It’s human nature to be skeptical of newfangled gadgets. Even for a technophile like me, I’ve been slow to adopt some things I can’t see a use for. I was cellphone-less until the late 90s, when my brother, frustrated he couldn’t reach me when I was out, finally bought me a Nokia 5110 for Christmas. I quickly came to rely on it, but kept that same old phone for 5 years because I didn’t see a need to upgrade. I used to actively resist the newfangled phones that had cameras built in. “All I need to do is sometimes make a phone call,” I used to say. (Now I have a Blackberry, and I can’t even understand the logic of anyone NOT using a smart phone.)

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Win the Lime Medium Tango Flow bag above! Leave a comment at the bottom of this review.

It dawned on me recently that I almost never go anywhere without my laptop and all its associated gear. I’m like a jockey (a very large jockey): I basically have to weigh in with my 15-pound saddle. I take it to the bookstore, the coffee shop, to our favorite local pub that has free wifi, on trips, and anywhere I know I’ll be able to do some work. And boy, does my back pay the price.

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It’s now been 3 weeks since I was forced to buy a laptop to replace my Sony Vaio.  I ended up going with a Mac because of the superior hardware specs and the option to run OSX while still keeping XP on the same machine. Was it a good decision? I am still trying to decide.

It took me at least 2 weeks of INTENSE frustration to get used to some of the things that are different/worse. My fingers had a hard time getting used to all the new keystrokes, and I spent forever just trying to find stuff or match the functionality of my old Sony. When I used XP on it, the keyboard and trackpad was so  incredibly annoying that I resorted to a bluetooth keyboard just to be able to get anything done. And the multi-touch trackpad works like ass in Bootcamp (there are, as yet, no drivers that Apple has put out for XP. You can’t double-tap, and when you click, the cursor jumps.)

Plus, I have hundreds of dollars worth of Type 1 fonts that won’t work on the Mac. Although Adobe will crossgrade software from Windows to Mac at no charge, they won’t upgrade your Type 1 fonts to cross-platform Opentype. So I’m stuck with some of my best fonts that will only work in XP.

So here’s my partial list of pros and cons, in no particular order:

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I wonder why nobody ever thought of this before. HP recently won the WalMart Design Challenge to reduce environmental impact by selling their HP Pavilion dv6929wm Entertainment Notebook PC in its own messenger bag rather than in a box, thereby reducing packaging waste by 97%. The bag guards the laptop during shipping and are placed directly on the shelves that way. It’s a win for customers, for HP, and for the environment! The only downside is that you have to shop at WalMart to get one!

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Last week we, bought an 8gb iPod Touch ($229 from Fry’s) for my Irish father-in-law’s upcoming 80th birthday. We loaded it with a bunch of his favorite old music, family photos and videos from the trips we’ve been on together. And we’re bringing it to our son’s wedding next month to add wedding photos, and a special video of everyone singing happy birthday and giving him birthday wishes.

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ChaCha is one of the most fun and useful things for my cell phone I’ve found in a while. It’s kind of like a human Google: simply send a text message from your phone to 242242 (chacha), and within minutes, a live human texts back the answer. No registration required, and it’s free (except for whatever your cell phone provider might charge you for text messages)! It’s easier than googling because you don’t have to worry about putting in the perfect search query, or wading through bunches of possible matches. And texting is much faster than using a browser on your cell phone.

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