Two Slashes

Wow…did I actually just post my fourth thing in five days?  I…why, I think I’m in shock!  Hopefully either I can fall into the habit of posting more often (preferred) or anyone out there doesn’t get into the obsessive habit of checking for new stuff more often…well, at least let the RSS feed do that for you.

I paid $350 or so for my first useful* laptop (I say that with quotes for a reason, see below) during the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, with my first MP3 player just a short while before that.  I’ve only had possession of a personal cellular telephone for a year.  I’ve had an account with AOL since the second grade (which, although I personally refuse to use the AOL client anymore, I still have).  And I’ve been really only establishing my online presence (with forums, websites, and the like) since the end of middle school.

Why do I tell you this, seemingly randomly?  I was perusing through the New York Times website today, and came across an article discussing the recommended ages children should be introduced to the very same technologies I just mentioned.  And obviously there’s some disagreement between what the article suggests and what I believe to be more appropriate, or I wouldn’t be bothered enough to write about it.

For ages 0-2, I can generally agree with the author.  I don’t see a reason your kid should be messing with anything electronic with more complication than making noise or blinking lights.  They’re way too young to understand cause-effect scenarios, and I certainly don’t foresee anybody’s newborn being able to “Press Enter to Continue…”

Sure, maybe all the fake toddler-toys are probably 1/4 as mind-stimulating as they’re advertised to be, but are they really ready to play online games?  No offense, but it seems to me like they want to train the next generation of WoW addicts from an early age; they’ll be more tolerant to the obsessive clicking and typing and random key-pressing it takes, and their vision will already be so screwed over from staring at the screen that they’ll have a 6000-strength glasses prescription by the time they’re eight.  Pardon me, but how about giving them their Playskool MP3 boombox thingy and sending them out to the sandbox?  And suggesting a Wii as a console for kids still trying to figure out why the cat doesn’t go in the washing machine, and that Hot Wheels are more collectible when the wheels aren’t on the other side of the room?  I really don’t need any more bologna-in-the-CD-tray service calls, thank you very much, so I’ll just say “That’s stupid” and continue on my merry way.

Moving towards the second half of the article, I really disagree more with their thinking.  For starters, explain to me why six-year-olds are eligible to be playing games that require interaction with people you don’t know but are connected to instantly?  I fail to see one instance where they won’t be talking to strangers at some point.  (And even if the parents are paying attention, can you really be certain that crazyboy2834 isn’t this guy (potentially NSFW)?  Your son/daughter claiming that it’s the friend from down the street doesn’t count.)  I have a brother that fits this age bracket, and I’ve watched him play similar games.  If someone sends him a friend request, his instant reaction is to accept it…no questions asked.  “But wait, that’s not Kyle?”  Stranger danger, indeed.  What happened to responsible parenting?

I can see maybe a shimmer of reasoning behind giving a twelve-year-old a cell phone…but only a shimmer.  Why, even my high-school-age siblings failed to understand why text messaging wasn’t included in their plan (it is now) and managed to rack up a rather exorbitant bill.  The point is, if you give them something that has the ability to do more than you pay for, it’s going to come back to bite you.  If you really need to give them the phone, get the blasted unlimited messaging plan…$30 per month is a lot more reasonable than $600 (trust me).  Perhaps towards high school would make better sense here.

High school would also be a prime time for these kids to get laptops and other “considered-essential” devices, not as they’re herded off like cattle to college.  Not only does this free the family computer from constant use by the IM- and MySpace-crazed teen, but it gives parents (as if they needed it) yet another thing to take away for groundings.  And has the benefit of teaching them about how to take care of more expensive equipment earlier on.

And I scoff at this comment:

In fact, cellphones are now more or less mandatory for children at this age. Besides providing a social advantage, phones can reduce parental stress in a crowded mall, get children in touch for homework help, serve as a call to dinner — and be withheld as punishment that really works.

Parenting skills for this age include reading phone bills. Lori McCoughey of Mahwah, N.J., a mother of two, saved $200 a month by switching to Verizon’s friends and family plan. There are also pay-as-you-go plans like those from Tracfone (www.tracfone.com). For $50, you get a working LG 225 camera phone, preloaded with 100 minutes. A meter counts down the remaining time.

