Motorola Q

The Useful Life of Cars - and Handsets

Craig Mathias — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:32:39 -0400

It's a well-known fact that all automobiles, no matter how well-maintained and -loved, eventually die and need to be replaced. The day comes when the maintenance costs become untenable and off to the dealer we go. Car sales are in the dumper right now, a function of the overall macroeconomic picture and high fuel prices, and this situation isn't going to improve anytime soon. But the replacement-car market is also motivated by new gadgets and features, along with styling and clever marketing.

Thus it is as well with the cell phone/handset market, which allows essentially everyone to partake of a small and mostly-affordable luxury on a semi-regular basis.

Read more

Asus Eee Update

Craig Mathias — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 07:50:26 -0400

I've been using the Asus Eee PC for a few weeks now, and I have to say my overall impression is very favorable indeed. It's very portable (small and light), has reasonable battery life, a very fast boot time (and fast shutdown as well - ever needed to head to the airport while Microsoft wasted your time shutting down XP by installing updates?), and overall easy manageability. Now, of course, this is LINUX, and you'd better be comfortable using the command line (terminal window) interface from time to time.

Read more

Adventures in Dial-Up Networking

Craig Mathias — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:06:27 -0500

Mobile data cards are all the rage today. It's hard not to see someone on a train or in an airport, merrily typing away on his or her notebook, connected via a data card. These wireless modems, which are available in PC Card, ExpressCard, and USB form factors, are available from all of the major carriers and are usually inexpensive to acquire. Some notebooks even have wireless WAN technology built in - although you need to make sure that your notebook comes with a card compatible with your chosen carrier.

Read more