So, it is a given you need to back up your data. The question is: how?

You can go the free, more manual way - something similar to what Jason outlined when he provided his batch script. You could go the open source route using something like Cobian Backup. Cobian will get the job done, but there is no support whatsoever. Or you could go the commercial route. There are several commercial options out there, but I am going to take a look here at Backup Platinum, by SoftLogica.

Backup Platinum is a Windows-only utility that makes it super easy to have automated backups. You can back up to pretty much anything, including a network drive, a remote server (using FTP) or recordable optical mediums and USB. The program’s notable features include:

• Built-in CD engine which allows for automated CD burning, automatic erasure of optical media as well as spanning several discs
• Integrated ZIP compression
• 128-bit encryption for secure backups (requires a password to unlock a backup)
• Built-in scheduler to run automatic backups at any time. Uses a Windows service, too, so it doesn’t depend on being logged into Windows to function
• Multi-threaded engine so that it can function without slowing down your system
• Command line interface (if you want to use it in batch scripts)
• Ability to backup registry as well as certain keys in the registry
• Email notifications
• Ability to start or shut down programs when executing backups

In short, this thing more or less does it all.

I went to their site and downloaded the 30 day trial. Install went through without hassle. Upon starting the program, I went through a wizard which walked me through creating an “item”. An “item” is the name for a particular set of files/folders/settings that I want to back up. I can have as many items as I want and execute each on its own schedule.

I was running this application in a virtual machine on my Mac (Windows XP running under VMware Fusion). So, my Mac looks like a network drive as far as Windows is concerned. I set up an item to back up my Quickbooks data (which is on the virtual disk) and back it up to the host disk. I was impressed that it easily allowed me to keep multiple versions of the data file on the system and it automatically timestamps the backups. Nice. So, I set it up to back up Quickbooks, storing up to 4 different versions. I executed it and it worked and did so quite quickly.

My Conclusions

I get asked to review a lot of things. Sometimes those things are just a real stretch. I always call it like I see it. In this case, it isn’t a stretch at all.

Backup Platinum does exactly what it is supposed to do. It is clean software and easy to use. It is fast and they also threw some “kitchen sink” features in here to boot (like encryption and email notifications). Backup Platinum is a powerful backup utility for Windows.

My only thought was that, well, I’m on a Mac. Of course, on the Mac, I have Time Machine built right into the operating system. Now that VMware has fixed the conflict between Time Machine and VMware Fusion, my entire Windows session is backed up. But, most definitely, if I were still using Windows as my primary operating system, I would certainly use Backup Platinum.

Cost of the software is $67. Last I looked, this was right in line with other comparable backup software for Windows.

NOTE: The preceding review was a paid review. But, trust me, as always, I don’t mess around with reviews. There is really nothing bad to say about Backup Platinum.

Blatant Plug: We have just launched a brand new course at PCMech University which is designed to give you tactics you need to know on how to take professional photographs using any standard digital camera. No, you don’t need the expensive model to make good images. The secret is in the person holding the camera, not the equipment (in most cases). Come by PCMech University for more information.

But, that’s not the purpose of this article. I promise. Let’s say you are taking some cool shots with your camera. What can you do with them besides impress yourself?

Go Quasi-Pro Online

Anybody who is a hobbyist photographer would love to make some money doing what they love - namely taking pictures. The Internet makes it much easier to do.

In the old days, you would need to make the right contacts and even strike up a deal with an agency. You’d have to send in your negatives and get approved, yada yada. Today, stock photography sites are online. And with photography being mostly digital today, you can now simply upload your photos.

One such site is iStockPhoto. iStockPhoto is a large online marketplace for stock photography. Anybody looking to buy a photo for use on the web or in print advertising, for instance, can come to this site and buy rights to use a photo. That is what stock photography is all about. As a photographer, you can submit your photos to iStockPhoto and earn money if anybody purchases your work. Pay rates usually hover around 20% of the purchase price. You can set the purchase price yourself (ranging from $1 up to $40).

Now, to keep the quality of the collection up, yes you do need to get approval from Istockphoto before you can participate. They will check the quality of the work as well as any possible copyright issues and appropriate model releases (if there are people in your photo).

