Watermarking instead of DRM?

TechDirt mentions an article about replacing DRM (Digital Right/Restriction Management) on media like music or video or other digial content with watermarking. Basically the file would be marked as being owned by you. You could give it away...but they could find out who it was from.

This has possibilities, big ones, but as they point out, there are downsides too, both from the vendors standpoint and (I think) from the user standpoint. What if someone stole your data and gave it away; how do you prove you didn't do it? Also, what about some of the more open e-boook and other digital standards (MP3 for example); you could easily remove the watermarks.

The closest I've seen to a "watermark" form of DRM/copy proection is the eReader (formerly Palm Reader formerly Peanut Press) method of securing your e-books. When you open it for the first time you have to type in the credit card number of the card you used to purchase it. This has problems too: 1) what if they go out of business and their reader software (available for Mac, Windos, Palm, and PocketPC, but nothing else such as Linux, Symbian, etc) stops working at some point in the future? And what if you forget your credit card number...what if you need to type it in years form now and have lost it? It happens.

No, all of this stuff is NOT going to be accepted and will ALWAYS be broken instantly. The proper method is to do what companies like Baen Books, artists like Jane Siberry and others are doing...trust the customer. You don't copy protect paper books and those can be digitized easily too. You can always break audio file proection by the simple expedient of simply re-ripping the audio; use program like Audio HiJack to take the output going from iTunes or RealPlayer or Windows Media Player to your speakers and turn it into an MP3.

In short, corporate folks, the simple solution is to give up. You can't win. The harder you try the worse it will get. People don't like being told then can't do what they want with what they've purchased (and no, I don't mean give it away to all and sundry...I mean fair use, which DRM also inhibits, and the expense of the Constitutional guarantees!) Instead of inconveniencing your customers (if not outright endangering them like Sony did with it's "rootkit" copy protection disaster), try trusting them instead. It seems to be working for all the folks who ease off (iTunes) or remove (Baen, and to some extent also Fictionwise) their copy protection schemes.

I have no problem with simple watermarking, but don't make a big production out of it. Marking the ebook with "From the Library of John Smith" might work, but I can't see how useful it'd be for MP3s or video or graphic files; graphic files already get watermarked when printed to make sure the Feds can tell whick printer was used to produce counterfit currency (so it's been revealed recently). Adding another layer will just be worse.

MPAA, RIAA, et. al: GIVE UP. YOU CAN'T WIN THE COPY PROTECTION BATTLE. You CAN lose your customers, however, as Sony is finding out, if you persist in treating them like criminials. They are 100% right when they say that DRM only causes problems for inconvenient customers. THere hasn't been a DRM scheme out there that hasn't been broken, and quickly.

Worried about movies getting out on the internet within hours (if not before) of the movie's premiere? Then release the damned thing on DVD at the same time. Most folks would rather drive to Best Buy or the video rental store and pay a few bucks than waste house downloading and assembling and burnign what are usually rather bad digital copies. People WILL pay for convenience. THAT'S where to get them. That's why iTunes is so successful.

Have the Cylons infiltrated Amazon.com?

Just got two boxes from Amazon.com where I'd ordered 3 "episode guide" books for Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica and two CD's by Stacey Kent's hubby, Jim Tomlinson. Oddly, they were shipped separately (though ordered together) one by UPS, one by USPS, about one day apart, but arrived simultaneously (well, on the same day anyway).

The Battlestar book and the two CD's arrvie together. They were shrinkwrapped to a piece of cardboard, and this cardboard is the exact same shape as the the photos and printouts used on BSG. In a typical BSG bid to make things seem similar but NOT QUITE the same as earth-humans, the printouts and photos and other "pieces of paper" on BSG have their corners clipped at a 45 degree angle (sort of like movie tickets/raffle ticket). The sheet of cardboard the BSG book was shrinkwrapped to was clipped exactly the same way. Weird coincidence!

This guy's got a point...where's the iPod PDA/Tablet Mac, Apple?

I agree with the author of this post. The iPod edges close and close and close to a PDA. Cellphones edge close and closer to iPods....and are already PDAs. Hell, my PDA had an MP3 player years ago.

