She’s Computer Engineer Barbie and she sprang to life via the popular vote of consumers all over the world. They voted on what Barbie’s next career should be for the “I Can” Barbie Series.

Never mind that’s career  #125 on the Barbie chart.  But, to add to Barbie’s cred, Mattel worked with the Society of Woman Engineers and the National Academy of Engineers to make sure their creation was emblematic. (Easy to imagine a bunch of female engineers dressing up Barbie isn’t it?)

I’ve never been much of a Barbie lover–even as a kid I was more into decapitation and mutilation than dressing up my Barbies.  And I could make a ton of jokes about Binary Barbie the engineer.

But I won’t. Because if Computer Engineer Barbie could convince one young girl that it’s cool, OK, and even great, then Barbie earned her keep.  Mattel is providing girls with a code to get onto the Barbie website for online game content.  Hopefully, Barbie will be doing more than picking out the office furniture.

By the way, the next runner up? The #126 Barbie is a news anchor.  Both are being unveiled at this week’s Toy Fair in New York City and will be available this winter.

Barbie, all you’re missing is a pocket protector, a cup of Java, and some really unhealthy snacks.

You go girl!

Back to the Genius Bar. I made my maiden voyage with some trepidation, after upgrading my iPod Touch to Version 3.0 and encountering troubles. I brought my shhh…HP Pavilion along to show that I buy my music, most often from iTunes, and that while my podcasts, movies, and photos all made the upgrade, my music was still stuck in my PC’s library.

Quick Observations On the Bar

If I were a single woman looking to meet really smart, gangly, slightly geeky men, I would keep trouncing my Macs and heading back to the store. My visit gave Apple lust a new meaning.

Second, I felt as if I’d walked into some Lake Wobegone where all the shoppers were above average. The crowd was the same crowd that I see at NPR fundraisers and indie movies (with a strong pinch of foreign visitors tossed in for good measure). These were happy people and really smart looking–two things usually in short supply in any store in NYC.

Third, I had no idea you had to BOOK an appointment with a Genius. I thought it was spontaneous sort of thing, like the deli counter where you take a ticket number. So, I watched the LCD display behind the Bar for a few moments. It showed people’s rank on the waiting list, interspersed with did-ya-knows for Genius-wannabes. Finally, a competent young woman spotted me to ask if I needed anything.

“Help,” I said meekly.

“Did you make your appointment online,” she asked.

“Sorry,” I said, “I thought they ran it like a bar, not a doctor’s office.”

Sizing me up as a virgin, she somehow worked some magic and got me in as the last appointment of the Genius Bar’s day.

I stood, waited, and watched. (Stood because the two small benches in the Bar area barely held five size 6 bodies apiece.) I pulled out a hard copy of my New Yorker to read (definitely the only piece of hard copy in the store).

One guy was turned away from help because he’d bought his phone from an ASAP (Apple Authorized Service Provider), hence that needed to be his first stop. I’d be pissed. He was Hakuna matata.

Another guy did get a little testy when he explained he drove in from Brooklyn, paid for parking, and had to get his girlfriend’s Mac fixed. They gave him a place without an appointment, too.

Despite the fact that the woman estimated a 15-minute wait for my turn and I waited something more like 45 minutes, I, too, was happy (well, I would have been happier with a Starbuck’s franchise in the store).

Then came my turn. Displaying my Touch was no problem; maybe it was my paranoia, but I saw a bunch of raised eyeballs when I pulled out my HP Pavilion to show the synch stats. My Genius was clearly uncomfortable and uninterested. (Not helped by the fact that my battery was nearly dead, I had a few dozen Windows open as the machine awoke, and Vista was even slower than usual.) I was living confirmation of everything wrong with PCs even though it was my Touch that was not working.

First, he turned the cover of my HP notebook so that it faced the back of the Bar. Then he told me I should drive the PC. (Not my job, man.) The old Mars/Venus thing reared its ugly head and I know he was thinking that if I’d had a Mac I wouldn’t need a genius. And that I’d never be a genius because I didn’t have the sense to buy a Mac.

