For me it's a matter of being able to run my business. When things are crazy I can go a week an only be in front of an office computer for a few minutes at a time. Before I started using a phone that had email and calendar and everything else I'd work a 14-16 hour day, then come home and have to spend another 2+ hours reading and answering emails and updating calendars and everything else. With everything connected I can do it right when I'm dealing with a client or a vendor and I can have a high degree of confidence that when I check my availability on any of my computers or phone that it is accurate and I'm not double booking myself. It ends up being a huge time saver for me.

When I consider myself a technological neophyte, I think of the folks back where I grew up, who are still bitching about the new traffic lights that went up downtown and why are so many people driving so many damned cars around, dammit. I wonder if my mother ever brought herself to use an ATM.

My mom is that way. The biggest tech she ever got into was an electric typewriter. I got Dad onto a computer around 1990, but mom insister on getting her typewriter repaired around 2002 rather than ever learn to use the computer.

My parents were like that too. In fact, my mom still had her manual typewriter when I left for college. Beyond that point, they suddenly got a microwave, new vhs/dvd setup, eventually a large flatscreen, two laptops and a desktop. I exclaimed about it and they just kinda laughed.

It wasn't until years later that I realized that they'd gotten all that stuff with the money that they'd saved for my college, which I'd abandoned to elope. Hee. Good on them for spending on themselves.

What sort of books are available for the Kindle? Just newly-published ones? Or are they Kindleizing older books too?

I'm reading The Eight (1980something) on Kindle now (AInotFG, because I hate the Kindle, but it's massively on hold at the library and I got two chapters into The Fire before I realized I needed to re-read The Eight or I'd be too confused.)

I've heard such terrible things about the G1's battery life that I'm willing to wait for a 2nd-gen Android phone.

Hey, speaking of the Kindle, does anyone know if you need a Kindle in order to buy books on the Kindle iPhone app?

does anyone know if you need a Kindle in order to buy books on the Kindle iPhone app?

From what I read, no. You can't use the iPhone app, though - you gotta buy books on a browser.

You can't use the iPhone app, though - you gotta buy books on a browser.

Oh right - I mainly meant, can I buy Amazon ebooks for the iPhone now that they've got the Kindle app out.

has anyone here moved their Dreamhost email accounts over to Gmail's system?

Not Dreamhost, but I'm just starting/testing out this process. It seems quite easy.