Status-Q

The iWood is a rather nice-looking wooden case for the iPod Nano.

My friend Andrew asked today if I knew anywhere in Cambridge where he could buy a slide rule. I couldn't help him (though I do own a rather nice one).

But I did stumble across the website of the UK Slide Rule Circle, an 'informal group of slide rule enthusiasts'.

If you consider yourself a slide rule enthusiast - and who, in their innermost thoughts, does not? - then this might be just what you're looking for...

Here's a bit of nostalgia. Anyone remember Digital? How about the AltaVista search engine?

I was browsing through some of my old mail and came across a message from the dim recesses of January 1998. I had just tried the AltaVista translation service to convert a Spanish review of a Digital laptop into English. It did some wonderful things like occasionally translating 'desktop' as 'tablecloth' and I thought the results were quite charming. Here are the first few paragraphs:

Portable, Compact and Powerful. Digitalis HiNote Vp 575

"An equipment of high benefits that competes seriously with those of tablecloth - by Abel Manto'n"

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To the good thing one is accustomed immediately. Portable 575 HiNote VP stand for casks is so powerful, that one week whole without igniting the desktop computer can be happened nor remembering for anything him. One is a cacharrito of 3.4 kilos of weight, with 2.16 gigas of hard disk and one piece that combines in the same space the disquetera and the reader of D-ROM. From the last name comes to him there bent to this machine of 765,000 pesetas in its standard configuration. The computer that we have proven bond something more, because it included an extension of memory, happening of the 16 megas of the basic equipment to 32. The memory difference, as already it has been written so many times, is fundamental to shoot the yield. Unfortunately, the extensions of memory accustom to being specific for each model and the prices notice it. An equipment to taste.

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Paltar to choose a portable one well is necessary to have precaution in verifying how the tastes of user to three basic parameters adapt: the keyboard, the screen and the mouse, that with the programs that run is essential. On the keyboard it is necessary to say that a little out of place have some keys, mainly the one to suppress, the one of beginning and the one of aim. Model proven had keyboard English, which always incomoda a little, but more annoying is to have to look for key to erase, which it is where it is without leaf return, and is an infrequent place. By the others, it is written wonderfully. The screen is irreprochable. 12.1 inches, active matrix and a fantastic angle of view. Sure the graphical card, that has much to do, is a PCI of 128 bits (pure lujazo), of most efficient. It allows a resolution of until 1024x768 points, although doing a trick of panning. That is to say, it creates a virtual screen that ' sale' of the visible screen and moves on this one when the leader of the mouse takes towards the ends. Recommendable and the appropriate thing is to use the resolution of 800x600, with HD color, that produces the best visual results, without trap nor cardboard.

Like the small size of the iPod shuffle but wish it had a display? Today, Apple announced the iPod Nano, and the Mini has quietly vanished from the Apple site.

Oh, and there's a Motorola phone with iPod functionality, but we've known about that for so long that it would be pretty unexciting even if you could get it from anybody other than Cingular.

It is the only phone I've seen with stereo speakers, though!

I loved some of the older PC keyboards - I remember the IBMs with their wonderful clacky sound and proper switches (rather than conductive rubber bouncing off a PCB). They cost about £100 but they lasted indefinitely. Apple and Olivetti were the same in the early days. But everybody has economised now, which is why I'm rather tempted by the Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard, which deliberately tries to recreate the golden days.

I suppose that, having worked on and off with VoIP for a little while, I really should have cottoned on to this earlier, but it's only having it at home that has made me realise what will really be different for ordinary users in a VoIP world.

It's not the lower cost, though that will be nice. It's not that you'll need fewer wires around your house, or that you'll be able to make phone calls from your laptop, or that you'll only need to buy one link to the outside world because your internet connection and your phone connection will have merged. No, I think the big changes will be that:

• You'll be able to have as many extensions as you like for no extra cost. This means that the concept of one or two lines coming into the house may go away. Yes, your daughter will have her own extension, and she'll be able to call her friend's bedroom without blocking the line for everybody else. You'll be able to call the kitchen from the basement, or call the basement from the shopping mall, if you so desire.
• Phone lines will be more like email addresses. And many of the things you can do with email addresses will apply to phone lines. So, for example, you can redirect them to point at other addresses. Or you can make one address ring several phones, which may be in different parts of the house or in different parts of the world.

All of this has been possible in the past, but it won't be long before this is a standard facility that everybody will have at home if they choose to make use of it.

I powered up all my Firewire drives today. I don't often do that.

Apple have released a new mouse. Unusually for Apple, it doesn't just have a single button. But if you were worried that Apple might have started to conform a bit too much, try working out just how many buttons it does have...

A bit more of a review on Russel Beattie's site.

Here's something to watch out for; I switched my mobile from Orange to T-mobile recently. To do this, I requested a PAC code from Orange, which lets me take my old number to the new provider. When you do this, they tell you that it's valid for a limited period (60 days, I think). What they don't tell you is that your contract includes a one month notice period, so you will pay the service charge for the next month regardless of when you use the PAC code.

If you're like me, you normally request the code immediately after opening a new account. The right thing to do, if you can, is to request it a month before you want to move..

Well, not quite, but the American CVS pharmacy is apparently introducing a Digital One-Time-Use Video Camcorder.