I completely agree with your assessment. I have a Transformer tablet with the keyboard dock. I actually keep it docked 80% or more of the time. When it's docked, not only do you get the full keyboard, but the screen can be adjusted to any angle, it has full USB ports, and it has another 8 hours of battery life. The keyboard dock has a touchpad, but I NEVER use it - instead I use the touchscreen to navigate. Since the keyboard dock is the size of the tablet itself, I only have to reach out about 6 inches to the screen. I think this is a very efficient way to use a computer, so I think that touchscreen laptops, once people use them and get used to them (and aren't scared away by geeks with preconceived notions that haven't actually tried using a computer this way,) will catch on pretty well.

I've also tried out Windows 8 (x64 version) on a Fujitsu tablet with a keyboard dock very similar to my Transformer - in fact the keyboard keys were identical, so I suspect it was manufactured by the same Chinese company that created my Transformer keyboard dock. I was blown away by how well Microsoft has made Windows work with a touchscreen in Windows 8. I work for a medical clinic, and for five years now we've used convertible touchscreen tablet/laptops from Fujitsu. The previous ones we used needed a stylus, but our current ones the touchscreens work with your fingers as well as a stylus. Windows XP Tablet version was ok, but they just tacked on touch. Windows 7 improved things, including better handwriting recognition, but it was still difficult to do everything with touch. Windows 8 *almost* seems like it was designed for touch. With Windows 7, you were still stuck with the mouse-centric controls, and for example you had to do a little tap-up-tap and hold to select and drag a window. With Windows 8, you can actually use it intuitively - hold down on a window title bar and move your finger, it will drag the window. A million little things like that. And I'm talking about the classic desktop here, not the Metro interface. The Metro interface is designed for touch, but since the applications I'd need to use for work aren't available in Metro versions, I didn't test that out a whole lot. It didn't take me more than an hour or two to get used to using Windows 8 with touch instead of a mouse.

It was great to be able to undock the Windows 8 tablet when I wanted to use it on the couch, hand it around to friends, etc. Then dock it to the keyboard, and you have a full blown pretty standard Windows 8 laptop. And in either mode you have at least one USB port, as well as all the other normal PC ports on the keyboard dock.

I think both sides of the argument over laptop vs tablet are essentially correct: Tablets are good as consumption devices, but not great at real work. Laptops are great for real work, but not so great for casual use on the couch. Convertible tablets are the best of both worlds.

But given all that, I still use my desktop quite a bit too. There's something to be said for wired ethernet and 6 TB of hard drive space for downloading. The one device that gets the least use now? My laptop. Hadn't even used it in almost a year, until I plugged it into a monitor so we could watch videos in bed. SO much nicer to travel with my Transformer and an external USB drive.

Android tablets aren't in quite the same situation as Android smartphones are. Since most Android tablets are NOT purchased from the wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon, their updates are provided by the manufacturers, not the wireless carriers. So once the updates are available from the manufacturer, they are installable by the end user - you don't have the additional hurdle of waiting for the wireless carrier to test and release them.

My Asus Transformer TF101 came with Honeycomb originally, and there was already an update available when I turned it on the first time. I got 4-5 updates to Honeycomb, then I got the major update to Ice Cream Sandwich, then another 4-5 updates to the base ICS. It's doubtful I'll get official Jelly Bean, but that's ok - I decided not to wait and put CyanogenMod Jelly Bean on it. I'm actually not even sure if Asus is still releasing updates, since they wouldn't be installable on top of my custom ROM. And honestly, I can see why they are not updating many older tablets and smartphones to JB - the hardware just isn't up to it. I definitely enjoy having JB on it, but it has caused a bit of lag on certain things, and certain features like Google Now are just unusably slow.

If you think about it though, the OS support and upgrades I got from Asus on my Android tablet is BETTER than what you get with a Windows based computer. Yes, you get pretty frequent patches for Windows for most of the life of the OS, but is there ANY Windows computer where the manufacturer provides you with an upgrade to the next version of Windows for free, like the ICS upgrade I got for my Transformer? (Besides limited time offers where the new Windows OS is about to come out, and they provide you with a free OS upgrade so you don't wait to buy a computer until the new OS ships. And Windows Service Packs aren't really a new version of Windows - more a collection of patches - at least since Vista.)

And when the manufacturer of both Windows and Android computing devices stop supporting your device, what are the options for the end user? Pretty much the same for both Windows and Android:

1) Windows: Buy the new version of Windows, and install it yourself generally with no official support from the manufacturer. Manufacturer may or may not provide updated drivers for the new version of Windows - but old version of drivers may work in the new OS. In any case, they will not provide any support for the end user doing this. Generally only geeks update their Windows computers to the next version of Windows - this is not something a normal user would do.