And while there's something to be said for discrete devices (same argument as agains all-in-one printer/scannner/fax combos....with separate devices you don't lose ALL the functions if one ofthem breaks) there should still be quite a market for an all-in-one device. It's not like it'd be hard to create; in fact, they have made them....merge the Palm Treo smartphone with the large screen and hard drive of the Palm LifeDrive and you have the ultimate iPod/PDA/Video+StillCamera/Cellphone/ combo.

Then have a 12" iBook verison of it for the tablet/eBook crowd.

Hopefully one day with a roll-out flexible OLED screen.

And best of all....one designed and made by Apple for the absolute best out-of-box experience.

I don't know whether to cry or wish he'd inspected MY house

What with all the high-tech job layoffs and outsourcing and stuff in recent years, this article about a former Lunar Module engineer now doing home inspections for a living makes me very sad. And very angry at our government. And our people.

You know...the people who caused the death of the lunar program because they were upset that flights to the moon (to the MOON!) were interrupting their re-runs (RE-RUNS!) on TV. Despite the fact that every dollar we put into NASA has come back tenfold in research that has improved out lives and health and everything else.

And now we're to the point that we don't have the ABILITY (or even the designs, so I'm told) to make a spacecraft that will go to the moon. They just recently thought to start preserving the last remaining Saturn 5 boosters, which had been laid out on it's side to rust for the last 30 years. Idiots.

Jerry Pournelle once said that he always knew we'd go to the moon....he just didn't think we'd do it and then STOP going.

I've long been disappointed with our government....and with our people for letting them slack off. There is no vision anymore, like Kennedy had for putting a man on the moon. Though even that was part political...gotta keep up with them Commies!

I've got to find that saying my dad had framed and hung on the wall from his office. It's by John F. Kennedy, and I think it's from his book "Profiles In Courage":

"Where there is no vision, people PERISH."

Outsourcing all our manufacturing AND high-tech jobs to other countries all in the almighty name of profit is WRONG. It's TREASON, if you ask me. It's short term profit-taking decisions like these that will be the death of this country if we don't watch out. Overzealous "Communism" was ultimately the death of the Soviet Union. How ironic would it be if overzealous capitalism was the ultimate cause of death of the USA?

Sigh.

Try BlogLines if you read a lot of sites with RSS feeds

I've been playing around with RSS feeds for blogs (web log sites) as they are built into the Firefox browswer, but wasn't finding it useful there. I'd looked at them before, using stand-alone applications for reading RSS feeds, but never liked them. Probalby because this is a still-infant technology (despite them being used for podcasts in iTunes 4.9)

But I found a way to use RSS feeds to keep up on all my favorite sites without having to tediously visit each one to see if they've got anything new.

it's called BlogLines.com and it's a web site that does the same thing as the built in feature in web browsers or those stand-alone apps. And because it's on the web, I can access it from any computer on the 'net and get the latest news. Nothing to synchronize, etc.

Along with services like GMail, Google Maps, Blogger, etc, web sites that are applications (i.e. they serve a useful purpose other than just reading news or whatever) are becoming more and more popular. I'm not sure that web-apps will ever totally replace stand alone applications programs....but a lot of simpler programs can surely be made more useful by making them a web site.

Their only problem is when you need the service and you're not connected to the 'Net.

Statistics about Apple are looking up!

The advent of low cost Macs like the Mac Mini and the iMac G5, as well as the so-called "halo effect" of the iPod have brought all sort of good statistics to Apple of late.

Their sales are increasing at 3 times the rate of the rest of the computer industry. Their sales of Macs for the last several quarters have increased greatly as Windows owners tired of viruses and having gotten a taste of Apple quality with the iPod have switched to Mac from Windows.

Just the other day, it was announced that Apple has moved up to the number 4 spot among computer companies in terms of market share.

Now Jupiter Research has reported on Apple's share of the business desktop and business server market.

