I was finally able to get hold of a Blackberry Pearl to mess with for a few hours.  I have a soft spot for the Blackberry, as I had one for most of 2003.  Anyhow, I was able to help someone set the unit up on their computer so they can sync with outlook. Here's what I found... 

In talking with a friend of mine the other day I discovered a great toy that apparently has a growing sub- culture all its own.  In her own words she is "stalking the toy", so I had to dive in and see what its all about.  The toy is called PLEO and it is "autonomous robotic life form" based on a one week old Camarasaurus dinosaur (a lizzard from the late Jurassic period) 

Netflix has launched a new feature that allows members to watch full-length videos online. After logging into your account click on the "Watch Now" tab. Pick a video, click "Play", and you'll be prompted to download a player. Not all of their catalog is available. Right now the selection consists of mostly older movies and TV series, but this is still good news for people who like to watch videos online or who feed video to their TV via their computer.

Here's a simple trick that will amuse your friends and make it look like your site has gone from a few readers a month to a web sensation overnight.

My wife and I were discussing Second Life yesterday (as I'm sure all geek couples do), and she noted that unless you have a certain level of programming ability there's not much you can do in SL besides walk around and chat. If you've visited Second Life you've probably experienced this, too. Second Life is a pretty intimidating (and boring) place when you don't know what's going on. When everyone around you knows how to manipulate the environment and you don't, you're at a significant functional disadvantage.

These are statements I've heard on the job that I never want any of you to have to utter: "I thought I was backing up regularly, but when my computer crashed and we tried to upload the backup files, nothing was there!!" "Yeah, I back up. How often? Every 6 months or so." "I sent my computer to [insert computer company name] for a keyboard fix and they had to replace my motherboard and OMG WHERE ARE MY FILES???" "Back up? What does that mean, back up?" You shouldn't be thinking about backing up for the first time when your computer crashes. By then, it may be too late. Get in the habit of regularly backing up while your computer is still in good health, and you'll be glad you did if it ever fails.

I was sitting at my desk yesterday, typing away, when I heard a shriek from the cube next to me. My co-worker had been experiencing a problems with her computer all morning long; it was performing much slower than normal. She said she had thought about backing up her hard drive and then BAM! Her computer crashed and everything was lost. She said it was the closest she had come to crying at work, EVER, and I understand where she is coming from. Many of the resources that I use to do my job on a daily basis are on my hard drive. Templates, reports, important contact information (this is why I am a strong supporter of web-basted contact managers).

Have you ever had your laptop get so hot that it's uncomfortable to type on? Ever had that happen when it was actually on your lap? This happens to me quite a bit and I know it can't be a good thing. Fortunately I've got a solution to offer you: the Supra Notebook Cooler from HardwareCooling.com.

This article refers to Excel 2003, but should apply to most other versions as well. I work for a large company that uses a vast mainframe system to track data. We've got programmers who've written fabulous scripts, so that we can just go click a button, make a couple of choices, and BAM - there's a CSV file with the data we need to analyze. Problem is, the data is often not in a very useful format. The names are all upper case, first name and last name are in the same cell, phone numbers are regarded as generic numbers and are dropping zeros, etc. What a lot of people at my company don't know, and that I try to help them learn, is that Excel has functionality specifically to help you work around these problems.

Editors note: It's not all sunflowers and "Kumbaya" at Texxors.com. Last week Tara wrote an article on the Pandora internet music service that some of our other editors disagreed with. In the interest of equal time, here are their thoughts on why Pandora rocks. If Texxors.com seems schizophrenic at times, it's because we've got several different author's writing for the site. As you might expect, these authors don't always agree on the best products or approaches. You saw this a little bit in Jeff and Liz's different takes on how to stay virus free online and you're going to see it again in this response to Tara's recent article on Pandora.com. In the interest of presenting multiple opinions and giving our readers as much information as possible, these are the reasons I and a few others affiliated with the site think that Pandora rocks.