Comments

My heart is pricked with pain at your circumstance. My advice-- get a Mac Powerbook or iBook. It is a relentlessly dependable machine...my eMac has never, ever crashed and it runs 24/7/365. I wish the people in my life could be this dependable.
Stay safe. Be Calm. All your fans back home are counting on your safe return.

Posted by Lindell Singleton at January 10, 2005 1:25 PM

tom:pen &Paper is mighty then any gear !!! After all, the whole british empire circa 1600-1900 was built on that correct ?? :)-

Posted by /pd at January 10, 2005 1:39 PM

Get a Apple Mac. My PowerBook is wonderful. Far less problems than a PC. And to put it in "Wow" terms, think about how many people you know who LOVE their Mac.

Posted by Raj at January 10, 2005 1:46 PM

Make yourself a Hipster PDA:

http://merlin.blogs.com/43folders/2004/09/introducing_the.html

No possibility of crashing, ever - unless the binder clip pops open.

Simplicity is beautiful is WOW.

Posted by Jonathan Cohen at January 10, 2005 1:54 PM

Dr. Tom - I feel your pain. Maybe a screwdriver to flip open and reseat the hard drive?

Cingular may be worth a look - I have a free camera laden world phone - and the minutes roll over. Take care out there.

Posted by John at January 10, 2005 1:57 PM

So, despite being a PowerBook user, I'm still a little paranoid (read: terrified) at the thought of losing data. So my little tip: I have an encrypted volume on my iPod. Every time I sync my iPod, it also sync's all my work-related data... so if my laptop decides to explode, I can just plug the iPod into another computer, get the files off and just keep working. Kinda' like a flash-drive, but faster w/ more storage.

Cheers.

Posted by Sutha Kamal at January 10, 2005 2:23 PM

Sutha, fabulous idea.

Posted by tom peters at January 10, 2005 2:34 PM

John, alas screwdriver is part of Swiss Army knife--which post-911 also resides in checked baggage. (But I can fix that.)

Posted by tom peters at January 10, 2005 2:38 PM

Sutha: That's such a kewl idea.. I am using a two 512MB nerd sticks for mission critical data. Apps are tarball'ed on the 3rd with portable firefox.. which permits me to acutally user my nerdstick into any USB port and chugg along.. So far from Q4/04, I have not had hassles.. but given the fact that Ipod has the 50-60GB space.. it makes me want to get another just for data app's.. !!! thks for tip-of-the-hat !!

Posted by /pd at January 10, 2005 2:56 PM

My laptop hard drive also had a nasty crash on Friday. Second one in less than six months. Went (ran?) to get a new computer as soon as the weather let me. Fortunately, I had data backups on CDs.

Back to Tech-dependence: now when we want to know if it's raining nearby, we check the 'net instead of looking out the window or walking out the door.

Posted by Gabriel Salcido at January 10, 2005 3:22 PM

Gabriel .... YES!!! That's my real concern, not the tech fixes, but a perverse sort of dependence. I love the things I can do that were unattainable ever so recently, but simply wonder what I've lost in the process. (I'M NOT HAPPY ABOUT HEART PALPITATIONS FOLLOWING A COMPUTER CRASH!)

Posted by tom peters at January 10, 2005 3:46 PM

Hope it works out Tom.

But, consider it a good experience. It will remind you to keep your files backed up and updated. Still keeping your presentations on one of your "thumb drives"?

To those p&p people (who answer an internet blog??): Ever not have a pen handy? Ever break a led or have a dog eat your homework? If you find a spelling error in your paper presentation, how easy is it to change? Different media, different set of problems.

Posted by Dave Holland at January 10, 2005 3:47 PM

one paranoic person is worth more than eight hundred million distracted persons.
Tech allways finds its time to fail.
We all make back ups even with mac s , but steve jobs does not only create personality they are pieces of tech- art you can rely on.
Sotha has it right, because he has a inbuilt paranoic chip regarding tech.
Its no use once it happens to you or me or him, but we allways have space to learn.
Come on lets all practice checking the unexpected list.

Posted by steve at January 10, 2005 4:25 PM

Looks like there are many that share your distaste for Verizon.

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,66226,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_3

Posted by Gary Potter at January 10, 2005 4:31 PM

Your comments about PowerPoint reminded me of the site that is about a PowerPoint presentation [http://www.norvig.com/Gettysburg/] that Abe Lincoln might have created for his Gettysburg Address. It points out that we often get carried away with PowerPoint and might even do silly things with it. Your pencil and paper time was probably well spent.

Joel Heffner

Posted by Joel Heffner at January 10, 2005 4:35 PM

Tom,
I understand how important color coding and symbolism is to you. You go to your slides for the bright greens and reds and the size 46 font so 5 words can fit on the page. Well, why dont you get some nicely textured semi-transparent paper printed in shades of greens and reds and stick to using charcoal/#2 pencils on your flights? Print some of your exclamation icons on them as well. There is so much more freedom in paper. How often do you doodle in your powerpoint slides?

Darin

Posted by Darin C at January 10, 2005 5:01 PM

Tom, it would have been cool if you actually worked your way into baggage whilst the flight was in midair, a la Harrison Ford in Air Force One, retrieving your Dell.

Posted by Scott at January 10, 2005 5:33 PM

Tom - Remember last year's rants on health / breathing?! stay way cool

Posted by Eric at January 10, 2005 6:07 PM

If you would take up the cause to eliminate powerpoint presentations, the world (and businesses in general) would be a much better place. People pay you to hear your words...help them by having them look and listen to you and not an overhead. Shout loudly when you really want them to notice a point. Tell them to write down an important point. If I am taking notes, it helps me remember better.