Other sites you can check out are ShutterStock (pays 25 cents per purchase, which can add up if you keep things fresh) ShutterPoint, Fotolia (between 30 cents and $1 per download) and Dreamstime (pays between 50% and 80% commission).

Some Tips

As I end off this article, here is some quick advice if you want to start making money doing this:

1. Takes LOTS of pictures. As any photographer will tell you, you snap snap snap to end up with a few good ones.
2. Pay attention to what sells and take those kinds of photos. Feed the demand.

If you take it seriously, then yes, you can make money with your digital camera. It doesn’t have to be a full-time job, either. It could be a spare time thing and still work out in your favor.

But what if you’re building a box? Is there any way to find out what hardware will work best?

Yes. It’s called the Hardware Compatibility List or HCL for short.

Most new Linux distro users have heard about Ubuntu and choose to use that distro first (and sometimes stay with it.) All well and good. And maybe that new Ubuntu user likes that OS so much that they want to build a better faster dedicated box.

Some will opt for buying a Dell with Ubuntu already on it (in which all the hardware is guaranteed to work.) But everyone else is going to build the box instead.

The best site I have found for everything Ubuntu HCL is, appropriately titled, UbuntuHCL.org.

What makes UbuntuHCL better than most is that it won’t list particular hardware as “works” or “doesn’t work.” If particular hardware is labeled as “works,” it goes on to rate how well it worked by using a rating scale of 1 to 5 (5 being best) with included commentary detailed any/all good or bad experiences encountered when testing.

UbuntuHCL is very basic, very easy to use and I strongly recommend anyone who’s building a box for Ubuntu to go here first before anywhere else.

For example, you can start right where it all begins - the motherboard. Here’s an example search using Asus motherboards as the search criteria. Most got ratings of 5 but some dipped below and went to 4. This one is a 4 and notes problems using RAID0 and Enhanced IDE. It is important to know this stuff before building your Ubuntu box.

What about printers? For example, do HP printers work well in Ubuntu? Most do.

What about wireless stuff (like wireless routers)? Some don’t do too well in that category.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As stated above, I strongly recommend reading up on the HCL first. After that you can pick/choose the hardware you know is going to work the first time without any problems.

And that makes for a very happy *nix user.

Why Command Line Scripts?

Having experience with both commercial and free backup programs, I always find command line scripts to be, by far, the most effective tool for the job. Here are a few reasons why:

• Native Commands: What better way to backup data than by using the functions made available through the program which creates the data. Whether this is the operating system itself via a simple file copy command or a database command to produce a restorable binary file, the source program knows how best to back itself up.
• Ultimate Control: Since a command line script follows a simple step-by-step procedure, you know exactly what is happening and can easily modify the behavior.
• Fast: Since everything is a native command, nothing is subject to interpretation. Again, you are using commands provided by the program itself, so overhead is kept to a minimum.
• Powerful: I have yet to see a backup task which cannot be accomplished through a command line script… and I have done some funky stuff. Albeit, some research and “trial and error” may be required, unless you need something incredibly unique, typically the built in functions and features of the scripting language you are using is more than sufficient.
• Free and Flexible: Obviously, a command line script does not cost anything (outside the time to develop it), so the emphasis I want to make is command line scripts can be copied to and implemented on other systems and quickly adapted with little to no time or cost. Compare this to the cost of purchasing licenses for backup software on several servers and/or desktop machines.

A Quick Overview Of The Backup Batch Script

Since a lot of people do not have the need/time/desire to learn command line scripting, it is considered somewhat of a “black art”. So to demonstrate the power of the command line, I am providing a simple Windows batch script to backup your important data. This configurable and customizable script does not
require any knowledge (or willingness to learn) of the Windows batch scripting language.

What the backup script does:

1. Creates full or daily incremental (see below for a definition) backups of files and folders you specify in a separate configuration text file (see below).
   • When a folder is provided, that folder and all sub-folders are backed up.
   • When a file is provided, just that file is backed up.
2. Compresses (zips) the backed up files. After all files to be backed up are copied, they are compressed to save space. 7-Zip is required to be installed on your system for this to work.
3. Dates the compressed file and moves it to a storage location. After the backup files are compressed, the resulting archive is given a file name according to the current date and then moved to a configured storage location, such as an external drive or network location.
4. Cleans up after itself. After all tasks are completed, the batch script cleans up all the temporary files it created.

