Bringing my lappies with me can sometimes be a horrible experience. My trusty Acer’s laptop bag is quite bulky and heavy, which contributes to the total weight that I have to lug around with me. My ASUS EEE may be easier to carry in a bag but I hate that it just gets all jiggled up in my messenger bag or backpack because there are no internal restraints. There are also a lack of pockets for my other gadgets, like my Nokia E61i, my iPod, my Nintendo DS, as well as various documents and papers.

So it was with great excitement when I saw the Logitech KINETIX backpack. The ergonomic looking bag looks quite hip with its black and orange contrasting colors. It’s slightly curved back frame means that air will flow at the back, which effectively prevents the sweaty back stains that all backpack users experience. The great thing here is that the sturdy frame has many pockets and compartments that are easily accessible. The laptop compartment can fit up to a 15.4 inch notebook, which is quite awesome.

The Logitech KINETIX may be THE backpack to use for lappie users. I’ll definitely have this on my buy list this year.

The Macbook Air is undoubtedly the world’s slimmest laptop. But this extreme portability may not be a good match for people who do not know how to take care of their things.

In a recent column, Steven Levy, a columnist of Newsweek, showed exactly why ultraportable gadgets and being a slob do not make good bedfellows. Levy narrated that his expensive Macbook Air disappeared from his apartment and he couldn’t trace where it went. After scouring his place and even placing a call to an Apple representative (like they could help retrieve a misplaced laptop), he still couldn’t find it. He eventually deduced that it may have been inadvertently thrown away with a stack of newspapers that he was throwing away for recycling.

Hard to believe that a gadget worth almost two grand could be lost in that manner. But apparently it can happen. So let this be a cautionary tale to Macbook Air users or those who love buying those itsy-bitsy gadgets that electronics companies love to put out in the market.

With the release of Service Pack 3 for Windows XP, there is speculation that it will further slow down the public’s adoption of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista.

The new Service Pack 3 Release Candidate 2 was released last Feb. 19 without much fanfare, maybe as a way to not really give too much of the public’s attention to XP at this point when the company is still trying to sell the advantages of upgrading to the Vista OS. The problem is that with SP3, XP has become more stable and reliable and with a larger installed base, this will make it doubly hard for Microsoft to encourage people to go with vista, which is still considered as having many quirks and instabilities. SP3’s introduction has basically brought a Catch 22 situation for Microsoft. And the company’s decision to stop supporting XP in the near future will only further alienate its customers.

Firefox 3 Beta 3 was released a few days ago. Developers and testers of the new version of Firefox have complained about the memory leaks that have plagued Beta 2. The new version has attempted to plug in the said leaks. To date, about 350 memory leaks were plugged.

In total, about 1300 changes were made to the browser, addressing issues in security, bug fixes, performance improvement as well as changes in the user interface. But security has been the main focus of this particular beta release. For example, a user can now click on a site’s icon in order to find out if the connection if safe and protected from eavesdropping. There is also a new malware protection module that alerts users if they visit a site that installs malware or perform other malicious processes.

Additional features also include a download manager and a tagging function.

Those who want to actually check it out can download the software at this address.

The ASUS EEE was officially released middle of October 2007. It became an instant hit and demand has been so tremendous that the company cannot keep up with its production of the units.

I am not really the early adopter type. I only decided to buy one a couple of weeks ago and finally got a unit a few days ago. Many people think that early adopters are very gung ho because they are always the first ones to shell out money for untested units. In most cases it really is true. But in rare cases, early adopters also get wonderful unexpected rewards for taking a chance. It has happened before with the Playstation 3 and Sony’s decision to put the actual Emotion Engine in early units. Newer units now only do software emulation of the PS2 environment, which is not as good as having the actual hardware inside the system. Now you can count the ASUS EEE, too.

It was discovered that early units of the EEE, especially those with serial numbers that start with 7A, possess an extra PCI-e connector in its innards. This means an additional level of expandability. I’m still reading what possible expansion options can be opened with an additional connector — with some saying that this could mean the possibility of putting an additional SSD in the slot, effectively increasing the hard drive space. Of course, this could mean a shorter battery life but with the imminent release of new 6 cell battery packs this could mean that power will not be as much of a problem anymore.