geek

While sitting in on some interesting sessions on Multi-touch work being done in Linux, I was inspired to plop down my 70 bucks for one of Apple's new Magic Mouse devices. The Magic Mouse is, as the name implies, a mouse. A pointing device. Yet it's so much more than that. The entire outse surface of the Magic Mouse is a touch pad featuring both standard touch pad stuff, and the real magic, full Multi-Touch, including gestures.  read more »

Yesterday was my birthday, and today I bought myself something I'd been wanting for a long time, yet hadn't been able to until recently. I bought a Nook from Barnes and Noble. I'd been looking at eReaders since the first time I got to play with the original Kindle at a focus group event, just after the Kindle was first released. I love reading, and I am one of those people who, quite often, has two or three books going at one time.

Books are a great escape. Sure, I love movies, good T.V. shows and other means of just letting my mind wander, but books offer something the others cant. In books, I can insert myself into the story. I can travel the world, or the universe or through time. I can visit distant lands, fight dragons and demons, or fall for the cute little red-head with the matching set of short swords. I can become James Bond or Jason Bourne. I can survive in the jungle, fight in the war, set foot on a new planet or battle it out in cyberspace. Books are television for the mind and reading is one of my favorite things.

So it fits that in this day and age, I, a self proclaimed Geek and Gadget Junkie, a consumer of new technology, should also change my reading habits to fit the times. EBook readers fill many roles. Gadget, reading material, portable library. They let you take thousands of books along with you, surf the web, play games, read magazines and news papers, but more importantly, continue in the grand tradition first began when someone realized you could take a piece of charred wood and scribble something onto any willing surface.  read more »

There's always been a lot of debate about why Linux is not popular on the desktop, outside the realm of geeks and computer nerds, and I count myself among their number. I've been a Linux geek for years, have worked at Linux Geek Shangri-La (Red Hat) and even get paid to beta test Linux OSes for a living. But I'm not John and Mary Public. I'm not the type who things AOL = Internet and the only way to do something is via Microsoft software.  read more »