Navigation

For those of you not keeping track, Ben Harris has been teasing us over his new micro-levitation system over at the Cafe for the last 8 or 9 months:

Enlightenment Cafe Thread

Well he promised that he would do something revolutionary to the magic process, and release a product specification telling you exactly what the method is behind the trick and what you would recieve for your money so you can make an informed buying decision. Not only is this a landmark decision that changes the way magic should be sold to magicians (but thats a whole other topic!) it gives you everything you need to see if this principle is right for you.

This is the e-mail update I recieved from Ben today:

ENLIGHTENMENT UPDATE: APRIL 2, 2008

It is with pleasure that I offer you the link to a 25 page product
specification.
This will give you an inside track on the workings of the new ENLIGHTENMENT
CONCEPT.

If your are at all familiar with the genre being explored, you will no doubt
“read between the lines”
and more fully appreciate what is being offered here.

We are fully on track to have this on the dealer's shelves by the first week
of May.

Here's the link: (Right Click to Download to your computer. It's a pdf about
1.6mb in size):

http://www.wowbound.com/enlightenmentinfopack.pdf

At this point, we have not updated our website, so this link is the only
source for this information package. It is “freeware” so do feel free to
forward it to friends and anyone you feel would be interested. Feel free to
also post the address at any magic forum. Spread the word!

If you would like to take advantage of the offer attached to the Info Pack,
please
print it out the order form and post it by airmail to our postal address.

APOLOGIES but we cannot accept any orders via email or the internet.

Thanks so much for your continued support and enthusiasm.

See ya on the other side!


Ben Harris

www.wowbound.com
ben@wowbound.com

In Michael's words:

Why another Magic Forum?

Lisa and I have started a new venture - an Internet forum for magicians. There are, of course, several forums out there already. It is my dissatisfaction with these existing forums that prompted the development of this new forum. In the early 1990s, I was one of the people who helped Joe Stevens with the start-up of his Gemini Board. At the time, I was excited by the possibilities that the Internet held for useful, stimulating, and creative discussion. Unfortunately, this type of discourse rarely appeared; instead, topics were sidetracked by inane responses, misinformation, or personal attacks.

The ForWorkersOnly Forum is an attempt to live up to the potential that the Internet offers, bringing together magicians who are serious about improving their magic performances and who are willing to participate in lively, informative discussions. To keep out the troublemakers and the merely curious there will be a small subscription fee (but wait until you hear the deal we have for you!) and all members of the forum will post using their real names.

Here are just some of the things we have planned for the forum:

Product reviews. Since leaving my post at MAGIC magazine in 2005, I have heard from many, many magicians that they miss my reviews. (I review books for Genii, but only three times a year.) I said I would never go back to reviewing books, tricks and DVDs again, but I've changed my mind. I'll be looking at most of the products that are sluicing down the great magic product trough. What makes this feasible for me is that I won't be facing a “word count” on the forum. If “this is a piece of crap” is all a product warrants, that's all I'm going to say. You will easily recoup your forum subscription just in the money you save avoiding lousy products.

Not Oprah's Book Club. I'll pick a theory book, a trick book, and (time and energy permitting) a classic magazine and we'll tear them apart. I'll kick off and stimulate and the discussion, but I want to read your thoughts. Together we'll gain some real insights. (And, if someone on one of the other boards asks, “What are the good tricks in [name of book]?” you'll know the answer - but you won't want to tell them.

Ask a good question - Get a good answer. To me, this is where the power of the Internet comes to the fore. Bring a good question to the table, and you'll get a good answer in return. I'm the first to admit that I don't know everything, so I've invited a panel of experts (Allan Ackerman, Gordon Bean, Paul Cummins, Jason England, Brad Henderson, Joshua Jay, Stephen Minch, Jamy Ian Swiss, Paul Wilson) to chime in whenever they can help out. Lisa and I will be monitoring the discussions, to keep them on track.

Jokes, jokes, jokes. I remembered most of the good ones for That Reminds Me, but there are some good jokes I forgot. Plus, I'm always hearing good new jokes. You'll find the most recent in the Jokes section of the forum. All this and much more.

A subscription to the ForWorkersOnly Forum is $30 per year. However, for a limited time, when you join you will receive one of our downloads (up to a $20 value) for free. This makes your cost for joining only $10 per year. (This special offer will not last forever so join today!)

