Interested? Drop Doug a line.

The form factor is cool, the OS is fine (although I’d prefer Windows) but the chicklet keyboard is worthless. I can literally type faster on my t-mobile dash smartphone. Anyone want an OLPC laptop PC for $200 + shipping?

In 2006, I purchased an XBOX 360 bundle from CostCo for about $550, including the console, a game and two wireless controllers.

In April of 2007, my 360 caught the “red ring of death” (“Ring around the rosy, pockets full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!“), at which point I brought it back to CostCo and exchanged it for the bundle they had available at the time, which was $475. They refunded me the difference!

Net return: $75 in one year on an initial investment of $550.

Earlier this month, my new 360 also caught the plague and I returned it again to CostCo, where the holiday bundle now costs $400.

Net return: $75 in 7 months on an initial investment of $475 in 58% of the time from the last return of this amount.

If this continues, at this rate I’ll have made my original investment back in another 9 months, at which point I’ll have had the use of an XBOX 360 for 28 months for the opportunity cost of the original $550, which is approximately $50 at 7% over two years after taxes, $1.80/month or 6 cents/day.

What a deal! : )

P.S. The moral of the story: buy your electronics at CostCo.

Yesterday I got an email from a fellow named Corrado Cavalli to whom I sent a free copy of Programming WPF. When he received it and read through it, he posted a note on his web site, which of course, I went to read.

Now, Corrado lives in San Pellegrino Terme, Bergamo Italy, so his blog is in Italian. That didn’t stop me from reading it in English using Google’s language translation page.

Then, just to be “cheeky” as my Australian friends say, I composed simple responses in English and translated them to Italian before posting them, you know, pretending I’m smart and international and such like. : )

To be somewhat confident I wasn’t asking him for improper knowledge of his dog, I did the Italian to English translation on the translated text and rearranged my English it bit when it wasn’t quite right.

All in all, I’d say it worked out pretty well, although I did get some flowers from his dog the other day…

This is hilarious!

The nice folks at Lab 49 are throwing a contest for WPF programmers.

The goal: take the financial data they provide and build a kick-ass WPF app around it.

The grand prize:

• a trip for two to the MS Financial Services Developer Conference in NYC
• the “Ultimate WPF Developer’s Machine”
• an XBox 360 Elite (plus games!)
• a Zune
• a profile in WindowsFS magazine
• a copy of Expression Studio, Visual Studio 2008 and Windows Vista Ultimate
• a WPF Team signed t-shirt
• !

Final submission is 2/29/08, but there are other prizes for early submission (by 2/14/08).

The judges (Charles Petzold, Rob Relyea, Josh Smith and yours truly) will be looking for “your use of WPF, innovative display of financial data, the quality of your code, performance, appearance, and overall functionality.”

I’m a bit of a financial nut, so I’m very much looking forward to the results of this contest. Dazzle us!

Dvorak asks this about One Laptop Per Child:

“Does anyone but me see the OLPC XO-1 as an insulting ‘let them eat cake’ sort of message to the world’s poor?”

I can see his point, but I don’t see how decades of giving food and support to the 3rd world has helped them to become part of the 1st world. Maybe access to the world’s information so that they can educate themselves and learn how to solve their own problems might work a little better. It’s worth a try at least.

Save the Date!

Announcing PDC08

October 27–30, 2008
Pre-conference October 26, 2008
Los Angeles, California