Once you go Solid State, you don't go back

In February I replaced the stock 500GB, 5400 RPM hard drive in my Macbook Pro with an SSD. I went with a 120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro, because of its excellent performance and reputation, and its built-in TRIM ability (Macs had yet to support it in the OS).

The Pro's: It is FAST. Boots in seconds. Apps launch before the first bounce of the dock. All my startup programs are running before the 2nd bounce. iPhoto is silky smooth. It's silent.

The Con's: I've had to be much more diligent/stingy about my digital storage. 120GB is awfully cramped. I have a spacious external drive, but they're no fun to carry around.

However, as with all things computery, prices are going down while performance is going up. Spinning disks days are numbered, though that number is large, and is not decreasing as much as everyone thinks.

LYTRO means the end of blurry shots

I've been keeping my eye on LYTRO for a while. They have created a new kind of camera, a "Light Field" camera, which not only records the color and intensity of light, but also its direction. It doesn't have megapixels, it has "megarays".

What does this get you?

Well, for starters, you can focus the shot after you take it. Seriously. Check out this gallery.

It has an interesting form factor, just two buttons (power and shutter), a touch area for zoom, and a small touchscreen on the back end.

It's also surprisingly inexpensive, for something that still sounds like science fiction to me.