Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Lauren’s laptop
ARE you just not cool enough to be a Mac person? Strangely enough, this question wasn’t triggered by a new snooty Apple commercial but by Microsoft’s latest marketing campaign, a series of ads that emphasize what most of us already know: you can get more hardware for your money if you don’t buy a Mac. The first of these ads features a bubbly redhead named Lauren, who wants to buy a fast notebook PC with a 17-inch screen and a large keyboard for less than $1,000.
ONE of the geeky things I used to do as a Windows user was to defrag my hard disk to improve its performance. The word “defrag” had an edge to it, and there was something cool about watching the multi-color blinking boxes moving around in a grid, freeing up space on my hard disk for more efficient file handling. So when I shifted to Linux almost three years ago, I asked a question that Windows users commonly ask: How do you defrag in Linux?
RALLY de Leon, 38, likes to map out uncharted territory. In the early days, he used paper and pencil. Nowadays, he goes around the city with a global positioning system or GPS device―sometimes mounted on his helmet―as he rides a bicycle around the city, recording tracks that he will later upload onto a mapping program. He takes a car or a motorcycle on some of his mapping trips--and sometimes, he just walks. The hobby helps de Leon in his business, a small courier service that delivers bulk mail―such as bills and bank statements―to addresses east of Manila.
IT is refreshing to see legendary technology journalist and columnist John Dvorak of PC Magazine give Ubuntu Linux a ringing endorsement in 
WITHOUT our really noticing it, the word “Google” has crept into everyday use as a verb to mean “look up on the Internet.” “Why don’t you Google him?” is something you might say if you wanted to dig up more information about someone. Of course, the word has become generic to a degree because a typical Internet search will quickly bring you to multiple sources. Still, much to the chagrin of its competitors, Google is most often the first stop in these online searches, giving the company dominance in search-based advertising. Microsoft, which has been languishing for years in distant third place, last week started testing Kumo, an update to—and possible re-branding of--its Live Search (
WHEN Apple released a beta test version of Safari 4 last week, it claimed it was the world’s fastest browser. Some tests have supported that claim; others have not. These speed contests remind me of the gunslingers of the Old West—being the fastest draw was usually an ephemeral state.