If parenting skills require reading bills, why must you suggest a pay-as-you go plan on a cell phone, which defeats the entire purpose of reading bills?  It might reinforce and encourage the idea of having your child budget their usage (especially if you add a specific amount per month, and refuse to add any more until the next) in preparation for giving them access to your “big-person”, post-pay plan, but really I can’t see a prepaid phone as being anything more than a cash-cow and waste of time otherwise.  But “serving as a call to dinner?”  Although I’m pretty sure I can see through the poor language there, how is ringing your offspring anywhere near a reinforcement of the “personal nature” of dinner?  (Yes, I realize this is America, where ‘dinner’ is another word for vegging out in front of a television with McDonald’s, but cut me some slack.)

Of course, even my recommendations are just that, recommendations.  In reality, the parents should be capable enough to judge whether their kid actually has a need for the technologies of tomorrow, a need that outstretches the desire to “fit in” – because there’s always going to be someone else without it, and a lesson in not getting everything you want is perfect fare.  Nevertheless, any parents who take tips from that article and apply them probably could use a little help as a parent themselves.

Parenting is about guidance and helping a child to prepare themselves for an adult/parental role, not stepping in and going “Here’s a shiny new electronic toy that I bought; go have fun.”

*Useful in this sense refers to the sense that it could be used for more than running Windows 95 or browsers with the rendering support of an 1800s cash register.  My real first laptop was a 486 obtained long ago from one of my father’s co-workers, with a failed battery and a garbage-picker’s heaven of data left on it.  As most people know, I particularly enjoy older/restored computing equipment and so I keep this machine around for occasional use.

At this point, the phrase ‘net neutrality’ is like an outdated fashion statement:  everyone knows about it and nobody really cares anymore.  And while it certainly plays an important role in the evolution of the twenty-first century, it’s been sent to the back of the bus to sit with the dot-com blowouts.

Why?  As far as anyone can speculate, the new idea for making sure ISPs can overstuff their networks is to limit how much the customer can use them, rather than get funding to expand them from the corporations who are most likely to be transmitting across it.

The concept of enforcing bandwidth quotas can be rather laughable, especially when there are (seemingly absurd) $5+/GB overage charges.  Considering that ISPs will swear up and down that their heaviest customers are heavy downloaders, they repeatedly argue that these fees will only apply to this clique.  From a pirate’s perspective, think about it:

• The average MP3 folder (via torrent, newsgroups, whatever) for a single album ranges between 60 and 130 MB.  Assuming an average 100 MB per album downloaded, that’s 10 albums for $5 (or whatever the overage charge is).  I dare anyone to beat that with music acquired from the store as far as quantity goes.  (Though this does raise a question in cases such the newer NIN albums.)
• Usually, rips of feature films run between 700-1300 MB depending on a few factors.  That’s between $5 and $10 for a movie; if the downloader is willing to suffer the (potentially) lower quality, $5 is perhaps not unreasonable.  For hour-long TV shows, it tends to be 350-700 MB per episode, so the cost incurred in getting that full season on DVD can instead be split between your download overages and the new hard drive you get to store all of your ‘acquisitions.’
• Some of the most popular/expensive software suites also happen to be some of the smallest downloads.  The more software crammed in per GB, the better that $5 looks.

Sure, it angers the people who think unlimited means unlimited (I would like to believe this, but it’s never going to happen.) to know that suddenly they’re being reigned into reality, but the reality is that the gray areas are still the more-approachable, cost-friendly bretheren of walking the thin white line.

During school, when I’m only doing my schoolwork and light browsing, I tend to use approximately 150 MB per day (out of the 2 GB per 24 hours allotted per residence hall resident).  So, taking my 150 MB and multiplying it by 7 for a full week, I’ve already covered 1050 MB.  So, for my example, take that as the usage of the heaviest user in the house.  Let’s add in a little more for the rest of the typical family, and the Time Warner-suggested 5GB-per-month quota is going to be gone within two or three weeks.  And they’re the light end of the spectrum.  (I’m a little stupid for taking my usage and using it in a fictional example, but let’s not go there for now; the point is that these people claim that such limited requirements will satisfy most people, but any connection with more than one or two people using it is going to have major quota collisions.)

