I emailed this to several friends and family members, so I thought my blog should be entitled to have it as well. Dwight Silverman writes his annual reports on the minimum specs for laptops these days. (See also this confession of a Dell Sales Manager). It mentions a few interesting things: better tech support when you buy it from Dell Business than Dell home (and possibly better equipment), 2 years of tech support is still a relative bargain (I agree, but the wait is the price you pay).
I’ve already told Dwight this (he lives in Houston and helps run the Houston Chronicle website), but I used to read his great columns on technology and PCs. Frankly, it saved me a lot of money on equipment purchases and inspired me to be the gadget freak I am today (and perhaps I could even say this savvy won me a job at Dell in 2000) . His techblog has some great stuff (with a local angle) and not too much gizmo-hype.
Speaking of gizmo hype, Teleread reports that future versions of Sony Reader will be able to incorporate Digital Edition formats. That basically means that you will be able to read the ebook-friendly Adobe format on a dedicated device. That includes the ability to read encrypted files. Also, there are rumors that the next generation of Bookeen devices (soon upon us) will include support for encrypted Mobipocket. That’s real progress.
It brings us back to an article I wrote previously: DRM sucks, but do we really want devices without it?
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