So, you are thinking about giving a new computer for Christmas. Good choice – almost anyone will enjoy getting a nice, fresh, new computer free of the junk that accumulates over the years and with plenty of space and speed to spare. But, while you are at it, have you considered a Mac? (Keep reading for gift ideas for current Mac users too.)
Netbooks are all the rage: they are lightweight, compact and relatively capable computers that generally weigh in at a few hundred dollars. Could one be the perfect Christmas gift for the technology loving person on your shopping list this holiday? Recently, we were able to spend some time with two of Verizon’s 3G enabled netbooks to see how they stacked up.
Imagine, if you would, that a few weeks before Easter it were announced that the body of Jesus had been found, that it had been kept in an oh-so-secret crypt in the Vatican lo, these many years. That disclosure would be big news, wouldn’t it? It would put quite a crimp in the most fundamental tenets of Christianity. It would be pretty difficult to sustain the religion after that.
Having been raised as a photographer, I’ve always felt a little vulnerable if I didn’t have a camera on my person. For years I carried a Nikon or Leica film camera with me pretty much wherever I went, often as not along with a big camera bag made by Jim Domke, all crammed full of spare camera bodies and lenses and film and a few filters and more film and a strobe (which is what we used to call electronic flashguns). I didn’t need to go to the gym.
The Imagio is a phone that would be easy to overlook. After all, not only does it face the usual opponent, the iPhone that clearly influenced its design, it also faces the Motorola Droid, which is Verizon’s most newsworthy phone in years – and deservedly so. That the Imagio has been somewhat lost in the dizzying lead up to the Droid’s launch is too bad; the Imagio deserves some attention of its own.
My little scribbling this week comes to you from a 20-year-old, pristinely restored Northgate OmniKey keyboard. Back when the crust of the Earth was cooling and computing was young, the Northgate company was one of many upstarts that made very good personal computers. What set them apart, though, were their keyboards. They had a pleasant, clicky feel that many users loved. Northgate sold their keyboards separately, but apparently few people then bought their computers, too, so they went out of business. This made having a Northgate keyboard even cooler.
Verizon is on a bold streak. After launching the “There’s a Map for that” campaign squarely targeting what many would call Apple and AT&T’s key weakness – network reliability – the airwaves have now been covered by “iDon’t” ads that compare what the iPhone doesn’t do with what ”Droid does.” So, what does the Droid do and does it do it well? When the device launches tomorrow, do you want to be in line to buy one?
With a major ad campaign, directly targeting the iPhone, in full swing promoting the new Motorola Droid, it may be fair to say Verizon’s first Android-based phone is also perhaps its most anticipated device in recent times. Does it live up to the hype? Read on for OFB’s unboxing and short preview of this phone, which will be available for purchase next week.
The ultimate step in DIY Linux for the home PC user is building a piece of software for yourself.
Touch mania is spreading across the mobile phone world, but in a sea of phones clamoring to catch the touchscreen wave, the enV Touch might seem at first to be a mere wannabe lost behind its more recognizable competitors. But, with unique tricks up its sleeve and a good price tag, the enV Touch proves it is different, not just more of the same.