and receiving email; Photos for viewing and showing off photos (one at a time, touch-swiping through a group or running as a slide show); Music for playing audio; Calendar for keeping your schedule and syncing to your iCal calendar; Notes or Reminders for quick, well, notes and reminders.

Other apps let you use your iPad 2 as an eReader, to play games, as a movie, shopping, food or cooking guide, a night sky viewer, home automation controller–-the list goes on and on. The App Store has hundreds of thousands of these and other apps available, either free or to buy.

The iPad 2 also includes a built-in camera to take stills or HD video to display on your iPad or TV, and Maps, which uses the built-in GPS to show your current location and give directions to your destination.

The iPad 2 is a tablet computer that’s easy to take with you for its usefulness and, of course, for its WOW factor. No wonder more than half those surveyed would love to get an iPad 2 as a gift.

Another good gift choice: eReaders. The two most popular are Amazon’s Kindle ($79+) and Barnes and Noble’s Nook ($99+). Both offer access to a huge selection of books, magazines and a wealth of other reading material, some free, and most at an eReader discounted price. You can usually download a free sample book, magazine or newspaper to check its appeal for you. If you like what you see, just pay for it and download the entire book, subscription to the magazine, or whatever; an eReader will hold hundreds of them. Several eReader models are available for each brand, and some offer Internet browsing capability, photo slide shows and other features that make them a multi-purpose tablet computer as well as an eReader.

A useful and inexpensive gift accessory for those using tablet computers or cell phones is the Breffo Spiderpodium ($16+). Available in cellphone, tablet computer and iPad sizes, the Spiderpodium has eight bendable legs that can be configured as a stand or wrapped around poles and the like, all while securely holding your device in whatever position you need it.

Universally useful as gifts that won’t break your budget are USB thumb drives (2GB to 124GB, $10+). Thumb drives come in a variety of packaging, such as a pendant encrusted with Swarovski crystals, hidden in a Swiss Army Knife (including a laser pointer for presentations), packaged in mini animal or character statuettes (Star Wars and others), in a pen, shaped as a surf board or containing a capacity gauge.

A gift of fun for family or friends is Just Dance 2 or 3 ($40) for the Wii gaming console. Just follow the on-screen moves of the dancer(s), and the game scores how well you match them. Dance solo, with a partner, or in teams of up to four dancers at the same time. We use and enjoy these games often for a fun way to exercise.

A computer backup system offers the gift of computer protection that’s both useful and practical for safeguarding those precious, often irreplaceable picture or document files: Rebit ($179, 2TB) is an external USB hard drive that installs itself when plugged in and runs in the background while doing an initial backup of your computer hard drive, settings, files, email and more. Once the initial backup is done, Rebit makes incremental backups of files as they are saved or added. Several series of backups are made, allowing you to backtrack several versions of documents you had written earlier. When (not if) your computer hard drive crashes, Rebit will restore all your settings and files to a new hard drive, allowing you to use your computer as if nothing had happened.

Digital Photo Picture Frames ($59+) make thoughtful gifts. Filling the frames with photos of family, friends, special events, trips and the like creates a personal gift that will be treasured by anyone. We’ve given photo frames to family and friends, and they are warmly appreciated.

Happy Holidays and Happy Gifting!