We look forward to your participation. I'm excited about this new project; I think it will be fun, enlightening, and educational. Click here to sign-up and start posting.


Where did all the Michael Close Products Go?

With the launch of the ForWorkersOnly Forum, we have shifted our product site to www.MichaelClose.com We have revamped and updated this site to provide you with greater ease in ordering and speedier service. Unfortunately, you will have to create a new account the first time you log in. To thank you for putting up with this inconvenience, we'd like to give you a coupon for 10% off your next order of any product from our store. Just use GC2008 coupon code on the checkout page. (Some restrictions apply to gift certificates and memberships.)

This just in from Steve Fearson:


I'm working on something right now that I think could spread some major smileage and it doesn't have to be finished to do it.

Click this with all your might: http://www.downloadmagic.com/video

I know you already know what youtube is, but having an experienced magi-guide is invaluable when it comes to finding the good stuff.

Click on Dai Vernon and watch the cups and balls.

So far I've only linked to a few of my favorites but just you wait and see... I'll pull something out of my asshat to keep you entertained.

All the best!

Steve Fearson

---

If you want to see my version launched last June head to my Tumblelog at Watching Magic

London, 10 March 2008 - This November and for the first time ever, the FISM™ European Championships of Magic™ were to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 6 to 9 November 2008. Unfortunately we deeply regrets to announce the decision of the board of FISM™ Europe to relocate the European Championships of Magic™ 2008, due to be held in Bulgaria, and postpone the event to a later date.

Following unexpected and exceptional difficulties arisen in the organisation, FISM Europe had finally to take the tough decision after discussions with the FISM Presidium and the Bulgarian Magic Union, Organiser of the event.

FISM Europe has been established to better serve its European member societies, defend magicians' interests and develop the newly created FISM European Championships of Magic™. FISM Europe is fully dedicated to ensuring high quality events and must make sure that key criteria such as security, budget, logistic and competition are compliant with FISM standards.

Unfortunately due to exceptional costs and difficulties that could not be fully anticipated either by the local Organiser in its original bid book nor FISM Europe, all conditions were no longer good enough to guarantee an event that would meet FISM’s standards and quality. Keeping at core the interest of all parties involved, competitors, attendees, partners, magic dealers and other suppliers, FISM Europe has decided to postpone and relocate the first FISM European Championships of Magic™.

FISM Europe is currently working hard with its partners and club members and further details will be released in a press announcement as soon as possible.

André Ciocca, Interim President of FISM™ Europe, said “It is very disappointing and we are very saddened for all the magic community as well as the partners who trusted us in this event. But we are confident it was the right decision at the right time. The situation could have gone beyond control otherwise and we had to face the reality of it“.

Eric Eswin, International President of FISM™, stated: ”Andre Ciocca and the board of FISM Europe have done a tremendous work to put together the basis of FISM Europe and the FISM European Championships of Magic™. We support FISM Europe in its decision and we will work with the FISM Europe board to help organise the event as soon as possible and in the best possible conditions".

The FISM™ European Championships of Magic™ were developed to further FISM™ Europe's goals. FISM™ Europe was established to provide services to European magicians that would be difficult for FISM™ International to offer. Through this continental competition FISM™ hopes to increase the talent of magic and the level of the FISM™ World Championships of Magic™. With the FISM™ European Championships of Magic™, this is another opportunity for all European magicians to make a name for themselves!

- END -

I was looking forward to going to Sofia in November but looks like it has all fallen through, more time to save for China I guess! From the website:

Dear All,

Due to unforeseen circumstances, restricted organizational capacity and unexpected financial strains, jeopardizing the initial budget, it is with great regret that the FISM European Executive Board has to inform you that the FISM European Championships of Magic, planned to be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 6 to 9 November 2008, have to be cancelled.

The first European Championships of Magic are postponed to a later date, to be announced as soon as possible.

Best regards.

