Keith Shaw Cool Tools chat transcript

Moderator-Julie
Welcome and thank you for coming. Our guest today is Keith Shaw. This is a moderated chat. When you submit questions or comments they are sent to the moderator. They do not instantly show up in the main chat area. They will appear when Keith sends his reply. Often your question is waiting in a long queue. So please be patient. There will be a delay between the time you submit your question and when you see it onscreen. We will try to get to as many questions as we can during this one hour chat.

Some of you have submitted questions in advance. The moderators will be publishing those questions and Keith's answers throughout this chat. If you have requests for other guests you would like to chat with, please send an e-mail to jbort@nww.com.

Now, onto the chat.

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Moderator-Julie
Welcome and thank you for coming. Our guest today is Keith Shaw. This is a moderated chat. When you submit questions or comments they are sent to the moderator. They do not instantly show up in the main chat area. They will appear when Keith sends his reply. Often your question is waiting in a long queue. So please be patient. There will be a delay between the time you submit your question and when you see it onscreen. We will try to get to as many questions as we can during this one hour chat.

Some of you have submitted questions in advance. The moderators will be publishing those questions and Keith's answers throughout this chat. If you have requests for other guests you would like to chat with, please send an e-mail to jbort@nww.com.

Now, onto the chat.

Keith_Shaw
Hi everyone: I'd like to thank all of my family and friends for showing up today for my chat. My lifelong dream has been to star as a guest in an online chat, and now that dream has been realized. If you're not a family member or friend, I thank you for taking some time out of your day to speak with me about personal technology and gadgets. Let's have some fun today and see if we can learn something as well…

010101etc
RE: "iPhone alternatives" -- In your opinion, are there better ways to spend $500 for a phone? If so, which product -- or is the iPhone the second coming?

Keith_Shaw
In terms of hype and the ability for Apple to make you want something, the iPhone is the second coming. Have you ever wanted something so badly as the iPhone? Probably not. However, as a mobile phone, there are lots of others out there that offer the same, if not more, functionality, and of course the price is much lower for these phones. But you won't be able to whip out these other phones and go, "Look how cool I am" like you could with the iPhone. Having an iPhone now means you can brag to all of your friends.

Mr Mr
What is your opinion on the 802.11N wireless standard?  Do you think it can replace wired Ethernet?

Keith_Shaw
Good question. I think once the standard is finalized (and probably now if you don't care about interoperability), the speeds of 802.11n will be as good as wired Ethernet (regular, not Gigabit Ethernet or the faster speeds). In fact, most companies will start looking at 802.11n as its main network, and use wired Ethernet as a backup system. In the home, wireless will likely continue its dominance over other transmission technologies.

Moderator-Julie
Keith is busy typing an answer to a question, so here is his answer to one of the questions submitted in advance.

Q: Of all the devices that use Palm OS, which ones do you like the best, and why?

KEITH SHAW: I always tell people that the best Palm OS device is the next one they come out with. That would leave us with the Treo 755p at the moment. More importantly than the device, however, is the network that the smart phone is on. I'm a larger fan of the Verizon EV-DO network than the AT&T EDGE/UMTS network at the moment, but that's mainly because of the area I work in. Verizon on average seems to have better coverage in New England than the other wireless providers. The best Palm device doesn't even have a Palm OS on it -- the Treo 700w and 700wx use the Windows Mobile operating system, and with the Palm hardware it really is a nice device for enterprise users. It should be interesting if Palm comes out with a Treo that has Windows Mobile 6 on it.