Normally this time of year we prepare for Black Friday queues to find bargains for Christmas presents. Shops have traditionally dropped the prices for the day after Thanksgiving to kick off holiday shopping season. I’ve been there only once, at six o’clock in the morning to enter Best Buy store at 7:30 just to be informed that all the bargains had gone. The store was so full of (irritated and pushy) customers that I decided to retreat and spend my Christmas with what I already had in electronics.
This year I won’t even bother to run after bargains. They almost come to me and I’ll be looking for  netbooks during normal opening hours with the sun up and no big crowds around me.
One cool choice is to pick up a small-sized light but rugged netbook to give to kids or take to car and airplane. With that purchase one can think about kids in developing countries and buy 1 get 1 free from One Laptop Per Child program. It would make one kid (and probably his/her hamily and friends) happy.
Silicon Valley struggles between hope and despair. But everybody is working hard and that is how the dot.com bubble was repaired. As the big companies have quite a lot of cash in their vaults, some smaller companies may now find a nice exit. To keep up with the labor situation, you can check future layoffs at San Francisco Chronicle website.

Posted by Raportteri on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 10:39 am.