After mentioning my handheld of choice in a previous blog entry “Don’t need no Notebook”, some may be wondering why I’m using such an outdated handheld. Instead of the Tungsten C maybe I should be using the Palm TX, which was first released as recently as October of 2005. After all the TX has Bluetooth as well as 802.11b Wi-Fi, and double the memory of the Tungsten C.

My response, one word: QWERTY.

The Palm TX does not have a QWERTY thumbboard. Instead, it uses the Graffiti 2 handwriting recognition system. After owning various Palm handhelds over the years, I am not averse to Graffiti, although I prefer the original Graffiti to the litigation-inspired Graffiti 2. However, I can type a lot faster with the thumbboard than I can write, even with Graffiti 1. External Bluetooth or infrared keyboards are available, but they really detract from the portability of the Palm handheld.

There are not many Palm-OS based handhelds with a thumbboard. A number of Sony Clies have keyboards, like the Sony Clie UX50. As with the more recent Sony Clies, the UX50 is hard to find, and new ones sell for a premium. The UX50 was first released in September 2003, the same year as the Tungsten C. Accessories are expensive and hard to come by. So what are my alternatives?

This may surprise you, but I’m not the most stylish person you’d know. Yes, although I’ve visited the fashion capitols of the world — Paris, London, Milan, New York — I’ve yet to succumb to their trendy allures. I mostly go for the food.

But this year may be a first. This year, maybe I’ll turn in my frequent buyer card from the Gap, start paying more attention to Ashley Heaton’s glamorous blog, “Chic Shopper,” right here on PriceGrabber.com and consider using moisturizer on my skin more often.

But I realize that these kinds of changes can be a shock to the system if you take them too fast. That’s why I’ll start slowly — by upgrading the skin my notebook wears. I stopped by the Case Logic booth at CES and checked out its latest line of “shuttles,” reversible sleeves that fit over a computer to give it padding when it’s rattling around inside your attaché or knapsack.

Since the newest line is reversible, you can have two different colors or patterns to coordinate with your shoes. Best, they’re made of neoprene. The way I figure it, if this synthetic rubber can keep divers mostly safe from great white sharks, it’s sure to protect your precious electronics. If that’s not enough, surely, the external “PowerPocket,” which can hold your extra gear, will convince you.

Now, if I could just learn not to trip on the runway…

The MacBook Air was announced at MacWorld this week. Apple calls it the “world’s thinnest notebook.”.
A nice thin ultraportable notebook from Apple, I thought. No, CNET says “The MacBook Air is not quite an ultraportable”, while PCWorld and other sites compare it with “other ultraportables”.
Controversy? Confusion? Hot Air?

I’m not going to try to figure out whether or not it meets some definition for an ultraportable. Even if it isn’t ultraportable, it is still pretty neat, a small, thin notebook. Oh, apparently it is not the thinnest notebook ever, according to CNET.

The specs have been mentioned on just about every tech website out there. The most notable is the trackpad which can recognize multi-touch gestures just like the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch. Now that is a trackpad and a half.

On the downside the MacBook Air doesn’t have a user replaceable battery, which is a serious omission for a notebook. Also, it is so thin that an optical drive just could not be squeezed in. An external optical drive is available from Apple for a mere $99.

Among the ultraportable competitors to the Air, the Sony VAIO TZ150N/B Notebook has a built-in DVD writer, a fingerprint reader, 100 GB hard drive and media card reader. It weighs in at 2.7 pounds, just under the MacBook Air’s 3 pounds.

IRIS has released a new pen.

Oh, big deal, you might be thinking to yourself. Just what the world needs — another pen! But I’m telling you, if you were Maxwell Smart, you’d be mightily interested, because this is no ordinary pen. This is a scanning pen — the kind that you can easily hide in your sleeve. Then when you go to visit the headquarters of some conniving organization that plans to take over the world and the chief meanie excuses himself or herself to get you a cup of tea or maybe a glass of water, you can pull out your IRISPen and do some quick scanning of whatever ultra-secret plans you find on his or her desk. And once again, the world will be saved only through your unsung efforts.