Ultimately, he did not fix the problem, but gave me enough information so that I could do a tedious restore and then manual synch myself.

I sent out a quick Facebook note asking others to share their Genius Bar war stories with me. I know a lot of people who like to complain. But all of them reported visiting the Genius Bar was more like visiting the spa than the dentist and were thankful for the help they received. As one friend so aptly nailed it, “I wonder what the lines would be like if the PC mfrs offered a Genius Bar for Windows products?”

HP's Mini-clutch was designed by fashion celeb, Vivienne Tam.

At Microsoft's Open House in NYC, a tweetie bird answered tweets from her perch below a treehouse.

Now that all PCs cost about the same and run about the same at any given price point, they’ve become commodities. All except the Mac, that is. The Mac is like the mythical siren, designed to lure us with gorgeous work from bevel to the box, and expecting a premium to be paid for its good looks. PC vendors now are trying (almost too hard) to compete on design and that hip elegance that’s never quite been the PC’s style.

To anchor the new fashion parade, there’s Windows 7, noticeably more attractive and thankfully speedier. If you’re interested in the main new features of Win 7, read this introduction by Ars Technica.

Commensurate with the launch of Win 7 come a bevy of beautiful machines with all sorts of radical designs. First to show off this fall was the HP Vivienne Tam clutch bag PC  (pictured above).  There is no Mac equivalent and women drool when they see it. The guts of this clutch bag sized PC are similar to HP Mini-Notes, the company’s netbook offering. Not much detail yet, but just having HP play a big part in Fashion Week was a novelty.

There was an audible gulp when Dell unveiled its Adamo XPS, an ultra-thin notebook computer that’s under a centimeter in width. That’s a pencil near the photo to give you some idea about how thin is thin.

It’s lovely to look at; more so if you’re a fan of modern minimalist anodized aluminum (it’s available, appropriately, in onyx (black) or pearl (white)). The glass screen (13.5 inches) has no framing. Edge-to-edge, it’s glass, creating a beauty of its own. After the blush was off the rose, the tech folks weighed in, pointing out that the PC felt heavier than it looked, was expensive ($1,499), and lacked an SD slot. I guess being thin has its price…both on the pocketbook and perf

ormance. For a fun read see, the Dell Adamo/MacBook Air deathmatch in PC World.

Of course, Dell had to have an “It” machine worthy of the new Adamo name. That would be the Dell Domo 13, a special collector’s version decorated with Swarovski crystals that form an intricate bejeweled snake on the laptop cover. (Word to the wise: Do not try to put this Dell in your laptop bag.) Available at Bergdorf Goodman only, my guess is that Dell contracted this one long before the recession took hold.

Dell joins OPI brand nail polish to come up with the finishes for Dell PCs available from Dell's Design Studio. No chipping, I hope.

Much more on price point, but equally decadent, is a partnership Dell announced with OPI (a nail polish brand used in most garden variety salons, whose colors I love but whose ability to stay on my hands for more than a day without chipping is lacking). Guys feeling left out? The MLB (Major League Baseball Association) announced a number of favorite team covers. (I’d think twice if I were a NY salesman going to see that client in Boston with my Yankee studded laptop.) The cases are available for Mini, Inspiron, and Studio laptops and will cost somewhere between $65 and $85 extra.

More like a netbook, but with SONY's incredible lightness of being and gorgeous styling.

Sony has built a brand on its elegant design. This year, at a crowded NYC party amidst the work of Thomas Pendelton, tattoo artists, and Cirque Berzerk (an LA based, cabaret style Cirque du Soleil), Sony announced three new VAIOs running Windows 7. Actress Mischa Barton showed up to herald three new VAIOs running Windows 7. One of the systems, the new Sony VAIO X, nudged out the Dell by a little more than an ounce to claim the title of lightest PC, but it has a 2” smaller screen so they’re not really comparable. The Sony has integrated Verizon wireless and a much heftier price tag; many observed that it’s more like a netbook than a notebook ($1,200).

Not to be outdone on color palette, Sony CW series notebooks can be outfitted with some lovely two-tone colors, and these 14-inch screen laptops start as low as $800. For more, see PC World reviews.