I continue to be amazed at the things we have available to us - we generally live in the future. But every once in a while the past intrudes with full force. As in when I tried to connect an HTC Evo to a Mac laptop with a USB cable to transfer a bunch of video. At first, I got absolutely nothing. Then I went into settings on the Evo to discover that there is a setting to change the USB connection from “charging only” to “mount." Easy, I thought, until I noticed a pop-up on the Mac saying "Unr...

I continue to be amazed at the things we have available to us - we generally live in the future. But every once in a while the past intrudes with full force. As in when I tried to connect an HTC Evo to a Mac laptop with a USB cable to transfer a bunch of video. At first, I got absolutely nothing. Then I went into settings on the Evo to discover that there is a setting to change the USB connection from “charging only” to “mount." Easy, I thought, until I noticed a pop-up on the Mac saying "Unr...

I had been using a Panasonic Toughbook W2 for about 6 years and it was a great machine for that time. It was light (3 lbs), fairly full featured and robust. But of course it ran Windows with all the problems that entails. So I had been wanting to switch to a Mac for a while, but all the MacBooks were too heavy. Then came the Air, but it made too many compromises for someone who was hoping to keep this new machine for another 5-6 year (sealed battery?). Now I am writing this on my brand spanki...

I had been using a Panasonic Toughbook W2 for about 6 years and it was a great machine for that time. It was light (3 lbs), fairly full featured and robust. But of course it ran Windows with all the problems that entails. So I had been wanting to switch to a Mac for a while, but all the MacBooks were too heavy. Then came the Air, but it made too many compromises for someone who was hoping to keep this new machine for another 5-6 year (sealed battery?). Now I am writing this on my brand spanki...

On Friday at GEL 2009, I met Thomas Deng, a co-founder of DeviceVM which makes Splashtop. Then on Saturday, I noticed a ZDNet story on Techmeme about Presto. Both Splashtop and Presto are so-called instant-on solutions which are essentially miniature Linux distros that boot in a couple of seconds and give you a web browser with Internet access and a few other goodies. My comment to Thomas was something like “that’s impressive” when I found out how many PCs had shipped with Splashtop. But then...

On Friday at GEL 2009, I met Thomas Deng, a co-founder of DeviceVM which makes Splashtop. Then on Saturday, I noticed a ZDNet story on Techmeme about Presto. Both Splashtop and Presto are so-called instant-on solutions which are essentially miniature Linux distros that boot in a couple of seconds and give you a web browser with Internet access and a few other goodies. My comment to Thomas was something like “that’s impressive” when I found out how many PCs had shipped with Splashtop. But then...