Overall I’m happy with the upgrade. There are some really nice usability improvements, in general I’d say performance is great, and some of the new features are really very handy.

Take, for instance, the new Font Book that ships with Lion. For years I’ve used, loved, and cursed Suitcase Fusion for managing my fonts. I’ve got about 800 or so that I’ve accumulated over the years — enough to pose a small organizational nightmare if not done well. Past version of OS/X have had no problem handling the number of fonts, but organization was a pain.

The new Font Book has some much needed improvement. It now clearly indicates duplicate fonts and makes resolving duplicates easy. And, more important, it does a fantastic job of diagnosing font issues — far better than Suitcase, it turns out. I had nearly 80 fonts in my Suitcase library that were in some way defective (ranging from missing kerning information to more dramatic problems). So hands down, kudos for the new Font Book.

I’ve removed Suitcase Fusion and am loving it — Suitcase has had its quirks and problems and frankly I think they’ve been getting worse. Lately I’ve seen huge CPU usage, lockups, and less reliability than in the past… and reviews of the latest release make it sound even worse. Now that Lion has some really solid font management and organization improvements, it’s one less thing I have install (and pay for).

Google Maps led her to a four-lane boulevard without sidewalks that was “not reasonably safe for pedestrians,” according to the lawsuit filed by the Northridge, Calif., resident.

The plaintiff then proceeded down the street and claims she was subsequently hit by a vehicle. And that, obviously, is Google’s fault.

Is the human race now so dependent on augmented reality that we can’t think on our own? The last time I looked down a street without adequate walking paths, I made my own decisions. This is called “risk management” by those the know. Before such fancy terms came along, it was just common sense: Should I avoid the dangerous looking forest, or walk into it?

Then again, maybe it just means people in the United States will sue their own mother for a few minutes of fame.

We first heard rumors of this policy change a couple of months ago, but now it’s made the papers: the Financial Times is reporting that Google is phasing out the use of Windows internally, as employees are migrated to either Linux or Mac OS X on machine turnovers or new hires. The policy change was precipitated in large part by the security breach attributed to Chinese hackers; Google’s IT leaders apparently feel that Microsoft’s OS represents too great a risk across the enterprise to leave it in place.

Personally, I stay as technology-agnostic as I can, at least in the professional arena. If a Windows-based solution is the right choice for a company, that’s what I recommend — and, there are many situations (more than most) where it is the right choice. But, on a purely personal level, my inner child does a little jig of joy when it hears that someone else is getting fed up with poor software. Seeing Google add their voice to the many companies pushing-back against Vista is a good thing.

Thankfully, there’s the Interphone study, launched 10 years ago and studying 10,000 participants spread across 13 different countries. Those concerned with The Answer have been waiting for the results with increased anticipation. And, here it is, summed up by Dr. Elisabeth Cardis, leader of the Interphone study:

Until stronger conclusions can be drawn one way or another, it may be reasonable to reduce one’s exposure [to cellular radiation]. It can’t hurt. — Dr. Elisabeth Cardis

“It can’t hurt?” So, it turns out that the long awaited report, published in the Internal Journal of Epidemiology on May 17, according to Time Magazine’s May 31 issue, “is by far the most comprehensive look at the issue to date and was meant to provide a possible conclusion to the debate.” Unfortunately, the real facts of the matter: 10 years isn’t that long to study something as subtly insidious as cancer poisoning from a radiation source such as cell phones. Even so, the study does give us interesting new data to ponder, discuss and argue over while another 10 or 20 year study is pulled together:

1. The study did not find any obvious connection between cell phone use and cancer, but it did find some seemingly conflicting data that muddies the discussion even further.
2. Of the study’s subjects, the 10% that used their cell phones most often did exhibit a 40% higher risk of developing some form of brain cancer, as compared to those who don’t use cell phones.
3. On the other hand, participants in the study that used their cell phones infrequently demonstrated a lower likelihood of developing brain cancer over people who use corded phones exclusively.

Unfortunately, even some of the data the defined the study is already out of date. 15 years ago (when the study was originally designed), using a cell phone for 30 minutes a day was considered “heavy” use. By today’s standards, 30 minutes a day might be considered moderate, particularly as people are starting to forego land-lines in favor of simply having a cell phone.

So what’s our take-away? Probably that the Interphone study is too dated and flawed. When you hear the mobile phone industry trumpeting it’s positive findings, or when you hear consumer advocates talking about it’s negative discoveries, keep in mind: They’re both quoting from the same study, a study which seems to equally support either position.

We need a new study. Unfortunately, that means we’ll be waiting another 15 or 20 years before “significant” evidence has a chance to answer this question once and for all.

I know all the arguments for tolerance: AT&T’s network was slammed with unexpected adoption levels; they are trying to roll out more coverage; they are upgrading their networks. But that doesn’t change the fact that when I bought my iPhone 3Gs, I cancelled my data card and plan and have been waiting for over a year listening to promises of “real soon now.” In the meantime, I’m inconvenienced on every business trip. Dishonesty is at the heart of the matter: AT&T needs to deliver on their promise, or tell us what’s really going on.

So, for the record: If a class action suit gets off the ground, I’m in.

Just my own two cents regarding the Ars Technica article appealing to our commercial senses: While Ars may feel the pinch as more people start to block ads, the fact of the matter is — it’s a sign of tolerance levels in the audience. As more ads are blocked, the industry starts to realize that people don’t like current advertising practices. Find a new way to do it, or suffer the consequences.

If this sounds like something you want to try, give dropbox a go. Dropbox creates a virtual folder on each of your computers — anything you drop into the folder shows up everywhere. It’s instantly backed up to the dropbox computing cloud, and you can even get to your files through a web browser.

One of the best features, I think: You can instantly share any folder inside your dropbox with friends or colleagues, even if they have a different operating system. The shared folders just appear inside your dropbox, letting you work together seamlessly.

Give it a try for free. You get 2GB of storage with your starter account, and can upgrade to 50GB for about $10 a month. And if you’re a Time Machine user — yes, your dropbox folder is seamlessly backed up to Time Machine.

1. It’s cross platform, working seamlessly on my iPhone. Any information I capture appears both on my laptop and my iPhone and is fully searchable in either place.
2. Evernote’s search and retrieval capabilities are phenomenal. In part, this is because it uploads everything to a central server where character recognition is run on everything non-text, turning images, scans, faxes and PDF files into fully, content-searchable documents.

As my library of Evernote content has grown it has become more and more indispensable. This took a while. At first I had my typical quandary when facing a new tool. “Where do I put this? How will I find it again?” Eventually I discovered the answer to both questions is actually quite simple: Put everything in Evernote, and don’t worry about finding it again — it’s just going to work. And it does.

This doesn’t mean it’s entirely effortless, but it’s close. I still love Apple Mail and it’s powerful search capabilities, and I still have gigabytes of documents tucked away in my file system. I don’t dump all of my mail into Evernote. Evernote gets most of my documents, faxes, PDFs, images I snap on my iPhone. But it also gets email that I think falls into the “ooh, I’m going to want to reference that again later” category, and it works nicely — especially when there’s a document or image attachment.

Give it a try, but do be religious about it for a while. Until you have enough information in Evernote, you’ll feel like you’re doing double-duty. Eventually, a transition happens and you find it has become central to your workflow. Now, I use it every day — categorizing materials I want to research, as an “idea board” for rough drafts and notes that I’m working on, and as a way to tuck away anything I’ll want to find again.

But today an email with the subject line “Is Email Marketing Still a Viable Marketing Channel?” caught my eye. No, I didn’t bother opening it. And I’d say the answer is… no, it’s not.