I am writing this using a Powerbook G4 17” at the Apple store in San Francisco, a “flagship” store with lots of very neatly looking technology. Came here to look for the new mini-iPods, they’re not available but the G4 is.
It is a handsome machine, but there are some idiosyncracies that can be infuriating until you get used to them. The keyboard is excellent, the machine is heavy, and the front plate large enough that my watch is scratching it, even when standing. Not that that hasn’t happened on my regular Toshiba machine, but still, it would probably mean not wearing a watch while typing.
The screen is outstanding – wide and sharp. I suppose my best bet would be the 15”, just because of the size. Then there are applications.
The trouble with Apple products remain price/performance, the fact that they require quite a few accessories that are pricey (but elegant), and perhaps lack of applications, though that shouldn’t be much of a problem with emulation. The visuals, on the other hand, are stunning, and according to a friend of mine, who bought an iMac for his children, that’s the only machine they use.
Next time, perhaps. This machine is really elegant….

Author Cory Doctorow (blogging at boingboing.net) has had one of this books (Eastern Standard Tribe) converted into an automatic speed reading applet based on a technology from The Reading Lab.
The words race by on screen, one by one, in your speed of choice. Presumably this enables you to read faster and retain more, though I must say I am a bit sceptical after trying for a while. For complex sentences it can be hard to retain the meaning – and I tend to read more than one word at a time, which is not possible in this format (apparently, the Media Lab has something that allows you to “drive” a book in various formats.) But the effect is rather fascinating, and with some practice I assume one can effortlessly absorb more text simply because you don’t need to move your eyes as much.
But I am reminded of Woody Allen’s “I took a course in speed reading and read War and Peace in one hour. It’s about Russia.”

I currently have all my books in crates, awaiting the building of my library. (Or, rather, that is a grand way to express “until I get some shelves for my home office.”) Finding a book to read is, in consequence, a hit-and-miss affair, though sometimes fun. Last night I found Umberto Eco’s How to travel with a salmon and other essays – a little gem of a collection of musings on travel, technology and various cultural phenomena.
In an essay on fax machines, written about 1989, he talks about how the fax machine allows you to send notes and drawings all over the world, even from hotel rooms. And, most importantly, how the technology at first is only accessible to a select few, and then, when it becomes democratized (i.e., everyone has it, it becomes inaccessible again, due to flooding of traffic – so you end up calling people to ask them to connect the fax, or perhaps, as he suggests, send them a letter ….
Sigh. At least sending a spam fax costs the sender something, which may be the whole difference.

I have been away from home and email – currently sitting in the airline lounge at Düsseldorf airport, using a wireless network service provided by Vodaphone, which occasionally drops. This is rather irritating – there are 461 messages waiting, and if the network connection drops before the download is finished, I have to wait for 10 minutes before the mailbox will release the session and allow me to reconnect.
Spam is currently killing email as a useful tool for business communication, which is, I suppose, one reason for setting up this blog.

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