.FLYINGHEAD FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
.TITLE PalmPower is now Computing Unplugged Magazine
.AUTHOR David Gewirtz
.SUMMARY Welcome to Computing Unplugged, the magazine of untethered technology, the magazine of unwired wonders, the magazine of unplugged possibilities. PalmPower Magazine is now Computing Unplugged Magazine. Read this editorial by Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz to learn more about what waits those who pull unplug and connect.
It’s one of those clear, crisp spring days we get in New Jersey. One of those days that makes you think New Jersey might be okay to live in, after all. It’s a day where the line for coffee at the Dunkin’ Donuts is shorter than Mini-Me standing on his platform shoes. The sky is a shade of blue that could honestly be described as blue, where the breeze flying down off the Turnpike refineries is fresh and crisp, with only the slightest bouquet of petroleum.
It’s just the sort of day you want to launch a new magazine.
It all began last November. Around the middle of the month, less than a year ago. I was hunched over my computer, the Quasimodo of the keys, doing what I did every month about that time: reading, editing, and yearning to read and edit something else, anything else.
.BREAK_EMAIL Keep reading to learn how and why PalmPower became Computing Unplugged
Winter was soon to be upon us, the cold, the gray, the dampness that lasted a full season and never seemed to lift. It was a perfect mirror for my mood, dreary, bored, and gray, as gray as the soot inside the muffler of a 1985 Pontiac 1000, a car so slow that it’d often lose a race with old ladies in their 1980 Ford Pintos.
I was reading and editing what was to be the next issue of PalmPower, once the flagship publication in a great fleet (great fleet, in this case, meaning PalmPower and three other magazines, including PalmPower’s Enterprise Edition, a magazine devoted to singing the praises of handhelds in the corporate world.)
Back in November, singing the praises of anything Palm was quite the challenge. Palm had come off a nine month anti-binge characterized by floundering stock prices, floundering product sales, bad press from bad moves, and products so incomprehensibly boring that the best thing to be said about them was they had the name "Palm" tatooed on their plastic foreheads.
Meanwhile, I was dreaming of the newly announced Tablet PC. This was the laptop I’d dreamed of all my life. You could use it like a regular laptop, or you could twist the screen around, flop it down, and use it as a tablet, writing on the screen’s surface. I wanted a Tablet PC. I yearned for a Tablet PC. I lusted in an unhealthy and slightly creepy way for a Tablet PC. And I got me a Tablet PC.
It had been a long, long time since I lusted for anything containing those four magic letters: P-A-L-M.
As PalmPower’s Editor-in-Chief, I’d had the sometimes great but, more recently, dubious pleasure of regularly speaking with key Palm personnel. Back when Jeff Hawkins ran the company, it was a pleasure. This guy was an innovator. Even after Jeff left to do his own thing, talking to many of the professionals on Palm’s hard-working team was a joy. But then came the layoffs. And more layoffs. And even more layoffs. And talking to Palm’s leftovers began to feel like eating that green, fuzzy stuff in the back of the refrigerator, stuff you could have sworn was once a color other than green, and probably didn’t begin life with fur.
Here’s an example. No, not of the fuzzy stuff in the fridge, but of the fuzzy thinking we were seeing at Palm. We were meeting with a Palm exec about the importance of connecting to Windows NT and 2000 servers in the enterprise. For a while, the conversation seemed almost like English. But then, I was convinced the Universal Translator lost a marble or two when our pet exec told us that they’d done a survey and learned that Microsoft wasn’t all that big in corporations, so they didn’t really have to worry too much about Microsoft in the enterprise.
Seriously. That’s what she said. There’s more, but I can’t repeat it (mostly because we promised we wouldn’t). Suffice it to say that beer drinkers have nothing to fear from Palm, except beer itself. I know that doesn’t make sense. That’s ok. It doesn’t really have to. Not much did.
It was terribly demoralizing. I didn’t want to edit PalmPower any more. I didn’t want to watch this once-great company shoot itself in its one remaining good foot. To be fair, Palm seems to have regained some of its former glory in the intervening months. The Tungsten-series machines are solid devices, and the Zire 71 is a perfectly-balanced offering at a very reasonable price. We’re thrilled to see our old friends once again get their game on.
And still, I wanted to be excited about what we published. I wanted to write about ALL the great things happening in the handheld world, about the amazing innovations that WiFi was making possible, about Tablet PCs, digital cameras, and phones that do just about everything, including make a good phone call.
I still carry my Palm computer (actually, it’s a Handspring), but I wanted more.
I wanted to pull the plug on PalmPower.
I wanted Computing Unplugged, the magazine of untethered technology, the magazine of unwired wonders, the magazine of unplugged possibilities.
This magazine. This magazine that we’re launching on this beautiful spring day with robins chirping and squirrels jumping from tree limb to tree limb. This magazine that mirrors all the life and growth and budding, blooming, bounty that is spring.
PalmPower Magazine is now Computing Unplugged, unhindered, unrestricted, unfettered, and undeniably unplugged.
We’re kicking off Computing Unplugged with both Palm and Pocket PC related articles. And we’ll continue to cover Palm. But we’ll be covering a lot more, including:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET PDAs and GPSs (and other things with fun acronyms);
.BULLET Digital cameras and camcorders;
.BULLET Music and MP3 players;
.BULLET Handheld and mobile gaming;
.BULLET Wireless WiFi, 802.11abcdefg, Bluetooth, and other tech;
.BULLET Unplugged in the enterprise;
.BULLET Computing in cars;
.BULLET Home entertainment, home automation, and even remote controls;
.BULLET Computers, of course, but only those that are unplugged;
.BULLET Cell phones (and whatever they’re becoming);
.BULLET Internet technology;
.BULLET Cabling, robotics, and much, much more.
.END_LIST
If it’s got a processor and it’s mobile, or it’s unplugged where it once was plugged, or it facilitates becoming unplugged, and most especially if its cool, exciting, or turns us on, we’re plugging into it.
.BEGIN_KEEP
And if you’ve got something to say, a product you want to review, or a tip you want to share, we want to plug you into Computing Unplugged as well. If you want to write for us on any of these exciting topics, write to me at david@computingunplugged.com and I’ll get you plugged in and hooked up.
So welcome to Computing Unplugged, where we unravel the truth about the unwired world.
Go forth, and unplug.
.BIO David Gewirtz is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of ZATZ Publishing and is the author of The Flexible Enterprise. He can be reached at david@ZATZ.com. If you want to know more about David and see his artwork, you can visit David Gewirtz Unplugged at http://www.gewirtz.com, his personal Web site and paean to all things David.
.END_KEEP
