I'm presenting the keynote at LoCA 2006 this year and on Monday I booked all of the flights, hotel and car parking required to get me there.

As it happens I'm away that week, but significantly closer to Dublin, and to a more convenient airport, to fly over in just under an hour. Everything, I thought, was organized.

Then I got an email today, just 36 hours after everything had been confirmed, to say that they were no longer able to fly out of that airport and it would change to another about an hour (by car) away.

Desktop virtualization is a similar approach to using terminal services, except that you provide a desktop virtual machine which you access through a suitable client (VMware's, or another solution like VNC).

You get centralized management of your desktops, because the desktops are located on your virtual desktop server, and you can closely control the resources allocated to each machine.

There are also security aspects; have a problem with the machine? Re-image it from a backup of the desktop that you made that you know was safe. Viri and trojan houses can be kept under control by using a virtual hard disk that can be deleted or re-generated. You can even use the technology in VMware that rolls back changes to the disk when the virtual machine is shutdown, returning it to the state it was when booted.

I never thought I'd see the day, but I seem to have found a computer that is faster than anything I need at the moment.

The T2000 is quick, especially for a lot of the tasks that I would be considering. Web serving, large compiles and other processes are all areas where I could see a use, but, even with the current range of websites and projects in hand, I don't think I'd ever get to use the power of this machine and that would be a waste, not necessarily of money - it'll probably go the same way as much of my other Sun hardware; still going ten years from now - but it would also be a waste of opportunity. I really don't have enough to throw at this box to get the best out of it each day.

The existence of the 750GB from Seagate, although not yet official, proves that the quest for ever larger storage spaces is never-ending.

Likely to target the desktop drive market, I would think that the problem with such a large single drive is the possibility for failure. 750GB is a lot to lose from a single hardware fault.

As users - home, work and otherwise - we are now storing much more data than ever before. Our music collection, digital photos, even home videos are a prime source of data space in the home, and sometimes at work. For the business desktop it is applications, raw data (photos, spreadsheets and analysis output from databases) and for some more complex types, like virtual machine hard drives and others.

Marian Prokop asks What would you do with 64 gigabytes of flash memory?.

I have some suggestions, based on how I've been using my 1GB unit for the last couple of years:

• Use it as a quick backup store - I carry mine in my pocket when I'm travelling, on the basis that it is unlikely to disappear or get lost, unlike, say, my bags. I plug it in whenever I do any significant work, run a backup, and unplug it again.
• Carry around standard docs - I've had a key of some description since about 2002, and I've been storing my CV and some sample docs on it (in PDF format) for all that time. It's great, when someone asks you something, to be able to whip out your USB key and give the docs right there, instead of taking a business card and emailing it later. With more storage, I could have more sample docs.

I'm still a Skype fan, mostly because most of my associates have Skype accounts, but I started out in the VoIP game with a standard SIP account at Sipgate.

The service rocked, and I used it a lot, but the software for the Mac was less than ideal, and incoming calls didn't always work. Having a genuine SIP phone might have solved the problem.

Based on this review it is very tempting to get one, but I'm still holding out for the first standalone Skype phone, preferably wireless.

That title isn't a prediction, it's a recommendation.

Yesterday, Intel announced new CPUs that consume just 5.5W of power at peak load. These aren't the fastest processors on the block - the Core Duo tops at 1.2GHz, but a dual core CPU at that rate should be more than capable of doing the majority of tasks in your typical office.

Whether that machine is laptop or proper desktop is up to you. Although laptops are an ideal target for this sort of CPU, there is no reason why you couldn't use the CPU in a desktop machine. Asus currently provide the N4L-VM DH motherboard (review and review) that supports the Core Duo/Solo chips.

Annalee Newitz is a journalist. Unfortunately, Annalee is also a woman, and that unfortunately makes her a target for sexist and misogynistic comments from a number of the Slashdot (and other) readers. The summary of the story is with a more detailed piece responding to the offending article that started it all available where Annalee talks about the issues and the idiots. Because of the way Slashdot works, even the opening description and summary of the article was sexist.

I've commented before on the forthcoming car tracking solution heading to the UK.

A very small update - and some more detail - is outlined here.

The worrying aspects here are the length of time that the data will be kept, and who will have access to it. Despite the assurances that all sorts of the restrictions and process will be in place to stop it being abused, I can't help but feel the whole system is starting to set a dangerous situat

I've commented before on the forthcoming car tracking solution heading to the UK.

A very small update - and some more detail - is outlined here.

The worrying aspects here are the length of time that the data will be kept, and who will have access to it. Despite the assurances that all sorts of the restrictions and process will be in place to stop it being abused, I can't help but feel the whole system is starting to set a dangerous situat