Wales can be so focused on his Sidekick that he bumps into people on the street.

Question: How has technology changed the way you work and live?Jimmy Wales:  Well, I’m one of these terrible, terrible people who is always, always connected.  And so I have a Sidekick, not a Blackberry, ’cause I think the Sidekick looks cooler.  But you know, and I use it for instant messenger, and I keep in touch with friends basically constantly.  I had my email coming to the device for a while, but I stopped doing that, because it was just too much.  I get too much email, and it was just overwhelming me.  And sometimes I just don’t want to see my email, actually.  But it’s interesting, because there’s a whole different way of thinking about time zones and living and friends and things like this.  So, of course, I travel a lot as well, so I see people in different cities and things like that, but it’s really-- yeah, it’s changed my life a lot, you know, to basically have IM on the phone.  It’s kind of an amazing thing.

Question: What kind of laptop do you have?

Jimmy Wales:  I have a Mac Book.  I just got a brand new one, actually.  My old one was getting a little scruffy.  And yeah, I like it.  I’m a big free software advocate, and so well, sometimes people want to know why I don’t have a Linux laptop.  And it’s my personal challenge to the free software community that I badly want one, but there’s a couple things I absolutely have to have.  I need a good calendar, and they don’t have one yet.  And so what I try to do to make sure I don’t get locked into any one platform is I use as much open source software as I can, and I make sure everything I use is saving its data in a free format, so that I don’t have to get locked into somebody’s proprietary format, ’cause then you’re really hosed, so.  Yeah, I love my Mac, though, it’s beautiful.  Beautiful work of art.

Question: Do you bump into people on the street?

Jimmy Wales:  Oh, yeah, everyday.  Yeah, constantly.  Yeah, yeah.  I’ve actually gotten kind of good at it, but yeah, no, I mean, when I was walking here today, I was chatting with somebody, and I was actually chatting with my little girl about Club Penguin, which we both play.  So we were discussing, you know, it’s big events this week in Club Penguin.  Rock Hopper came, so some viewers will know what that means, and some won’t, but yeah, no, it’s really a-- you know, you have to be careful not to get run over.