The New Year is a great time to get yourself organized and make virtuous resolutions. It's also as good as any to face an unpleasant fact: Your notebook is not your friend. Yes, it helps you be productive. But here's what happens when you're using a laptop on the road: You tilt your neck down to look at the screen. Meanwhile, you bend your wrists in order to type on the keyboard. And you do this for hours--in hotel rooms, airplanes, conference rooms, and other places not exactly known for proper ergonomic set-ups.

"Laptops are inherently unergonomic--unless you're 2 feet tall," is how physician Norman J. Marcus put it recently in The Wall Street Journal.

As a mobile professional, travel is essential to your job. But it doesn't actually help you do your job, does it? In fact, travel actually gets in the way of being productive. Or it makes you so tired and stressed, you're barely able to show up to a meeting, let alone contribute brilliant ideas.

For the next three weeks, I'll suggest some New Year's resolutions for you to consider. The idea behind each resolution is to make your life a little more comfortable and less stressful in 2009. This week: Use communications tools to reduce travel, stay connected to colleagues, and increase the power of your messages. Next week: how to be kinder to your poor body with a proper ergonomic setup. And finally, services and tools for syncing your data across multiple computers and devices.

Have you finished your holiday shopping? Stuffed your sweetie's stocking? If so, I've got suggestions for ten tech or travel-related products under $300 that would make fun gifts--for you. I mean, really, isn't it time to treat yourself, too?

The ten products I mention here are listed from most to least expensive. By the way, if you're looking for other gift ideas, you'll want to read my review of Pure Digital's new Flip MinoHD pocket high-def camcorder. And last week, I wrote about Logitech's QuickCam Pro for Notebooks. Either gadget would make an ideal holiday gift, too.

When you're on the road, camping out in a bland hotel room, there's something truly comforting about seeing your spouse, kids, or other loved ones in a live video chat. You can make a meaningful connection, rather than simply having a dialog, as you would on a phone call. Add to this the fact that good-quality Webcams are inexpensive and video chats via Skype, Google's Gmail, and other Internet services are free.

The only question remaining is, which Webcam to give as a gift?

It's difficult to get enthusiastic about spending money on gifts this holiday season. But let's look at the bright side: There will be lots of compelling year-end sales, starting with last week's Black Friday and this week's Cyber Monday. And you've got plenty of cool--and affordable--tech toys to choose from.

Over the next three weeks, I'll recommend mobile products that cost $300 or less, and that I feel are good choices for gifts. This week: Pure Digital's Flip MinoHD, a pocket camcorder that shoots high-def video.

Lots of things are shrinking these days, besides attention spans and 401(k) plans. Netbooks, also called mini-notebooks, aren't much bigger than some hardcover books and weigh about 2.5 pounds or less. Some portable printers are roughly the size of a stapler. There's even a portable projector that's as small and light as a cell phone. All told, you can put together a mobile office that weighs about 5 pounds or less and fits in a small bag.

Last week I reviewed the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook. This week, I look at the other components for your mobile office: a portable printer, projector, and scanner. (I haven't included wireless phones, because most people already have one.)

In this era of increasing miniaturization, the truly mobile office has arrived. It's now possible to travel with a computer and printer that have a combined weight of under 5 pounds, and that fit easily into a briefcase or even a large purse. This week, I review the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Next week I look at the ultraportable Brother PocketJet 3 Plus printer (formerly known and still sold as the Pentax PocketJet 3 Plus), along with ideas for other micro office equipment.

Lenovo's Netbook

Netbooks, also called mini-notebooks, are ultra-light, compact, affordable laptops. They're specifically designed for e-mail, Web browsing, and light computing tasks. And in this lousy economy, they're a growing segment of the portable computer market.

While cruising along at about 31,000 feet on an American Airlines flight in late October, I checked e-mail on my laptop. There, in Gmail's Spam folder, were three new messages offering the usual outrageously annoying, hokey promises. You know the type: Someone from Nigeria was informing me I could claim 7 million dollars in U.S. funds.

Spam in the sky--I should have seen it coming. The bigger news here, though, is that I surfed the Internet all the way from San Francisco to New York. The ride was a bit bumpy at times, but for the most part, the on-board Wi-Fi experience, supplied by Aircell's Gogo service, went smoothly.

"It's not about what you earn," some wise soul has probably said to you. "It's about what you keep." In that spirit of fiscal frugality, let's continue with a topic near and dear to our hearts these days: How to buy a laptop and keep some of your hard-earned money, too. Last week, I offered tips on how to save money on a new laptop's productivity software. This week I'll look at buying refurbished laptops.

New vs. Refurbished

Buying a refurbished laptop can save you several hundred dollars, compared to a similar new model. I've bought refurbished laptops from Dell in the past and was happy with the experience.

Last week I told you about laptops from Acer, Dell and Hewlett-Packard available for $500 to $600, depending upon configuration. But what if none of those notebooks floats your boat?

You can still trim the cost of any laptop you're considering. This week I've got some tips on how to save money on productivity suites such as Microsoft Office, which can add up to $350 to your laptop's price tag.

And now for something completely different: a bit of bright economic news. Several laptops with reasonably robust specs are available for $500 to $700.

It's probably no surprise that laptop prices have continued to fall. But those who need a new laptop now might be heartened to learn that there are some compelling bargains out there. We'll probably see even more this holiday season, as retailers and computer makers--hammered by the gloomy economy--try to push products by slashing prices.

Remember the opening scene of Night of the Living Dead? A young woman and her brother are visiting their grandfather's plot in a graveyard. A creepy pale-faced dude approaches them, and the screaming begins.

That's how I feel when I check my investments these days. Horrified, shocked, appalled, doomed. I'm not alone, of course. Everyone else I know feels pretty much the same.