You seldom hear about installed base, but this is a good example of what Mac users have know all along...there are a lot more Macs in use, and in use for longer out there than most Windows-zealots will admit. You can't go buy % of market share of sales in the last quarter. Heck, Apple has pretty much always been in 10 (and now in the top 5) companies. But that seldom is mentioned, because in our short-term-profit centric mindset, that never seems to show up on the radar. Until now.....when the bloom is way, way off the rose of Windows....and the promise of Linux has been diluted with the 15 trillion different distros you have to try and pick from, and the fact that it's still not a low-maintenance OS in most cases (the only exception I can think of being the Lindows/Linspire that Wal-Mart sells, which isn't exactly taking the market by storm)

Mac OS X is Unix/Linux done right, basically. And businesses and IT pros are starting to realize it. They take the best from the open source and Unix worlds and combine it with the polish and professionalism that business users expect of an off-the-shelf machine....and are laughing all the way to bank.

Oh...and ABSOLUTELY NO VIRUSES, vs. Windows 100,000 viruses (which doubled last year alone!)

Heck, 4 years ago when I was looking at houses to buy, whenever there was a computer in the houses I looked at, it was always a Mac. ALWAYS. I couldn't believe it, but there it is! I looked at places all over the city, too.

Congrats, Apple. It's about time you started getting the respect you deserve.

"Slipped the surly bonds of earth..."

It's a sad day.

Jimmy Doohan, the actor who portrayed Scotty, the man who kept the Enterprise flying in the original Star Trek, the movies, and one of the best Next Generation episodes, died yesterday (July 20, 2005) at age 85.

I've seen Jimmy many times at Trek cons, and he was the nicest person you ever met. Several times he actually went around a PACKED auditorium and shook EVERYONE'S hand. Everyone. He was always a joy to listen to. A true gentleman. I've seen or met most of the original Trek actors (except Nimoy) and all were very nice, but he was the BEST.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so. All the coverage and comments by people about him I've read the last day or so are all the same. Everyone absolutely loved him.

How fitting that he passed on the 36th anniversary of the first manned landing on the moon, and the 29th of the first successful probe to land on Mars (Viking 1)

I also see today that some of his ashes are going to be launched into space, as Roddenberry's were. Personally, I think the Space Shuttle should take some up too. It's only a pity that it can't be the shuttle Enterprise (the fans goofed up there, asking NASA to call the test orbiter "Enterprise" when it was never goint to go to space.)

On a lighter note...Jimmy lived in Redmond, WA. The same city where Microsoft has it's home base.

Would that Microsoft could've hired Scotty to fix up Windows and make it work properly.

Goodbye Jimmy. Hope you're having a great time catching up with De Kelley ("Bones") somewhere in the multiverse.

Radio Shack to sell Apple products

Actually, they already DO sell the "Apple iPod from HP" (one of the silliest product brand names ever....what is HP thinking?)

But this will sell iPods directly from Apple.

And they are moving toward selling Macs (probably the Mac Mini and the iMac, I'd guess) at Radio Shacks too, if the iPods work out (and they WILL).

I worked for a Radio Shack Computer Center from 1980-82 when the two mass-market personal computers were the Apple ][ lines and the Radio Shack TRS-80 line. I used both in high school in the late 70's (we had three TRS-80's, one Apple ][)

In 1984 I switched from a TRS-80 Model IV to an original Mac...and have been Apple ever since (at home). So it's kinda cool to see the place whose computers I first used, who eventually just became another PC clone-box maker, move back towards my computing preference!

Harry Potter 6 sales: "When a book beats out movies, we're in great shape"

Well, the 6th book in the Harry Potter series is out, and it's kicking the crap out of MOVIES.

Gotta love it.

Especially when it's everyone from kids to grandparents buying a huge 600 (almost 700) page book...and then spending the weekend reading it.

GOOD ON YOU, READERS!

Now go out and read some more books besides just Harry Potter please...the rest of the industry needs you too!

Top 10 cell phone wish list

Cellular vendors and manufacturers, PLEASE listen to this lady. She's right!

Watch out, the Replicators are here!

This and other robotic developments in the last few years are starting to get scary!