FISM
European Executive Board

Andre Ciocca
Interim President

Sunday was another early start but what a lecture. FISM Card Champion Helder Guimaraes explained three blockbuster effects. He started with a great visual transposition, similar in style to the Daley effect but with two of the aces isolated in a glass, which changed places with the aces on the table. Cards, Signatures and Glasses was his version of a technicolour cards-across plot, with a very clean handling based on David Regal's with no technical moves he caused two signed red cards to jump across to a blue packet, again the packets being isolated in wine glasses and held by two spectators. Lastly his effect Three Progressive Choices had three selections chosen in three seperate ways and revealed in an increasingly impossible manner with the climax of the entire deck changing to blank cards.

I then saw the second session of close-up choosing to start with David Solomon, although quieter and more introvert than the acts around him, David's card magic for all the obvious reasons is strong and powerful and really stands on its own merit, he showed amongst others Technicolor Thunder, Four the Hard Way and an O'Henry Ace Assembly from the new book. Shawn Farquhar started with his T&R Photo he had shown in his lecture. Then his FISM act with signed card to sealed deck, and the solid Cups and Balls. David Stone was his manic self with coin manipulation, bottle productions, signed cards and ending with producing both his shoes! I saw J.C. Wagner last, who is a master of the card-under-glass which caught me every time, he also showed his new version of Factory Misprints.

Shoot Ogawa's lecture was packed out, and we weren't disappointed, a mix of cards, coins and thimbles made to look like real magic in the hands of this master magician. His version of Spellbound changed a coin to a spoon. He had an ungimmicked version of Wild Card using a regular deck. He showed two versions of Matrix, the second, which he explained was a very neat backfire. Shoot then showed us a slightly simpler version of his Thimble routine, using just one or two moves but to a very visual effect. Lastly he gave tips on learning the Muscle Pass and what you can achieve with it.

Michael Close only showed and explained two tricks in his lecture, Red Blue Mamma Fooler and his Torn and Restored Card, he then spent the second half telling stories and jokes from his new joke book, which for me anyway was exactly the laugh I needed after seeing magic all weekend, and having read his book previously it was nice to hear the jokes being told by Michael.

The Gala show was compered by Adrian Walsh, a big improvement over Stu Francis from the previous evening, still a little on the old-style compere but a very professional job. Mahka Tendo opened with some phenomenal card manipulations regular cards being produced at break-neck speeds mixed in with jumbo card productions. Rafael performed his dove act, which involves him driving on stage on a small bike, producing doves, a comedy linking ring routine, and finishing with the doves changing to a live girl. Antje Pode a foot juggler from Germany, juggled suitcases on her feet. Scott and Muriel performed a comedy sawing in half, and chair suspension. David Sousa showed his FISM winning Red Envelope act, with cards and envelopes appearing from no-where and increasing in size. Valerie performed lots of quick changes, including one in a sub-trunk where she changes places with a costume that is in the trunk. Topas closed the first-half with a production of varying size speakers to a song he was singing with audience participation, each speaker produced and plugged in, then layered the sound up, till he had lots of rhythm going and the finale was to produce a huge speaker and then Roxanne.

The second half the Yamagami Brothers the world's youngest illusionists, started off with a one-upmanship style routine where each wanted to show their trick, to a particular piece of music, floating lightstand, and rope penetrations, finished in the vanish of the radio. Then two illusions a visual sawing-through and a spiker illusion. Scott and Muriel came on riding pantomime horses ala Bernie Clifton, and spent quite a long time extracting as much as they could from the situation involving the president of Blackpool dressing up as a giant cactus. Not much magic, all though at the end they did reveal they had managed to steal the watches of all the volunteers. Topas performed his Toy act with the production of lots of coloured balls, a floating and vanishing rocking horse and a growing teddy bear that waves good-bye on its own to finish the act. Shimada closed the show with his Chasing a Magical Dragon, Parasol and Card manipulation ends up with him fighting a big chinese dragon, and then becoming the dragon, and who you thought was Shimada being revealed as his assistant.

And that was it another Blackpool over with! Next year is 20-22nd February 2009.

Saturday started with a lecture from Martin Sanderson, pretty standard stuff but all done very neatly in a commercial way, Ambitious Card, Coin under Watch, Chop Cup, Bill in Kiwi and Martins Little Sausage which is his take on ring flight, using a stuffed dog, where the ring ends up on the collar.