Requirements:

Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista,
7-Zip (it’s free).

Configuration file:

The configuration file is simply a text file which contains files and folders to backup, entered one backup item per line. This file must be named “BackupConfig.txt” and be located in the same folder as the backup script. Here is an example of a BackupConfig.txt file (note, the first line is always ignored):

# Enter file and folder names, one per line.
C:\Documents and Settings\Jason Faulkner\Desktop
C:\Documents and Settings\Jason Faulkner\My Documents\Important Files
C:\Scripts\BackupScript.bat

The example above would backup the Windows user Jason Faulkner’s desktop (and all folders on the desktop), the folder called “Important Files” inside of My Documents (and all folders inside “Important Files”) and the file “BackupScript.bat” inside the C:\Scripts directory.

Types of backups:

The Data Backup Windows Batch Script

I want to emphasize this script is very basic, as all it does is create backups by a utilizing a simple file copy. There are some configuration options you can set:

• The backup storage location where the resulting compressed backup files are stored.
  
• The day of the week the full backup is run (any other day would run an incremental backup).
• Location of where 7-Zip is installed on your computer. The script is automatically set to look in the default location.

If you have any suggestions or feature requests, please comment below. I would really love to do a follow up article to this post which features an updated script based on reader input.

If you need instructions on how to “use” this script or set up a scheduled task, take a look at the links below the script source.

Without further ado, here it is:

@ECHO OFF

REM BackupScript
REM Version 1.0, Updated: 2008-04-19
REM By Jason Faulkner (articles[-at-]132solutions.com)

REM Performs full or incremental backups of folders and files configured by the user.

REM Usage—
REM   > BackupScript

SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION

REM —Configuration Options—

REM Folder location where you want to store the resulting backup archive.
REM This folder must exist. Do not put a ‘\’ on the end, this will be added automatically.
REM You can enter a local path, an external drive letter (ex. F:) or a network location (ex. \\server\backups)
SET BackupStorage=C:\Backup

REM Which day of the week do you want to perform a full backup on?
REM Enter one of the following: Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, *
REM Any day of the week other than the one specified below will run an incremental backup.
REM If you enter ‘*’, a full backup will be run every time.
SET FullBackupDay=*

REM Location where 7-Zip is installed on your computer.
REM The default is in a folder, ‘7-Zip’ in your Program Files directory.
SET InstallLocationOf7Zip=%ProgramFiles%\7-Zip

REM +———————————————————————–+
REM | Do not change anything below here unless you know what you are doing. |
REM +———————————————————————–+

REM Usage variables.
SET exe7Zip=%InstallLocationOf7Zip%\7z.exe
SET dirTempBackup=%TEMP%\backup
SET filBackupConfig=BackupConfig.txt

REM Validation.
IF NOT EXIST %filBackupConfig% (
  ECHO No configuration file found, missing: %filBackupConfig%
  GOTO End
)
IF NOT EXIST “%exe7Zip%” (
  ECHO 7-Zip is not installed in the location: dir7Zip
  ECHO Please update the directory where 7-Zip is installed.
  GOTO End
)

REM Backup variables.
FOR /f “tokens=1,2,3,4 delims=/ ” %%a IN (’date /t’) DO (
  SET DayOfWeek=%%a
  SET NowDate=%%d-%%b-%%c
  SET FileDate=%%b-%%c-%%d
)

IF {%FullBackupDay%}=={*} SET FullBackupDay=%DayOfWeek%
IF /i {%FullBackupDay%}=={%DayOfWeek%} (
  SET txtBackup=Full
  SET swXCopy=/e
) ELSE (
  SET txtBackup=Incremental
  SET swXCopy=/s /d:%FileDate%
)

ECHO Starting to copy files.
IF NOT EXIST “%dirTempBackup%” MKDIR “%dirTempBackup%”
FOR /f “skip=1 tokens=*” %%A IN (%filBackupConfig%) DO (
  SET Current=%%~A
  IF NOT EXIST “!Current!” (
    ECHO ERROR! Not found: !Current!
  ) ELSE (
    ECHO Copying: !Current!
    SET Destination=%dirTempBackup%\!Current:~0,1!%%~pnxA
    REM Determine if the entry is a file or directory.
    IF “%%~xA”==”" (
      REM Directory.
      XCOPY “!Current!” “!Destination!” /v /c /i /g /h /q /r /y %swXCopy%
    ) ELSE (
      REM File.
      COPY /v /y “!Current!” “!Destination!”
    )
  )
)
ECHO Done copying files.
ECHO.