The description of these sounds just like the buglike Replicator robots in the TV series Stargate SG-1.

Contribute now!

Ok, I may have to find another bank...

Wells Fargo has connected all it's ATMs using the Web and Microsoft technology.

What a bunch of maroons. Banks are normally the most security conscious places. Apparently someone forgot to inform their IT department that if you want security, Microsoft is who you do NOT use.

Is this Sony's answer to the iPod?

As PDAs, cell phone, MP3 players, camera, etc all converge, one has to start wondering what happens to the iPod and other stand-alone gadgets.

My Sony Clie NX unit is darn near all of the above in one; if they had an internal HD instead of memory cards (so I could approximate my iPod's 40GB of storage), and it had cellular support, then it WOULD be all of the above.

Sony's been publicly embarrased by the iPod.....and has now withdrawn from the PDA market too. But perhaps THIS is a sign of where they are going. And the rest of the industry as well.

Looks like an iPhone to me. A Walkman-Phone. Who'da thunk it.

Now they tell us...

Now they want men older than 65 who smoked to be screened for aortic aneurysm (a "bubble" in the large artery leaving the heart heading toward the legs).

Like the one that killed my father, who was 67.

Now they tell us. They've long known it's a problem, believe me. My dad's doctors told us so, and for the very reasons that this new guideline uses. In fact, my dad's surgeon told me and my sisters that WE should be tested regularly. And I'm only 42 and my sisters even younger.

My dad's mom had an aortic aneurysm (although they say that's not what killed her, but I'm not so sure since as this article points out a burst aortic aneurysm is often thought to be a heart attack or stroke...and my grandma died of a "heart attack").

And my dad's cousin's husband had an burst aortic aneurysm too. He survived, and was very VERY lucky to do so, as about 75% do not.) And he was DRIVING when this happened. When an aneurysm burst, you basically pass out. NOT what you want to be doing while driving. If my dad's cousin hadn't been with him to grab the wheel and stop the car, he'd have crashed. Talk about lucky people!

Not that this new "guideline" makes things that much safer for the person with the aneurysm. Aside from the fact that you bleed out quickly, it causes lots of other complications. And the surgery to repair it is almost as dangerous as having it burst - to fix it you have to cut off blood flow to the bottom part of your body, which is exactly what the aneurysm does. This causes clotting, possibly loss of blood to organs, even major ones depending on how close to the hear the aneurysm is, etc. Which points out that however "perfect" the creationists think "God's Design" of the human organism is and other parts of nature is, and how it couldn't possibly have come from evolution....it's quite far from perfect! You couldn't ask for more eloquent proof against the creationist and other "intelligent design" loons.)

There are other developments as well. About 2 months after my dad died, my mom and I were flying out to California to visit my sister's new daughter, who was born the month after he died. During this flight to visit a grandbaby who her granddad never got to see, I ran across a small article in the in-flight magazine about a new procedure that helps strengthen the artery by putting a "stent" (sort of a "liner") in the artery and stave off the burst...perhaps even letting them repair it withough cutting off the blood flow to the lowe part of your body.

I recently had a $$$ ultrasound scan for aneurysms, and plan to do so every few years for the rest of my life. My insurance company paid for it, and some stats in this article does make me breathe a little easier...but still, I was around my dad's second hand smoke for many decades, and I wonder how that affects me. I'm trying to be more healthy, eating better and exercising....but with my dad and my grandma both having aneurysms, I have to wonder how much is smoking/lifestyle and how much is genetics.

What the HELL is wrong with people these days?

Frightening. Truly frightening.

Here's another market that the Mac mini will capture

People who are "tech support" for their computer-maintenance-challenged parents and other family members.

I keep hearing the refrain in reviews and commentary articles (of which there are a lot, the MM is generating quite the buzz) that the reviewers or interviewees are planning on buying one or more for their parent/children/relatives because they are tired of dealing with repairing the constant Windows virus and spyware attacks and general Windows cruft that builds up and takes out a Windows box.

Add that to the Unix techies all flying to the Mac because it is absolutely THE best Unix-oid laptop bar none AND it runs MS Office apps and all the other popular mainstream apps like Quicken and Photoshop and so on.