David Solomon was excellent as expected, he was showing items from his new book, his take on Peter Kane's Gypsy Curse, his new packet trick Knaves Gone Wild, Mexican Poker which is a great 10 card poker deal of the non-jonah variety. Just friends is a King cutting routine which ends with the production of the Queens. David then paid tribute to Jack Parker and showed a version of the 21-Card Trick with Jack's idea to vanish the selection. Lucky Card is a signed impossible card location, and finally David finished with his Technicolour Oil and Water and a version of an Ace Assembly that climaxed with all the cards turning blank, and the whole deck as well.T

J.J. Sanvert started with a hybrid bill routine, he pulled a small piece of silver foil out of the bill, and then showed his handling for pen through bill. His Note in Cheese is fantastic, and the method is even better! The second half of the lecture was the card part, he showed Open Travellers with a Royal Flush ending, a variant of The Signed Card plot, a version of Cannibals and what he does when someone asks him to teach them a trick.

We then went for some lunch so I missed a bit of the J.C. Wagner lecture, but caught the end of J.C. demonstrating his trade-mark card under drink, estimation of a thought of card, his Standing Triumph with the J.C. show and a pop-out revelation.

Then it was into the first close-up session of the weekend, I saw Shoot Ogawa who was spectacular as ever with coins, thimbles, flip-stick and Ninja Rings. Helder Guimaraes the current FISM card champion showed us a similar routine to that which he did at FISM a Travellers routine with four signed cards that travelled to his pockets, the deck turned blank, and the signed cards too, and then one was found in an envelope on the table, and the entire deck became printed again. That probably doesn't do it justice, but I am looking forward to his lecture tomorrow. Michael Close showed us his impossible Salt Shaker, Card, Forehead routine. Finally Richard Sanders showed us Interlace, Extreme Burn, Dough, Alpha Deck and Fibre Optics. His Extreme Burn really does look like trick photography and I love the new additions to the Fibre Optics routine.

The Geoffrey Durham lecture was based on his new book, which having read I was eager to see (the book by the way is one of the best theory/trick books I have read in a long time, go out and buy it now!) Geoffrey talked about how your personality and who you are, are more important than the tricks you do. He demonstrated and explained his Dictionary Test, Gypsy Thread, Magic Square and the Block Trick, sprinkled with words of wisdom that only a true professional could give, a remarkable hour.

Then it was time for the United Kingdom vs. The Rest of the World 'competition' which had some good bits and some not so good bits. But mostly it was a good show, the compere Stu Francis of Crackerjack fame was a bit lacking in material, but kept it all together despite getting most of the acts names wrong! Bob Wooding showed his excellent balloon act, which I remember watching on TV as a child, some excellent models in there, and he really makes this craft transfer to the stage. Danny Hunt and Annette performed their escapes, a recreation of the Tony Curtis Straight Jacket escape, his box escape and then his new take on the Houdini Water Torture Cell.

It was the first time I had seen Graham Jolley, he had some strong mentalism, but I'm not keen on his put-down agressive audience handling, but I guess it must work for him! Brian Sefton was immaculate and flawless in his manipulation ending with a poetic Zombie. John Archer came on and sang with his Ukulele, swallowed a balloon, and performed a divination of chosen wax crayons. Despite him having to handle a problematic situation with an elderly spectator, John brought the routine to a successful ending. Martyn James closed the first half with his topsy-turvy illusion, the Barrel transposition and the Wringer.

The second half was The Rest of the World. Fukai went on a bit too long for most people, and was probably hindered by the language barrier and a tired audience, grasping it back at last minute by filling the stage with flowers and mini umbrellas. Rafael performed his Vampire act with the visual seperation of the girl on a couch getting raptuous applause. Shawn Farquhar performed his Shape of My Heart card routine which is a great ambitious routine set to Sting's lyrics and projected onto a big screen. Roxanne presented her Into the Spiders Web routine culminating in her levitation and rotation in the spiders web. My absolute favourite of the night was Topas with more of his sound wizardry, this time combining this with bongo playing and billard ball manipulation, fantastic! To finish Shimada showed us his skill with doves.

More tommorrow!

After a wander around the dealers it was time to start with the lectures. First up was David Sousa, maybe I had high expectations having read about his red envelope act but this was possibly not the best way to start the convention. It could have been an interesting lecture in the right setting, but to 400 people in the Spanish Hall it was lost. He basically talked about making sure you can be seen on stage, especially with manipulation. He ran through a short manipulation sequence to show us what not to do, then gave us his tips and then showed us how it should look. He ended the lecture with a hurried dealer dem, a Dice Bomb effect, and Parade of the Kings trick.

