Nasty outbreak of enthusiasm

I'm not that into gadgets. I don't have an i-Pod and don't want one.

In fact I have a "function over form" approach to everything, except girls when I expect both. And so often end up with neither.

Despite my Luddite approach to things I do read gadget blogs including www.engadget.com

I haven't read it for a few days so was going through some old pages. I stumbled across an article about the latest version of Skype. Although I only know one other person on the service I immediately upgraded. "It just works" they say and they're correct.

Within minutes I had upgraded and seconds later the contact co-incidentally called me, from Finland. The sound quality is astounding. What's more it's encrypted. What's even more it's free.

We then ran a web cam connection using MSM Messenger. For some reason it's very difficult to get voice and video running on the Messenger products although NetMeeting works with some friends. (BTW we use NetMeeting at work to remote control servers, crazy but true.)

So now I can video call my friend and business partner in Finland for free.

OK, so what is all this doing in a job hunting blog? Surely it should be on my business building blog?

It goes with my enthusiasm for OneNote. These things are coming along. They're introducing new business models, new processes and new ways of working. OneNote is being pushed in the US at college and high school students. It's slowly becoming the killer app for tablets PCs.

Before we know it these things will be common place. I'm eager to be on top of them when they reach the early majority of users.

[US readers may have other views about OneNote. Some may also think that tablets/OneNote won't have an affect on business models. Maybe not profound ones but wait and see. The collaboration parts could be very useful and make trans-continental concurrent working very possible. I know a UK-based consultant already doing this. Skype on the other hand, well Skype rocks]