And there is a lot of curiousity among the other computer-techies to buy one to "check it out." I just hope most folks get it with at least 512MB RAM (another $75 from Apple or less if you do it yourself...hopefully the mail-order folks like Mac Connection and such will give you free RAM upgrades as they often do. Heck, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Mac mini show up in PC oriented mailorder catalogs. Apple would be stupid NOT to purchase placement for the mini there; I think they'd done so for the iMac and Xserver and stuff!)

There's also a lot of even the computer techies who want a system at home that's powerful and that they don't have to spend huge amounts of time maintaining.....because they too are tired of having to screw with Windows at work all day. I know I love to go home to my Mac from my Windows PC at work all day. Windows has it's points.....but none that don't make me far prefer the Mac. None. In fact, some of the things I like (Visual Basic for example) now have better products on the Mac....RealBasic is just as good, just as well supporte by third-party developer add-on libraries (check Versiontracker and see) and unlike VB, it's cross platform -- you can compile for MacOS X, MacOS 9, Windows, AND Linux. And soon you'll be able to develop in RealBasic on all of those platforms (or at least MacOS X, Windows, and Unix too). And it supports Windows versions back to 98 I believe.

Oh yes, the folks who make the decisions about computer purchase are about to get a wakeup call. IT folks can always use more time; I'm not so sure that making desktop computer require less support will mean they'll have any less work to do. The other folks at work always seem to be able to find more for you to do....and hopefully that "more to do" will be more fun and interesting than fighting virus and patches and spyware and other Windows crap you have to put up with. Most folks I work with use Word, Excel, a VT-100 terminal program (just use Terminal on the Mac) to connect to our Alpha minicomputer, e-mail, and a web browser. If we didn't have a bunch of databases I developed in MS-Access (the one thing that is NOT in MS Office for the Mac) then we could pull out their PC, give them an Mac mini with Office and they'd be fine. And I'm trying to move away from Access dbs, as it's too easy for people to go in and screw around with them and screw them up, switching to using VB interfacing with a database backend (preferrably Oracle or someting similar instead of a local database, with no interface they can use to screw things up.)

Oh yes, the next few months are going to be interesting....if you are thinking about a Mac mini and haven't placed your order.....you better do so NOW. It may already be too late if you want to get one anytime soon. I think we'll have them backordered for months before they even start shipping, I do.

Why the Mac Mini is going to be a huge success

Why? Because the head IT honcho at my office, a man who lives and breathes Windows all day, is going to buy a Mac mini.

This seems to be a common refrain in the news reports.

And I think a whole "Mac mini" economy like that which sprang up around the iPod and the Palm is going to develop too. Lots of little USB2 or Firewire or other add-ons that stack underneath the Mac Mini (or beside it; have several stack) with things like hard drives, video switchers, memory card bays, PVR boxes, and on and on, despite that's not being the target market for Mac minis.

Apple may have a bigger market (and additional markets) for the Mac mini than it assumed.

Or maybe it DID know what it had after all. Home entertainment Mac. Home Mac server (get your own domain name here! No more e-mail address switching when you move or switch ISPs!)

If my PowerBook G4 ever needs to go in for a service, I can now go get a $499 or $599 unit to use with an old monitor and keyboard and mouse to tide me over. Much cheapter than a low-end iBook even!

I'm also seriously thinking about using this as a home Internet (web/ftp/mail/news/dns/dyndns/etc) server since it's likely to have a low power options because it uses a laptop drive. I used to use an old PowerBook Duo 2300 as a server because the hard drive could spin down and it could turn off the screen backlight to reduce power usage. I'll betcha the Mac mini can do that too.

Steve Job's Master Plan

I've always thought that Steve Jobs and his minions had a long-term master plan to bring back Apple and eventually screw Microsoft at it's own game.

Looks like, based on this article that I'm not the only one who thought that (or at least has realized it).

When the XServe was announced, I was pretty sure my hypothesis was coming out in the open. With the Mac Mini, I'm even more sure. Not to mention that Apple is out-Sonying Sony in the media market. I especially liked that Steve-o managed to get the head of SONY to kowtow to him publicly.