Even more pathetic is the practice of combining the higher-cost, higher-level quotas with higher speeds; I see this not so much as extending the timespan over which that quota is used as shortening it – people with more bandwidth tend to either use it in the course of their work, or feel it is going to waste and put it to use doing something – and in the process rendering the extra quota cushioning useless.

Of course, this all comes in the middle of the transition from print and televised media to Internet-based streaming media, and at a time where (at least, I see no reason why this isn’t true) telecommuting is starting to become a real substitute for the people looking to save their $4+/gallon gas.  (I can already see the argument boiling in peoples’ heads over whether it’s more cost- and time-effective to drive to the office or telecommute and get their work done from home.)  Isn’t it great that everything’s closing in all at once?

Side note:  If you really want a kick in the pants, I suggest you try searching for “at one point, google was“.  You’ll get a kick out of some of the results you get (and yes, it’s safe for work).

I’ve had my Creative Zen MicroPhoto for several years now; I think I’ve had it just about since they came out, in fact. It’s been a great player; it does everything I want (plays music), and everything “just works” (yes Apple, I just used your marketing ploy describing a competitor’s product, shoot me). However, there comes a point where technology becomes outdated, and you need to move on.

In this case, the limiting technology isn’t anything that can be fixed with firmware…I’m simply running out of space. When I bought the thing in the first place, my music library sized up somewhere between 4 and 6 GB in disk space, which was decent enough for me at the time, and fit easily into the player’s 8GB. So I was happy, because I had room to expand.

Well…come forward to today. My media library certainly isn’t 6GB anymore…heck, I couldn’t fit it on any less than about four or five ZMPs. Which of course means that with my increasing library, I have a choice to make in regards to how best to utilize the space I have and what gets prioritized enough to get cycled on and off the player. But it gets really disappointing when I go to look for a song, then have to remember that I cleared it off last week to make room for some other song.

Thusly, I’m in the market for a new MP3 player. And of course, I’ve been looking around and comparing, as any semi-intelligent person would do, at any device that satisfies my needs.

But with the newest generation of players, I think several engineers forgot what the word “standards” meant. And I mean that in a big way.

One of my bigger gripes is with the connectivity of these devices. Go back to a few years ago, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a non-iPod player that didn’t have a standard USB connector on the end. Now, it’s almost the norm to require the use of 2½ breakout dongles just to hook the blasted thing up to your computer. But not only does that mean you need special accessories for each device you get (because face it, they’re already ignoring one standard, what would compel them to come together and develop another), but some of the features they advertise and provide are utterly useless.

Take, just as an example, the all-too-common concept of the mass storage device on the MP3 player with exorbitant amounts of space. By definition, this would be something that I could carry around with me and use to carry around documents and whatever other files I needed to have with me. With something as standard as a USB port, I could simply find a compatible cable (or borrow one from another device I’m carrying around with the same connector, such as a camera) and use that temporarily if I’m away from home. Not so with the proprietary crap of this age, not at all. If you want to store something, you’d better have the cable for your particular device on you, or be able to acquire one in a flash…or you better not even be considering your “proprietary-connector-enabled” device as a storage option. And let alone people who like having a clean desk with few cables laying around – because you can’t use the same connector for multiple devices, you’re either forced to leave a USB port on your desk, or have all the connectors bunched together in one area and connected to a USB hub so that you can pick-and-choose without having to

I was reading some stories on Digg today and came across a rather interesting comment on one of the stories (don’t ask me to link to it; my history list is a mile long) in which someone pointed out a “standard” with smartphones: you can run third-party applications on them. Oh, wait…let me revise that. You can run third-party applications on non-Apple-iPhone smartphones (at least, stock/non-jailbroken ones) . Where along the line did the definition of smartphone move from an easily-expandable, wide-platform device such as a Palm or (uggh) a Pocket PC to something as shallow as an iPhone? Yes, indeed, standards my ***.