Please take this event as a sign/message - it's time to end the reliance on presentation whizbang software. You are one of the most influential business people in the world and if you stop using powerpoint, others will quickly follow. If you have stuff memorized, only a bump on the head will cause you the discomfort experienced by a laptop meltdown.

I can only hope that you see value in this.

Posted by jbr at January 10, 2005 7:24 PM

How in the world did we ever . . .
- telephone each other without cell phones?
- make presentations or speeches without PowerPoint?
- do business without Bill Gates dictating to us which of his crashable computer "tools" to use?

Yeah, TP, dependence on technology ain't always that good of a thing.

Reminds me of an asinine radio commercial I've heard lately. "We lost the client, because we didn't have a website." Hey, websites are great marketing tools, and are extremely useful in this wired age. But I've never heard of one company not doing business with another because the other wasn't "wired". I HAVE heard of one company dumping another because the other gave bad service and were staffed with a$$#@!%$. You can do without great technology (barely), but you can't do without great people.

Posted by Ron at January 10, 2005 7:57 PM

You could put all your data on a secure FTP somewhere on your servers and download it as you need it from anywhere in the world. If one machine breaks, get another, and get it again.

For a backup on the plane (for just typing), how about a Palm device with a folding keyboard? Very small (can fit in a pocket).

Posted by Tim Almond at January 10, 2005 9:08 PM viagra canada

Thinking while keyboarding--it is an "in the Zone" experience. We get absorbed--focused, proactive, confident, on a ROLL... The downside is that that little box, whether the logo on it is one of the cow as in gateway, the fruit as in apple, or the farmer as in dell--doesn't matter--because the gray/black/plastic box becomes our BRAIN IN A BOX! Here is the good news--it's just an illusion. While thumb drives help to assure us, in reality and in the end, the wisdom is within.

Posted by Dr. Pam Brill at January 10, 2005 11:13 PM

Oh Darn! I had done so well dealing with my own techno disaster--a more insidious techno disorder--OCD--obsessive online compulsive disorder. After three days off of this blog, I gave in to the compelling desire to blog. Now that may be a techno disaster for which there is no techo solution!

Posted by Dr. Pam Brill at January 10, 2005 11:16 PM

Time for a Mac.

A 15" Mac Powerbook loaded with Microsoft Office For The Mac will get you going, quickly and reliably.

Since switching to a Mac I have had dependable performance, without crashes and no "Blue Screens Of Death".

Posted by Erick Blackwelder at January 10, 2005 11:53 PM

Hi Tom,

It is obviously a sign to go for something else than powerpoint.

I love your work, even consider you a genius of sorts. But in spite of this I have a hard time with your powerpoints. Not just yours! Or perhaps this is exactly BECAUSE I consider your work to be of such vital importance - I simply cannot bear to see it reduced by powerpoints.

I wish you trustworthy technology in the future!
Norbert

Posted by Norbert at January 11, 2005 12:28 AM

I'm on the jbr & norbert side.

I think you should practice presentations w/o slides.

I saw you give a presentation in S.F. in, I think, 1987, and you were on fire. I always thought that if I spoke to a big room, I'd love to be able to have the gamma rays spouting out like that.

When I did a few bigger gatherings, I used slides because I was expected to. I found it constrained my voice, made me either oversimplify in line with the slides or over-elaborate to try to fill in concepts the slides wouldn't support.

I started doing my talks w/o slides and for me it helped me better engage the faces in the crowd and riff off my talk more fluidly.

But honestly, you're a lot more adept with the slides than I am, so it may be unfair to compare my experience with yours. BUT I think you should try 1 every Nth presentation to do it without using the slides, just you and the thoughts and the energy you get back. Perhaps still use the slides for development and a post-talk hand-out, but not use them during the talk.

Try it a couple of times and measure the differences good and bad. I think you might be surprised. In a good way.

ps: the many suggestions to go over to Mac for reliability advantages is a good one. For all their flaws, Apple's margins & social norms just support better design and engineering than Gateway or Dell can afford to invest in.

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Posted by jeff angus at January 11, 2005 1:32 AM

Get a Mac !

Use KeyNote - it's much better than PowerPoint and actually displays better on screen than PowerPoint. Until you try using KeyNote - and the features and templates it comes with - you don't know what you have been missing. Keynot is designed well and works.

Mac is UNIX based - ROCK SOLID compared to WinTel machines.

Off course a Mac requires back-up as well... but after working on all three difference systems, MAC, Win, Linux - the MAC solution works best.

We have two Macs that work and work... and an XP that dies 2 to 3 times a week... no one knows what the problem is and after several re-installs of XP - we've given up any hope of leaving that machine on for longer than an hour without saving and backing up to re-writable discs...

Posted by John Waters at January 11, 2005 2:40 AM

C'mon folks (some of you): the PowerPoint slides are part of the TP Machine. I'm sure that the info is in Tom's head. The slides are a supplement--they help paint the picture--to Tom's energetic presentations.

Posted by Lee H. Igel at January 11, 2005 7:56 AM

Its sad, is'nt it, how we all allow things/events outside of us to control our feelings. I guess this is the price we pay for allowing ourselves to become dependent on...

Posted by Craig at January 11, 2005 12:22 PM

Maybe this is the catalyst for another healthcare rant... about hardware! You can stay calm, prepared, fresh and unstressed (and maybe thus add 5 years to your life expectancy) if you know that your hardware is properly maintained and fully backed up. Why does this blog put me in mind of Marshal McLuhan and his message / medium comments?

Posted by Mark JF at January 11, 2005 1:02 PM