Wireless At Last

This week, I broke down and begged one of our IT support folks to outfit my notebook with a WiFi card. The 1,000 e-mails I received during my brief July 4 holiday brought me to this point. I just can't keep up. Since when did e-mail become realtime?

Naturally, I was interested in this New York Times story that turned up the next day about where I'll be able to use my newly outfitted iBook. That is, if I decide to move west it seems! For the story, click here.

It's amazing to me, of course, that it's come to this. But I vow not to use wireless deep into the night. For one thing, I don't have an access point in my own home yet - - and it appears as if no one in my neighborhood has yet take the plunge. And, as I think about the Time article, I question the role of local or the federal government communities in providing access, especially since standards are still evolving so quickly.

Looking farther afield, U.S. chip makers got a boost Thursday when China agreed to stop giving tax breaks to local companies. Click here for the San Jose Mercury News take on this story. We haven't been hearing as much as about the China utopia recently, probably because of our citizenry's general tendency to focus on problems at home. But this could signal an opportunity for U.S. vendors to gain a foothold. Now, if they could just do something about that software piracy problem.

Off to the Microsoft annual partner conference this weekend (why, why, why?) and hope to provide some more regular perspective from that vantage point with my new wireless capabilities.That is, after I visit the Hockey Hall of Fame (again).