Eons ago, I vowed never again to write an article bashing MySpace or social networking. As you can see, my favorite topic to bash has once again made an appearance. So much for promises…

Judging from the growing popularity of all manner of social networking sites and the increasing rate at which they seem to be introduced, it’s a hard point to make saying they’ll be disappearing anytime soon. For a world that once prided itself in being separate entities, it almost seems as though everyone wants to remove those borders in their attempts to communicate with the world. I’m not just talking about blogging; people of all shapes, colors, nationalities, religions, and any other classification are reaching out not just to each other, but to other people.

Yeah, yeah…your response is a resounding “No s**t”, right? The funny thing though, is that even though better, more polished options continue to be released, people still continue to flock to the big names like Facebook and MySpace. My question is, why go for the bottom of the barrel when there are much more suitable and professional options available?

If I may, I’ve compiled a list of what I feel are the biggest reasons why people seem to flock to the crappier solutions.

1. Popularity. Yes, the user count. The number of people who actively use the service and have accounts. For places like MySpace, I would not be suprised that the service has more members than there are people in the world. Why? For starters, people seem to enjoy creating bogus profiles in the names of their friends, enemies, and even random people they meet on the street, either making them seem like they’re better people than they actually are, or defiling them into a smoldering pile of garbage.

   Of course, there are more than your average users. How about the numerous people who sit around scamming people out of their passwords and e-mail addresses simply by recreating a login form in the image of the site they’re on. I mean, how stupid do people have to be to not realize that even web development today has evolved beyond inserting your username and password into the URL string or having to enter them every time you want to do something. Or, while I’m mentioning URLs, the fact that most sites have a “login” domain or similar for just this purpose.

2. Customization. Sure, flashing backgrounds that alternate between bright pink and lime green might look cool to you, but to most people they merely trigger their epilepsy. There’s a reason the “smarter” sites only give you one theme, or a choice of a few predesigned ones. They look well with other profiles, and they don’t drive anyone blind trying to read the text. Not to mention it (again) makes things too easy for people to make fake pages. In short: Not everyone’s a designer; that’s why you hire professionals to make sure things look good rather than trying to do everything yourself…especially when you don’t have an eye for it.
3. Friends and the Popularity Contest (not to be confused completely with number 1). Why would someone join a service that their friends are not all on, and that they can’t use to prove to their friends that they’re the most popular person they know? What’s more disturbing is that this popularity isn’t all based upon real friends either; it’s a mess of random people asking others to indicate their friendship merely out of trust and a desire to increase their numbers. After all, who needs friends like these? And those are just the tip of the iceburg; I’m sure everyone is friends with a pair of ladies’ panties or someone who appears in the same picture displayed on a few different profiles (single person, aka portrait, not group photo where it might actually make some sense…)
4. Backend and Coding Language [geeky]. Why is it that the crappiest sites need to be written in such a way that always causes them to break? MySpace is example numero uno, complete with buggy scripts that need to constantly be “updated” by Tom to handle the constant breakage that occurs. Now, for sites like Adobe’s where they use ColdFusion (even though the site doesn’t exactly look the best) and there are probably just as many hits per day on the same script, I’d like to know why MySpace can’t keep their stuff working. It’s not a server problem, and bulletins don’t just start posting their f**king damn selves for no reason…it’s called write the code so it works, and don’t introduce “bugs” into it so you can claim it’s dead and take it down for a while. For example, Pownce is still in beta, and it hasn’t once given me trouble, unlike my MySpace account (Note: Notice that MySpace ISN’T beta?) which suddenly began informing me that all the friends in my list were banned last night as I was flipping through old bulletins. Maybe it’s just me, but people seem to find these bugs almost attractive. I’m drawn to stuff that seems odd or out of place, but I don’t mean in poorly-coded computer-oriented areas; I mean real-life stuff.
5. Sharing. Sharing information. Sharing files. Sharing…well, anything that might be interesting or necessary. And in one respect, the bigger the site, the easier it is to find anything you’re looking for with fewer problems. Ironically, I’ve yet to see anyone allow the sharing of anything beyond an MP3 and the entire contents of one’s phone book. But it seems for some concepts (ideally, the ones most people don’t bother with, but would be more interesting to someone with interests outside the realms of looking like a complete idiot) people looking for such a sharing capability are lost. Take MySpace’s new download section, for instance. Sounds like a great place for a freeware developer like myself to be – all these people running amok – it’s any traffic analyst’s dream…right? Yeah, right…take one look at the utilities on that page and explain to me just what reason a person needs to see a list of downloads for that stuff for. Why can’t people, erm…share…their work…even if it’s made of bits and bytes of assembly, script, or anything along that line? (Admittedly, it might be a security measure, but all the same it could be set up so that people can add to those lists if their software passes some sort of inspection.)

