Related link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/gallery/2002-12-23-horse/flash.htm

I don’t usually post two weblog entries in one day, but this is just too cool to pass up. Don Burleson wrote our Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference. Don and his wife Janet, mostly it’s Janet, also train guide horses for the blind. Here’s a link to Seeing is believing, a USA Today article complete with pictures. I just think what they are doing is so cool, and innovative.

Recently we did the PC-shuffle at my house. I handed down a Thinkpad to my teenage daughter, and she handed down her ancient Toshiba notebook, which still insists on functioning, to my seven-year-old son. Everyone wanted a word-processor, so I had to review my Office licenses:

• I was (and still am) using MS Office 2000 for work.
• We had Lotus SmartSuite installed on the familly-room PC, which my wife mainly used.
• My daughter was using MS Office 97 on her notebook.

This was a mess! Already my daughter grumbled occasionally about not being able to create a document on the familly-room PC and then take it upstairs to her notebook for further work. My wife and daughter couldn’t help each other out, because they both used different programs. And now my son wanted a word processor, and I couldn’t see spending hundreds of dollars to buy a word processor for a kid who can’t type yet.

The solution came to me in the form of OpenOffice.org. Three of my authors are using it to write their books, and we’d had good success with it, so why not standardize on it at home?

I installed OpenOffice.org on all the PCs. My son now happily bangs away at his keyboard, and has created a huge document consisting entirely of random letters. My daughter writes her journal and does her homework, and all her existing Word files have converted over just fine. They can even help each other. My son learned how to password-protect OpenOffice.org files and he shared that knowledge with his sister.

The only glitch has been on the Windows XP machine. There I can only get OpenOffice.org to run for one user, the user who did the install. I hope there’s a fix, but I haven’t had time to track it down.

Like any program, OpenOffice.org has its annoyances. But it’s very capable. That I and several authors use it to collaborate on book projects is proof of that. My kids are also both very happy with it.

It occurs to me that OpenOffice.org is just the right introduction to Open Source for the vast majority of people who currently run Windows. It fills a need almost everyone has, it plays well with Microsoft Office files, the price is certainly right, and it doesn’t require someone to make the jarring switch from Windows to Linux.

We need to get the word out. Last fall I helped a friend buy a new Dell. When he configued the PC, I had him include Microsoft Office Small Business. I feel terrible about that. Tell your friends, when they configure that new Dell, to leave out Microsoft Office. It’s highly likely they don’t need it. Use OpenOffice.org instead.

Have you tried OpenOffice.org for Windows? Do you use it on a regular basis? Have you had success with it? Any problems with it?

I really have to hand it to Apple. More than any other computer company out
there, Apple knows how to create suspense and get people excited about their
products. I about fell out of my chair when I read about the new 12- and 17-inch
Powerbooks. I have no doubt there’s a market for both, but the 12-inch model
is the one that really caught my attention, because small and light, and hopefully
with a long battery life, is exactly what I want my next notebook to be.

I’ve thought about the 12-inch Powerbook a lot since it was announced. Apple
bills it as "full-featured"
notebook. After thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that full-featured
is a state-of-mind. Witness all those who are upset at the lack of a PC-card
slot, or at the lack of a level-3 cache, or at the 640MB memory ceiling, or
at the lack of a DVI video connecter. But I’m not here to complain about what
Apple left out. Quite the opposite, I want Apple to leave out more!

We could quibble about Apple’s design tradeoffs, but the bottom line is that
Apple has put together a very attractive package here. Not only physically attractive,
but attractive featurewise as well with its built-in bluetooth, 802.11g, G4
processor, AGP 4x graphics, DDR memory, and its ability to drive an external
1600×1200 display in addition to its built-in display. It’s a great little machine,
and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t sell very well.

Apple has built out its Powerbook line in both directions from the middle,
but I think there’s one slot they could yet fill: that of an even thinner Powerbook,
one without a CD drive. Now don’t laugh. In the Windows world there’s a market
for such machines. IBM, for example, sells it’s Thinkpad
X30 at a very premium price–customers pay more to get less. Then there’s
Toshiba’s
Portégé 2010, Compaq’s
EVO 410, and Sony’s VAIO®
R505G SuperSlim™ Pro, just to name a few.

Just as some would willingly trade screen size for a smaller form-factor, preferring
the 12-inch model over the 15- and 17-inch models, there are some who would
trade in the CD drive as well. I know I would. In the 2+ years I’ve had my current
notebook, I’ve never, that I can recall, ever used the CD drive while travelling.
At home I have a desktop for my CD needs. I’d happily trade out the CD drive
in my notebook for a reduction in size & weight. Perhaps better would be
to replace the CD drive with a slot for a second battery. Imagine for a moment
a 12-inch Powerbook with an 8-10 hour battery life. Wouldn’t that be a great
thing?

What do you think? Is there a market for an even thinner & lighter Powerbook with no built-in CD drive? Would you buy one?

Related link: http://homepage.mac.com/starshipexeter/

I just finished watching Star Trek Exeter: The Savage Empire with my kids, which, thanks to this page, I was able to download and watch. It’s a fan-made movie of the Star Trek genre, in which the crew of the Star Ship Exeter mixes it up with some Klingons and rebels on the Andorian homeworld.

It’s a great episode. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kudos to those who worked so hard to create it.

As I write this, I’m thinking that this movie didn’t come from Paramount. Rather, it came from some very ambitious and passionate hobbiests. I know amateur films have been around for a long time, but I’m excited that this was so accessible to me, that I could just download it and enjoy watching it with my family. I liked it. My two kids liked it.

My heartiest thanks to Jimm & Josh Johnson, and all the others who worked so hard on this film. I can’t express how excited I was to watch your creation. It ruined my productivity for the whole afternoon :) (uh, Tim, don’t read that last sentence).

Have you had a chance to see this film? What do you think?