So, I finally got the new Yahoo! Mail beta on one of my accounts. It’s the OddpostAjaxDHTMLWannabeOutlook interface for Yahoo! Mail. It’s really slick… but is kind of slow on my current computer.

However, on my friend’s new Dell (that cost something like 8 hundo), it rocks.

2006… time for a new rig.

I used to be in the Apple camp of, _”The cell phone will eventually kill the iPod as it subsumes digital music functionality”._ After all, everyone is going to have a cell phone, so why carry both?

However, after the “Nano”:1, I’m now in the camp of, _”Apple should just start making cell phones.”_ I mean the high bar to hit is Nokia. Here’s some of Nokia’s recent “designs”:3.

Uhhhh… whatever.

Come on, it’d be game, set and match Apple.

After all, *everyone* is going to have one. “Bill”:2 can keep his “PC on every desktop”:4, thank you.

[4(Infoworld on a PC on every desktop)]http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?/features/990621directions.htm

[3(Zoinger on Nokia... lost in the Matrix)]http://www.zoinger.com/words/archives/2005/05/10/nokia-starts-making-phones-you-might-want-to-buy/

[2(Wikipedia on Bill Gates)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

[1(Link to Apple's Nano site)]http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/

In this post “here”:1 I wrote about the Canon MultiPass “MP390″:2. Here’s my review: It rules!

I finally got around to plugging the thing into a USB 2.0 port (instead of my keyboard’s USB 1.1 port), and it just cranks now. Super-fast printing _and_ super fast scanning… _and_ it’s also a fax machine. This is what happens when you stop ever using “parallel ports”:3 ever again. Life just gets better.

OMG, remember when you had have a “SCSI”:4 interface to get a scanner to work? Or trying to get a file scanned into a “PDF”:7? The software that comes with my MP390 does that automagically.

Hum… but I really wish I would have waited a bit and picked up this one, the Canon MP750, with the auto document feeder… deeeamn, as of today, 7/9/05, it’s only *129* bucks at “Amazon”:8. Man, I paid $149 for my MP350 just back in April. That’s just wrong.

Oh… _and_ both my MP390 and the MP750 are photo printers, of course. Where’s the margin in printers (or scanners or faxes or photo printers) these days?

[8(Amazon page on the Canon MP750)]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000650R0M/qid=1120967408/

[7(Wikipedia on PDF files)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Document_Format

[6(Yahoo quote for HPQ)]http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=HPQ&d=t

[5(Amazon page for the Canon PIXMA MP750)]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000650R0M/qid=1120967408/

[4(Wikipedia on SCSI)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI

[3(Wikipedia on parallel ports)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port

[2(Amazon page for the Canon MultiPass MP390)]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001CJECC/qid%3D1113278325/

[1(Zoinger post on the Canon MultiPass MP390)]http://www.zoinger.com/words/archives/2005/04/13/how-to-annoy-your-local-starbucks-staff-lesson-1/

More OEMs are finally supporting Microsoft’s “Tablet PC”:1 software… by this I mean that IBM is _finally_ releasing a Tablet PC called the “X41″:2. IBM makes absolutely bomber notebooks, so hopefully the X41 will continue in this tradition. Some details on the X41 include:

bq.. The ThinkPad X41 offers a 1.14-inch writable slate and full-size keyboard weighing in at only 3.5 pounds.

“ThinkPad X41 Tablet is nearly 20 percent lighter than its closest competitor and delivers the longest standard battery life of any 12-inch convertible tablet,” promises the company.

Users can either use the tablet with a digital pen, or as a traditional notebook PC.

“Equipped with the ThinkPad signature full-size keyboard, the ThinkPad X41 Tablet provides 170-degree viewing, an optional integrated fingerprint reader for unsurpassed security, the latest ThinkVantage Technologies for reliability and convenient wireless connectivity, and flexible one-step expandability through the optional new ThinkPad X4 Dock,” states Lenovo.

ThinkPad X41 Tablet PCs will start at $1,900.

p. You can read more about the X41 at “TabletPCBuzz”:3 or “TabletPCTalk”:4, and “here’s”:5 a video podcast from TechEd that demonstrates the IBM as well as a couple of other Tablet PCs.

Hum… my old Compaq laptop is getting a bit slow lately. Perhaps it is getting time to upgrade?

[5(Video demo of some new Tablet PCs form TechEd)]http://casting.dlservice.microsoft.com/download/2/9/A/29A568B5-C6B0-464A-B54B-0610E4371AB5/Expo_Floor_TabletPC.wmv

[4(Tablet)]http://www.tabletpctalk.com/

[3(TabletPCbuzz.com)]http://www.tabletpcbuzz.com/

[2(IBMs new Tablet PC)]http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/thinkpad/tablet/

[1(Microsofts Tablet PC home page)]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/tabletpc/default.mspx

There’s a pretty cool “demo video”:1 of Microsoft’s new “Office Communicator”:2 IM product over on “Channel 9″:4. Office Communicator is an enterprise IM solution that allows interconnection with both AOL’s AIM product and Yahoo!’s Messenger product. Some of the highlights of the video are:

* AOL AIM and Yahoo! Messenger integration
* Enterprise directory lookup
** Search by IM name or email address
** Lists phone numbers from directory
* PBX phone control via Office Messenger (cool!)
* Call forwarding and transferring control from Office Messenger
* VoIP calling from Office Messenger
* Live meeting data-sharing integration
* Conference calling integration (MCI service in this case)
* Discussion of security and encryption

I think the integration with “PBXs”:3 is particularly cool. PBX systems seem to be designed to be as non-intuitive as possible — a big part of this is due to the limits of a phone’s interface (i.e., a simple keypad with no display or a very small display). Obviously, you can build a much richer interface on a PC. I imagine that it would take some effort by a company’s IT department to get all of this working, but the productivity benefits could make it worth while.

I know a lot of people at work use IM to check to see if someone is at their desk before placing a call. Now you can check and call with a simple click of the mouse.

[4(Microsoft Channel 9 site)]http://channel9.msdn.com/

[3(Wikipedia PBX entry)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBX

[2(Office Communicator home page)]http://www.microsoft.com/office/rtc/client.mspx

[1(Microsoft Channel 9 video demo)]http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=69437