David Politis

Not only is it hard to imagine that 2006 has come and gone, but it’s also mind-bending to realize that CES starts this coming Monday.

With the death of COMDEX (the COMputer Dealer EXposition) a few years back, the annual Consumer Electronics Show has now become the largest technology tradeshow in the United States, if not the world.

Slated this year for January 8-11 in Las Vegas, CES will attract a truly worldwide audience of manufacturers, distributors, engineers, marketers, retailers, gawkers and more to the annual geek fest in glitter gulch. Oh yes, and journalists galore — probably 5,000+ this year coming from places as widespread and diverse as Salt Lake City and Singapore.

Based upon last year’s attendance figures, I will not be surprised to see total attendance surpass 200,000 unique visitors to CES this year.

As for me, I’m headed down to slot-machine city on Sunday with several members of the Politis Communications crew and major media events slated for both Sunday and Monday nights.

Look for more on CES between now and mid-January.

I recently read Paul Allen’s post about his challenges on being able to blog from the road, and his excitement about being able to blog from his BlackBerry thanks to WordPress v2.0.3.

Well, as fast as Paul Types on a BlackBerry (and apparently he’s really fast, like 50+ words per minute), I suspect he’s probably faster still on a regular keyboard.

If so, another alternative may be looking into Verizon’s Broadband Access, a service now offered locally through our client PC Laptops.

Essentially, the service requires a small wireless PC card that slides into one’s laptop and then (depending upon wher you are in the U.S.) you get access speeds of 400kbps to 700kbps and burstable access up to 2Mbps. Monthly cost? $59.99 on a two-year agreement.

Might be worth checking out for you road-bloggers.