The Longhorn View

By Jerry Pournelle

November 17, 2003

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Column 280

I had hoped to open this month's column with a report on my new Mac. Friends and colleagues have persuaded me that I'll just love the new 15" PowerBook, and Roland Dobbins, who has boasted of living a Microsoft-free life for years, is waxing enthusiastic about Microsoft Office X for the Mac. Chaos Manor Associate Dan Spisak is thrilled with his new 15" PowerBook, and long time friend and Microprocessor Report editor Peter Glaskowsky has been whispering "You'll love it" in my ear for longer than I can remember.

Alas, just as I was about to buy one, I found that Apple had changed LCD suppliers, and many to most of the new 15" systems have been recalled, while new ones are on allocation. When that production problem is solved—which shouldn't be long now—I'll get the PowerBook and most of the accessories. Roland recommends getting an iPod not only as an "it just works" music and audio book player, but also for use with FireWire as an enormous backup and sneakernet device. I've already got some good Sennheiser earphones. We'll see about the rest; but it will have to wait until the machines are back in stock.

PDC 2003

I don't do news, so my interest in shows and conferences is mostly about trends and predictions. The TSA has achieved its goal of making air travel painful, so I don't go to many conferences and shows; but the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference this year was in Los Angeles at the Convention Center.

I'd planned to get to and from the conference on the new Los Angeles subway system, which really works well: But of course just as the conference started, the LA public transportation system was closed down by strikes. I still went to PDC, but I had to drive.

Now I like to think of myself as a Los Angeles booster, but alas the LA Convention Center is badly designed, badly located, and badly run. The parking lot seems to be managed by fiends determined to make life miserable for those who need to park there, with gates closed for maximum inconvenience, parking areas mysteriously closed at random, and other such quirks.

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