Some of you may have noticed that I like small computers (even as I try to find uses for them).

This computer is very tiny: Teeny tiny PC fits on the head of an Ethernet port | DVICE

If you like tiny things and being online thanks to them, then there's a new mini PC that you really should take a gander at. It's called the AsiaRF, and as PCs go it's pretty adorable. Supporting both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity, this teeny little sucker measures just 1.06 x 1.38 inches and somehow still manages to run full Linux.

The creators are trying to secure funding on Indiegogo. Only $20.

I've just started with Chromebook. One thing I don't like is that there no choice of autologin on bootup. This is not being carried around to places where it is likely to be lost. Also, I chose the ASUS, which is a bargain brand. In most respects the ASUS works fine. But they chose to print the letters on the keyboard lower case, which makes the keyboard tough for me to read. OK for what we are using it for, but for most purposes I would suggest paying the extra to get an upper case font on the keyboard.

(pay extra in the sense of get another brand or model).

OS-X 10.6.8 question. My work laptop has been giving me curtain of death a LOT lately. I ran disk utility, and sure enough, it needs repairs, which it can only do from a repair disk, as you can't repair the boot disk. I finally get a boot disk from IT. I've run repair disk persmissions several times. Everytime I run it, it says complete. But then I run it again to make sure, and sure enough a ton of permissions pop up. A lot of which are in the "System/Library/CoreServices/..." folder. Given it's in the system folder, it would explain the frequent crashes (??).

So the question. How many times should I run the repair permissions before I say, this thing is screwed?

can you back up stuff and do a re-install? sounds like that's what you need to do.

That's what I'm gathering. Although, I did notice after the 10th time of running permission repair, that my internal is 10.6.8, and the recovery disk is actuslly 10.8. Not sure if that's much of a difference.

That said. I'm using the install disk to format an external drive to 10.8. Then I'll migrate all my data to it, so I have a bootable safety copy. See if my apps run on it, and then maybe make the switch.

Although, as I type this. The external disk I grabbed from the shelf might not be the best bet. I'm hearing it tick away as it's getting 10.8 installed.

Gotta love working for the state. Who knows when I'm eligible for a computer upgrade. This one is 4 years old. Not horrible. But for a laptop, starting to show it's age.

Migration has begun. Although, moving rather slow. Not so sure about this external drive.

Talk to me about Google Voice, people. AT&T's visual voicemail app doesn't do badge notifications and I'm constantly missing messages.

I really like Google Voice. I was using it before Google acquired it. What do you need to know?

Mainly I'm wondering if it's a good idea to port my existing number or not - on the one hand, if I have to terminate my cell service in order to do so, I'd probably have to pay an early termination fee but on the other hand I've had this number for almost 15 years and I don't really want to have a different one.