I'm not surprised it was 'invented' by a publisher.

I always remember diagrams of the X.25 cloud with a few terminal devices hung off the outside. I guess the modern environment has polluted the cloud with all sorts of junk since that nice, pure example.

That I for one welcome our new cloud computing-application/storage/service/etc/etc/etc as service-web 2.0-wtf pwned-social networking-twittering-meh spewing-long tail chasing-blogosphering overlords. And bid them to carefully tread through the new years buzz words.

Makes me see red.

Every Tom, Dick, Harry, his dog and uncle are on the Green bandwagon to "save the world". Or whatever.

Next thing you know, Mr. Gore will be praising the Taliban suicide bombers for killing people and reducing the emissions they would have otherwise caused. Of course, the value of the emissions from the bomb would have to be less than the discounted value of the lifetime emissions of the bombers' victims.

And the jehadis can go to heaven blissful in the knowledge that apart from getting rid of a few infidels, they have also made the world a safer place for future generations. F***ing hell - they might be able to offset their carbon credits for a few virgins more.

Mine's the one with GREEN written on it. In RED.

<EOR>

Build a low-spec laptop. Use the absolute minimum specification that will actually boot and run. Specify the smallest resolution, cheapest screen you can find - never mind the downright ludicrous resolution and aspect ratio. Slap in the lowest cost O/S and applications that are available (and forget to mention that unless you are a fully paid-up geek,, these puppies come with absolutely no support, upgrades, fixes or patches).

Give it a trendy name and flog 'em to people who's buying decisions are predicated solely on price and you've invented a whole new genre.

The press, of course, are eager to grasp at anything that could possibly help them shift copy. So they climb on board, too. Hyping this thing as if cheapo lappys are a new phenomenon and how this is "the future"

I suppose netbook is better than a more accurate moniker of "crap-top". Oh how we'll look back on 2007/8/9 and cringe to think that we actually paid money for these doorstops. In the same way that people got caught up in past fads, only to realise that beneath them lay ..... nothing.

Everyone can say that they're "going green" and try to get some great PR out of it, hey look at us, we're environmentally responsible. But we all know that it's the high cost of energy that's making everyone concerned about energy conservation. Ironically, it's Al Gore and his merry band of anti-energy goons that are making energy cost more. It's easy to make energy cheap again: DRILL DRILL DRILL! And start building nuclear plants again!

I know its a tough concept to swallow but sometimes people make different choices, not be cause they are stupid but because they have different wants, needs and expectations.

I know people with netbooks, they all love them.

I have two "portable": a normal 17" Dell Laptop, and an EEE 900. And you know what? I actively agree with the term Netbook - it describes pretty well the main function of the EEE... getting you on the net to read mail or browse webpage. Oh, and write documents.

Let's face it, netbooks are not notebooks (I notice that the term "laptop" can no longer be used with these beasties, not unless you want to burn your proverbials) and are not competing in the same "power-user" bracket. You want power, get a notebook.

Meanwhile, I quite happily use my hand-sized EEE to control all the other servers at home and at work.

that's the one that's designed to annoy the most :)

Get it in early is the best approach to this failure phrase ;)

"Hey why not just reuse Windows numbering? We can have Web 3.1, Web 3.11, then Web for Workgroups 3.11 (this one I'm sure is using "cloud computing" tech within your local business), Web NT 4.0 and Web 2000."

You forgot Web 95, Web 98, Web 98SE, Web Me, Web XP, and (of course!) Web Vista.

Alas We should remember that Windows 2.0 (as well as Windows 1.0) was not even used. Basically a failure.

So, we have a magic number system, and one should always remember "The second system effect", which Web 2.0 refers to!

is indeed the most annoying phrase I've heard

We have a box in the office so that everyone can think outside it.

It contains an amount of sand in case anyone gets the urge to draw a line in it.

And yes we have people who spend their entire life in meetings or on an iPhone (I kid you not) but communicate zero to their underlings.

Some of us techies have been waiting for a netbook ever since the HP journada (740?) showed what was possible. As we spend most of our time running console based screen sessions on remote servers the netbooks are fine. They define a new level of portability in that your netbook is always with you. At the main office you can always plug in keyboards, mice and monitors to make it easier to use.

The main thing to avoid getting one with Windows on it. Lets face it, XP is slow on normal machines.

Mines a Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu pre-installed and I'm very happy with it.

And as someone else pointed out - when the dreaded Strictly Come X factor/soap stars on ice is on the telly a netbook is ideal to find something more interesting to read whilst on the sofa.

I'm sure the term "the cloud" was invented by non-techies who envisage all IT as a rather large grey fog-like cloud where you put stuff in at one end and get stuff out the other end. How it all works, they don't know.

Hear this constantly in Financial Services these days, a resignation to the acceptance of the current state of affairs being FUBAR.

For Web 3.11 - Web for Workgroups to start being used....

'Moving/going forward' has to be my current pet hateourite. I'm sick of everyone saying it.

Fail/Epic Fail - oh grow up - and no, not everyone who says something you disagree with has 'failed'.

Virtualisation - before the 'cloud' became the big fad it is the word virtualisation dominated every ****amn news story.

'Green', 'credit crunch', 'paedophile', 'knives' - all wayyy too overused, abused and not enough done to stop the criminal activity surrounding them.

I just hope I dont have to sit through 130 mindless powerpoint pages when some evangilist of web 3 or whatever it is decides to sell their warez

Netbooks are what portable computers are SUPPOSED to be - a computer that's portable. When laptops started worrying about the amount of power they could shove in, they became crude desktops that MIGHT just be movable(four feet or until the onset of a hernia). If you ever find yourself with a need for both portability and power, the solution's simple: SSH into a desktop system or full-fledged server and DO YOUR WORK THERE.

@KenBW2 Posted Tuesday 30th December 2008 01:50 GMT

"My two biggest annoyances for the year. What do they even mean now?"

Essential Inspiration :=: Don't forget to breathe.

All two of them?

something called Myspace.

Web 2.0 is that portion of the Internet that requires you to open your browser to the entire possible array of malware before it will work properly.

"If you ever find yourself with a need for both portability and power, the solution's simple: SSH into a desktop system or full-fledged server and DO YOUR WORK THERE."

Wow - after all this time, we've progressed to the model of a dumb terminal, a slow link, and a centralized mainframe. Wanna upgrade to OS/360?

A netbook is a PDA for real people. It's not a video composition tool, a password cracker, a compilation environment, or a database server.

Personally I have a lot more sympathy for those rich greens trying to assuage their guilt ineffectively than for those who simply haven't realized they are guilty yet, not to mention those preaching "good is bad and bad is good and pollution causes evolution and suffering causes pleasure and worldwide pandemic and famine causes progress and who cares anyways because it's all about what you can grab RIGHT NOW!"!

It's only technologically primitive people who have the luxury of restricting their thoughts of the future to merely seven generations. We are obligated to think as far ahead as our actions will have consequences for.

Now that "green" has been coopted, I'm going to have to start calling myself a Terraist.