As a repressed amateur photographer who likes taking photos in the oddest places, I am very interested in the new SMaL Ultra-Pocket digital camera, which is about the size of a credit card and only six millimetres thick.

I am the guy who in university forced myself to wear a camera for weeks on end so the everyone would stop noticing it (I hoped) and then I could take photos at will.

After graduating I used to wander into places during my travels in Southern Africa, India and elsewhere, hoping to be some sort of Henri Cartier-Bresson of the bars.

However the noisy click that a single lens reflex makes often gave me away, and I often lost the look of naturalness that I was after and worse, almost got beaten up by infuriated patrons more than once.

Digital cameras are a boon for their silence, but are still too obvious.

The SmaL, which should be available at the end of this year, looks like it could be the first camera on the consumer market that would be good for covert operations.

The Ultra-Pocket also uses SMaL Camera Technologies, Inc's Autobrite technology, which automatically adapts for contrast, helping to reduce the need for a flash in bar shots.

"Our unique imager is based on SMaL's proprietary brightness adaptive pixel," the company says.

"Coupled with our proprietary algorithms, the imager allows us to design cameras that adapt to a wide variety of lighting conditions.

"Simply put, this Autobrite technology lets you see what you want to see - by capturing the dark details of a scene while ensuring that the bright regions never saturate."

The camera uses an 8 MB MultiMedia removable memory card.

But you are sacrificing image quality for size.

The camera only has a resolution of 300,000 pixels, which is very low.

Compare that with the new Canon PowerShot G1, which takes pictures at 4.1 megapixels (about 13 times more pixels).

Still, I am hopeful that this quality will be boosted once the camera comes on the market.

You can see artist renderings of the camera at http://www.smalcamera.com/products.html.

Salon.com has a hilarious story on Herman Miller Aeron chairs, which are being auctioned off in the thousands as dot.com companies fail.

Apparently this $800 chair, or "butt pedestal" according to the magazine, was the favourite indulgence of start-up Internet companies when they had money to burn.

Salon takes the chair and its faddishness as a symbol of the extravagance of the start-ups.

The chair, Salon proclaims, are evidence of a "crime against capitalism".

"At a time when venture capitalists were sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into Net start-ups, promising tenfold and 20-fold returns to their investors, a lot of those companies were blowing that money right back out the door on Aeron chairs."

Now Herman Miller has launched Red, a line of relatively low-cost office furniture designed for "fast young companies" that "need places to park more young geniuses".

That is one indication that it is back to soda, pizza and basements for the dot.com crowd.

Here is some new free software that I am currently using.

Both are available at www.zdnet.com.

WinRamTurbo claims to help manage memory for Windows users.

The aim is to increase the performance of Windows by reclaiming fragmented and idle memory.

The software supposedly allows your computer to run longer without constant rebooting after running memory-intensive applications or after long periods of time surfing the Internet.

I have not seen much difference yet.

BigFix is an automated way to keep track of all the fixes for the latest bugs, viruses, and security holes on your computer. Each "Fixlet" site focuses on keeping a different part of your computer working flawlessly.

These fixes are constantly being spewed out by the various companies.

The software is handy if you do not know where to get automated e-mail updates for all the fixes.

The software also has a diagnostic engine.

The British Consumers' Association is warning Internet users to beware of online health sites that make claims about helping you lose weight.

The association examined weight-loss Web sites, most based in the United States, and found that some offered poor and sometimes dangerous advice.

The association found 36 Web sites offering weight-loss programmes and diet supplements, and examined ten to assess the quality of advice given and value for money.

Joining up to the sites cost between $80 and $460.

Seven of the ten failed the association's test.

The association used fictitious people - "Jack", who was obese, and "Molly", an anorexic.

The only site to give reasonable advice was tntgetfit.com, according to the magazine.

Ediets.com did not tell Jack that his weight was putting his health at risk, and he received no good advice on how to improve his diet.

He was also given an inappropriate exercise plan for someone of his weight.

Fitbay.net did not provide "personalised programmes that work" as advertised, and calculated Jack's body fat wrongly.

It told Molly to reduce her body fat percentage and gave her a goal weight of 58 - 59.4 kg, which the consumer association found "strange", since she originally weighed only 55kg.

One site even told her to exercise more after she lost 13 kg.

The association said to examine sites for named professional advisers who have a state registered dietician, or a registered nutritionist qualifications in the UK or are registered dieticians or dietetic technicians in the US.