blogging and toys

Ok, so I am pretty bad about blogging. I do have enough to do, and there is already so much noise on the internet. I do sit in front of computers a lot and I would like to have a little more of that time go into creating instead of consuming.

Speaking of consuming, it seems the last time I tried this I had gotten a new toy, an OLPC. The shine on it kind of wore off, with the kinda odd sugar interface, difficulty in running "real" software, its odd screen, and not so easy to type on keyboard. Still I think its a great project and a bit of a collectors item. What the OLPC did do very well is show that bigger isn't always better. There is a place for smaller, not as fast, not as expensive computers, to fill in those spaces where the big stuff just doesn't fit well.

So that's why I just got an netbook, the Acer Aspire One. Small, under 3lbs, its a go anywhere, easy to whip out and do something useful on sort of machine. The keyboard on it is great, which is all important for actually creating things. And when it comes to consuming it does well too, with a nice high res screen that is good for reading web sites and technical docs on, and it can play back Internet video decently enough. I've gotten a lot of comments on it from "Is that a DVD player?" to "My laptop is too big for me and I'd like something small".

So Apple says these netbooks are a bit of a fad. Well knowing how they are all about changing the playing field, they probably are right. They are just a scaling down of regular old laptops. I think something in this form factor will come along that is revolutionary. Something with a touch screen and great voice recognition and a display that is even more comfortable to read (something reflective instead of light emitting maybe). Apple had this great knowledge navigator video from back in the 90s, and I keep hoping they start actually making one soon.

So new toys have gotten be writing again for a bit. Let's see how long it lasts.