I just got my lucky hands on a Sony TR3AP2 super-tiny notebook to try out, and wow, let me tell ya - this in one nice little (very little) notebook computer. In the past I was not overly impressed with Sony's little computers - they were just not up to par with my reliability and performance requirements - but I think they've changed my mind with this one.

Where to start? To say it's small is simply not enough. It's more like very compact, but quite usable. It has a full gig of RAM and a CD burner/DVD player built in, which is pretty amazing for something this size.

The display is nothing short of amazing - very high contrast, color that really pops, and very sharp image. It's a 10.6-inch wide-screen, with a resolution of 1280x768.

It also has a built-in video camera that's a lot more usable than I thought it would be, and has terrific battery life: In real-life it's getting about 3.5-4 hours on the standard battery and 7-8 hours on the extra, extended battery. The hard drive is 40GB/4200RPM (slower, but requires less battery to drive it) and if you want more, USB2 and FireWire are there to help.

For travellers, this thing is great - it's very light and compact - smaller than a tablet of paper in terms of footprint. It has 802.11g WiFi built in, supports an external monitor as a second video device, and even does Dolby surround from the headphone jack if you have the headphones to support it.

If you need to run Visual Studio or 3D games, this won't be your machine. For almost anything else, it's sweet. It's also a bit pricey, but hey - I'm sold.

I often lose track of things I want to write about in my blog. You know how you'll browse to some web site, see something you want to maybe keep track of or find again later, but when "later" actually comes, you're out of luck and don't have a record of it? Or maybe you save all those random links as "favorites" or "bookmarks" in your browser, but all that does is make for a long, useless list of items that you don't use because it's too random.

A short time ago, I found a web-based service called Furl that solves this problem. I use it to categorize, catalog and keep track of various things, either for my real life or items that I might want to blog about later on. It helps me keep track of all those bits on information on the web that - before Furl - I would forget about or just lose.

Furl lets you save anything you see in your browser. The easiest way to do that is to have a "Furl It" button right on the link toolbar of your browser, or you can install the Furl toolbar if you like. When you find something you want to save, you just click the "Furl It" button.

That opens up a new window with the title and URL of the page you are looking at already filled in. You can then add comments to, rate, and categorize the page (or not). When you're done, click "Save."

That's all. Next time you view your online Furl archive you will see the new entry. View by category, filter, whatever. It's cool. You can also set up a public view of your Furl list for others to see if you want to.

So, if you're looking for an online service to keep track of links to information, give it a try. More information is available here. Oh, and for now it's free. In the future, they may do the in-line-ad-supported thing, or maybe charge a fee, but I'm honestly not worried about it - my lists help me now, which is a good thing.

MSDN now has RSS feeds for Microsoft webcasts, listing any upcoming online sessions for you to consume and attend. MSDN webcasts are a great way to learn valuable information for free.Also listed in the feeds are TechNet, Security, Office System, and MBS webcasts.

So, whether you're a developer, IT engineer, systems person, or help desk guru, there's always something for you here - In fact, there's almost certainly several somethings at any given point in time.

From the listing site:

We've made our webcasts available as a RSS feed on this blog site. Every month we'll post the upcoming month's webcasts here for MSDN, MSDN Architecture Webcasts including patterns & practices live! webcasts, TechNet, Security, Office Systems, and Microsoft Business Solutions webcasts. Here they are below.

• Upcoming MSDN Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming MSDN Architecture Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming Security Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming Microsoft Business Solutions Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming Microsoft Office Systems Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming TechNet Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming Executive Circle Webcasts (rss)
• Upcoming Webcasts for the week (rss)
• Webcast Series (rss)
• Latest News (rss)
• MSDN Webcasts Doctrine (rss)
• Theme Weeks on MSDN Webcasts (rss)

(found thanks to Scoble)

Amit Singh has written an article touching on many key aspects of what is needed to get a good understanding of the world of computer security. It's not a forensics manual or an exhaustive book on the subject, but it does a very good job of hitting all the bases and educating at a level deeper than you'll get from the new sources that write quick one-off stories, and in this day and age, that's a worthwhile thing.

His paper, which is entitled "A Taste of Computer Security," is divided into these chapters:

• Popular Notions About Security \
• Defining Computer Security
• Traditional Unix Security
• Security Uprooting Vehicles
• The Net Growth In Insecurity
• Digital Life: Viruses
• Digital Life: Worms
• Viruses on Unix
• Platform-Independent Malware
• Defeating Memory
• Securing Memory
• Access Control
• Detecting Intrusion
• Sandboxing
• An Example: Solaris Security
• Miscellaneous
• Unix vs. Windows
• Epilogue

I found it worth the read, and recommend it to people who may not be security professionals full-time, but need a certain level of understanding to really know what they need to know in their daily jobs.

I'm showing my friend Brent how I can email from my blackberry and it posts to my blog. Cool stuff.
--------------------
Greg Hughes
Corporate IT Director

"We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

Rory Blyth, whom I have met briefly once and read many many times, writes a hillarious, informative, and (in its own special way) very thoughtful blog. He's also deserving of his audience's congratulations, because he's just taken a job at Microsoft doing what he does best.

And I bet he gets to attend MVP events now without becoming the victim of petty whining. It'll be nice to have someone official to blame now. :)

<AirHandShake> Congrats Rory! Well deserved. </AirHandShake>