Now we just have to make sure that Steve doesn't go too far in his pride. This is the man that told Disney to "shove it" after all. But then again, he never has suffered fools gladly, has he?

Hot damn...Apple makes an iCheap!

...and an iPod cheap too

And they're starting to encroach on MS Office's turf more too.. Last year it was a PowerPoint replacement (done better) and an Explorer replacement (done better). This year it's a Word replacement (done better). Anyone want to be there's an Excel replacement waiting? And of course, they already have an Access replacement (sort of) in FileMaker. I think this is Steve Jobs saying to Bill Gates "don't thing you can hold Office over our head...we've got a replacement for your crappy Office stuff now."

And Windows Server's turn

Hell, and Cray's turf with all the K's of Xserve's being clustered these days!

Steve's doing a stealth-end-run around Microsoft in the business market. Cheap servers and cheap clients. Cheap server OS's. And if all else fails, an Intel version of OS X is a few compiler-switch settings away, remember. If MS does ever kill Apple (not likely) then all Steve has to do is open source the REST of OS X (the part other than Darwin, i.e. the GUI) and make it available for Intel hardware....and watch all of Microsoft's market share (and Linux too) run (not walk) to OS X!

Heh.

Paintable solar cell material discovered!

Scientists have discovered a more efficient solar cell material that converts up to 30% of light (including infrared) to electricty; two to five times more than current solar cells do.

And you can paint it on, incorporate it into clothing, whatever. Your clothes could recharge your cellphone or PDA. Your walls could power your house. Your car's paint job could charge your battery, crack water into hydrogen to run you car....you get the drift.

Another interesting link.

I wonder what happened to the flexible/moldable plastic solar cell material that someone at a university here in Iowa was working on?

I've always thought Windows computer were junk, but I had no idea how much...

eBay has started an e-waste program to recycle or resell or donate old electronic equipment, notably computers. The figures on the number of computers alone to be recycled in the next few years is staggering. And the amount of heavy metals it will put into the environment is staggering too. Over 400 million computers in the next 3 years. [And since Apple only sells about 4 million Macs a year, I can guarantee you that most of those are Windows computers, as Apple will sell only about 12 million at present rates in the same time period.]

Most cell phones are replaced every 18 months (and last I heard there are more cell phones sold every year than computers!). I've been thinking about a new phone, but frankly, they are starting to get so overloaded with features that I think I'll just hold off a while until they finish "converging" cell phones, PDAs, iPods, and digicams together. And then wait a bit more until they work the kinks out. Or until Apple makes one (which may happen sooner than you think) as they are the only ones likely to do the job write. Microsoft certainly won't (despite repeated attempts so far.)

Even more interesting is the fact that over 75% of all computers ever sold remain stockpiled in storage rooms, basements etc. (I've got most of my old ones!)

It's time and past time to pull them out, put Linux on 'em and use 'em for servers, to processes SETI or other science data, grid computing, whatever. Donate 'em to old folks/kids/schools/low-income folks who need simple 'Net access, too. Or maybe my local school for use by younger kids. The big problem is finding the older software they'll need.

I've been trying to think how I could redeploy some of my old computers for my own use, too. I'm going to put one of my old Newtons with it's speech generation software in my bedroom so that it can wake me up and make sure I drag my butt into work for important meeting (I'm not a morning person and the alarm is just too easy for me to ignore...both of them I have). Pity that the company that made that software the Newton had for downloading a TV guide went out of business....now that there is wireless WiFi access available for the Newton, I could have left a couple more old Newtons by the TVs in my house, and have them pick up the schedule automatically and wirelessly. Not so needed anymore with my satellite dish, which has a searchable guide, but not all my rooms have been wired for satellite; the rest are wired for cable tv, and the local bare-bones non-digital cable I have with my broadband access doesn't have a program guide (certainly not a searchable one). Newtons also make better (wider/taller) web browsers than most pocket-sized PDAs do. Yep, I really need to revive those old newtons and revisit them for portable web browsing, They're not color, but that's ok. With the use of the wifi drivers now available and www.skweezer.net to strip all the extraneous graphics out, they should make pretty good portable 'Net padds!