SET BackupFileDestination=%BackupStorage%\Backup_%FileDate%_%txtBackup%.zip

REM If the backup file exists, remove it in favor of the new file.
IF EXIST “%BackupFileDestination%” DEL /f /q “%BackupFileDestination%”

ECHO Compressing backed up files. (New window)
REM Compress files using 7-Zip in a lower priority process.
START “Compressing Backup. DO NOT CLOSE!” /belownormal /wait “%exe7Zip%” a -tzip -r -mx5 “%BackupFileDestination%” “%dirTempBackup%\”
ECHO Done compressing backed up files.
ECHO.

ECHO Cleaning up.
IF EXIST “%dirTempBackup%” RMDIR /s /q “%dirTempBackup%”
ECHO.

:End
ECHO Finished.
ECHO.

ENDLOCAL

If you need help getting started with implementing this script, here are a couple of links to help you out:

• How to create a Batch file.
• How to create a Windows Scheduled Task.

This is the same script I use to backup my computer daily (with a couple of modifications of course), so I know it works very well. I hope you find it useful.

Enjoy.

Speaking for myself, it is my web browser (Firefox) which is always open. It is the first program I start when I boot up. I use Gmail for my email. I use Google Apps for managing my time (Calendar in conjunction with Remember the Milk). My entire business is online.

Computing is running into the cloud. Cloud computing is a term used to refer to the fact that our computing experiences are increasingly online (the Internet) rather than being locked to your computer. More and more, your choice for operating system for your desktop is meaningless. More and more, the desktop operating system is acting more like a terminal to the Internet - where the REAL computing happens.

Obviously, we’re not there yet. And perhaps we will never fully put our computing lives into the cloud. But evidence for the fact that it can be done is in the web-based operating system.

Web OS

A web OS is just that - an entire operating system environment which operates fully inside your web browser. It depends on Javascript and XML (together called Ajax) to operate. Basically, JavaScript is the programming code which runs inside the web browser. Server side code (whether it be PHP, ASP, Cold Fusion, etc) operates on the web server. AJAX is simply a way for the Javascript to talk with the server. By combining the two, you can have web applications that act like desktop applications.

All this adds up to one thing: It is possible to have a fully responsive OS-like interface all inside of a web browser using the above technologies. We’re talking a full Windows-like experience.

Examples

There are several web OSes you can check out. Your reaction may simply be, “Cool, but useless for me”. But, we’ll go over possible uses in a minute.

• ajaxWindows. A really slick web OS which works in both Firefox and IE. You can run widgets on the desktop, plus it has a host of applications (web-based) “installed”. You can store your data in your Gmail account (essentially using the vast amount of storage Gmail provides to store your files virtually. Here is a video from the guys at AjaxWindows to show what it does:

• EyeOS.
• Glide. Glide is really slick. It uses Flash to give a highly graphical operating environment. In fact, it has an Iphone-ish look to it. It also has a way to sync up your files, bookmarks and email from your local computer up to your Glide account.
• DesktopTwo. Pretty cool. You also get the full version of OpenOffice 2 in your virtual desktop.
• Stoneware Web OS (not free)
• AstraNOS
• G.ho.st
• Goowy
• Mybooo
• MyGoya
• Purefect
• Startforce
• YouOS
• Zimdesk

Why?

Basically, it comes down to portability. Being on the web means you can get to it from anywhere and from any computer. So, you can have your own virtual computer, complete with your own data and files. You could be on the other side of the world, log into your account from an internet cafe somewhere and everything will be right there. No notebook computer to lug around.

Personally, I do not use a Web based OS. But, I think it is pretty cool.

