"Mike Marlow" wrote in
:

John G wrote:

Well, I have 2 interconnected Tower PCs on my desk. Maxivista allows
one keyboard and mouse and 2 displays.

But the Tablet allows me to watch TV and occasionally look up things
and help with Crosswords and look at mail when it arrives without
being in the study.

So... since I don't use my computers to watch TV (I use my TV's for
that...) I have to ask - is that something that is an improvement over
watching your TV?

I actually do use a computer for watching TV. It automatically searches
the program listings for stuff I've told it to record and does it.
During playback, it automatically skips commercials or lets me pause or
stop and start how I please.

My computer is actually a home-built DVR (running MythTV), which lets ME
have control. Files are stored in a format that can be read by just
about anything (MPEG2) and there's no "corporate overlord" to decide what
I can and can't record or keep.

It is certainly not a replacement for a PC or Laptop but it starts
almost instantly and is just easier for the casual times.

The "starts almost instantly" thing is one thing that I see as
valuable. I do get impatient sometimes, waiting for my laptop to boot
up. I guess I just don't get impatient often enough for that to be a
big deal for me. My laptop is on almost all of the time. I seldom
have to boot it (except for the Windows things that can only be
resolved by a re-boot...), so I guess I don't often realize a value in
a quick boot time. I just close it, pack it and open it when I get
where I'm going. Time to work is very short and I suppose I never
consdered it to be onerous.


I leave my laptop in sleep mode, so it usually comes up pretty quickly.
Microsoft actually had an initive many years ago to try to get boot times
down. It was getting pretty bad there for a while.

Puckdropper
--
Make it to fit, don't make it fit.