Last show post wrap-up available at TidBITS, but as a special extra for blog readers, here’s a photoblog with some thoughts that were deemed either too rude or too inconsequential for publication.
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Yes, it’s true, I met 
Here’s a tip about adjusting the volume in your car stereo: if your subwoofers can make a man’s scrotum vibrate at 50 paces, it is too fucking loud.
Microsoft demonstrates that either they continue to have their wooden ear for comedy, or that they’re being crippled by the writer’s strike.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords. (This thing was huge.)
Finally, a new personal record set for “longest line ever waited in at Starbucks”. And all the time I’m thinking, “if there were just one line for all of those frufru bastards with their lattes and cappuccinos, and another for us venti drip with room people, I’d be outta here by now.”CES Day 2
My second products article at TidBITS, which ranges from MC Escher to tiny spacemen to motorized rollerskates (13 MPH!).
CES Day 1
My first CES product review, posted at TidBITS.
CES 2008 Day 1: Finding My Bearings
First TidBITS article is available here.
A GTD trade show survival tactic
The CES show floor is immense, and I’m staying at a hotel that’s too far away for convenient drop-off of the many pounds of conference brochures and swag I’m picking up. Therefore, a strategy for schlepping is essential.
More to the point, I’m writing up this show and I need a way to keep track of everything I’m getting, plus a way of organizing it for the various articles I’m planning to write. Ergo, my unofficial GTD system for trade shows:
First, you need inboxes. In this case, I’m using giveaway bags from the show floor. Today I was actually carrying two inboxes; a large paper shopping bag and a shoulder bag. Brand new items went into the paper bag, which I carried in my hand. Every 20 minutes or so, I’d transfer things into the easier-to-carry shoulder bag, and gave each item a quick perusal to see if it should be discarded.
Second, processing. The shoulder bag inbox is reviewed from time to time, when I can sit down with my MacBook. Items worth keeping get noted in an OmniOutliner document, and are transferred to my laptop backpack. Anything which contains information that I can quickly put into OmniOutliner and toss, I do so.
Third, post-processing. When I get back to my hotel room, everything in the bag gets dumped into various piles that act as my on-the-road reference system. I leave in the morning with completely empty bags. Next year, I’d seriously consider bringing a high-speed scanner for this step.
Result: lots of weight gets quickly distributed into the best bags for carrying them without causing too much fatigue, plus each bag represents an entry in an ad hoc filing system. The large quantities of atoms I receive act as automatic “mind like water” reminders for most of the writing I’m doing (especially once I put some categorization effort into them), and they’re shifted from being deadweight to useful objects as quickly as possible.
Bad CEA, no biscuit.
So much for the “all of this very heavy paper might be on this nice digital DVD right here” theory. I just love it when a directory shows up with these contents on my MacBook:
There are a few PDFs in the docs directory which might be useful, but really, I was hoping to leave all that paper at home….
Hello from CES
It’s press day here at the Consumer Electronics Show, and I’m officially a member of the first amendment brigades for the duration, thanks to an article I’m writing for TidBITS.
For those of you who have never been to (or heard of) CES, see below:
Note the phonebook-like directory of the conference; that’s covering up one or two conference addenda magazines below. Frommer’s publishes its own guide to the show, which I’m expecting to be handy. And in the front, the five Triptik style maps you need to navigate the various convention halls. I’m hoping to God that most of this stuff is on that conference DVD.
I’m already starting out the week with a new gadget: picked up a Sprint EVDO Palm Centro yesterday, on the theory that it would be easier than hunting down hotspots, and I could return it at the end of the remorse period. Problem is that I’ve already fallen in love with the speed boost over EDGE, so this might be a permanent addition to my telecom mix.
Which means, that once again I am that guy who carries around two cell phones. I hate being that guy.
My article for TidBITS will be focused on stuff of interest to the Mac community, but I’m actively looking for other things to write about. If any faithful VJW Conspiracy readers have any requests on interesting-looking things I should check out here, let me know.
Day zero conference swag award: Toshiba, who gave me a backpack made of enough ballistic nylon to build a fabric howitzer.