After getting screwed by hard drive failure on my trip to Sacramento, I've gotten the backup religion. I'd managed to recover the bulk of my data from my ailing disk, but I've decided to reduce my frustration factor, and to be able to avoid that minty lobotomized feeling that comes with complete data severance. So, I assembled two of these:

These emergency kits (one for me, one for Carrie) consist of a big enough hard drive to store a backup set on (in the form of the aforementioned OWC 2.5" Firewire drives), an OS X install disk, a bootable Norton Utilities (but not Emperor Norton Utilities) CD, and a copy of the backup software so that in case of total disaster we can get the system back into a restorable state. The FW drives also have the latest OS X installed on them, so that we can boot onto the external disk if need be.

(And yes, despite the fact that you see two RW disks in the picture below, I do have licenses for this stuff.)

It's a pretty small bag; three CD cases and one laptop-size HD. But after this last infodisaster, it's an invaluable one.  9:16:45 PM  (comments [])   

One of my colleagues pointed out that the OQO website has been updated with pictures and a video.

I really like the idea of composable, scalable computing. Having the core of your laptop able to pop out and go in your pocket would be incredible. But I remain unconvinced that these guys have hit this point; the OQO still looks too, well, big. And, at nearly a pound in weight, it's well past the magic "I forgot this was in my pocket" point. I'd also be concerned about heat dissipation -- I don't want to be sad when I pop back into my pocket.

Nevertheless, I wish these guys well, because I want somebody to push this front. I just want their next generation to be smaller, have a bigger hard drive, and to actually pop out of a bigger laptop casing :). Oh, and to run OS X.  9:23:12 AM  (comments [])