Forget the iPhone - this is the next must have gadget

The One Laptop Per Child charity is allowing "the first 25,000" applicants to buy one of their rugged computers on a "buy two get one" basis - you buy one for yourself and one for a child in a less developed country.

They sound a very useful device and I suspect they are going to be highly sort after because of the design features that make them outdoor-friendly - something other laptops are not.

The first thing about them is the that they are designed to be low powered so they don't need regular charging; and it appears they will have some sort of crank to charge them if you are away from the office. They use a low-clock-speed processor and best of all they replace the spinning hard drive with a solid state flash drive.

They are 802.11g wireless enabled so you can connect while sat on the hammock in the back garden.

The major feature that makes them work outside is the screen - you can set them to go black and white and work like a newspaper or an LCD watch. Bright sunlight stops being a problem.

The operating system is a version of the Open Source Linux based Fedora Core 6.

Some details are slightly woolly as the device has gone through a number of design stages with some facilities kept and others left out. I hope they keep the solar panel though.

Not sorted

Sort by modified. Where did that go then?

You can sort most sets of files in Vista in the usual way, size, name, modified but not photographs. You can sort photographs in many, many ways: how about "35mm focal length" or "Assistant's phone"?

But you can't arrange by modified. I find this unsatisfactory. There may be times when I wish to sort by Lens maker but I really would like to be able to choose the last 8 files I have just downloaded from the net.

One way I could do it is to open my XP laptop and sort them over the network.

Please when we get Service Pack 1 can we have a normal sort by facility?

Sell to a Million

My company is developing a new business networking site called Sell to a Million. As well as all the usual social networking facilities such as private messaging and allowing users to gather friends in their profile, this facility also has an Internet directory and blogs.

All of this is under the same umbrella with a single log in.

Both the directory and the blogs (if required) appear on the Internet without logging in so they can help your web site's search engine ranking by adding back links.

The site is free to join although enhanced listings are available for a very reasonable fee.

Take a look now: Sell to a Million