Dear Friends,

Election day is next Tuesday and I want to encourage all of our friends to get out and vote. I have voted in every election since I became eligible to vote. (I’ll credit my mom for that civics lesson.) I am a firm believer in democracy, but also know that if a large number of people do not get out to the polls we do not have true representative democracy. With most states now offering early voting, there is even less excuse for not voting.

The new MacBook Air is a winner! My wife has gotten one of the new 11-inch models and while she struggled with getting the iPad to do all that she wanted, she is relieved by the full features of the MacBook Air and its diminutive size. I had some time to play with it and I am not only amazed by the performance but am simply wowed by the advance of technology. Maybe it is just that I have read about small, powerful devices like this in science fiction books since I was a child, but to think about my first portable computer back in the 70s—an Osborne 1—and then look at this beautiful machine, it is simply astounding to me!

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, I was in the wind industry and I would do cash flow projections on big green ledger sheets. I would add and multiply rows and columns and it would take me literally a week to complete all the scenarios for a full set of projections. An employee back then and a Kibbles reader now, John Kueffener, came in one day with an Osborne 1 and showed me SuperCalc. It was over right then—I made John sell me the Osborne literally on the spot because what took me a week with pencil and ledger pad took a couple hours with the Osborne 1 running its 4 MhZ processor and with 64k (!) of RAM. The 5” mono display and dual 5 1/4 inch disks provided storage. This first real portable computer weighed in at 24.5 lbs; about 10 times the weight of the way-more-powerful MacBook Air!

Even Apple’s first foray into the portable computer world is a behemoth compared to the MacBook Air. Introduced only about 20 years ago the Apple Macintosh portable weighed 16 pounds and sported a 16MHz processor with an unprecedented 1 Meg of RAM. When Apple puts out ads that say that “everything we’ve learned has come down to this” they are truly understanding just how visionary they have made this new computer.

Thank you to everyone that came out to our eWaste collection events in S. Burlington, VT and Manchester, NH. Both were a big success and I am confident that due to the over 100 tons of eWaste collected that we have retained our pride in saying that we continue to be the only electronics retailer that has recycled more electronics than we have sold. A special thank you to Kali for organizing two events and a big thank you to all the volunteers and to Apple for providing recycling services. It is a comfort knowing that we have environmentally recycled this huge load of electronics. Our plan is to do two of these events in each location each year, so look forward to our spring events!