Alright, I think I’ve gone on enough. And considering I didn’t keep my promise this time around, chances are there are several more articles that will be posted. But that’s a post for a different day altogether.

It’s not uncommon for thieves to eye up anything they can swap around for a quick buck on eBay. Sunglasses, electronics…anything they can get a decent price for to make it worth their deal. And the worst part is that for the most part, these transactions are untraceable – unless the victim notes the serial number, and sees that serial number in a picture on eBay, chances are it’ll be across the country in a week.

One of the biggest “cash cows” for thieves is an iPod. In short, that Apple “luxury” you get when you overpay for the damn thing is only lining the thief’s pocket with even more green when they steal it and try to turn it around for cash. Exhibit A: 8072 listings (at time of posting) in the Apple iPod category on eBay. Now, I’m no expert, but usually when so many people are getting rid of something, most of them are either illegitimate or the product sucks and people can’t get a refund. (I wouldn’t be suprised if it was that second option, even though I know for a fact it isn’t; they’re decent devices, but there are better products for cheaper that can do so much more, and with a lot more expandability. However, now’s not the time for me to tangent into this. Maybe next post…)

That’s why when Apple proposed a way to disable the iPods from charging when they’re used on a computer they’re not supposed to be, I came to wonder what the f*** the Cupertino crew’s thinking. Sure, iPods are great targets for thieves, but implementing something like that is just asking for problems. I’ve got plenty of real-life scenarios, too.

1. At my (old) high school, most computer classes (and some others) allowed the use of MP3 players when the students were to be working on projects (which, in reality, was at least 75% of the time).

   Now, seeing as these are teenagers who don’t charge anything up unless it doesn’t even turn on, these people needed a way to power their players when they ran dry. And with a computer sitting right in front of you (99% of them being a Mac, no less), what better way than by plugging the thing in?I’m not questioning this practice; I actually see it as a sign that the students are “exploiting” their surroundings (in a good way), so to speak. But if the next generation iPods are going to check that the computer is theirs before even bothering to charge, you’re going to find that the students start to get mightily ticked off when that so-called “guardian circuit” is set off and their iPod becomes a very expensive “luxury” paperweight.
   

2. What happens when you buy a new computer, or have to do some serious renovation to your current one as the result of some damaged or failing hardware? Windows makes you reinstall, some of your applications might need another license purchased; in short, it’s a lot to deal with just getting the computer up and running. But now let’s add a new iPod into that, after the thing follows Windows in saying “This isn’t the same computer – buy a new license.”
3. Some people sync players between multiple computers; some they own, some they merely play the songs off the iPod while they work there (which is something the kids at school also did). While I assume that computers sharing the authorization on an account would share a code, what would become of the iPod when the fun-loving, music-seeking soul brings their player to the library?
4. I’d love to see a “security code” that matches the user’s computer manufactured into a wall charger a third-party accessory like a boombox. Those things aren’t ever going to be receiving authorization codes for iTunes, so plugging an iPod into one of those would be like forcing your player to commit suicide.

