Don’t you just love Fridays? Even if you have to work on Saturday, like me, Fridays are still great. Everyone is just in a better mood and it seems like everyone is more relaxed. So in honor of Friday, I have an assortment of goodies from Wired. Tech on a Friday; can life get any better?

So, just to be clear, I have nothing against Apple or Macs in general. I will give it up to Apple for running some of the savviest marketing campaigns ever–they’re so good that they make people forget that Apple is a huge corporation that has massive amounts of proprietary formats. I mean Apple is genius at marketing. Not to mention, they have some very nice products.

With that said, I have to now say that I love this article: “Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone.” It isn’t surprising in any way as, by and large, Japanese products sell better in Japan than products from other countries. Also, as the article notes, Japan is lightyears ahead of other parts of the world in advancing technology and using it in new ways. Stories on cellphones, anyone? I personally think this is a good challenge for Apple to come up with a cutting-edge, maybe even bleeding-edge, cellphone.

As long as we are on the topic of technology, we’ve got to talk about netbooks. I love netbooks. Although the keyboards can feel a bit cramped at times, nothing beats only having to carry around 2.5 pounds of netbook versus 6+ pounds of laptop. I take my Dell mini 9 with me to conferences and live blog sessions. It is so handy and allows me to do just about everything I need. If you are on the go a lot, and resist bringing a laptop with you because of the weight, get a netbook and I assure you it will change the way you work.

Now, in honor of the Comic Arts Conference at WonderCon 2009 being held in San Francisco (and our very own Doug Highsmith speaking), I had to include this article on the Secret Lives of Comic Store Employees. It is a great article that has interviews with numerous comic store employees. Maybe it’s just because I finished reading Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes last night or the fact that I just love graphic novels and comic art, but I totally think we need to be giving more attention to this format of literature.

Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend and the Waki Librarian will be back next week with more fun.