Had a fun time playing with the homemade multitouch box yesterday. Here's a picture with it hooked up to a Lenovo x60 Tablet PC while I'm playing with Smoke. Loren goes into detail about how built the little multitouch box.

Tips:

1. Use a small box, such as 7"x7"
2. Cover the hole for the cord with duct tape to block extra light
3. Use a picture frame as the "lid" to the box. If you use paper alone press lightly or else your lid will cave in :)

Building environmenally friendly PCs would potentially include reducing chemical byproducts, clean manufacturing, lead-free components, use of rapidly renewable materials, biodegradable plastics, rechargeable batteries with good method for disposal, longer lifetime of the complete product, reduce packaging, reuse - when possible recycle - materials, and the PC would need to be energy efficient.

Energy efforts alone range from reducing consumption by individual components, such as display and CPU, to improving software efficiency. Some PC manufacturers now have Energy Calculators available so you can know the amount of energy consumed by certain models. Here's a list of a few calculators and places to go for information. Please post resources that you use.

• Dell Energy Calculator
• Energy Star Guidelines for Energy Management
• Guide to Greener Electronics by GreenPeace has info on some general corporate policies
• Lenovo Project Big Green for IT 

Don't overlook consumption by specific models too. For example, the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet PC consumes low power for a powerful mobile PC, and you can save a few trees by using the pen to handwrite quick notes.

So, tell me, are you ready to buy "green" PCs?

Two interesting twists happened today. First, CES organizers express dissatisfication with Las Vegas as a location for the trade show. Second, Apple introduces a new Mac Pro.

MSNBC is reporting CES organizers are in talks for a better deal. Any visitor to the trade show can attest that hotel prices during the week of CES are expensive. Some organizers claim hotel prices are typically five times a normal price.

The Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC was named a 2008 CES Innovations Honoree.

Costco.com is offering a $100 coupon for Fujtisu Lifebook U810 with Windows Vista Home Premium. The coupon is valid for orders placed before December 10, 2007.

Have you played with Crayon Physics yet?

Mobile Connections is a conference within DevConnections conference on November 5 - 8 in Las Vegas, NV. The mobile PC session list is posted as:

MPC304: Adding Location-Awareness to Mobile PC Applications with MapPoint and Virtual Earth
Frank LaVigne

KForce is advertising a role for C# developer for enterprise apps, including mobility and Tablet PC.

In the early 1990s, I carried an Apple Macintosh to my summer job in the morning and took it back home in the evenings. It even had a cute, blue carry case that had straps like a backpack. I called it my "Mac pack."

What made it so important that I carry this 25lb computer to work? PageMaker and Quark. I was laying out book manuscripts and those were the tools I needed to get the task accomplished. The software applications made the machine.