Does a netbook look like you mean business?
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Business, Christmas, Processors, operating systems, Toys & gadgets, Windows Mobile, Laptop, linux, Hardware, Mobile on
Thinking about a netbook as a last-minute stocking filler for yourself? There are some very usable netbooks now, especially the Dell Mini 9 and the new Lenovo. But they’re still cheap and cheerful personal machines with consumer features, and many of them look it.
In an ideal world, the ultraportable you want for business needs a few more features. A fingerprint sensor and Vista with BitLocker encryption would be a good start, along with a keyboard you can actually type full documents and emails on. A battery that lasts a full day saves you starting every meeting by looking for a power socket. Built-in 3G is more efficient, giving you better bandwidth and using less power than a USB dongle. And while looks aren’t everything, it doesn’t hurt to carry something stylish that marks you out as a success. Many of the netbooks on the market have basic looks to match their basic price and basic features. Customers and partners will want to take a look at a netbook and may be impressed by how much you can get done on it despite the limitations, but they can go away with the impression that you can’t afford anything better.
You certainly won’t give that impression with the unfeasibly light Toshiba R600 or the slim, sleek Sony TT. At the launch, the Chinese artist commissioned to produce signature chops for the journalists at the launch kept saying. TT. Like the Audi? That’s not a bad impression to leave people with.
After Steven Sinofsky flashed a Lenovo S10 around on stage at the Windows 7 announcement at PDC, Mike Nash did a little repositioning of the Windows 7 netbook story, telling a story about visiting a big-box store where the 20-year-old assistant insisted that the only people buying netbooks were “really old people!” Really old people? How old? “Old! 40 or 45!”
Leaving aside the way anyone over 21 looks old from a certain angle - like the New Yorker map of the world, where anything outside Manhattan might as well be in Australia - and whether white plastic looks more like a child’s toy than black metal, the real question is what can you achieve on a cheap machine. Hardly anyone wants a PC just for Web browsing, especially now the iPhone and the BlackBerry Bold and even Windows Mobile with Skyfire (http://get.skyfire.com) mean you can see real Web pages on a phone. There’s the ‘familiar applications from Windows’/'any application that does something similar so Linux is fine’ debate. And there’s can I run the applications I want, fast enough to do something useful and with enough battery life to make it worth carrying a netbook with me. Three hours doesn’t cut it for me, I want to be able to run five Office applications and a Web development tool, and I want a fingerprint sensor and a TPM while I’m at it.
It’s like the HTC Advantage, which I still think of as the first Mobile Internet Device by Intel’s definition; as soon as the screen was big enough and the processor fast enough I wanted all my usual PC applications instead of the cut-down Windows Mobile equivalents. I prefer Office to Google Docs because I like features like document reviewing and AutoCorrect and colour conditional formatting to show values visually as well as numerically. And I’d rather have an ultraportable than a cheaper netbook, because it does more. It’s nice if it looks as good as the Sony TT, but the Toshiba Portégé R600 isn’t any prettier than a netbook; but it is the thinnest, lightest machine I’ve ever picked up, which also has a DVD drive. Just as Apple products are undeniably desirable on a visceral level, netbooks are a hard to resist combination of cheap and cute. But if they don’t do what you really need, they’re no bargain.
-Mary
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Always scan an extra finger
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Christmas, Identity, Hardware, Laptop, Security on
I had to revert to typing in a password on my notebook the other day.
I usually brush my finger over the fingerprint scanner and as I let the security software store passwords and login details for as many sites as possible I don’t have to remember many passwords at all now. Roll on CardSpace - when I can store my details on an InfoCard and present that instead of typing in whatever random selection of information a site demands to let me download trial software or white papers, I shall feel a lot more productive.
I always scan at least two fingers when I set up a biometric system, because the software insists. I usually scan a thumb as well but with a minimum of three scans to do per finger and me in a hurry to try out a new system, that’s usually enough. Perhaps I won’t mention which fingers I usually scan, just in case, but I scan a thumb
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Are you a Santa or a Scrooge? Try Simon and Mary
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Christmas, Server on
The holiday break means more unusual transactions, in stressful circumstances, with fewer support staff around. We know what it’s like, as we spent
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