One of the things I’ve already started thinking about is the computer I’ll haul around campus. I’ve got a neat Gateway desktop-replacement laptop, but it has two qualities that make it just slightly less than ideal as a classroom machine. First, it’s just a hair heavy–I’m guessing it comes in somewhere in the 6.5 lb range. That only bothers me so much, though. The thing that really has me worried is that I keep my life on this thing. Really. The up-to-the-minute version of my work, my e-mail, my schedule, all my cool reference files–they’re on the hard disk here. Oh, I know about backup, and I do keep things backed up reasonably well, but those back-ups are analgesic, not truly prophylactic. Having them reduces the pain when something goes wrong, but they can’t keep the pain from happening.

To avoid the pain, I’m thinking about using a little Dell XPS machine I’ve had sitting around for a couple of years. It’s not the hottest new processor, it has a tiny hard disk (less than 20 gigs), and not much memory (384k), but it’s really small, really light, and has built-in networking. I’m thinking that a stripped-down OS with just enough applications might make this the perfect note-taking platform, since it would also let me check e-mail, do a bit of research, and check my schedule between classes. My real question is whether to keep it on Windows XP or try a Linux variant–Ubuntu, perhaps? I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one…and I’ll keep you posted on the decisions.

What made me really think seriously about this? The introduction of the Foleo from Palm. I’ve heard a number of folks talking about what a useless concept it is, but I disagree. Sometimes, you just need something to do basic work on until you can get back to the Mother Ship. The Foleo isn’t trying to be your only computer–it’s trying to be the device you carry with you when your real computer is just a little too much. I don’t know whether the Foleo will be a wildly successful device, but I think the category will be, though it may take a little while to fully develop. Jeff Hawkins has a good track record on this sort of thing–I wouldn’t bet against him here.

Categories: Mobile, General computing, Enterprise, Consumer