2) Android: Find a CyanogenMod ROM version of the new Android OS for the tablet. Unlock the bootloader and root. Install the new version of the Android OS. Manufacturer will not provide support for the new version. Driver support is baked into the ROM by CyanogenMod (old version of drivers may work in the new OS.) Generally only geeks update their tablets to the next version of Android - this is not something a normal user would do.

Who am I to decide what is fair? I am the customer - really the only important person in determining if a price is fair. If you have to price your app at a price point to recoup your costs that the potential customer feels is not fair, then your potential customer is not going to buy your app. If you don't lower your price to a point that enough people feel is fair, then you're not going to make any sales. And you have a much greater risk of people pirating your app.

This is the way that the free market works, has always worked, and is supposed to work. You have no guarantee that all the work you put into development are going to be recouped, it's a risk any entrepreneur takes. But don't go thinking that your potential customers owe you for your hard work. I couldn't care less about all the development time you took to develop your app - all I care about is whether I feel it is a fair price for what I get.

If you're not OK with this state of affairs, I'm sure there are hundreds of other app developers that would be happy to sell me their app instead - and at a "fair" price.

But then you're not really agreeing with me at all. The fact that it has a completely different rendering engine was exactly my point. A rendering engine alone does not a browser make, but that's a huge part of it. And any arguments about whether or not it's better or worse than WebKit are irrelevant. The fact that it's DIFFERENT, that it's "not-WebKit", was my point.

It's the same reason that I value having Linux around as a desktop OS, even if I don't personally run Linux as my desktop OS and prefer Windows. Having Linux there forces Microsoft to innovate and compete, makes it so that the computing landscape is not a monoculture, and offers a compelling alternative for those that prefer non-Microsoft OS's.

Thanks for the info, I'll have to try turning sync on again.

I agree that one great reason to have Firefox around is the same reason Firefox for Windows was important when it first came out: it is the non-corporate open source alternative browser, that uses a different rendering engine than the rest. It's important because it's not exactly the same as all the other browsers. Even if it were to have only 1% browser share, it will always be important for Firefox to be around.

Flash is a good reason to keep Firefox Mobile around. Another is that Google's iGoogle personalized homepage no longer works on the stock Android browser or Chrome for Android, but still works fine on Firefox Mobile (if you set Firefox to download the desktop version of the page.) I haven't found any way to fool the other browsers into loading it.

Yes Google has deprecated iGoogle and is going to kill it completely later this year, but damnit, I like my iGoogle homepage!

It's also nice to have three different browsers around for those situations where a webpage just doesn't render right in one or the other. But I generally prefer Chrome for Android for most of my daily browsing. It's quick at rendering and loading, and since it uses WebKit most web pages just work correctly (but not all of them!)

I don't use Firefox sync any longer, even though I only browse with Firefox on my desktop computers. I used it for a while, but it was killing my battery because it was always doing its syncing thing. Once I turned that feature off my battery life went way up.

I beg to differ about not experiencing significant problems on 1/1/2000. We had significant issues that caused all our approximately 2000 store servers to repeatedly shut down until we unloaded the offending software.

I was working for Hollywood Video in the Tech Support department (support for the rental stores and all their computer equipment) leading up to and after Y2K, in Wilsonville, Oregon at the corporate office. (Of course this was before their two bankruptcies.) The software development department performed extensive (and probably expensive) testing on every facet of our current in-store software and hardware setup (custom COBOL software running on DOS 5.0 on NetWare 3.1 if you can believe it.) They were even going to scrap NetWare in favor of a brand spanking new Windows NT Remote Desktop-type setup, but we were highly disappointed when NetWare came up with a patch for NetWare 3.X series to make it Y2K compatible, so they scrapped the NT plans. But I digress...

Came in to work on 1/1/2000 a couple hours after midnight (yep they pretty much forced us to come in, and for very little extra pay - I may have been a bit drunk still.) Everything was already chaos: Almost every single store's NetWare server shut itself down at midnight, thinking there was a power outage. And since our stores' computers ran as dumb network-booted terminals to the main server, that means all the computers were down and rentals couldn't be performed except by writing the rentals on paper.