The Tandy 1000, introduced in 1984, was manufactured to compete directly with the IBM PC. The one I had came standard 128Kb of RAM, one double density 5.25″ floppy disk drive and a 16 color RGB monitor. As add-ons, dad had the foresight to also purchase a matching dot-matrix printer and a Tandy joystick. The system ran on MS DOS 2.11 (maybe the most stable Microsoft OS to date?) and came bundled with DeskMate 1.0. DeskMate was pretty remarkable for it’s time. It was a word processor, spreadsheet, database and calendaring suite that fit on a single 5.25″ floppy…let’s see Microsoft Office do that!

Messing with DeskMate (not me and version 2, but still the same DeskMate)

That’s what I cut my teeth on. There was nobody to ask questions to, no classes to take. I taught myself BASIC programming from the rudimentary manual that came with the system and hours of trial and error. We still had this system up until last year when an unfortunate flood at my parents’ washed this part of my past away…but the memories remain.

What was your first computer? How did it all start for you? Leave a comment and share with the community at large. I would sure be interested in hearing about it.

Now, Kyle’s service allows people with little to no experience editing their own website to make edits to their website. His audience is made up of people who own and run their own sites, so in this interview I am giving some inside knowledge on how I have managed to build up PCMech to the point that it is today.

Call it a little shop talk, but I would venture to say that anybody interested in bringing some traffic to their own site might be interested in watching this video. So, here it is:

This interview was outside, so both Kyle and I apologize for the audio. A few times the wind does get in the way. Oh well.

To summarize my primary points, it really does come down to the basics.

1. Give things away for free. People want value. What put PCMech on the map was providing a lot of content and making it freely available. A well known internet marketer named Eban Pagan talks about “moving the free line”, and the idea behind it is to give away a lot of value on your site. You can, of course, charge for more premium content (which we do here at PCMech University), but if people like what you do for free, they will like what you charge them for.
2. Post often. PCMech is a blog, and the success of any blog comes down to posting a lot. You notice that we try to post 3-4 times per day if we can.
3. Don’t shy away from opinion. Have personality, state your opinion and don’t shy away from controversy. Controversy can and does drive traffic. You can see any of my Mac versus PC editorials to see that is true (and many times that was an accident).
4. Write about what people are searching for and put those search keywords into your article as well as your article’s title.
5. Ask them to Subscribe. If you want people to subscribe to your mailing list, ask them!

It comes down to the basics. There is not really a “trick” to getting traffic. It comes down to doing the basics and doing it a lot.

But, Why not?

Since Apple’s conversion to Intel’s Core 2 system architecture, there have been people all over the world asking questions like “Can we run Windows on a Mac?” and other similar questions. The answers to these questions are becoming yes – no matter how hard Apple tries to control what you can do on their hardware.

Recently, there was a huge debate about a Mac Clone device that could run OS X and was not Apple-certified. I saw two distinct reactions from the community:

1. Because it is cheaper, it won’t work as well.
2. Finally! A cheap way to try OS X!

I have also been reading business reports showing that Apple is going to have to do some things to maintain its market after dominating the MP3 player arena. Analysts say Apple needs to do something to keep revenue coming in.

There is a simple solution that will earn Apple money, give DIY users - like many that read our website – full control over their systems, and still gives Apple control over the market itself.

Build Your Own Mac

Let’s say Apple licenses its architecture to a few hardware manufacturers. Let’s use Samsung, Corsair, Asus, Intel, Seagate, and Lite-on to develop individual hardware components which meet certain specifications, yet can be purchased individually. We can have Apple-certified hard drives, motherboards, processors, RAM, and optical drives. Then, distribute these parts through etailers like Newegg and allow them for sale to a wide audience of DIY customers at a reasonable price. The customer who wants to venture into this can get what they want – a computer that will run OS X, with the satisfaction of building it themselves and at a decent price. Apple earns revenue for sitting back and watching the market make their products more popular.

One of the prohibitive things that keeps me from buying an Apple computer is simply cost. I can’t afford to spend twice as much money on a computer that has the same functionality of a PC. Apple makes nice computers. No doubt there. But I won’t be buying one for a long time (if ever) because of the way PCs handle the market. If I can build a PC and have ownership of what I put in there, I will do it any day over purchasing a pre-built Mac. Especially when considering the price.

So, why would it hurt for Apple to allow its user’s to build their own Macs? It makes perfect sense to me that they should embrace the huge market and interest that would be generated by this business model. Hell, it might even drop the price of an Apple-built computer down to a more reasonable level by increasing Apple’s revenue elsewhere?