Of course, in the demo I saw at CES, the pen was attached to a computer via a USB cable. So you’ll have to hide one of those up your sleeve too.

But here’s how it works. The pen digitizes information contained in paper documents. You simply run its tip along the line of text you want scanned. The text — letters, number, symbols — shows up on the screen at the cursor position in whatever application you’re using.

The newest version of the pen, IRISPen 6, has enhancements, including a wizard for creating different user profiles, a redesigned interface and a greatly expanded list of languages that it recognizes.

It comes in three models, the Express, the Executive and the Translator, each priced differently and intended for a different user. And if time is tight, relax! This device will recognize up to 3.15 inches per second, plenty fast when it comes to saving the world.

Sony has officially announced VoIP (voice over IP) for the Sony PlayStation Portable. Unfortunately owners of the original Sony PSP “1001″ model like myself are excluded, as this will only work with the new updated Slim PSP model. Somehow visions come to mind of holding the 6.7 inch by 2.8 inch PSP awkwardly to your ear, like the first generation Nokia nGage. Of course VoIP will most likely require a headset with a microphone.

Although the updated Slim (aka Slim and Lite) PSP has several enhancements which improve the gaming experience it is not a “must have” upgrade.

The Sony PSP is already a multifunction device, with the ability to play videos and music as well as browse the internet. It is rather large to use as an MP3 Player, even though the Memory Stick Pro Duo media is currently available in capacities up to 8GB. I’ve watched a couple of video clips on my PSP, and the screen is excellent. Of course, having the Sony Media Manager to copy the video files in the right format to the right directory on the Memory stick (with the right filename) helps. Mostly though, I play games on it. Slow load times aside, this is where the PSP excels - and I’ve played with a number of different handheld gaming consoles, each with its own unique qualities.

Are you picky about your keyboard? I’m the type of user who needs a keyboard that *clicks*. If it doesn’t *click*, the tiny brains in my finger tips don’t believe they’ve done their job, and the brains in my eyeballs have to go to the page to see what I’ve actually typed. Also, don’t be moving the Del key on me. You do that and your keyboard becomes a dust-catcher in my closet.

But aside from that, I’m happy.

Or at least I was until I saw the Mother-of-All-Keyboards at CES.

It won’t be available from resellers until March, but you’re getting the word now because I like you. It’s called the Optimus Maximus keyboard and you can only buy it if you speak Latin. No, that’s not true. You can only buy it if you are willing to spend $1,500.

That’s right. That new car,. The Nano, from Tata Motors in India is priced at only $1,000 more than this keyboard, which comes from Art Lebedev Studio in Moscow, Russia.

Now, I know that everybody in Russia is rolling in the dough. You just have to look at the luxurious hats Russians wear to realize that. But this keyboard is truly for the Paris Hiltons of the world. Or it would be if only Paris Hilton were more of a geek.

So why is this keyboard so pricey? Because every single key on it is a stand-alone display. Imagine a tiny monitor that shows exactly what function the key is dedicated to. Looking for a way to integrate a little Cyrillic or Ancient Greek into your everyday blogging? Dedicate some of those keys to the more obscure layouts you need to use. That also includes HTML code, math functions, images — anything you can configure in a 48×48 pixel space through the keyboard’s software.

It runs on Windows XP and Vista. If you’re a Mac user, don’t feel left out. It’ll run with Mac OS X 10.4.8 or higher. Just needs a USB port to plug in.

I was going to take my family on a special vacation this year. But maybe those funds will have to be diverted to office supplies instead… Sorry, son.

