And a pretty hefty one at that. It's a Compaq Evo N800c. It's fast and awesome, but it weighs three times as much as any other laptop that I own. Still, the screen is really nice and I can see doing some serious work with this thing. I'm quite happy with it so far.

So my work plan for the year is a little different from the one I followed last year. (Last year I used a Tablet PC, a Pocket PC, a desktop machine, and I carried another light notebook.) I think that I'm going to try to carry this machine with me at all times and I'm going to use my iPAQ as my main organizer. I'll probably leave the Tablet PC at home. It's a slate and it's a bit difficult to code on unless I'm sitting at my desk, so I'm going to use that mostly for art, travel, and photo processing in the field.

I spent most of 2003 as paperless as I could. I used my Tablet PC and my iPAQ and I printed as little as I could get away with in the office. That said I still feel drawn to the Franklin Covey planning system and I'm considering getting a 2004 set to put in my paper planner.

It seems I'm not the only one who is torn over how to handle this years planning. There's a good story by Mike Lohsl at PDA Buzz that discusses the same issue:

Time To Pick Your Poison Again -- Paper Or Plastic?

On the other hand, it would cost me the same to upgrade to Tablet Planner 3.0 as it would to get a new paper refill and so I'll probably just go that route.

The other day I found a Napster CD in my mailbox. I tried it and I've subscribed. I'm enjoying it very much.

So the other day I found that Wacom released some new Tablet PC digitizer drivers. If you have a Tablet PC that uses the Wacom digitizer, these drivers let you use the pressure sensitivity feature of the tablet from apps like Photoshop and Painter. The new drivers are great and so I immediately upgraded to Painter 8. I spent most of yesterday drawing and painting. If you are an artist this combo is a must have.

I've used Wacom Tablets with Painter for years, but there's really nothing like using these same features on a Tablet PC. There were times yesterday when I was thinking that I had gotten the paper too wet or that I needed to wait a few minutes to add another layer of acrylic, and then realizing that I was working on a computer. It's very immersive.

When I feel homesick I just turn on the Lambeau Cam, and then I'm thankful that I live somewhere relatively warm.

Somebody put together some pretty funny RS3 movies.

OK, for my first truly stupid vacation post, I'll point you to a new Web site that I found that let's you link your picture to your Xbox Live Gamertag. This thing is actually pretty cool in that it let's you see pictures of some of the people that you play with on Xbox Live. It even breaks the pictures down by games played by the individual.

GamertagPics

And yes, I even added my own picture here.

I just realized that I haven't blogged in days. Part if it has to do with getting ready for a vacation that I'm taking starting this weekend. I like my job a lot so it's a bit difficult to let go. I tried to get as much done before the holiday as I could, and I think things are ready. On this vacation, I'm just staying home anyway. I can literally see into one of the windows of one of the MS buildings from my living room, so I'm not too far away if something comes up.

This week, TechNet is featuring a number of Security Webcasts. From the page....

TechNet Security Webcast Week

The TechNet Security Webcast Week, the first week of December 2003, spotlights TechNet’s continuing webcast coverage of one of the hottest topics for IT professionals today. The webcasts listed are live webcasts. After each webcast occurs, this page will be updated with a link to the on-demand version of the webcast, which will be available for viewing for at least one year.

Kent asks for my take in this post. Here is my answer... My only comment is that security is difficult, but it need not be overwhelming. As you know, at Microsoft we use Active Directory. That means one password for use on our corporate network. We augment that with physical security in the form of smartcards when we access our network from the outside. This solution has been extremely efficient and I don't find that our users experience much difficulty with it. As far a home security goes, install a firewall. Use Windows Update to update machines. Make sure that Wep is enabled on your wireless network and change your Wep key occasionally. Use antivirus software. These things should be as commonly recognized as what you need to do to stay secure as putting on a seatbelt when getting into a car or putting on a hardhat at a construction site. If the security measures that users need to take are so difficult that they are trying to circumvent these measures to do their work, then something needs to be done to either simplify the system or to retrain the users so that they understand their responsibility in ensuring the security of corporate assets. Security as an issue isn't going to just go away. It gets better over time, but in the end, you have to manage risk in the most cost effective way that you can.