In closing, Apple should open up its computer hardware distribution to allow its user’s to build computers that meet their specific needs. There is a huge market that would be interested, and it might even knock down the PC market share a bit.

Would you build a Mac if you could?

But, you want a little more detail, perhaps. Fine, I’ll provide it. Warning: don’t expect me to benchmark this machine. I’ll leave that to the countless others who have already done it. I’m a practical guy. I USE the machine to get work done and it is from that perspective that I review it now.

The Specs

I picked up the “entry” level 15″ model. I call it “entry”, but it is anything but. There is a reason it has the “Pro” label in it’s name. Those specs:

• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo (Penryn)
• 2 GB of PC2-5300 DDR2 memory
• 800 MHz front-side bus
• 200 GB hard drive
• 8X slot-loading Superdrive
• Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics, 256 MB memory, dual-link DVI
• 15″ antiglare TFT display at 1440×900 native resolution.
• 1 Firewire 400, 1 Firewire 800, 2 USB ports, ExpressCard
• Integrated wireless, Ethernet and Bluetooth
• Backlit keyboard, multi-touch trackpad

Usage

When I first bought this notebook, I cranked it up and ran through the setup wizard for OS X Leopard. No problems at all. Once into the desktop, I was immediately at home in OS X. Since I had been using a Mac Pro for a while before buying this laptop, it was nice to be able to have a mobile equivalent to it. I was using a Vista-powered HP laptop before this (yuck).

When buying this notebook, I decided to get the anti-glare screen. It was a wise move. The glossy screen looks quite nice inside, but outside usage of the glossy screen is no picnic. My prior laptop had a gorgeous glossy screen on it, but it was really hard to use outside (even when I was in the shade on my back porch). The image on the anti-glare screen is very, very nice and I have no complaints at all. And the fact that I can see what I’m doing when I’m out on the porch is really convenient.

I also really dig having a larger screen resolution. Packing 1440×900 onto a 15″ screen is something you would think would make it hard to read. Not at all. In fact, again, my prior laptop only went up to 1280×800 and I wished it could have gone larger. The native resolution on this MacBook Pro provides for plenty of workspace. Of course, combine that with Spaces (built into OS X) and you’re going to have plenty of space.

The engineering of this laptop is great. It is easy and light to carry around (lighter than my prior HP laptop). The speakers sound quite good for being so low profile. The Isight camera provides great imagery while being super small. When I am doing live streaming shows from the MacBook, it really is amazing that so many people are watching me out of what seems like a tiny pinhole on my computer. The omni-directional microphone picks me up quite well (so I’m told) and you cannot even see it.

The speed of the laptop is more than enough. I’ve edited videos on it in Imovie. I’ve done live streaming video to UStream with it. I’ve watched movies. I’ve done some in-depth web programming on it. I’ve run Windows on it inside VMWare Fusion. And, yes, I’ve done some of these things at the same time. It just takes what I dish at it.

A Video

What I Like

When you pay $1,999 for a laptop, you expect to like pretty much everything about it. And I do. There are a few things I’d change (which I’ll go over below), but first let me sum up what I particularly like about the MacBook Pro:

• Nice screen resolution
• Firewire support is handy
• Slim design and easy to carry around
• Backlit keyboard is awesome and keyboard has a nice feel to it. Even my wife commented on the feeling of the keyboard and she doesn’t much care about computers.
• Fast and takes everything I dish at it

What I Don’t Like

I think the price for this unit is fair, however I would like to see Apple offer a more competitive warranty with the unit without additional charges. The AppleCare plan is great, but they charge you more money for it. Out of box, they only provide a 90 day warranty. That just isn’t enough for a laptop. If you’re going to buy a MacBook or MacBook Pro, I suggest you spring for the AppleCare plan.

Secondly, the unit only comes with 2 USB ports. Additionally, the placement of those ports isn’t very good. The one on the left side is fine, but the one on the right side is not well placed. If you use a USB mouse and are right-handed, you then have the USB plug hanging out right where the mouse would usually go. If you use something larger than a mouse in that right slot, it would be even more in the way. The right-side USB port would have been better placed on the left side or on the rear of the unit.

