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My thoughts on the Palm Pre SmartphoneToday

So yesterday Palm finally announced it’s impending new next gen smartphone (the Pre) and their next gen OS (WebOS). All the details are not available yet, but let’s just say from the demo and some brief hands on people are excited. Palm needed a winner and it looks like it has one - a new hardware/software platform with all the bells and whistles that seems to put it in the running for 2nd place with RIMM and Android. It copies liberally from the iPhone (which is a good thing) but also moves beyond it in very interesting ways.

But really, why the hell did they call this thing “Pre”? I haven’t seen an explanation for the naming yet, but I see in blog titles all over the place (like this post for example) “Pre Smartphone”. Um… so, it’s before smartphones? I can’t understand the rationale. Sigh.

Anyhow there’s a lot to like on this bad boy. It seems to have a good camera (at least a 3MP) one and even a flash on it, which should make it pretty useful in a wide variety of situations. It has multi-tasking and I read that they expect people to have 10-15 apps open at any given time, which is pretty sweet and implies some nice horsepower.

Also, Palm always had a nice vision of UI, I’d say second only to Apple’s. This time, though, they’ve trumped their alma

Breakfast Links: Deer Invasion, Zoo Funding & 08 Darwin AwardsToday

One time when I was in college chillin’ in the computer lab, a squirrel ran in. I mean, ran in, through the front door, down the hall into the computer lab. That kicked ass, it was freaked out almost as much as the denizens of the lab, running around, jumping off computers, jumping off people… I think someone chased it out eventually. That’s nothing compared to this NJ school that had not one, but two deer jump through a window into the room! That’s gotta kick ass. Then everyone ran the hell out of the room, except the deer and locked ‘em in. Unfortunately for the deer, they didn’t figure out how to jump back out the window and were eventually tranquilized and released. Although, given NJ’s stance on deer, perhaps they were lucky…

You know, I don’t think I have ever thought about zoo funding. Not once. I know, shocking right? But it turns out zoo’s need government funding, I guess ticket prices just don’t pay the bills. Unfortunately, it turns out that in this economic crisis, the government is slashing its funding of zoos. :( via ) Institution

My Thoughts on the reactions to Macworld ‘09Yesterday

So it was the last MacWorld and one without Steve Jobs, no less. I suppose, predictably, the keynote was panned. But really… when’s the last keynote that wasn’t panned? Sure this one wasn’t the greatest keynote ever - not a lot of big announcements - although I like that iLife boost - if face recognition actually works that’ll be genuinely useful (and just a touch scary, if you see where I’m coming from). But whatever.

I was talking to Scott about this and he mentioned a great point - by leaving MacWorld Apple is no longer tied to someone else’s schedule to have to have great products ready by. They are now free to have special events as they wish when the products are good and ready. The press coverage will be the same, so they only gain from this. Also, as I tweeted shortly after the keynote when I checked the stock price - unlike the past oh so many keynotes the stock did not rise precipitously leading up to the presentation and the fall dramatically during and afterwards. A mild uptick and a mild downtick. Seems like a good deal for the shareholders, too.

Nevertheless, I’ve seen a few posts saying how Apple’s done. Schiller sucks. No one’s left to run the boat after Steve Jobs steps down. Take Rubel’s post on

Breakfast Links: Boy v. City Council, Free Somnambulist & Free PrisonerYesterday

In a great underdog story, an 11 year old boy had studied the law for 3 years and then presented his case to his city commissioners And what do you know? He won! He won the right to have a pet hedgehog! (via) Previously illegal for some reason in his city, the boy was inspired by a love of Sonic the Hedgehog and when he presented his case the city could find no reason to continue the ban and lo, it was lifted! And you thought video games were no good. See?

Next, if you haven’t read Jonathan Barnes’ Somnambulist, well, you probably should. Fortunately for you as promotion for his next book, EOS is doing you a solid and is releasing the entire Somnambulist online fo freez!! I read it a bit ago and found it really engaging. An odd book, but it is definitely worth a read. And it’s free online so what have you got to lose? Go read it here. Or if you’re the book having loving kinda person, buy it here!

And in another fortunate turn of events,

On Macbook Air v. NetbooksJanuary 7

So, ok. Everyone who doesn’t have an Air hates it. Everyone loves netbooks. It seems well established. But I’m going to state for the record right here, netbooks are a fad. That’s right. A fad. There’s a huge rush for them right now, they’re cool and they’re cheap - but here’s the thing. They’re not particularly useful.

Let me step back a moment. For years I traveled with my Fujitsu P1120 - for all intents and purposes it’s a netbook. It was better than a netbook because it had a touch screen. I loved that thing… it clocked in at 2.2lbs, had a battery than ran forever and was fast enough for me to do what I needed to do when I travelled. Really, I loved that thing. At least I thought I did.

Then, I decided to buy a first gen Macbook Air because it was cheap at MacMall, it was the same price I’d bought the P1120 for so very many years ago - $1150. Initially I was worried about it - one of the things I loved about the P1120 was the small footprint. It was easy to have around. That’s what I’d been looking for in an ultralight notebook, but I finally relented on that point and picked up the Airbook. Turns out it’s just as easy to tote around - its super slimness in some cases makes it more convenient in a bag because it doesn’t get lost floating around the bottom and it still takes up no space.

As I started playing around with it a light went on