Other initiatives on the 'Net like FreeCycle or R.O.C.K. (recycle old computer kindly) are good ways to give new life to old equipment. If they don't get too "picky" for their own good. Our local R.O.C.K does just Windows PCs, for gawd's sake. They also want fairly new ones, and functional ones. Ridiculous! And they don't do Macs...which seems senseless to me since the give a lot of computers to schools....and most local schools use Macs (I just saw a picture of a computer class room at an Urbandale school recently, full of current eMacs and some older original iMacs. You'd think that R.O.C.K. would be interested in stockpiling any sort of computer part they could find. Or software. Maybe they got too many donations to store or something, but still.....they seemed awfully picky! And giving a PC to a school seems counter productive...it's widely known and proven that schools don't have the resources to keep PC's running and virus/worm free....and Macs don't have to worry about that.

I've also heard of an organization that ships old computers over to poor/developing nations in Africa and Asia.

I keep my previous computer as a "backup" for my current one; so should everyone. it's easier for me, since I use laptops exclusively. But of course, by the time I buy yet another new one (typically 4 or 5 years with Macs) the old one isn't worth much if you tried to sell it. I've given a few to relatives who have far less powerful computing needs than I have, but that only goes so far. Some friends of mine asked me recently to help them reformat and sell their old Mac laptops (an Duo 230 and a 1400 and a G3/230. The 230 is probably worthless, and the 1400 not worth much of anything...and the 230 they should keep as a backup for the new iBook G4 they got.)

I use laptops mostly, since about 1990, so I've thought about putting my old ones around the house since they are convenient for a quick web-lookup, and take up little space or power. I recently put my most recently replaced laptop in my bedroom as a CD/DVD player, too...and since I have a wireless network, it's also a good way to access the 'Net quickly without having to go downstairs. I'm debating whether I want to leave it in sleep mode, as I don't really use it all that much. I'll have to find figures on how much power it uses in sleep...but it's certainly going to be much more practical if it starts up immediately than if I have to wait a minute or two for a boot.

I'm also thinking about pulling the old Duo 2300 laptop I had before that out of mothballs; When I bought my PowerBook G3, I had set it up as a web/ftp/mail/news/dns server to run my old Info-Newt web site about the Apple Newton Messagepad. I had to take it down when I moved to my new place because about that time the Code Red virus hit and the new broadband provider I switched to when Qwest repeatedly dropped the ball moving my DSL account to the new place (at two weeks intervals for almost a month!) had closed all the ports I needed to run the servers, to prevent Code Red from spreading, and the server wouldn't work anymore. I think they've opening things back up now.

I used a laptop as a server because I can easily set it to spin down the hard drive and turn off the backlight and even slow down the processor when it's not busy....perfect for a low volume personal server. Most new computer that are Energy Star certified may allow this as well, laptop or not.

Now I just have to figure out how to let data reach the system past my firewall without having to pay my provider extra $$$ for a second IP address. Should be loads of fun, since the concept of "user friendly" has yet to really reach the halls of network router hardware makers...

Anyway....dust off that old computer equipment and put it too good use! Don't put it in the landfill. Either way, putting the old computer in the closet or the landfull is a WASTE. Try to keep all the old manuals and disks for your computer in one place too...a computer isn't much use without OS and application software manuals and disks...and you often get new or upgraded apps when you get a new computer. I'm sure your old apps and software can be of use to someone somewhere. FIND THEM! Even if they are in your own household or family or neighborhood. Even if they don't use them much (like the computer I gave to my Mom). You don't use a rake or a snowshovel every day either....but we still have them around when we need 'em. That's why I'm so glad to see laptops pushing 50% of all computers sold or more (at Apple anyway). They take up a whole heck of a lot less room, and for most folks are perfect. Most folks except gamers and computer hobbyists don't need huge boxes full of card slots or huge screens. A laptop is what they need, and more and more of them are realizing it.