Problem was, in the test lab someone had commented out the UPS backup auto-shutdown software line in the servers' autoexec (or its NetWare equivalent, might have been autoexec.ncf or something.) And yes, I do know who that someone was (wasn't me.) :) So I guess no one thought to test that particular software. So all the servers would boot up, immediately think there was a power outage, and immediately shut themselves off. We did have a manager's station computer in each store that had its own hard drive and could be used in emergencies, and had pcAnywhere and a modem, so we manually dialed into each of our approximately 2000 stores (at 14.4 kbps.) Then we walked a bunch of clueless managers and minimum wage kids through taking the new autoexec we had copied to a floppy on their manager's station (and a bunch of the stores had to run out and buy a box of floppies on New Year's Day) and booting up their servers using the floppy.

I think we got the last few stores up and working by 2 or 3 pm Pacific. And before you say "who rents movies on New Year's Day?" - EVERYONE did. New Year's Day and Christmas Day were two of our biggest movie rental days of the year. People are home with their families, the festivities are over, everyone wants something to do and streaming from the internet didn't really exist yet. What did everyone do? Rent a video or go to a theater. I'm not sure how many tens of thousands of dollars in rentals we lost that day, but I'm sure it was significant.

TL;DR: Just because you didn't hear about any significant losses due to Y2K bugs, doesn't mean they didn't happen. It's not like businesses were eager to admit they screwed up and forgot to test something.

Windows 8 64 bit runs faster on my aging AMD Athlon64 X2 dual core 5400+ with 2 GB RAM than Windows 7 does. Been running the RTM version for a couple months now, and since I just got a legit Windows 8 Pro key from my work's MSDN account, I plan on getting rid of my Windows 7 install. Didn't use the Start Menu much, so I don't really miss it - you can replicate most of the functionality of it by putting some icons and shortcuts on your desktop. You can install several free apps to log directly into the desktop once you log in. I was easily able to find drivers for Windows 8, and when I couldn't, Windows 7 drivers worked fine. Only app I needed to get new version of was Nero Burning ROM, and I was using an older version that I originally started using under Vista, so I wasn't too surprised.

Try it out before you make your decision! There's copies of the official RTM floating around out there that you can install, and you can use it for 90 days until it forces you to get a key and register it.

I didn't realize every single person that works in IT in Seattle works for Microsoft.

Those are all changes that Google implemented in ICS. My stock Galaxy Nexus behaves just like that. And yes, there's a lot of blue. :) Once I got used to it, I quite like it myself!

My Samsung Galaxy Nexus has both the micro-USB and headphone ports on the bottom next to each other, and it actually makes a whole lot of sense when you actually use it for a while.

It's great for when you mount your phone in a dash mount in your car. The micro-USB for power and headphone jack for plugging into the line-in in my car stereo drop right out the bottom so they fit nice and securely, instead of like in some phones where the USB port is in the side so fits less securely (and gets in the way of the dash mount.)

When you're carrying it around in your pocket with headphones attached, you just slip it into your pocket upside-down with the back of the phone facing outwards. When you need to switch audio tracks, it's one smooth motion to grab the phone with your whole hand cupping the back, pull the phone out and turn your hand 180 degrees to flip it upright while still holding the phone securely in your hand. You don't have to turn it around in your hand to have the screen right-side-up, or pull out the phone with two fingers and hope you don't accidentally tap something on the touchscreen. Kinda hard to visualize unless you actually try it, but now that I have a phone with headphone on the bottom I like it a lot, and hope my next phone has the same port layout.

As far as HDMI video - here you go:

1) A dock that connects to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus micro-USB port and provides HDMI out.
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/03/23/review-samsung-galaxy-nexus-hdmi-portrait-desktop-dock/

2) An adapter dongle that connects to the micro-USB port of various Android phones, including the Galaxy Nexus, to provide HDMI out including 7.1 audio.
http://www.cellphoneshop.net/mhlhdmi.html?cagpspn=pla&gclid=CJnS5PfysrECFQQJRQodj2EAQg

This is actually pretty common with modern Android phones, it's called MHL (Mobile High-Definition Link.) It also includes a command bus between the mobile device and the TV, but haven't heard whether that's supported by any common TVs or smartphones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_High-Definition_Link

They didn't try him twice. The prosecutor decided what to charge him with, and decided instead of charging him with a "misdemeanor" or "felony" (where he'd obviously have the option for a jury trial), they instead decided to charge him with a "violation." A violation in Oregon is an offense like a traffic ticket, parking ticket, possession of a small amount of some drugs for personal use such as less than one ounce of marijuana, etc. Penalties for a violation generally just consist of a fine, can also include other penalties, but cannot include jail time.

Here's some more information about violations in Oregon:
http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/153.html

Well there is the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence...

http://www.portlandsisters.net/