Same goes for the DVI port. Again, if you’re using the trackpad, it is fine. If you want to use a traditional 2 button mouse, anything hanging out on the right side will get in the way potentially.

The Verdict Is…

I suspect you already know. This is an awesome laptop. If you want to use OS X rather than Windows (or perhaps both) and want a laptop powerful enough to keep up with actual work, the MacBook Pro is the one to get.

The MacBook is, too, a great unit. But, I played with it in the store and there was a noticeable performance difference between it and the Pro. You’re also getting a 13″ screen which is something I didn’t want as my primary notebook computer.

This is all going to be changing, though.

The Interface

Cell phones typically have the worse software interfaces ever designed by man. For instance, I am using a phone powered by Windows Mobile 6. The thing is just bad - no other way to put it. Navigating the web is a horrible experience. Pages look unreadable if they are not designed for mobile phones (which most aren’t). Multi-tasking sucks (every programs stays open unless you force it to quit). Aside from phone functions (obviously) and basic web tasks like checking email, I don’t want to use my mobile phone to do much of anything.

Apple’s Iphone represents a drastic sea change. The Iphone is based on OS X and has the slickest interface I have ever seen on a phone. It isn’t just pretty, it is extremely functional.

The Iphone represents where mobile devices are going. But, Apple isn’t the only company thinking ahead.

Google Leads The Charge

Google is playing a large role in more ways than one. A big part of their equation is Google Android. Android is a new software platform for the mobile phone that is completely open source. That essentially makes it the anti-Apple of the mobile world. So, what is Google doing to change the face of the mobile industry?

• Google, along with some other internet companies, convinced the Federal Communications Commission to require that any company which won the auction for the 700MHz wireless spectrum allow consumers to openly use the network with any wireless device they choose. Since that time, Verizon has gone to win that auction and will thus control this bandwidth, however they will need to permit others to use the network. Google, for it’s part, really only made the bid in order to open up what would have been an otherwise closed wireless network. A win for Google and the industry as a whole.
• Google’s Android platform will bring mobile phones into open source - two words which would have never before been in the same sentence with mobile phone. Now, the thing to understand here is that Android is a platform, not an operating system. This means we’re going to see a bunch of different flavors of phones all running Android but looking and acting very differently. Android, though, is being developed to allow open development for the platform, a very different approach than Apple has taken with the Iphone. It is even going to allow developer access to the hardware, such as the built-in GPS, camera, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. This is going to lead to some incredibly powerful third-party applications which can be freely installed to an Android powered phone.

This is exciting stuff.

Keyword: Open

Take the uber-controlled device you now use and think what you could do if you had the same freedom with it as you do your own desktop computer. That’s openness. And that’s where we’re heading.

This is also going to open up phones to working with other services on the Internet. Again, this is something you just don’t see much of now because mobile companies just don’t want to allow it. For instance, what if you could use your mobile phone to snap a picture or record a video, have the phone automatically insert metadata of where it was taken (using the built-in GPS) and upload to your Flickr account with the proper tags? Or how about easy integration of your full contact list, speed dial, todos and calendar with Google?

An open platform would also lead to more freedom for Internet companies to create web-based services which integrate with mobile devices. For instance, what about VOIP using your cell phone?

On The Lookout For New Hardware

Open networks also mean more potential devices than just phones. We’re going to see other types of devices start taking advantage of the network to make remote connections.

The Amazon Kindle is one such device. Now, it uses a cell data modem to “phone home” using Sprint. This remote access allows you to surf for and buy e-books from Amazon right over the Kindle. Now, they are bundling the access costs for this service into the price of the Kindle, but this represents the potential of where we’re going.

So, what about your Ipod having a modem and allow you to stream or buy music direct to the Ipod? Or perhaps the same for the Zune?

Will Spur Competition

All this openness is going to invite strong competition. It is also going to drive down rates. If you pit service providers against each other on a level playing field, good things happen for you and me.

At this point, I think Apple represents the best of mobile software design and represents where we need to go. Google, for it’s part, is perhaps our best ally in driving all this openness into reality. Ultimately, it all comes down to money. Google isn’t doing this out of charity. They are doing it because they want to get Google apps onto your phone and be able to deliver mobile advertising.

But, in the process of getting there, we’re likely to see some big changes to the way things are done today in the world of mobile phones.