Hardware (General)

We haven't yet come to grips, as a society, with what it means to store so much of our vital stuff as zeros and ones on disks and flash cards here and there. Such stuff isn't really real, is it? It's easily lost, or even worse, stranded.

I’ve been an owner of a MacBook for over a month now and here is my review.

We hear so much about wireless networking these days that another, more slowly growing connectivty option has gotten almost no notice at all. I'm talking about broadband over powerlines.

"The laptops will have a 10 to 1 crank rate, so that a child will crank the handle for one minute to get 10 minutes of power and use. When closed, the hinge forms a handle and the AC cord can function as a carrying strap, according to Negroponte. The laptops will be ruggedized and probably made of rubber."

From the user manual for my new uninterruptable power supply:

The UPS operates on battery when the line voltage or frequency has fallen outside the limits. Local users are alerted to this mode of operation by visual and audible indicators. The UPS provides power to the load from the battery and through its inverter and the output voltage and frequency of the UPS are regulated within a narrow band.

Enticed by a lower price (by about 40%), I opted to pass up the reliable APC and Belkin brands and take a gamble on the MasterPower UPS 525VA. My favorite feature so far is on/off switch: you have to hold down a button for a full three seconds, during which the UPS emits a loud, piercing, continuous beep and displays a cryptic green light. You turn it off the same way. Unfortunately, to figure this out you have to read through a couple pages of instructions like the ones quoted above (all in tiny print) until you get to a buried little sentence that tells you the secret of turning it on.