I hardly knew the amazing things you can do with an iTouch. Just glide your finger over the pocket-sized screen, and everything you could possibly want is at your call: music, movies, youtube, web access -- even games to play against opponents, as a colleague showed me last night. iTouch (or iPod Touch) is a portable media player and Wi-Fi mobile platform that really brings home how far we've come since the '80s. (I've almost repressed all memory of those heavy walkman-bricks that ate my cassettes more often than not.) Once you have the touch, you'll never lose it.

The library has resources on various ipods, but iPod: The Missing Manual, by J.D. Biersdorfer, is the ticket that will introduce you to the iTouch. Also watch the Guided Tour on the Apple website.

PC Magazine loves the iTouch, and this blogger has a fine review of the pros and cons, and while I don't agree with all the cons listed (a couple of them are even inaccurate), I confess I find the fingerprint problem irritating. You can get a plastic cover to protect the glass screen, but then the cover gets smeared, and it looks messy in either case. But that's my one gripe against too many pros to count.