Pattrick Przysiecki from the USA had a mixture of interesting ideas, a fickle fire idea to produce cards, and a gag with clasped hands that I have seen Lance Burton use. Next was an idea I first ran across in Art of Astonishment with paperclips, and then in Jim Steinmeyers Impuzzibilities book as a triangle version, and just recently a nice childrens version in Chris Wardle's lecture. The idea is you have a number of equal items in the rows and you can add items and still have the same number. In this case he was using small footballs and a miniature subuteo setting. He then showed us a number of ideas with producing pool balls, and a nice muliple selection routine. An idea of using Dental Floss for the Gypsy thread was accompanied with real newspaper articles about prison escapes using dental dam. And he finished by showing us his combination of Drink in the News with a water vanish.

Chris Priest confidently pattered his way through three of his master routines, he opened with a four coin routine with at least twenty moments of magic, coins across and a one coin flurry being the highlights climaxing in the production of a giant chrome coin. He then shared with us his reception act ace routine, a combination of several four ace tricks, starting out with a production of the aces and a version of the Daley transpo, lead into a twisting phase, and finally an everywhere and nowhere with the chosen ace, climaxing in another production after the aces had been lost back in the deck. Finally Chris finished his lecture with Protons which is his sponge-ball routine with a dlite finish. Things were finally starting to get going with this excellent professional lecture.

Next probably the highlight of the evening for me was Shawn Farquhar. I have seen Shawn compete at FISM but not seen him lecture. His enthusiasm is infectious and his magic simple and effective. His lecture was entitled Bread and Butter as it was based on things he uses to make his living. He started with a matrix routine using poker chips and pictures of his hands, the last chip morphing into the photo and then popping out. He had some great ideas for CD tricks with a spectators signature on a cd, where the CD then turned clear and see-through, and also a double prediction where the chosen cards were written on the face of the CD. He showed us his version of ambitious card with an Omni Deck finish, incorporating a nice deck-switch and ending in card to plastic credit-card wallet. Lastly Shawn showed us his take on Dan Harlan's Crazy 8 trick, which he said even Dan thinks is an improvement. He had a photo of his daughter signed, and ripped up and then restored but in a mis-made state so the ragged edges were on the outside and the border on the inside, still with the signature on. This was a great lecture delivered with pace and enthusiasm.

Having also witnessed David Stone storm the FISM scene I couldn't wait to see him lecture and I wasn't disappointed. He started with a Chad Long gag to produce a coin, and went into a very competent Coin Flurry sequence, showing along the way a neat idea if you happen to drop a coin. A coin vanish and bottle production led into a discussion of how David produces full glasses of liquid from his sleeves. Then David discussed his approach to tables using a fire wallet, and finally his new trick CEL which is a card to mobile phone.

For the last lecture of the evening we had Lennart Green, what can you say that hasn't been already. Lennart started with a mind blowing trade mark short performance, with his clumsy, topsy turvy mixes and shuffles, he still managed to deal poker hands, find royal flushes, and selections all while making it seem so effortless. His Terrorist card trick which I had seen him do in Southport relies on a simple mathematical formula which he hides so well by revealing the selections in novel ways. Love, Hate and Admiration was a use for an old George Sands Prime Number principle. Lennart shared with us his take on the Kennedy Out of this World and finally finished with an all to brief discourse on false shuffles, the snap deal and uses for Top Shot that just about blew my mind at the late hour, Lennart was forced to finish, but could of probably gone on for hours!

Anyway thats all and I can't believe its only Friday, a lot of people here for the first day, dread to think what it will be like come Sunday. Will post this and go to bed...

Arrived at Blackpool, rained hard on the way, just checked in, staying across the road from The Ruskin and round the corner from the winter gardens. Just about to go and register and have a look round dealers before the list of lectures start, will try and get to them all (I will miss the close-up which I do most years anyway) and will hopefully report back later.

Just grabbing a sandwich and coffee in hotel room, and typing this on the EEE thanks to somebody's open router (not paying 10/24hr for hotel wifi, when will hotels learn that we expect free wifi now it should be as part of your experience as getting a TV and coffee facilities!)

