  We investigate the effects of the shape of quantum dots on their far-infrared
absorption in an external magnetic field by a model calculation. We focus our
attention on dots with a parabolic confinement potential deviating from the
common circular symmetry, and dots having circular doughnut shape. For a
confinement where the generalized Kohn theorem does not hold we are able to
interprete the results in terms of a mixture of a center-of-mass mode and
collective modes reflecting an excitation of relative motion of the electrons.
The calculations are performed within the time-dependent Hartree approximation
and the results are compared to available experimental results.
