It's a year now (almost) since the Tsunami. it is interesting to see what has happened to the money. It hasn't and can't be spent, see this link
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php?id=6940&issue=2005-11-19. Sub needed. A new scandal yet to hit the headlines. What do you think the effect will be on donor response next time?

http://www.google.com/help/faq_clicktocall.html

Ooops Must remember to add content to a link post. Just some new google stuff for the advertising.

Hi Charles,

My impression is that laptop/notebook computers are becoming increasingly popular and even threatening the desktop computer market.

I know your quaterly workhorse specifications take an enormous amount of time and effort, but would it be possible to recommend some components for laptops. I imagine that people are less likely to have one assembled from components as with the workhorse desktop pc, but there are a bewildering array of laptops available and it would be great to have a few pointers as to what to look for. Probably the main components influencing the decision of which unit to buy would be the CPU and motherboard. That decided, the only thing would be to choose how much RAM and how big a hard drive to get, rather than having a say over brands.

There are many reviews of laptops around (there is one in this week's Green Guide), however they usually only compare a small selection of units. Your recommendations are unique and would allow us to choose a model based on the important bits.

Having said that, don't over-do it-we care about you too much to drive you to an early grave! You did ask for suggestions though.

E.

Me again,

I remember you did a review of an analogue to digital video capture device (2 part article in Livewire). Video editing is becoming very popular now that the hardware (ie your standard computer) is up to the task. A lot of people have digital camcorders now, but a lot of us also have analogue videos that we'd love to convert to digital and edit them.

What was the final outcome of your trial? Did you ever remove those annoying bars down the side of the video? Has something better come along?

E.

I'm with Edgy re technology. I've spent a fair amount of time this year doing digital video conversion and editing and still feel way underdone.

Some issues

- what are the best programs for editing, converting and authoring (I'm impressed with a program called womble that actually cuts mpeg2 without re-encoding everything. This seems to make for less loss and more speed)

- hard drive camcorders that record straight to mpeg2. Purists scoff but I think these are going to be the killers in terms of popularity.

- re video editing etc what are the best PC components for it? two hard drives? hyper-threading? will 64 bit apps make a difference? does a high end graphics card add anything to speed?

More sociologically

- whatever happened to the availability and price drop of dual layer DVDs? All the hype about dual layer burners but hardly any of the media in sight on the shelves. And when it is available it’s around $8 a pop as opposed to $1 for single layer discs. Is the movie industry involved in the delay? (sniff for sinister conspiracy…)

- Your thoughts on representations (or lack thereof) of technology in TV/film this year perhaps

That said, I join you Charles in feeling a little underdone mentally at the moment. It’s been a long and depressing year, ending with stupid sedition laws and punitive labour laws. Though the Melbourne rally’s size did cheer me up. (note re technology, trying to work out size of rally going on estimate of 5 city blocks = 100,000 was hard, because of size of rally. However people ringing people on mobiles from within the rally made things easier. Near the front of the rally we had been in the Carlton gardens for over 15 minutes when friends rang to say they were just leaving Fed square. That made over 8 city blocks plus, easily 160,000)

Let’s look forward to the holidays, that’s one thing I don’t want, or need, a virtual version of.

Sidenote: On the laptop front it is also important to note the cooling and heat dissipation. ie. Is the fan exhaust from the CPU on the base of the laptop or at the rear. As when it is on the base you often find the CPU fan is active a greater percentage of the time lowering the time available on batteries.

Open source software and Linux, and general computer technology are things that I'd like to read about.

I find most of what you currently write interesting.

It would be interesting for you to crusade about the (lack) of useability, (lack) of content that various consumer targeted industries or govt websites foist on their locked in clients. Health insurance websites, govt, civi and public service websites, bank websites. Few people want to champion the cause of making them better for consumers.