At CES 2008 last week Dell announced an update to the high-end XPS M1530 laptop. Now if I did need a notebook, the current late-2007 edition of the Dell XPS M1530 would actually do me fine. This model is the 15 inch version of the Dell XPS M1330 notebook, and has been described by CNET as “the best-looking 15-inch laptop we’ve seen in a long time”.

The M1530 is available in a choice of colors: Alpine White, Tuxedo Black, Crimson Red and Midnight Blue - though somehow I would go for the Black or maybe the Midnight Blue.

Now, the important stuff. The M1530’s technical specifications include a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo Processor, 2GB RAM (upgradeable to 4GB), NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics with 128MB or 256MB Video RAM and a hard drive which can be configured from 120GB to 200GB. A 64GB Solid State Drive (Flash Memory) is also available instead of the hard drive. It has slot-loading dual-layer DVD writer, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI output, integrated media (card) reader and my favorite, a biometric finger-print security system.

Then there is Dell “MediaDirect” for one-touch access to movies, pictures and music without booting up Windows. Cynics may dismiss this as turning a Notebook into an expensive Portable DVD Player, but this is one feature I know I would use. The touch-sensitive media buttons also look cool.

There is nothing like a few days at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to persuade you that your life is nothing — nothing! — without a high-def, flat-panel plasma TV at least as wide as the front porch on your double-wide mobile home.

Of course, in my case, I fear that installing the world’s largest version of these — a 150-inch monster shown off by Panasonic at the event — would not only require re-engineering the framing of the entire structure of my house, but would also probably cause my retinas to ignite and my brain to seize up in a form of encephalitic shock induced by too much exposure to Howie Mandel’s head on Deal or No Deal.

No, this Clifford-the-Big-Red-Dog-sized display isn’t for sale yet. That’ll happen sometime in the undated future. So you’ll just have to settle for a more modest size, say, 65 inches.

What does a TV have to do with computers? Absolutely nothing. But now that Comdex is dead, the tech event we computer journalists must do pilgrimage to on an annual basis is CES. I know. Don’t thank me.

And when you go to CES, you get to look at a lot of TVs. In fact, if I see one more herd of XXL-sized business men in dark suits casually blocking the aisles in front of a wide-screen TV, trying to look like they’re composing business while really catching Mission Impossible III with the sound turned up too loud, I’m going to thrust my head into an aquarium. (Yes, there were lots of those around too — to show off the water-resistant bodies of the new breed of digital cameras for active living.)

But I promise, over the next month, while I sort through my voluminous notes, I’ll be sharing the most interesting new computer products I saw at the show. Some are even worth buying.

Notebook computers have been outselling Desktop computers for several years now. I quite like the idea of a Notebook PC, especially since there seems to be so much more choice when it comes to Notebooks. Yet right now I would choose a Desktop computer over a Notebook. It is not just because of my home computer setup - a few Desktop computers, two monitors and two KVM switches. In fact I do a lot of mobile computing, it’s just that I don’t need a laptop to do it.
 
Okay, confession time; I’m a Palm user. Before all the Windows Mobile fans out there protest, yes I also have a trusty Dell Axim X30 Pocket PC which I use for wirelessly browsing the internet. Also, my current smartphone is a T-Mobile Dash which runs Windows Mobile. 

My mobile computing device of choice at the moment is a Palm Tungsten C, first released in 2003. Its main positives are a 64MB memory, a fast processor and a QWERTY keyboard, and the fact that it fits in a pocket. Although it does have wireless, I rarely use it because the Axim is better at browsing the Internet. With the Tungsten C I can jot down notes basically wherever I am (except in the car, that’s to dangerous), and edit Word and Excel documents on the go.
So, I really don’t need a notebook, not quite yet anyway

Golly, the year is flying by. Before I know it, Valentine’s Day will have arrived, and yet again, I’ll be without a gift for my sweetie. This year, I swear to be ready! I already have something in mind for my night owl — a unique garment that reflects the special penchant she has for staying up into the wee hours tapping away on her computer with nary a distraction from the rest of the household…