Oh, hello. Didn’t see you there. Listen, don’t be alarmed by the fact that some stuff around this site doesn’t appear to work quite right. There’s a very good reason for that: The site’s not really live yet. It’s sort of hanging out, slowly being populated with content, as a heck of a lot of tweaking goes on under the hood.
If you want to stay up-to-date with the site so you know when it has gone live, you’ll probably want to subscribe to the RSS feed or e-mail digest; I’ll put up a “welcome” post once things are all strung together and working as they should.
Meanwhile, feel free to poke around. Just don’t be alarmed if the site, occasionally, pokes back.
As a result of a new agreement between online music retailers and the recording industry, all three major sellers of music downloads have adjusted their pricing. Whereas before the majority of songs were sold for $.89 or $.99 per track, now iTunes, Amazon, and Wal-Mart are all offering downloads in a range of prices dictated by popularity and other factors. Here’s how the prices run down:
MP3 downloads now cost $.79, $.99 or $1.29 per song. Amazon’s approach seems to be to apply the lower prices a bit more freely than at iTunes, and Amazon’s songs have never had play restrictions attached.
For internet-savvy shoppers looking for deals online, coupon aggregator 
Nintendo’s Wii has been turning heads since it was originally released in 2006. The mostly motion-based controls took a radically different approach to game-system design, and it hooked millions of folks who never have considered themselves “gamers” (and probably still don’t).
, which collects a bunch of lighthearted, summer-themed games that all make use of the enhanced control of the MotionPlus. One game, for example, has you throwing frisbees to a cute little dog who will chase them down — and the angle of your hand dictates the angle of the frisbee’s movement. Another is a wave-runner game where you twist the Wii remote like the throttle of a jet-ski. And my favorite: a sword-fighting game where the in-game sword mirrors your own movement exactly.
Nintendo hasn’t announced pricing yet, but I’d be surprised if it’s more than the price of 
— which is to say, about 50 bucks.
As nifty and futuristic as the 
may be, it’s not exactly the most practical of personal transportation devices. Nevermind the fact that in many cities it’s considered not big enough to be streetworthy, yet too powerful to be safe for sidewalks; the bigger problem is that it’s, well, big. Heavy. Bulky.
AT&T Wireless has launched a program to offer notebooks for as little as $50 in some markets. With a similar setup as a cell phone plan, the wireless carrier is now offering plans that let customers get their hands on tiny laptops for barely more than the cost of a new phone.
If you use Time Warner or high-speed internet access (or perhaps you know them as Roadrunner, you need to know about this: Business Week reports that Time Warner was testing usage caps for internet service in Beaumont, Texas, and has apparently just expanded the test to four other cities: Austin, TX; Greensboro, NC; Rochester, NY; and San Antonio, TX.
The Atlantic just ran a really nice little piece about making the perfect cup of coffee. The kicker is that it’s written by 
If you are a child of the ’80s, chances are you spent some face time with an Apple II. These computers were mainstays of school computer classes in the mid ’80s, classes that usually included some light programming:
