This is sad news. I love Crichton's books. Jurassic Park was magical for me when I read it in high school, and it remains the only book I have ever read twice because I wanted to relive the experience. His other books always included the right amount of science and wonder, coupled with a great story that hooked me from start to finish, and I loved that I always learned something as I read his work. He made science fun and accessible to millions of readers and tackled subjects ahead of their time, bringing them to the forefront for scientists working in various fields. Every teenager should read his books. At the very least, it might get just a few more people interested in careers in science.

I can sort of justify the purchase of the Eee PC. I need to buy a new battery for my iBook, and that's going to cost $130. The cost of the Eee PC is only $300, so the net cost, if I don't get the iBook battery is only $170. Note that you have to assume that I will never use the iBook again, which is highly unlikely, making the purchase of the replacement battery necessary anyway, if only a few months from now when keeping it plugged in all the time annoys me enough (it already does). Okay, so my argument here is a little thin.

I've decided, for now, to hold off on the purchase of the $300 Eee PC, and instead carry less. The biggest problem that I have with carrying a portable computer is the fact that I have an over-the-shoulder bag that carries everything I could possibly need. For one thing, the bag itself is too large. For another, I'm not sure I need to carry two external hard drives, regardless of how small they are. There are other miscellaneous things in the bag that have not seen the light of day in about a year. I simply don't use everything I carry with me.

I have a single-strap backpack-style notebook bag that I replaced pretty early on because it did not allow me to carry everything I thought I needed at the time. I dug this bag out of the closet tonight and decided to reorganize my portable computing equipment, eliminating everything I don't really need to have with me while on-the-go. I've managed to pack the essentials, I think: the iBook, its power block, an ultra-slim 30 GB external drive, some cables, a small mouse, a USB-based Bluetooth adapter, an SD/MMC/MemoryStick combo reader, and my USB-based Sprint mobile broadband card.

Maybe I'll never buy an Eee PC, and the time will soon come, within the next 12-months, when I'll purchase a MacBook Pro from Apple instead. I'm still not totally certain that the only reason I wanted an Eee PC was to lighten my load. I think a good part of me also wanted a new notebook running Linux to play with, and I can hold off on that for now, even if the price tag of $300 is so cheap it feels like a steal.

To be honest, I like the complete control over HTML and CSS that publishing via Drupal's Web interface gives me, but iBlogger is great for posting to my blog while on the road, or away from a computer, and ecto seems like a great option when I need to make a quick entry, include a few pictures, and move on. It also seems to give me enough control over the CSS of images I add to posts, so it's not without semi-advanced features. It also includes an HTML editor, for those times when the WYSIWYG editor may fall short.

But to say that ecto is just a simple blogging tool doesn't really do it much justice. The software has a plugin architecture that increases both its features and usefulness. Adding images, sound, and video is easy, but ecto's additional plugins integrate the application with Flickr, Amazon, Twitter, and iTunes. And, if you really want to get creative, scripting support is included as well.

As with iBlogger, one of the impressive features is ecto's ability to quickly gather two or three pieces of information about my blog (which is running on the Drupal CMS) and configure itself with minimal additional input from me. Settings are a pain, so any time an application does it for me, it quickly wins my affection.

Between iBlogger and ecto, I think I have found two easy ways to publish new content, whether on the road or in front of my computer, with minimal time investment and maximum ease.