The worst part? If this actually gets implemented into anything, chances are other companies will follow with similar (though obviously not violating the patent) solutions. The same “monkey see, monkey do” approach Microsoft and Apple share when it comes to new OS features. Pretty soon it won’t be an MP3 market anymore so much as a “music brick”. And the fact that this is a hardware approach, buried so deep into the player as it is, certifies that while people won’t be circumventing this with any ease, any user with the know-how to repair it, well…can’t. It’s like putting Lo-Jack on a car and finding that the police arrest you for being in possession of the Lo-Jack-enabled car, “hot” or not.

Remember the famous saying? “Locks only keep honest people honest.” That wasn’t referring to any digital lock…that was referring to physical security locks like on a door. Digital locks like this novel theft deterrent, and even plainer and more simply, DRM, aren’t the ideal solution in this day and age.

A better idea, or one that would at least require far more know-how to deal with, would be to build the protection into the firmware in such a way that the user needs to enter a PIN (from the box, maybe, or displayed when they first authorize the iPod for the first time, or maybe user-set at initial setup) and needs to be used to charge and/or sync the device. This code would be embedded permanently into non-rewritable memory (preferrably encrypted, checksummed, and all that jazz to prevent tampering), would resist resetting with one of the Apple factory resets. Not only would that require an extreme amount of skill to remove by anyone other than an Apple techie, but it’d ensure the device could only be used by anyone who had the code.

Oh, and did I mention that it should be optional to set up, to avoid any outcry of people inconvenienced by their ATM code from avoiding the product. In this way, users can pick either the antitheft system, and a slight inconvenience, or ignore the security to avoid the hassle. Let the paranoid have their security, and let the lazy have their hurdle-less sync.

Enough rambling. Apple, if by some extremely odd chance you’re reading, I could use a bit of cash.

Of course, it’s that time of the year. All the graduated high school seniors are busy picking up things they think they’ll need at their college of choice.

Now, you’re probably wondering what I have to do with this. It’s simple…I’m the local geek, so everyone flocks to me for suggestions on PCs. And as usual, everyone wants the best machine available on the oh-so-great college-bound budget.

So I figured I’d take some of the real-world examples I’ve run into and throw them into a post full of suggestions. Take heed; most of these will probably pertain for at least a few years down the road.

