In elementary school, we had about 4 or 5 ancient Apple II/e computers, which were used to keep kids busy if they finished tests early, or for running the LOGO program. While many of you may remember LOGO, for the younger set, it entailed a triangle shaped "Turtle" that performed the actions you told it, including going forward a certain number of spaces, rotating a certain number of degrees, and so on. If LOGO was programmed correctly, you could make all matter of designs.

Our science teacher at one point gave us a simple task - to make a perfect right triangle with LOGO. A lot of people came close, but it was hard for our elementary school brains to tell the turtle to draw a line that was precisely the right length hypotenuse. A few decimals here and a few decimals there, but nobody quite got it.

Then I realized we were doing it the hard way. I told the turtle to go forward 30 (a standard measure), turn right 90 degrees, go forward another 30, making the two straight edges, and then entered the command of HOME, which made the turtle do it all by itself. I then hit HT (which hid the turtle) and on the screen was that perfect right triangle. The science teacher was annoyed, but had to admit I had cracked the code.

/via My Google+ Profile.

Sonos' mission is to deliver the highest quality music from any source to any part of your home, wirelessly. The company's beautiful Apple-like speakers have played a major role in my home's decor for the better part of 18 months, ever since I got my first S5, later added on two more units, and even a wireless dock to play songs from the iPod Touch. As new services like Rdio and Spotify have debuted, Sonos has been lightning-fast to support them, to get users fast access to their music. If there have been any complaints I've ever heard about the company's products, they've been price related. Something about premium quality and premium prices going hand in hand... but this week the company took a step down in the market with the introduction of the Play:3 line, which has a smaller form factor, fewer speakers, and a new profile which looks great if posed either vertically or horizontally. The new pricepoint is only $299, which should make the units even more attractive to consumers and audiophiles.

As someone who has long ranted in favor of Spotify for the better part of two years, I'm equally as effusive about my Sonos equipment - which plays a visible part in social gatherings, and entertains the kids who need to get their wiggles out by dancing to techno from all sorts of sources, including not just the aforementioned Spotify and Rdio, but also Sirius XM, local radio and topical content from the Web's deep library. Managing the now four devices (3 of the 5's and one of the 3) is simple with the intuitive software for both desktop and mobile, and it still amazes me to have the near instant response from an action I take on the app impacting the wireless speakers anywhere in the house.


With the introduction of the Play:3, Sonos is rebranding its equipment in a much simpler way than in the past. Gone is the letter and number pairing of the S5, replaced by the Play line of players and the Connect line, including the ZoneBridge and ZonePlayers that turn existing speakers into wireless systems, or connect your routers to your Sonos equipment.

When the Play:3 arrived at our door this afternoon, the twins opened it up and said "Dancing!" when they first saw the unit. So yes, they know what it's for. In about 3 minutes, the device was connected to power, added to my desktop software and streaming music. It's simply not fair how easy it is and how good it is to get such high quality sound from such a small device. It's a smart extension of the product line I've invested in after first getting introduced to Sonos early last year. Huge win.

Disclosure: The Play:3 was provided free of charge via Sonos. I've previously purchased multiple Play:5 machines.

Look here, Macintosh. I guess you saw my blog post and are a little mad at me. All I wanted to do was go to terminal, say "top" and find out just what was eating all the memory and CPU. And now you won't let me? Bring it on. I've got two Chromebooks over here saying you're no longer the king.

Like a good number of fast-moving Apple fans yesterday, one of the first things I did with my day was install Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion). The update, weighing in at just over three gigabytes, downloadable from the Mac app store, delivered a crisp new UI, some nice new features including Mission Control and an iOS-like approach to finding all available apps and files, a new take on scrolling, and unfortunately for me, at least in my case, a ton of slowness. From what it looks like, my poor refurbished 2009-era MacBook Air simply wasn't macho enough to run Lion - even after I weighed my options and ran Disk Utility for the better part of two hours to ensure nothing nefarious was keeping the poor laptop down.

While my MacBook Air has become increasingly slow of late, and had already been sending me increasingly to my Chromebook as an alternative, Lion pushed it over the top. Warnings about Lion probably needing at least 4 gigabytes of RAM, while my Air has a pesky 2, look to have been founded, as the system often became unresponsive and bugs appeared in a number of the apps I tried, including the venerable Microsoft Office suite.




Needing to prepare a presentation for a new client this afternoon, I was working late last evening on the MacBook Air, with only PowerPoint running. All other applications were closed (to conserve memory) and even that wasn't enough. Seeing I was getting nowhere, I bit the bullet, and uploaded the PowerPoint to Google Docs. I closed the Air and then opened up the Chromebook to work from there. Despite my high use of Google's products, I've never used Docs for presentations, and the move wasn't taken lightly. You know I'm not a heavy Docs user, or I'd probably have already told you that some time. After years and years of PowerPoint training, I'm surely much more creative with Redmond's software, even if it's not my favorite.

I haven't opened the Air since. No doubt I will, once I man up and stop being frustrated with the machine, but it's a little maddening to be obsoleted in just under two years, feeling like what I really ought to do is give Apple just over $1,500 and upgrade again to the latest and greatest Air, with an even faster CPU, more RAM, and a greater capacity Solid State Disk (SSD).

I initially got the Air in January of last year, knowing that it would be a bridge to a more cloud-centric device, especially as the hard disk came with about 100 gigabytes less capacity than my previous model. Initially, I made all sorts of attempts to avoid putting native applications on the Air, but a Microsoft Office here, an Adobe Creative Suite there, and that plan was done for in due time. At last count, the device was about two-thirds full yesterday afternoon - not in bad shape, mind you, but a dozen or two gigs beyond what I had hoped.

When I got the CR-48 from Google as part of their field trial last December, the device seemed initially handcuffing, as I felt trapped in the browser. As the hardware improved with Google supplying new drivers, and Chrome got faster, I started taking the device everywhere outside the house, and have probably been using it the majority of the time inside the house of late, especially as the Air has slowed. Almost too conveniently, on the same day as my Air was being deflated with Lion, the Samsung Chromebook from Google I/O arrived on my doorstep, giving me a sleek alternative to the air with real hardware polish. Within minutes, I'd moved my Google profile onto the new Chromebook and passed the CR-48 to my wife.

It was this new Chromebook on which I gave today's presentation - the same one that I haven't had to plug in since I first turned on the device this morning, and promises more than two hours' battery life remaining with about 33% capacity. I honestly couldn't tell you how much RAM it has, and I know internal storage is dinky, but the near-immediate bringup, followed by a successful preso this afternoon, has me seeing that as beautiful as Lion is, the makeup may be caked on thicker than Tammy Faye Baker. Part of my Apple fanboy inside is crying out in pain as I hope in vain that the Air can get restored to its former vibrant self, but I have to think this particular system upgrade was too much for it. It's fantastic to have an alternative arrive on the doorstep that very day. Obviously, the price (free) isn't bad either, but I wouldn't have even touched it, let alone stayed on all day, if it didn't deliver when I needed it to. My Macbook Air and I, on the other hand, are going to have a nice long talk about the future - even if it means a clean install or a data wipe, which doesn't sound very Mac-like.

Obvious Disclosures: The CR-48 was part of a free pilot program. The Samsung Chromebook was delivered free to Google I/O attendees. The Macbook Air I paid for (and got reimbursed from Paladin).