Three new sites to list, first two of my fellow bloggers who will probably do a better job of keeping you up-to-date:

Naquada - Andrew Webb
Matt Parro

I will try and twitter throughout as well, you can see my twitter badge on the right of the blog.

Lastly on the counter of the hotel were some leaflets advertising a new magic site... Magic Mag says they are a new online magic magazine, launching on Feb 28th, with 8 issues a year in PDF format for 7.50. More on that later I guess after the launch, anyway thats it for now off to get my tickets and free book!

The Magic Review: a new review site started by Matt Tarrant from Australia. He hopes to “build a complete and honest, non-biased review styled site” reviewing Effects, Cards, Local Magic Shops, Lectures and Performances. They also have a competition to launch the site, just sign-up to the site and you are entered into a draw to win some Wynn playing cards.

The Cuso I Photography Competition: Alejandro is running a magical card related photography competion over at his blog, details from him as follows:

Today the I Photography Competition begins. If you are a magician, flourisher, cardist, xcmer, poker player, sleight of hand artist, cheater, playing card collector, or you just like taking photos you have a chance to Wynn, ehmm... i mean win these cool prizes:

1st place: 12 Decks of Wynn Playing cards (6 red / 6 Blue)
2nd place: 8 Decks of Wynn Playing cards (4 red / 4 Blue)
3rd place: 4 Decks of Wynn Playing cards (2 red / 2 Blue)

I've made a deal with John (AceKing Playing Cards) and he will ship the cards to the winners once they are decided. So please give thanks to him for these great prizes (and to me for paying them! ).

These are the rules:

-Only one pic per participant.
-The pic must contain at least a playing card or a deck of cards or anything related to playing cards (symbols, court guys running around or whatever).
-Only submisions to thecuso@gmail.com with the subject My Photo will be allowed for the contest.
-Emails must include your full name and nickname/screen name (if you have).
-Deadline is 29 February 2008.

There will also be runner ups for these categories:

Funniest pic: If you think you have THE pic that would make us laugh our asses out.
Most Artistic: If your pic has the best colours, lights or photoshop effects.
Most Original: If you did Pandora while jumping off a bridge bungee style.

The 3 runner ups will get my Nebula tutorial and some other unreleased clips of me.

FISM European Championships of Magic 2008: The 6th Balkan Magic Convention in Sofia, Bulgaria on 6-9 November 2008 will be the host of the first FISM European Championships of Magic. I am certainly hoping to go, it will be a good start to the run up to China in 2009. I believe they will use these championships to send the winners to the world competition in 2009, to try and raise the standard of entry. The European FISM is the first continental division with others to follow soon.

John Bannon's Fractal Card Magic: Spotted over at Fun Inc. John Bannon is releasing a trilogy of packet tricks entitled Fractal Card Magic, the first The Royal Scam is to be released in a couple of weeks: Prolific creator John Bannon, author of Smoke and Mirrors, will be releasing a trilogy of what he calls “fractal card magic.” Each part of the series will include an instructional DVD, and of course, the necessary apparatus.

The first in the series, “The Royal Scam,” is on its way to us from the duplicators, and will be available to dealers very soon, hopefully within two weeks or so.

If you do not recieve Andi Gladwin's newsletter (and if not why not?!) He announced over the weekend that the Jack Parker book is now available for pre-order. I am going to pick up my copy at The Session but if you are not attending (if not why not?!) you may wish to pre-order to recieve this when it launches next week, and to also be entered into a draw to win a limited edition Jack Parker book. Check Andi's site for all the details.

If you read this blog via the website (rather than the feed) you'll notice I have added some widgets to the right hand column, along with the obligatory blogroll and links, I now have my flickr badge, technorati search/profile, twitter updates and the two latest my lifestream widget which uses profilactic and shows you all the other sites I have a presence on, and also builds a mashup of my latest updates. Lastly I have just added a box for Skribit which allows you the reader to leave any suggestions as to what you may want me to blog/write about, so if you want to see something appear on the blog feel free to suggest a topic and I will see what I can do!

The Magic Classifieds: Jeff Pierce has started a free Classifieds Ad site where you can post magic ads to buy, sell, trade and view your auctions.