So, without further ado, I present my “two slashes”…

1. The biggest tip, and consequently numero uno, is to avoid overbuying. As a student, I understand that you’re going to want to use a machine for more than just research papers, but there are limits. Remember that this will have limited usefulness in the long run, and most machines have a lifespan of between three and five years. Yes, it’ll run longer, but by that time you’re going to be hard-pressed to be able to do anything with it. If you can get away with a slower CPU, less RAM, and ten GB less hard drive space, do it.
2. When in doubt, ask. No, not the salesperson. Someone with experience. Like me. Alright, maybe someone you know more personally (if you know anyone like that), but it’s always better to get a seasoned opinion.
3. AVOID APPLE. Yes, I just put a shotgun to the heads of countless Apple fanatics, and I’m probably going to be bludgeoned the next time I step outside. No, I don’t care. Reasoning: For the same price as the lowest build of MacBook, I can have a better-specced notebook machine for $799. Yeah, bigger screen, better hard drive, full burner, and everything. And, thanks to the power of OSx86, I could have my cake and eat it too. Apple’s customer support is alright (if you don’t mind waiting in lines at the Geek Bar at the local Apple Store), and you do have Parallels and Boot Camp at this point. But why not take the extra $200 and buy yourself a nice minifridge or something instead. If you want a white laptop that bad, there’s a $5 can of spray paint at the hardware store you can use. Just make sure to do it right.
4. It might be wise to spring for both a portable and desktop machine. Having the all-mighty notebook is nice…but if it breaks you’re going to be S.O.L. until you can get it replaced. If at all possible, it’s probably wisest for you to split the budget and do both a desktop and laptop setup. If you do it right, you can sync the two up filewise, so you don’t lose anything. And hell, if you’re trying to look for a gaming laptop, it will be a lot better to get the cheapest non-gaming, school-work-only laptop you can get and trick out a desktop instead. (Believe me, touchpad Unreal Tournament matches are not the best way to play.)
5. The frills usually aren’t worth it. I don’t care if you’re getting a free mousepad with every $300 you spend. I’ve heard several firsthand accounts of people getting talked into turning a sub-$1000 laptop into a $4000 cash cow. Follow along with the bullet below, and take advantage of everything you can to get what you need, but don’t spend a penny on useless extras like a photo printer or MP3 player dock for a player you don’t own unless it pertains to you or what you’ll be using with the PC.
6. SHOP AROUND. I can’t tell you how many times I myself have slapped myself for not doing this, but believe me, it’s worth the hassle. If you can hunt around and find a cheaper price, do it. Especially if you’ve got your mind set on a model, and the price is just a tad too high. Take advantage of price matching, free/reduced-cost shipping, and anything else that might help you get what you want for the cheapest price. Remember, you’re trying to save the money for other parts of your education, not get your wallet gouged. (I’d also say lie/cheat/steal here, but not only am I talking about things legitimately, it would be against my morals to encourage you to go around thieving. If you’re thinking it…get it out of your head.)
7. Built-in Wi-Fi (on a notebook) is a must. At this point, anything without a Wi-Fi card is a poor notebook indeed. There are just too many free hotspots available.
8. If you just can’t afford it new, go (gently) used. Inevitably, there’s going to be someone who just can’t afford the shiniest, even if it’s $200. In that case, turn to sites like eBay and Craigslist and see what people there can offer you. Remember to watch the cost though; if you aren’t paying attention, the used system is going to cost you more to purchase and maintain than something new. Work with the sellers, see what sacrifices the both of you can make. Some sellers will be more flexible than others, while others will be as rigid as the Sears Tower and not give you any leeway, so use your head.
9. Extended warranties are not always the best warranties. That’s how the majority of companies make money. And again, consider the average lifespan (3-5 years) and the progression of technology. If you’re clumsy to no end, sure, I’d recommend it simply because you might trip up the stairs while holding your laptop with one hand and a book in the other because you lost your balance. If you’re at least semi-protective of your belongings, you’ll be just fine.
10. Compare retail stores against well-known online stores. Yes, just because you got a deal at Best Buy means you got a deal at Best Buy. Check all of the competition and see what you can do. (Yes, this ties with #6.) A most-certainly-incomplete list of places to check:
    • Best Buy
    • Circuit City
    • Outpost/Fry’s Electronics
    • Staples
    • Office Depot
    • Office Max
    • TigerDirect
    • Newegg
    • Manufacturer’s websites (Dell, HP/Compaq, Toshiba, Apple, IBM/Lenovo, etc.)
    • Any Mom-and-Pop shops in your area
11. If after all this, you’re going to be using a system you already have, at least reformat it and reinstall the operating system.

I’d normally get into a discussion at this point about the best operating system for you (Windows, Linux, BSD, OS X, OS/2…), but that’s a no-brainer, as for most people it’s going to be Windows out of sheer compatibility and (to be greedy and personal) because I write software for it. If you’ve already gone too far and got something made by a company whose name and logo bear resemblance to fruit, go with Parallels and Boot Camp as I discussed back up there. If you’re an intrepid explorer, dual or triple boot Windows, OS X, and some flavor of Linux (I’m preferential to Ubuntu and Kubuntu myself.). Have fun with it, especially if you can find ways to use it to reduce your cost. I’ll add this though. Unless you’re buying new and it comes with it, there’s very little reason to get Windows Vista, and for your sake you’ll probably be better with Windows XP for the moment. This recommendation will probably change in about a year or two, but for the moment and with a look at the current outlook and available software, it’s the best (read: safest) option as far as I’m concerned.

(And for those of you who think I was paid to write this or something…I wasn’t. This is all straight from the horse’s mouth, prompted by the countless questions I’ve been asked, and written with no more bias than I usually have. )

So everyone’s up in arms about this entire Apple iPhone deal. I say big deal, it’s another flashy gadget. Everyone was the same way back when Handspring released the Treo (yes, I’m talking before their Palm/palmOne/Palm buyout/merger), or (to a lesser extent) when Danger released the Sidekick.

