It may feel like you couldn’t live without your iPod (or other MP3 player, they do exist), but not all that long ago the best option wasn’t digital, but the Walkman.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Sony Walkman, the BBC gave one to a 13-year-old to find out what he thought. And whoo, what a surprise, he’ll be keeping his iPod, thanks.

The best part of the article was the kid realising that he knows nothing about tech from just a decade or so ago. “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.”

He added: “Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past.”

To me, it’s nice to see kids get accused of not knowing about tech, instead of the usual line that old people don’t get it. People understand what they grow up with, what they use on a daily basis. That’s why so many grandparents are bewildered by email, parents confused by social networking… and kids confused by everything that happened before they were born.

(As an aside, there is no way the BBC article was actually written by a 13-year-old. Any such teenager who can write that well and command such a vocabulary can likely figure out tapes.)

As someone that spends the better part of many of my working days parked in front of a computer, hooked into the internet, taking ten days off and spending them offline was a welcome respite.

I spent ten days in Cuba, which sadly doesn’t offer much in the way of internet access to its citizens. While at least one family we stayed with appeared to have web access, the few internet cafes I did note were expensive. Given the government’s control of information in the country, even those with access are monitored as they surf.

This is all very, very horrible. The internet offers so many benefits — to the economy, education and really everything else — that the Cuba government really needs to sort itself out. (Check out the OpenNet Initiative for more.)

That said… I find it really hard to turn off my web access. My shiny phone lets me check email, Facebook and whatever else anywhere and at anytime, so even if I’m camping I’m not necessarily offline. But for some reason, my shiny phone didn’t let me connect while in Cuba.

I have never been so happy to have a piece of tech fail me. I had no idea what was happening in Iran, no idea what was happening with my friends and family, and no idea what was happening in my inbox. Now that’s what I call a vacation.

It was like entering a bubble where no news — bad or otherwise — could reach my holidaying mind. No tweets could bother me, no Facebook updates could draw me into a cycle of faffing about, and no work problems needed solutions by email.

It’s not great, however, that an entire country has to suffer without the communication godsend that is the internet in order for me to get a relaxing holiday. Maybe we can pick a nice island somewhere, and make it an internet black hole? Or maybe I just need to learn to hit the ‘off’ button?

A VMware employee has fallen on his sword and apologised, after VMware’s marketing department attempted to be sneaky and anonymously posted a clip of Microsoft’s Hyper-V crashing onto YouTube.

Mary wrote about the debacle earlier this week, giving a good summation of the ridiculous scheme, which pissed off bloggers and Microsoft’s team — mostly because it came off as an unfair and out of context, but also because it was posted anonymously.

Anyway, looks like VMware is trying to bury the hatchet — possible into their marketing team, but that’s another story — with the YouTube poster, VMware’s Scott Drummonds, publically apologising on the VMware blog:

I made a bad call. About a month and a half ago, I anonymously posted a YouTube video depicting a controversial test of Microsoft’s Hyper-V. The video was a bit hyperbolic in its dramatization of Hyper-V’s reliability.

Unfortunately, my intention to stir the pot with eye-poking banter has put my credibility and by association VMware’s credibility in question among some of you. For this I apologize. I’ve removed the video from YouTube. I’ve also sent a note of apology to Jeff Woosley at Microsoft.

My focus, and clearly VMware’s focus, is to help our 140,000 plus customers get the most from their technology investments. This is our commitment. We will absolutely work our best to live up to the high standard you’ve come to expect from us. And when we mess up, we’ll be the first to address the mistake head on.

So hopefully that’s the end of that, then.

Apple unveiled its third-gen iPhone on Monday — the weirdly named 3G S — and the day after O2 revealed its pricing… and then a bunch of Apple fan-boys and -girls curled up into the fetal position in tears, sobbing hysterically.

It seems that O2 will not let owners of the second-gen iPhone get out of their contract early, not without paying off their contract first. For any “early adopters” (how can you be an early adopter of a phone that hit wide availability for everyone on the same day?) that means they could have six or seven months to pay off, in order to get the new 3G S.

At £35+ a month for contracts, that is a lot of cash. But if they don’t pay it, they’ll have to wait those months out — and this is much, much worse — with their entirely useless year-old phone.

On top of that, O2 hasn’t slashed prices. Between the first gen and the second gen of the iPhone, O2 cut prices rather dramatically. This hasn’t happened this time around; indeed, some versions of the phone are even more expensive than last year’s.

The shock. The horror. I’m practically in tears as I write this. Who would have ever imagined such terror — that an expensive, top-end phone would be expensive to re-buy every single damn year.

Here’s a tip: wait six months. I know, I know, it’ll mean you’re not the coolest kid on the block. But if you just bought one last year, why do you need a new one? You don’t. You’re just buying into the hype. Calm down.

And yes, it is an expensive phone. Apple must be crazy to launch with such prices in the middle of a recession, and O2 isn’t being generous… but then, why would they? They’re a company with a bottom line, not your mom who just wants you to be happy.

So grow up, and stop moaning about the iPhone pricing. There’s a better tactic, in fact. Just don’t buy it. If the silly gadgets sit on the shelf long enough, they’ll be discounted — and if you’re lucky, it’ll be just as your O2 contract is coming up, too…

From next month, China wants all PCs sold across that rather massive country to include software that automatically censors the internet. (This latest control tactic comes a week after China banned Twitter in time for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.)

The software is primarily focused on filtering out pornography, but also keeps users from looking at “anti-revolutionary” content. The Telegraph cited a spokesperson from the software developer as saying:

“This is very good news for users, so they should not uninstall it. It will automatically filter pornographic images and anti-revolutionary content. It will not take up much space on the hard drive. It is very stable and we have conducted many tests already.”

…Because everyone’s main concern is how much it will hurt performance?

What we on the free(er) side of the internet need to keep an eye on is which manufacturers go along with this. According to the Telegraph article, Lenovo — which is based in China — will be installing the software.

But HP and Dell both said they were working on understanding the new rule and figuring out how to deal with it.

How about this: Don’t install it. Just don’t.

Sure, you’ll lose a ton of business — the Chinese market being rather massive — and some other firm will just step up and take your place in the market. But I know I won’t be buying from a firm which willingly puts tracking and censoring software onto PCs at the demand of any government.

Many other industries have been hit by social outrage — think about clothing retailers, and the documentaries and investigative reports about Primark, Gap and Nike. All of those firms have been forced to at least consider some social responsibility.

I’m not so naive to think a few angry do-gooder lefty types can cause as much damage to HP, Dell or any other computer brand to outweigh the financial damage caused by losing the Chinese market, but there should be at least some cost to operating in such a way, shouldn’t there?