The Free Pursuits blog named "10 Digital Nomads to Learn From" in a post today. I'm blogging about this not to brag about myself being on the list -- OK, not only to brag -- but also to introduce you to the other nine digital nomads and also to the Free Pursuits blog itself. There are huge nuggets of gold in all this.

One year ago this week, I wrote a column arguing for the requirement of iPods and other gadgets in the nations schools ("Are iPod-banning schools cheating our kids?: Why iPods and other electronic gadgets should be required, not banned"). Now, the University of Missouri is taking my advice and "requiring" journalism students to buy and use either an iPhone or an iPod Touch.

A year ago, I proposed to my wife that we sell everything we own and become full-time digital nomads. She wants to travel, but also wants a "nest" — a home base in the United States. Starting tomorrow, our compromise plan goes into effect.

Both of us are lucky enough to have work that can be done from anywhere over the Internet.

Google wants to own the future of mobile software, including office suite software, but Zoho launched a new capability to run its very solid, browser-base

One of the most useful services ever to be offered to freelancing digital nomads is the Earth Class Mail check-depositing service announced last July. Unfortunately, they offered the service, but do not actually provide it. At least, not anymore.

If you're unfamiliar with Earth Class Mail, it's a service that receives your mail, scans it and puts it online in PDF format for you to read, print or download.

I've got a common-sense list of 8 criteria for an acceptable digital nomad camera. Until this month, no camera met all requirements. But when the $400 Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 shipped this month, all criteria were suddenly met. I've bought and tested the camera, and can now recommend it highly — very highly — to all you digital nomads out there.

First, my 8 criteria:

1. High-quality picture capability

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The March Twitter numbers are in: Traffic more than doubled. At least that's what's being reported. Unfortunately, the figure is almost meaningless.

Let's be very clear on the facts. A company called comScore reported today that the number of "unique US visitors" to Twitter.com grew 131 percent during the month of March.

The Wall Street Journal today shed some light, and some informed rumor, on the new life of Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO now on medical leave.

Satellite radio will die soon anyway, but Apple will accidentally perform a mercy killing of Sirius XM Radio this summer. That is, if the rumors are true (and they probably are).

The Twitter microblogging service has received an absurd quantity of press in the mainstream media lately.

The education crisis is bad and getting worse. The US spends more on education than any other nation, so the problem is not (as commonly portrayed) a funding crisis. The causes for this sorry state of affairs are many, but one major failure is that too many teachers, schools, and districts reject powerful, free technology solutions that are handed to them on a silver platter.

I'm talking about mobile technology, the mobile Web and the Web 2.0.

Funny thing happened this week in the tech press. On Thursday, the Inquirer printed a story with the headline "Touch Screen Is the Future of Computing, Says Microsoft." The very next day, Vnunet.com published another story headlined "Touch Screens Are Not the Future of Computing, Says HP."

Microsoft is right. HP is wrong. Again.

President Obama wants to simultaneously improve education while getting costs under control. School districts are so stressed financially that they're laying off teachers and ending valuable programs. Here's one modest proposal from the tech blogosphere: Get rid of paper textbooks in favor of digital books and materials for high school and college students as a way to both improve education and cut costs.

A group advocating broadband Internet access in rural areas of the US has announced a five-point "Broadband Bill of Rights" designed to guarantee Internet access far beyond the nation's cities and suburbs. The group also calls for stimulus funds to build IP infrastructure in rural areas.

The best product I've ever used for reminders and personal productivity is a free service called reQall. Today, the company announced improvements to the free version, now called reQall Standard, plus an all-new Pro version that takes "memory jogging" to a whole new level. reQall Pro costs $2.99 per month or $24.99 per year.