Gizmodo decided to take a survey or something and guess what the ideal demographic for iPhone users would be. To sum their findings up, the ideal iPhone target is a well-educated (read: college graduate) male around the age of 31, probably living in New York or California, and definitely interested in leaving T-Mobile. In an odd way, it makes sense, but I’m still saying that it’s bullsh*t for various reasons, all phone-related as opposed to user-related.

The first reason I can think of is that brandishing a very expensive, very hard-to-get phone is just like hanging a ‘Pickpocket Me’ sign over your back. Obviously, you’ve got at least a phone that’ll get the pickpocket several hundred bucks on eBay (potentially more than you paid, if it’s close to the launch date), and chances are if you’re brandishing one of those, you can afford a few other luxuries with the cash and credit cards stuffed into that just-won’t-shut wallet of yours. Or should I say, the pickpocket’s?

The next reason isn’t so much concerned with cost as it is for what you’re buying. We’re talking about a device that doesn’t just have a basic calculator, but has the means to do your taxes, calculate mortgage rates for all the top banks, and play Bono songs back to you all at the same time. While combining a few different devices is cool, a la the Swiss Army Knife, this borders ridiculous in the implementation. Let me explain.

Alright, take your basic desktop PC. Tower and monitor. Alright, now take that to laptop form. Suddenly, your data’s portable, right? Now, take that laptop, miniaturize or get rid of the keyboard altogether, and give the thing a small touchscreen, and now you’ve got a PDA. Three different machines, all accomplishing the same or similar thing: holding your data and allowing you to manipulate it or view it. These three stages sound good…but then everyone has to cram the PDA’s touchscreen into the laptop (tablet PC), cram desktop power into that same laptop (the monster-sized 20″ desktop-replacement laptops that have about 25 minutes of battery life and get hot enough to cook eggs on), and make that desktop PC wireless (Wi-Fi, Wireless USB, etc.).

So everything’s already a mess, right? Let’s stack the Origami project on top. Now you have a machine that’s not quite pocket-small (unless you’re wearing a pair of cargo pants), with a touchscreen and the full power of a desktop. Wait…sounds familiar right? Sounds just like my PDA, only instead of that basic OMAP processor, I’ve got a f**king Pentium 4 in my hand in something that vaguely resembles a Sega GameGear. Funny thing is, the iPhone doesn’t look that far off either. And it’s definitely more than it should be crammed into a not-so-one-handed package.

Also in line with that is the usability. You’re taking the keypad everyone is oh-so-used to, and replacing it with a touchscreen. Scrolling through the contacts? Touchscreen. Navigating menus? Touchscreen. And the icing on the cake: browsing the web…all by touch. The thing is so touch-oriented they had to add a proximity sensor so you don’t hang the blasted thing up with the side of your face while you’re talking up your wife/boss/multimillion-dollar client. And the very concept of the bare-skin touchscreen needs thought. Even my PDA screen gets pretty nasty, and that’s with a stylus involved. I can’t imagine what’s going to get all over it from someone’s finger when it swipes directly across the length of the screen.

Another point coming to mind is expandability. Unlike some current-generation video game console-makers (*cough* all of them *cough*), MP3 player makers (*ahem* Apple’s a good example, among others), and other various people I could go on to mention, you’ll notice that they’ve actually opened the thing up to limited third-party development. Oh yes, you’ll be able to expand with more official Apple apps as well, but those aren’t sandboxed up the way the third-party offerings are going to be. I smell a virus target in the making. How does a flock of f**king iPhones DDoSing your web server sound? I bet it happens sooner or later. And this also begs the question of why they’re using OS X as the basis for it either. It’s not your MacBook. It shouldn’t be running an OS that requires over 500 MB of storage space to be installed; for comparison my PDA has 32 MB for EVERYTHING, including user storage space (although admittedly there’s an SD card crammed into the thing too for various things).

I digress.  Once again, I’m not convinced that ANYONE needs this. If anything, it’s too far ahead, and would have been better off held a few years. I’m sticking with the cheapest phone that suits my needs, my (dying ) Palm Tungsten T2, and my Zen MicroPhoto.