Overheard - 2009, the year of the netbook

Just as General Motors must wean itself off lumbering SUVs, so may Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, Toshiba, et al., be forced, to some extent, to wean themselves off high-profit notebook computers. Brooke Crothers, Intel warning casts cloud over CES

Netbook is the big buzzword this year at CES. I remember having what vendors are now calling a netbook about ten years ago.   I couldn’t load any software on it, but I could access email and the Internet. At this very moment, I can’t remember what it was called — but I remember getting it at Circuit City and using it in the classroom with WinGate as my proxy server. (For several years, WinGate was the bane of my existence.)

On a totally unrelated note, Jeopardy is celebrating its 25th anniversary with host Alex Trebeck by filming 11 episodes at CES. You have to love a show that gives quizzes and penalizes contestants for not using the words “what is….”