Dell’s M2010 ‘Mobile’ Computer

I had read about this ‘mobile’ computer earlier on CyberNet article from back in May. What is described as a cross between a desktop and a laptop. It is bit of a monster weighing in 18 pounds which includes the 20.1 inch display, 12-cell battery and full-size detachable Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard with 10-key numeric keypad.

Now it is hard to really grasp the concept of just how big this computer is when it is pictured by itself. Thanks to Laptop Magazine there are now some photos (such as the one to the right) which really put this computer’s size into prospective.

Photo From Laptop Magazine Dell’s M2010 ‘Mobile Computer’ with 20.1 Inch Display

Laptop Magazine’s article: Attack of the 20-inch Notebook, is divided into three sections with photos, usability analysis and noted reactions when using the ‘mobile computer’ as a laptop:

• On the subway
• At the Park
• At Starbucks

When I was in college in the mid 90’s I lugged around an older Toshiba Laptop computer my father had bought in I thinking the late 1980’s. I am not sure as to how much that computer weighed but it could have been close to the 18 pounds of Dell’s M2010. But then that was also typical of the laptop computers made during that time. However the Toshiba did not have a 20.1 inch HD WSXGA display. It had an EGA (16 colors) display and not sure about the size. So, if the 18 pounds and the bulkiness of the 20.1 inch display don’t deter you from running out and buying on these, perhaps the $3,500 price tag will.

Thunderbird 2.0 Message Tags

A new feature with Thunderbird 2.0 is the ability to Tag messages. You can assign one of these five color-coded ‘default’ tags to a message by selecting the message(s) from the folder’s message list and right-clicking and selecting ‘Tag’ from the context menu:

1. To Do
2. Important
3. Later
4. Personal
5. Work

But what if these five ‘default’ tags are not what you are looking for? At the bottom of tag sub-menu is the option ‘New Tag…’. A popup box will allow you to create your own custom tag and pick the associated color.

Once a message is ‘tagged’, the text as displayed in the message list will turn the color of the assigned tag. When you click on that message in the message list, the text turns white and is highlighted in the assigned tag’s color. At first I wasn’t too sure how I was going to use this but I am already seeing potential. I tend to send myself e-mails from work from schedule changes, to events and other items. Plus I leave other e-mails in my Inbox which I will follow-up on later. After a while I have several e-mails sitting in my Inbox which I have to go through one-by-one to see what exactly they are. With the Tags (once I start remembering what each color represents) I’ll quickly be able to see why I am still holding these messages in my Inbox. Can also be useful for organizing saved or archived messages, especially when combined with custom made tags.

Couple notes as mentioned above, you can only assign ONE tag per message. In addition, you can not CHANGE the five ‘default’ tags or their colors. If you want to change the assigned tab just repeat the process and select the new tag which you want to assign or to remove the tag select ‘0 Removal All Tags’.

Firefox Global Usage Grows (as IE’s shrinks)

In early July, OneStat.com, the Amsterdam-based Web statistics firm released statistics showing the popularity of the top 5 web browsers (IE, Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Opera and Netscape) in the USA, Canada, Australia along with several EU countries.

The most popular browsers Worldwide (July 2006):

1.	Microsoft IE	83.05%
2.	Mozilla Firefox	12.93%
3.	Apple Safari	1.84%
4.	Opera	1.00%
5.	Netscape	0.16%

Most popular browsers in the USA (July 2006):

1.	Microsoft IE	79.78%
2.	Mozilla Firefox	15.82%
3.	Apple Safari	3.28%
4.	Opera	0.81%
5.	Netscape	0.20%

Full statics can be viewed in the OneStat article and include the following additional countries:

• Australia
• Belgium
• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Netherlands
• United Kingdom

An interesting trend I noticed in viewing these statistics, is in the some of the countries in the EU, Firefox has an even bigger market share than in the US and Canada. I am wondering if this has anything to do with the increased legal pressures via anti-trust suits (Windows Vista) the EU is putting on Microsoft. All these anti-trust suits are not good for Microsoft but it does send the message to everyone else that there are other options, you DON’T have to use just Microsoft products on your Window’s PC.

Microsoft’s Legal Woes

While Windows Vista has been the center of major legal troubles (anti-trust violations) for Microsoft with the EU, they have some other lesser known lawsuits pending. These include:

• Forefront trademark suit, Forefront is the name of Microsoft’s future Corporate Security Software but Dexter & Chaney, a Seattle software company has used the name for more than 18 years for its construction-related software.
• Xbox Live patent suit, the multi-player technology used by Microsoft seems to similar to that of PalTalk Holdings Inc.
• Cryptography patent, now this unusual, a case Microsoft has won (but 9 years after the initial suit).
• Iowa antitrust suit, Bill Gates to possibly be called as a witness in one of the last consumer anti-trust class actions suites.

Todd Bishop has all the details of these plus the claims brought up by the EU against Windows Vista, with links to PDF* documents in his blog article: This week in Microsoft lawsuits. Have to laugh at this article title, almost makes it sound as if this is a normal occurrence for Microsoft…oh wait this IS normal for Microsoft to be the subject of multiple lawsuits at one time.

I’ll say this for the EU they are not going to allow Microsoft to bully PC users in the EU to think they have to use all Microsoft on their computers. This may also explain why there is a higher usage share of Firefox among countries in the EU.

* Some of these PDF documents can span upwards to 90+ pages and can be very large. For best results in viewing and loading the PDF files, I would strongly recommended using the FREE FoxIt Reader 2.