It’s become something of a mantra among the digerati that having multiple displays improves productivity. However, for those of us who can’t afford to deck out our desks like mission control—or who work for employers who are just too shortighted to spring for all those extra screens—there might be another solution: a portrait-based display. I switched my screen at work to portrait mode a few weeks ago (using the freeware iRotate utility), and now, when I go back to landscape on my laptop, I feel like I’m missing half my screen. The portrait orientation works for me mainly because I work with words most of the time, so it helps to have a display that allows me to see as much text as possible without having to scroll. I suspect that anyone working with images or video wouldn’t benefit a whole lot from this, especially given the toolboxes and palette that take up much of the screen in programs like Photoshop. As far as I know, there haven’t been any independent studies about portrait orientation and productivity, but at least one report —from Pivot Software, which makes commercial screen-rotation software, and therefore has a vested interest in the subject—points out that "an average user who spends as much as 6 hours at a computer each day spends approximately 20% to 25% of the time scrolling or other similar tasks." A portrait display, according to the company improves productivity "significantly" (though they offer no specific figures to back this up). The first time I saw a portrait display was on a Xerox Alto (pictured above), a good 25 years ago (the machine was already past its prime, having come onto the market in 1973). In that pre-Mac era, I was wowed by the machine’s GUI, but as someone who was doing word processing to pay my way through college (working on a Wang VS), I was also awed by that orientation. It’s taken me this long to duplicate that cutting-edge technology on my own desktop, but it’s been worth the wait.

I always enjoy reading the product descriptions on Woot—it’s a much more satisfying experience than shopping on the site, which often results in the receipt of a random bag o’ crap (not that they don’t warn you about that, of course). And today’s blurb is particularly sweet: it’s a write-up of a window thermometer, told from the perspective of Blade Runner’s Deckard (of the original, cheesy, voice-over cut):

I always heard the La Crosse Technology See-Thru Outdoor Window Thermometers were solitary. Turned out these two were a pair. They stood side by side, taking readings that were close, but not exact. They shared everything. They even shared the trip to Earth.

Excellent! And utterly pointless, which makes it even better. A couple of years ago, I did my own Blade Runner parody in an Engadget write-up about a Philip K. Dick robot. Mine was, of course, much more obvious, but was still something of a kick to write. So, herewith, a modest proposal: How about a “Bad Blade Runner” contest, modeled after the infamous Bad Hemingway tournament. Of course, given that the BR voiceovers are so bad to begin with, outdoing them might be a challenge. However, now that the voiceovers have been relegated to the dustbin of history (or at least disc no. 49 of the ultimate, deluxe Blade Runner edition), it’s up to the fans to keep their legacy alive. Otherwise, all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

When reporters visit North Korea, they’re usually given a highly restricted itinerary, consisting largely of visits with happy workers, tours of gleaming-but-empty buildings, and lectures about the glory of the Great and Dear Leaders. And, based on this Times report , the latest batch of reporters—who accompanied the New York Philharmonic on its historic visit to the Hermit Kingdom—had to follow the same script. But there was at least one striking lapse on the part of the group’s handlers, during a visit to the country’s National Library:

A librarian said the library had room for 30 million volumes and was 95 percent full. Two-thirds were said to be foreign-language books. The librarian summoned up some books on a conveyor belt and spread them out for the visitors to see. They were mostly computer books: “Electronic Packaging, Microelectronics and Interconnection Dictionary,” and a Windows 95 guide.

Yes, that’s right. Windows 95! If this is what they’re showing off to the press, who knows what’s actually in the rest of those 30 million volumes? Manuals for repairing your ‘46 Packard? The latest on that wacky new disco dancing craze? Suddenly, I’m a lot less worried about the North Korean nuclear program.

One of the cool things about Amazon’s Kindle is that you can carry around hundreds of books in a device the size of a single paperback. But what if you’re still wedded to ink on paper (or don’t want to spend $399 for a Kindle) and want a similar level of convenience? One option could be Tom Stoppard’s portable bookcase, which the playwright has hauled around for 30 years. According to The New York Times , the steamship-era case from luggage-maker T. Anthony is “no bigger than a breadbox [and] holds a small shelf of books.” Sure, the case weighs a heck of a lot more than a Kindle, but it’s definitely a conversation starter (imagine pulling it out in a cafe and casually choosing some reading material from your mobile library). And the fact that it doesn’t hold quite as many tomes as its electronic counterpart isn’t necessary a real issue. As Stoppard points out, “If I am on a journey where I only have time to read one-and-a-half books, I never know which one-and-a-half I’ll feel like reading. So I bring eight.” If eight books are enough for a voracious reader like Stoppard, it should work for most other readers as well. Alas, the mobile library is even harder to get than a Kindle; it was discontinued in the 80s, and appears to be completely unavailable on eBay or elsewhere.