I'd been looking for a small sub-notebook for a while, something I could take away with me to magic conventions, on holiday, and generally use around the house, that would have wi-fi so I could post updates on the move, check e-mail etc. uptil just recently the price point of these sub-notebooks has been restrictive, but late last year I stumbled upon the fact that Asus where about to launch a small notebook running linux with wifi etc. at a very resonable price. As soon as these launched in the UK I put my order in, beating the Christmas rush! I have had a good chance to use it and have posted some photos over at Flickr.

The sheer size of this thing suprised me when I saw it and I thought it might be restrictive to use. The keyboard does take a little getting used to but is very usable even with my largeish hands, as reported the arrow keys are a little clunky compared to the rest of the keyboard, and the track pad takes a bit to get used to, however Asus have now released some add-ons along with a range of optical mice.

A lot of useful advice can be found on the eeeuser site on the forum and wiki. I managed to change my settings so it automatically starts up in the advanced mode which looks just like windows, and changed the size of the start icon etc. Also in firefox I am using the advice on the wiki using the whitehart theme and the fullerscreen add-on to get a full screen when pressing F11.

I plan to change the 512mb of SODIMM to 1G as Asus now say this will not invalidate the warranty. Other than that I am happy with Xandros install although you can install Windows XP or even OSX but the Xandros install has been tweaked so that it doesn't constantly write to the inbuilt SSD and it comes pre-installed with pretty much everything you would need for web-browsing and documents etc., with Firefox, Pidgin IM, Skype and Openoffice your pretty much set.

The small size also means it will fit in portable DVD bags which you can pick up quite cheaply, I haven't really bought any accessories for mine yet, but probably plan on picking up an extra MMC card for the external slot, and maybe a USB key for any offline working.

Asus have announced the launch of an 8G model, along with their 4G (which is what mine is) and their 2G surf models, with XP coming installed instead of Xandros. So look out for those, also this is bound to introduce competition for low-price sub notebooks, which can only be a good thing, eeeuser have already set up a sister-site for the about to be launched CloudBook apparently it will be sold in Walmart for $399 running gOS slightly larger than the eee and also with a slightly higher processor and an actual 30gb harddrive. Looks like it will be a good year for these mini-laptops and one which I will follow with interest!

The Cull: Tim Ellis recently culled his list of referring magic blogs, and added some new ones, two I would particularly like to mention are:

• Fun Incorporated - the new blog of Fun Inc. and the Royal Magic line talking about new products and the latest happenings at the company.


• Pursuit of Magic - a particular welcome back to Steve Pellegrino who as well as running the Ellusionist blog I mentioned in an earlier post has restarted his own personal magic blog.

Tim has kindly also linked to Watching Magic which brings me again to the topic of site updates, I read a post today on Simon Collison's blog about the state of blogging which kind of captured my thoughts, this year has seen me much more involved in the social-software side with facebook, twitter, flickr and the tumblelog, coupled with my problem of using this site for anything other than magic related posts. This may or may not change, you might start to see more unrelated general posts on here, just as a way to get me back to writing and posting again, possibly...

iTricks Trick of the Year Tournament: iTricks are holding a traditional trick of the year competition, with a twist, in their own words “We have eight judges that have each independently nominated a product. In each matchup, the judges will cast a vote and the readers will cast one collective vote. All of the judges will vote in all of the rounds. There will be three rounds after which a final winner will be declared.”

They are also offering free magic from Hocus Pocus that you can win for voting in each round. You can see the nominations, judges and their rational for each product.

Been meaning to link to these for a while, some excellent new magic blogs popping up:

• Andrew Mayne - as well as itricks, Andrew now has his own homepage/blog giving you the first previews to his latest releases.


• Nings Magic Diaries - part of the Magic Boutique shop, Miss Ning updates this magic blog with news on upcoming products, and the special projects she’s up to as well as mentions of the latest happenings in the magic world


• Virtual Erik - Remarkable thoughts of Erik.


• Blacks Magic Group - their new website frontend is a blog containing product updates and magical news. Check out their new card to wallet, and the preview of Holy Grail which is due soon!


• Ellusionist Blog - another new blog from a magic retailer, run by Steve Pellegrino of former MagiCentric and MagicRants blogs, who is now on the Ellusionist team as an online marketing specialist.