Daily Absurdities

Well my little Toshiba had quite enough of me last night as I dropped it again for the 12th time in 2 months. I think it was a subconscious effort on my part as I’ve been waiting to try out a Sony. I bought a new one today and day 1 seems to be going OK.

The mobile computer industry is really in dire straits. Laptop sales are down across the board and major electronics stores are closing branches or business entirely. The only companies that seem to have dedicated locations anymore are Apple and Sony.

Enter the “netbook”.

It’s not necessarily that laptop demand is down – demand is the same as it’s always been, and it’s being met by the netbook. The netbook is a small, almost pocket-PC that enables users to check email and perform up to three processes at a time. Where they lack in power they make up in size and price. They generally run $200-$400, and in this economic climate they are the perfect product to meet demand.

This is the direction you’re going to see mobile computing go in. Aside from tech professionals and users requiring high-end processing, most mobile computers are going to be dumbed down versions of the previous power-laptops. We are also going to see a return to desktop computing.

You heard it here first.

Last night we found ourselves riding around the entire island in a pickup bed on the way home from the 1/2 moon party. Pretty overrated party but the view from the bed was incredible – every star in the sky. I fell asleep on the beach last night and slept better than I have in ages.

Thanks to Justin for figuring out this feature on the camera (my version shown):

Koh Phangan Sunset from URL Venture on Vimeo.

I finally got to play this wonderful game. They took something from the Tekken/Virtua Fighter engine. They had to or the game wouldn’t have been successful.

Great game though. I was impressed with the characters and the loyalty to the old control style. In fact I went 2 rounds to 3 against a local who’d been playing the game for quite some time.

They have signs for every conceivable thing they don’t want you to do here. Don’t expect to fly your radio controlled planes here. Helicopters, sure, but they’ll be damned if they’ll have planes flying around.