I've been thinking a lot about women in technology. On the plane I've been watching boys and girls, to see if I can get any insight. Tonight I saw a family. Four people. The girl was reading a magazine, the boy was vigorously playing a GameBoy.

Today we posted a video over on Channel9 of Sara Ford, a tester over on the Visual Studio team. She talks about this issue and gives some ideas.

This is a hot topic lately on the blogosphere, but it really has been bubbling along for quite a few years. I remember my first VBITS conference, more than a decade ago. 420 men showed up. Two women.

At the recent MVP Global Summit one of the attendees pulled me aside and said "is there a way we can increase the number of women involved here?"

Julia Lerman deserves credit for bringing this issue out of the closet again.

And, so, I look around the blogosphere. I look around the industry. I look around the plane.

I'm finding I'm not coming up with any answers. Which is why I am talking about it here.

Phillip Torrone, over on Engadget, turns a Tablet PC into a moblogging machine and shows you how to do it.

Ernie the Attorney, who lives in New Orleans, tells me that his city's famous JazzFest is being broadcast here. Tells me that tomorrow I'll even be able to listen in on Preservation Hall. Yeah, but you haven't lived until you've paid your five bucks, you sit on the floor up front, have a conversation with the band, and touch the worn wood floor. The greats have been there. It's like being in church: for music.

Because of a burp in Radio a post I made on Tuesday didn't appear until last night, but now it's off of the home page. I wanted to make sure people saw it.

A note to execs: you don't think twice about speaking to a conference with 1500 people. Why do you keep turning down blogs that reach more people?

Steve Rubel posted an interview he did with me about how PR is being affected by weblogging.

Buzz Bruggeman, CEO of Activewords, talks more about how blogs are helping his small company get noticed (and get downloads and sales).

Last week I spoke to part of the MSN search team (about RSS and weblogging, of course!) but I told them exactly what Michael Gartenberg said on his blog today. If you want me to stop using Google, you must deliver something dramatically better than what Google is doing today.

It's the same advice I'd give any software team. If you want rapid growth, you must be 10x or even 100x better than your competitors.

Who is showing that they get this message the best? Google, of course. I sure didn't miss that its new gmail service gives people 1 GB of storage space. My Hotmail account only gives 2 MB. Is it any wonder that gmail is getting talked about on nearly every weblog that I read?

Peter Rysavy: how the SP2 delay could hurt the Tablet PC.

We're very sorry about any delays in getting important new functionality in your hands, but this is why I don't speculate on ship dates. This is software and if you force something out the door without meeting quality bars then everyone loses. It's far better for the long run to make sure that things go out the door when they are ready, not earlier.

Oh, there's some Lone Star demos coming. I'll make sure of that! :-)

A private note to the Tablet PC team: you really need to start communicating regularly with your customers, particularly your most passionate ones. How do you do that? Do a blog and post to it regularly. Again, would you turn down a chance to keynote an industry conference like Comdex? You wouldn't, right? So why do you insist on not blogging? The lack of information +is+ hurting your story.

There are some really creative people hanging out on Channel9. Adam Kinney points to a Channel9 wallpaper thread and posts his own attempts. Wow.

Ahh, Google files for its IPO and the Register has some fun with their filings and PR.

Paul Thurrott: Tablet PC improves.

Christopher Coulter just IM'ed me this. He says it's big and so far he's been pretty right when he tells me that. LATTICE3D, a leader in enterprise-wide use of 3D data, today unveiled its newest versions of its publishing applications, including a breakthrough in the ability to collaborate, share, and publish large (100 MB 10 GB) complex 3D designs for immediate use throughout the enterprise.