Netbook

By Jeff Zbar
www.homeofficehighway.com

This dispatch is from BestStuff technology and home office contributor Jeff Zbar, who's on a three-week family road trip through the American West. Whether you're a road warrior, a home-based business owner, a teleworker, or just a family in search of the freedom of the road, enjoy Jeff's commentary. Want to learn more? Hit www.chiefhomeofficer.com.

My wife is no technophile. When her netbook wigs out, drops its wifi connection or otherwise gets kinda jiggy, she loses it and shuts the cover. "I hate technology," she'll grumble.

She's had a Facebook going on two years now. But she never uses it. Twitter? Isn't that a nervous response to an unsettling situation – like using technology?

You could say that, aside from insects, prison movies and my immature annoyances, she hates nothing more than technology.

Call her Robbie, Queen of the Luddites.

I think she's slowing realizing, though, that she cannot live — or at least work — in the 21st Century without some tech in her life.

As a nurse practitioner with a budding side business in patient tutorials, she should receive and reply to emails throughout the day. Yet, she could go days without checking email, leading her clients to re-send – and then call – wondering if she received their work assignments.Read more

"All you have to do is follow three simple rules. One, never underestimate your opponent. Expect the unexpected. Two, take it outside. Never start anything inside the bar unless it's absolutely necessary. And three, be nice." – Dalton, "Road House" (1989), Silver Pictures

If Steve Jobs had a Facebook page, he'd probably have more "likes" than, well…anyone.

He doesn't though, he prefers Twitter…yeah, right!

Some people even go beyond liking Steve. Remember the guy at Apple's WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) who blurted out, "Steve, we love you."?

Cupertino city council had a similar view when he presented Apple's super concept for the company's new campus.

Come on, the spaceship is cool.

It'll be great to see a building in the Valley that isn't just another tilt-up slab.Read more

By Jeff Zbar
www.homeofficehighway.com

Summertime's a great time to hit the open road – without leaving life behind. Technology widely available to the consumer market helps the "anywhere" office – and online personality – come alive without an electrical outlet or Ethernet cable in sight. This is Americana in a way Norman Rockwell never could have imagined.

This summer, the Home Office Highway '11 road show will showcase the tech, tools and tips that empower people to work and play from the interstate highway – or the information superhighway. The three-week excursion and social media event will highlight how "location independence" can be found wherever life's journey ventures.

This year, we'll travel from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco. Part sightseeing trip, part college tour, all fun-n-games. The van will have laptops, digital cameras and other technology common to the modern family home.

As families grow up, so do their technology needs, even when they're on vacation. We'll file blogs, Facebook updates, tweets and videos from the road. We'll even manage family finances effortlessly from anywhere. "With wifi, the cloud and a computer, you can work and play from anywhere." Read more

"It's difficult to maintain enthusiasm for your leadership when you keep getting beat up by that old man." – Alfanz, Fool's Gold, Warner Brothers (2008)

You have to admire Google. They're masters at giving stuff away free and making it up on the backend … selling your click, interest, movements to others.

O.K., that's about it.

Their other strategies have taken the gleam off their golden touch:

• Nexus was an empty mine
• So few folks download Android/Honeycomb apps that developers focus on the Apple mines that have action
• Google convinced a lot of companies to throw money into their wet, musty TV mine; they just forgot the content owners
• The Google music mine was empty at first and … yep, pretty much still is

Read more

CES 2011 officially opens on Thursday, January 6th and Retrevo is already getting a sense of what products and categories are going to stand out from the crowd. They still believe that 2011 will be the year of the tablet and expect to see lots of them in Las Vegas. They have provided us with the following predictions for 2011 CES:

Android Tablets Will Be Everywhere

Google may have been caught off guard in 2010 as far as a tablet-friendly version of Android but with new versions including Gingerbread and Honeycomb about ready to ship we expect to see Android-based tablets make up for lost ground this year. We expect to see large crowds gathering around a Honeycomb-based tablet at the Motorola booth. Android tablets will most likely be featured in booths from vendors like LG, Toshiba, Samsung, Acer, Asus, MSI, Dell, Lenovo, and many others while we expect to see Windows Phone 7 (or some other Microsoft mobile OS) running on tablets in the Microsoft booth. HP and Palm have managed to keep the wraps on their "PalmPad," tablet but we could see a WebOS tablet make an appearance at the show as well. Intel will surely have something to promote in the tablet "engine" department along with Nvidia who will be bragging about Tegra 2's graphic processing power for tablets. Read more