Paramount has begun what will eventually be a multimillion dollar marketing juggernaut behind the new Star Trek flick. But you wouldn’t know it from looking at StarTrek.com, the studio’s official site for the franchise. After a reorg late last year left the site basically staff-less, it’s essentially been in sleeper-ship mode, with a static home page promoting, not the new movie, which rolled out a teaser trailer last week, but an episode of the animated Trek series, circa 1973. The site’s news page was last updated December 18th (with a plea to “keep the conversation going on StarTrek.com boards”) and the page of the site designed to promote the new movie was last updated in early December (even worse, the landing page for the new, multi-city “Star Trek: The Tour” promotion is blank!). Of course, Paramount hasn’t given up completely on the web; a new “under construction” site at paramount.com/startrek has been launched to promote the movie, and a banner on the legacy site points to it. Still, the essential abandonment of the startrek.com domain at a time when the brand is due for a major revival deserves a raised eyebrow from Vulcans and experienced web marketers alike. StarTrek.com should be the go-to site for news and info about the new movie, and its current status as a ghost site that shows that, in the immortal words of Chancellor Gorkon, Paramount has a long way to go before it really gets the whole Internet thing.

I had to give a presentation at a meeting today and didn’t have a laptop with me. The solution: I grabbed a nearby Mac Mini (yes, I left a sticky on the display warning that the machine had been borrowed and would be returned), hooked it up to a projector, and the meeting was saved. But the experience got me thinking: Why aren’t there dozens of cheap, small PCs on the market? And by cheap, I mean about $100. After all, the parts required to produce such a PC are dirt cheap, and Linux is free. But most of the options in this class, like the Zonbu, are at least $200. In fact, in the sub-$100 class, there’s really just one option as far as I know: the decTOP. With a 10GB hard drive, mouse and keyboard included for just $99, this one seems like a steal, despite its underwhelming specs. And you can actually buy four for the price of three, getting the price-per down to $75 (or $87 with shipping). That’s a deal I may not be able to resist. What will I do with four of these puppies? I have no idea. But at least I know the next time I need to do a prezzo and don’t have a laptop handy, I can have one of these ready to roll on a moment’s notice.

There were a number of nice moments in Bill Gates’ corny, gently self-mocking CES farewell keynote presentation and video (though the big plug for Silverlight on the MS site isn’t one of them), but for me the sweet spot was his plea to join the Democratic presidential ticket. Not only does this represent the culmination of a political turnaround by someone who once saw Republicans as his key allies (former Washington Senator Slade Gorton was nicknamed “the Senator from Microsoft” thanks to his close ties to Bill’s company). But it also featured a slam dunk by Barack Obama, in which the candidate managed to join the Bill-dissing party, slap his main competitor and show off his geek cred in one fell swoop. When BillG calls Obama, he introduces himself simply as “Bill.” The senator’s response: “Shatner?” Gates responds in the negative, and Obama’s second guess is, of course, Clinton. Way to go, Big O. I’m still rooting for yet another Bill, but if he doesn’t make it, you’ve got me energized.

Yes, I’m doing it again this year. I may not have as much style as Brandon, but I can guarantee that the Chinese food I eat will be much better than what he and his mishpacha are scarfing.

Hats off to Nick Ciarelli of ThinkSecret for choosing to go out of business, rather than reveal his sources to Apple. While a better outcome clearly would have been for Nick to continue publishing and keep his sources confidential, his settlement with Apple shows that there are at least some citizen journalists out there willing to play with the big boys. Of course, Ciarelli’s willingness to settle and shut down could make other bloggers and gossip sites think twice before taking on big companies like Apple. As Fake Steve comments, in response to a post by Matthew Ingram, “We did not shut down Think Secret. That did not happen. Okay? That’s not reality. Reality is, Think Secret shut down on its own. Which come to think of it might be a good idea for you, Matthew Ingram. Otherwise we may have to come over there and not shut you down, too.” FSJ’s real-life counterpart may not put it so bluntly, but the effect could well be the same.

While Chris Baty drives thousands of would-by novelists batty by encouraging them to write 50,000 words in one month, those wacky kids at On The Media have come up with something a little less taxing for those of us with somewhat shorter attention spans. Their Novel Challenge has just one rule: write a novel in 12 words or less. There’s precedent for this, of course. Haiku. And Hemingway’s famous six-word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” is an archetype of what some refer to as flash fiction. Regardless of what you call it, here’s my entry, submitted just before OTM’s deadline of midnight tonight:

“Twelve words?”
“Twelve!”
“Too much pressure.”
“You’d rather 50,000?”
“I’d rather nap!”

No, I’m not going to win any awards for that one. But I’m not about to reach the Nanowrimo finish line either, so at least I’ve contributed something to the annual November challenge. And now for that nap.