The Grouse

Besides world peace and a visit from the Publishers Clearing House van, the one thing I want in life is an always-on Internet connection—and, I want it affordably. More specifically, I want always accessible, reasonably priced, quick and dependable wireless Internet. After all, my broadband connection through the cable company is technically always on, but it’s worthless once I walk out of the house. It stands to reason, then, that only a mobile provider will ever be capable of fulfilling this wish.

It dawned on me while on vacation recently that I actually already have what I’ve always wanted. The problem is that it’s a last-generation definition of what Internet access is and needs to be.

Is Microsoft finally admitting that Windows Vista is a lost cause? Well, that’s certainly not the official company line, but it does kind of seem that way to me. The embattled OS’s successor, Windows 7, wraps up a public beta in a few days and speculation is that Microsoft is planning to crown its heir to the Windows kingdom as early as the Fall. By then, Vista will have been on store shelves for less than three years. That’s not a very long time compared to XP, which was top dog for five years before being replaced by Vista—if it was ever really replaced at all.

Been laid off? Sacked? Canned? Made redundant? Welcome to the new economy! Now that you’ve parted ways with regular pay, it’s time to make a few lifestyle tweaks to help keep your head bobbing above the poverty line. First of all, don’t worry a thing about your monthly health insurance payment—that nut will disappear all by itself when your coverage runs out. I’m talking about your tech habits and what you need to know while riding out this exile from the working world. As a gadget buff who has clocked some serious time “in between jobs” myself, I offer up this checklist of the bad tech to avoid and the good tech to embrace as you ease into your new situation.

Whether you want to call it “2.0” or not, the fact is that a better, stronger, faster Web experience is quickly replacing the old one, and there’s a lot out there to be psyched about. But, for every Google Maps, Facebook and Flickr that does (most) everything right, there are a thousand more Web sites out there still clinging to archaic, annoying and even deceptive practices. What the operators of these sites fail to understand is that forcing me to endure these “experiences” is worse than not having a Web site at all.

Were you suckered into buying an extended warranty on a tech purchase this past holiday season? Take a closer read of the fine print, because you're not as covered as you might think. Scratches? Not a chance. A power surge? If you're lucky. Nuclear holocaust? Nope. But, more on that later.

This week, as children across the land burden the laps of portly, temporary mall help to cast last minute wishes for footballs, tinker toys and Red Rider BB guns, I’ll be sitting at my desk, fingers-crossed with a few holiday fancies of my own. I’d like to think I’ve been a well behaved boy this year, so in addition to old standbys like world peace, good will toward men and a substantial lottery win, I’m asking for these five tech-related gifts—as infuriatingly unlikely as they may be.

In case you didn’t hear (because you live in Australia and, let's be serious, you have a few other sports to follow first), the first-ever 3-D broadcast of an NFL game recently went down. Don’t worry if you missed it, because your old buddy The Grouse was present to bring you this report from the front lines. Or, the line of scrimmage, as it were.

The NFL hopes to someday bring 3-D football to the pigskin loving public at large. This preview was a demo of what we might someday see play out in movie theaters across the country. That’s right—the game was shown in the same type of movie theaters you’d watch one of those Disney 3-D movies in, which should be your first clue that this was definitely a different way of watching football.

If the late-’90s dot-com boom was the original Golden Age for awful TV tech ads, then today we are surely living in the Renaissance. Yes, back then we had the Pets.com sock puppet and lots and lots of chimps, but take a spin around the dial and I think you’ll agree that there are now more technology-related ads on television than ever—most of them quite terrible. Here are the ten that bug me the most, and I invite you to please cut loose in the comments on any offenders I neglect to mention.

About seven years ago, I tried to free myself from the oppression and misery of running Windows ME by installing Linux on my PC. Ever installed the Linux operating system? It’s not for the faint of heart. So, when it was recently reported that Linux-based netbooks are being returned at a rate four-times higher than their Windows-based brethren, I can’t say I was surprised.

I bet the ’80s was a good decade for Energizer, Duracell and their ilk. I mean, it was a good decade for sharkskin, too, but the ’80s had to be the absolute peak for these battery makers. Suddenly, it seemed like everything required portable juice: that new-fangled wireless TV remote, the Walkman, my futuristic calculator watch and, of course, all of those awesomely high-tech electronic toys like Simon (which actually had its launch party at Studio 54!).

Backing up my computer’s hard drive has always been like flossing: I know I should be doing it even though it’s one of life’s more prickly pains in the butt. Both chores are the kinds of thing you can never fully appreciate until something goes horribly wrong, like a hard drive fries or some teeth start jiggling loose.

I like to think I'm protective of my sensitive personal info. I rip bills and credit card offers into confetti before throwing them out, I never give out my Social Security number, and I can spot a phishing scheme with the best of them. But I've recently come to realize that the safeguarding of my most intimate personal details is completely out of my hands.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but they neglected to mention that it’s also a crushing chokehold on the windpipe of creativity. Nowhere is this fact of life more apparent than in this fall’s lineup of upcoming and recently released video games. Look a little closer and you’ll realize—with a few exceptions—that it’s not just this season’s selection of pixelly diversions that suffer from a general lack of originality; it’s a long-running ailment endemic to the entire video game industry.