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Continued from Part 3: How to migrate your current Mac setup to your new Mac netbook

Two weeks into my new Mac-ified netbook, I'm no longer longing for that MacBook Air. While I still find it occasionally inconvenient to work on a teensy weensy screen, the lightness and small form factor of the netbook are actually preferable to the larger (and slightly heavier) Macbook Air. Now that I've got the Mac OS to work with, I realize that my frustrations with the netbook were 90% software, 10% hardware (and the hardware issues are largely addressed by the fantastic Microsoft Arc mouse -- a must, given the poorly-located trackpad buttons on the Mini).

Continued from Part 2: How to install the Mac OS on a Windows or Unix netbook

Once I finished installing Snow Leopard on my HP Mini,  I did one more incredibly brave and potentially foolish thing. Rather than endure the long and arduous process of installing all my Mac software to the Mini, and having to configure it from scratch, I used Apple's Migration Assistant to move the heart and soul of my Mac directly to the Mini.

Continued from Part 1: Why to Mac-ify

Here's how Mike told me to test whether I could get the netbook to run the Mac OS:

1. Format an external hard drive and attach it to your Mac.Insert the Mac OS Snow Leopard Installation CD into your Mac.
2. Launch the Snow Leopard installer; select the external hard drive as the destination for your installation.

Some people have a favorite pair of boots that make them feel like dancing. Other people feel like themselves with they pick up a special pen, or dive deep into a remote patch of woods.

A few months ago I wrote a blog post for Harvard Business Online about social media tools that can make business travel more effective – and thus, more infrequent. Ironically, I’ve done a lot more travel in the months since I wrote that post, since my kids are finally at an age where I can travel without (knock on wood! knock on wood!) everybody coming down with the latest virus.

I'm in Toronto today at the Getting to Uptake conference, convened by Sick Kids Hospital. The conference focuses on how social media can foster practice change in the arena of pediatric mental health by connecting practitioners with patients and with one another. In the desperate hope that I could get Sick Kids to return my tonsils and adenoids, I offered the conference an overview of social media and how it's being used in the health field.

If you're visiting from PC World - or just happened to stumble onto us - we're glad you could come by. Pull up a chair. Lemonade?

Your timing's terrific: I was just about to start the slide show. Oh, no, don't get up - the holiday pictures aren't until later. No, this is all about Noise to Signal, my cartoon about the intersection of technology, communications and life. Sit back and make yourself comfortable.

When I was a young 'un still trying to wrap my mind around personal computers, modems, desktop publishing and stuff, I had only a few trusted sources to turn to: my very few friends who shared my interest... whatever I could glean at 300 baud from Ottawa's various computer bulletin boards... and magazines.

Two magazines in particular gave me the education I was looking for: PC Magazine and PC World. For me, neither übergeek or total n00b, they were the holders of the keys to the tech kingdom of the mid-to-late 1980s and early 90s.

Over the past few years, as broadband reaches more and more communities and mobile Internet access extends its reach, the digital divide has receded into the background. Issues like net neutrality and intellectual property have taken centre stage and taken on new urgency.

But equal access to digital technologies is as important as ever. And this year, the folks behind OneWebDay want to remind us: