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From the New York Times comes Michelle LaBrosse’s account of her laptop’s travels. After she was injured, LaBrosse ended up checking her laptop computer as luggage on a flight to Chicago.

From her description, it sounds like she takes packs a lot in her bags when she travels. Maybe she should read this New York Times article about packing light.

In any case, when she arrived at O’Hare, her computer bag was missing. Never made it to the baggage carousel. No big surprise. Frankly, I’d never check my laptop computer on an airplane.

A few weeks later, one of her assistants at Cheetah Project Management determined that the computer was being used by someone for instant messaging.

Turns out the computer ended up in Nicaragua. LaBrosse never got the computer back, but at least ahe figured out where it went… and she got the story published in the Times.

Photo courtesy of william c hutton jr through a Creative Commons license.

Related posts on billso.com

• 15 May 2008: Don’t check cameras in your luggage
• 2 May 2008: Never check your computer on a plane
• 11 March 2008: Using Facebook as a lost-and-found department
• 3 March 2008: Building the perfect laptop
• 30 September 2006: Don’t steal my laptop!
• 28 June 2003: Where’s my luggage?

I wish I was making this story up, but it’s true.

According to the AP, the University of Chicago, one of the world’s leading business schools, will require each MBA applicant to include a four-slide PowerPoint presentation with their portfolio.

Slideshows can be good tools when they’re used well. I hope the Chicago MBA admissions staff will use the slideshows as just one piece of supporting evidence. that seems to be their intent, according to associate dean Rose Martinelli: the slideshow is just “four blank pieces of paper” that lets an applicant have a broader canvas to state their case. I do agree with John Koetsier that PowerPoint is a “traditional application”.  Grade school students can build a basic PPT file, after all.

Perhaps applicants should try building something more elegant, like a well-constructed wiki site or a blog on a specific topic.

What I fear is a mad rush of adoption, as other business schools ask applicants to tack on a PPT file. PowerPoint slides without speakers notes or supporting documentation can be worse than useless. A show full of overly animated slides and random fonts won’t impress me much.

CARS: A quick overview of the Smart car, which Chrysler plans to bring to the US market by 2006. ZAP will start importing and converting the cars for sale in the USA this year. When someone does start selling these in Honolulu, there will be a long waiting list. Cooper Minis are very popular here.

USA: RNCnotwelcome.org is just one of the web sites that will support protestors in New York City during the next week. I hope things are peaceful in NYC, but there’s a good chance that New York’s finest will turn a protest into 1968 Chicago.

USA: Ted Rall has a scathing indictment of the GOP as we look ahead to the coronation, er, convention in NYC. I hope this isn’t like Chicago in 1968, but Ted thinks it could get that bad.