Category Archives: Technology

That Doggie CPU in the Window

DoggieForget the iMac, this is the cutest — and funniest — computer that I have ever seen.

I spotted it in Bangkok while I was there over the weekend, at Pantip Plaza, which is a six-story shopping mall brimming with computer hardware and software of all sorts. This “Doggie” CPU enclosure is for sale to build-your-own-PC gearheads with a soft spot for cartoony animals. There was a “Kittie” too, but I’m kind of a dog person, myself.

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New Crop

I guess everyone loves the new Apple Titanium PowerBook G4, just announced on Tuesday. I admit that’s a slick little laptop, but I have to reserve judgement until I see the actual thing, up close and personal. At a distance, I’m not particularly enamored by its slavish devotion to squarishness. And at 5.3 lbs., I’m not particularly impressed by its weight economy, either.

The big question everyone should be asking is, what the heck is Apple’s long-term gameplan? This may be a fancy little machine, but it still leaves unmet most of the challenges facing the company today&#58 lagging processor speeds, poor price-to-features value, ever-shrinking marketshare. I’ve been down on this company that I care for so greatly for so long now, for the simple reason that the products they’ve delivered have seemed increasingly detached from reality. I know until this year, they’ve actually managed to prosper and show a profit, but I feel like the creativity is a pale ghost of what it once was.

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MacTurncoat

Aside from the fact that it’s a little pokey, the ultra-compact go-anywhereness of my four month old Sony PCG-SR7K VAIO Notebook makes it the best computer I’ve ever owned. The robustness of Windows 2000 has even won me over. It’s sad, but the Macintosh loyalist in me has nearly dwindled away. Hopefully, Apple will refresh their currently moribund product line with dramatically improved hardware that evidences some truly different thinking at Macworld Expo in January. If they don’t, then that’ll likely be the end of my long-running association with the Mac OS.

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