Farhad Manjoo at Salon offers a measured take on the iPhone, while still declaring it the Technology of the Year. He says it

marks a new way of living. For some people constant access to the Internet is a pleasant dream, while for others it’s a dreaded nightmare. This year, for all of us, it became a reality, the unavoidable future.

I’m waiting for the gPhone because of its commitment to openness, and also, because, um, I still have time on my indentured servitude to AT&T Cingular AT&T. [Tags: iphone farhad_manjoo gphone tech ]

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My One Laptop Per Child computer arrived overnight, as if delivered by elves. As Drew Barrymore would say, “Magical!”

Other than saying that it’s the cutest thing since otters began holding hands, I feel incompetent to review it. I’ve only used it for a couple of hours, and it’s very different from the usual computers. I can say that it does some things incredibly easily, like take photos. On the other hand, I’m lacking the mental model for doing some more complex things, like downloading an ebook from the Web and reading it offline on the laptop.

But this was not a computer designed for me, so I’m going to give it time to shape my expectations. So far, though, it’s just so cute and cuddly that I want to feed it kibble and take it out for a walk four times a day.

[Anthropological note: The OLPC laptop serves the social function as puppies: When strangers see you with one, they just have to stop you, stroke it, and say “Awwww.”]

[Tags: olpc xo laptops linux ]

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Preston Gralla at Computerworld lists 15 Firefox hacks. Some are pretty geeky, but others are simply must-knows. [Tags: firefox preston_gralla ]

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Check out the hilarious photo of a 5mb hard drive as of 1956, at Snopes….

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David Pogue has posted five tips for Leopard users to entice you to buy his new Missing Manual for Leopard. One of the tips I’m finding especially useful. The search box you get when you click on Help in an application displays any menu items that match it by dropping down the menu itself and putting a big blue arrow next to the item. Yay. But that’s not the tip. Pogue points out that if you’re in Firefox or Safari, if you type in the title of a page on your Bookmarks or History menu, the blue arrow points you right at it. Cool

[Tags: os_x leopard tips david_pogue ]

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The switch from Movable Type to WordPress has gone pretty well, but some of you have pointed out a huge bug in my implementation. If you know CSS well, you’ll probably be able to spot it quickly. I don’t and I can’t. So, I’m asking for your help…

in IE 6, the page is loading some style other than the default, making the left column appear blank. If you click on a comments link, the text is centered, even if you click on the “default” style in the “Hard to Read?” list of links.

I don’t know why it’s not loading the default style in IE. I don’t know where it’s getting the center alignment. Do you?

Thanks!

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Amazon’s ebook, Kindle, looks great. But as far as I can tell, it doesn’t browse. You can only receive the materials Amazon chooses to provide.

Too bad. I was about to buy one.

If I’m wrong, please let me know…

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This site is now officially under construction as I switch it from Movable Type to WordPress. So, pardon the glitches, and, no, I haven’t finished moving my blogroll over yet.

Why am I switching? It comes down to no good reason. I like MT as software and admire it as a company. But, I have it configured for maximum host churn. So, I could work on configuring it better or I could try something new. I’ve been using WP for my Everything Is Miscellaneous blog, and have been enjoying it. I’m also fairly comfortable with it now. So, I opted to try something new.

My only regret comes from mt sense of loyalty to MT. The company is a good contributor to the community and I recommend MT wholeheartedly. In fact, if bradsucks weren’t doing the WP install for me, I’d absolutely fail at it; WP is easy to get up in its default state, but much harder to configure and personalize than MT, at least in my experience.

So, now for the tweaks, the fixes, the general annoyance, and the post-installation regrets…

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Ok, so I forgot the password for a WordPress installation I was playing around with. That makes me an idiot, but just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill idiot. The built-in WP idiot-guard, which sends you a copy of your password, didn’t send me anything.

In googling around for a solution, I found lots of info about installing phpMyAdmin, a powerful tool for managing your SQL install. Except I don’t want a powerful tool. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out how to install it, and failed.

More googling, however, revealed an extremely simple php script at (appropriately) www.village-idiot.org. You install it into your WordPress directory, you visit it in your browser, you enter a password, and then you immediately delete the script. Couldn’t be simpler.

Thank you, Village-Idiot! [Tags: wordpress]

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My digital camera stopped being recognized by both my MacBook (with the latest version of OS X) and my Windows laptop. I tried lots of things, including many reboots and various photo import programs. I was on the verge of ordering a card reader when I tried a second USB cable, even though the first one worked without any problems when plugged into a mouse that uses a removable USB cable for its cord. With the new cable, the camera was recognized by both the Mac and Windows machines.

I may be missing the relevant factor here, but since the first cable continues to work fine with the mouse, all I can figure is that thickness matters. The first cable is one of those thread-like jobbies that come with a spring-loaded winder. The second cable was a normal USB cable.

Assuming that that’s the factor, does the skinny cable not let enough electrimification through? Oh, pity the poor humanities major! [Tags: tips mac windows cameras ]

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