Last year, Gibson released a digital version of its venerable Les Paul electric guitar (first produced in the 1950s) with an Ethernet connector as well as the standard quarter-inch jack plug. The digital electronics on the HD.6x-Pro support individual, clean, signals from each of the six strings, allowing these to be processed separately. I've yet to see a live band where the guitarist has a Marshall stack for each string, but if this stuff had been available 30 years ago, The Who's Pete Townsend would surely have gone for it.

Now Gibson's boffins have come up with something that might have more universal appeal. This is the self-tuning Les Paul, a.k.a the Gibson Robot Guitar. Now, most moderately competent guitarists can tune their instruments, but there are occasions when a bit of speedy help would come in handy — switching from standard tuning to an alternative such as 'dropped D', 'modal D' or the 'Keith Richards open G' being a prime example.



Enter the Robot, a key element of which is the gang of six revolutionary Powerhead Locking Tuners — machine heads equipped with tiny servo motors that automatically keep each string in tune. Signals from the specially modified Tune-Control Bridge go via a control CPU to a CPU in the guitar's neck, which in turn drives the clever machine heads. Not only can you quickly tune individual strings, but you can also switch between six alternative tunings at a twist of the Master Control Knob.

This is great when playing live, as you don't have to grab a different instrument just to do Brown Sugar (or whatever). And back home, the Robot tuning system will walk you through setting up the proper intonation on your guitar — that is, setting the bridge saddles so the instrument plays truly all the way up the neck (something most people require expensive professional help with).



If you feel like shelling out £1,400 on one of these blue sunburst axes when they go on sale on 7 December, get in fast. Each of the select squad of dealers will be limited to 10 guitars each.

My poor old 512MB ThinkPad X60, which had a happy early life running Windows XP but then suffered a crippling attack of Windows Vista, has now been restored — almost — to productive use thanks to a timely install of Ubuntu 7.10 (a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon).

Vista really was too much for the X60: it took an age to boot, an age to launch applications — an age to do anything. And the integrated graphics couldn't handle Aero, so you couldn't even admire the pretty GUI while twiddling your thumbs (or gnashing your teeth). For the last few months, this otherwise fine piece of kit has been languishing in a corner, unused and almost forgotten.


ThinkPad X60 redux, thanks to the Gutsy Gibbon

Then along came Ubuntu 7.10 and the resultant 'Gibbonfest' at ZDNet Towers, so I decided to dig out the X60 and kill Vista once and for all. No dual-boot option here, just the full 'use entire disk' setting during the Ubuntu 7.10 install.

The main problem so far is the (Intel Pro/Wireless 3945) Wi-Fi, which is half-working: my router (a FRITZ!Box) and the X60 can see each other, but as far as loading web pages is concerned it's currently a non-starter. Similar problems are reported in the Ubuntu forums, and I'm sure there's a solution once I decipher the forum-speak.

More likely, I shall slip Gibbon-convert Rupert Goodwins a pint of amber nectar and secure his Wi-Fi-fixing services.

Otherwise, the X60 is now working a treat. If anything else crops up, I'll let you know.

Back in June I went to the launch of HTC's Touch, a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone that some touted as an "iPhone killer", thanks to its (somewhat) iPhone-like TouchFLO interface.


HTC Touch: no keyboard and GPRS/EDGE only

Your correspondent wasn't fooled, of course, describing the Touch as "a moderately-featured Windows Mobile 6 device with a bit of touch-screen eye candy bolted on top"; I also bemoaned the lack of a keyboard and 3G/HSDPA connectivity — a view endorsed by the full review that followed.

Although predicting the appearance of 3G/HSDPA and a slide-out keyboard in the Touch range didn't require Nostradamus levels of prescience, it's gratifying to see that this has now happened, in the shape of the Touch Dual (see also our photo story).


HTC Touch Dual: mobile phone-style keypad and 3G/HSDPA connectivity

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the new, improved Touch Dual. Hope it lasts longer than my original Touch...

Adobe sent me a copy of Creative Suite 3 Production Premium to play with recently, which was nice. So this morning I thought I'd install it (or some of it anyway), which turned out to be a real time-waster.

During the install, various dialogue boxes carry a pull-down list of available languages, and the first two or three sensibly defaulted to English — sensible, given that the OS, Windows Vista, is in English.

This must have put me off my guard, because when it came to the dialogue box where you select the components you want to install, I failed to notice that the default language had somehow changed to Chinese. No warning appeared along the lines of "Do you really want to install a huge amount of software in a completely different language to your OS and every selection you've made up to now?" So 45 minutes and four DVDs later, my system was duly CS3'd up. With Chinese-language apps, which I discovered on launching Photoshop.

Of course, it was then that I found a yellow card in the (very large) box, helpfully advising that: "If you do not specifically select the language that you purchased, the installer may default to the wrong language and you will not be able to use the software. If this happens, you will need to uninstall and reinstall the correct language, which can be a lengthy process."

Thanks for that, Adobe. And can I have 2 hours of my life back?

Following the celebrations surrounding the ThinkPad's 15th birthday, news arrives of Lenovo's latest wheeze: the ThinkPad Reserve Edition. This is not a notebook likely to be rolled out to the motorway-pounding corporate sales team, one suspects, given that it costs £3,119 (inc. VAT). Other pointers that the ThinkPad Reserve is destined for the CEO's office include the following:

— it's a limited-edition system "encased in premium leather, handcrafted by expert saddle-makers for a distinctive appearance that's both stylish and protective".

— support includes "an Executive Welcome Service that begins with an initial one-on-one setup call between the customer and his or her dedicated Executive Support staff specialist", after which the lucky exec gets "concierge phone access to the Executive Support staff, with all calls anwered within four rings in the owner's native language".

Phew — but wait, there's more...

— "If needed, a specially-trained technician will be at a customer's location within four hours in 20 countries, and will even [get this] condition the leather exterior before departing".


Bring me my leather-bound computing machine...

We really, really hope Lenovo can spare us a review sample of the 5,000 Reserve-status ThinkPads it's planning to release. We just can't wait to test the 'specially trained' technician's leather-conditioning expertise. One for our Dialogue Box video show, I think.