I would also do some up-front research on battery life for the models carried by the particular store you're visiting, then be ready to steer her towards the ones with 6+ hours of rated battery life. For some reason, they all make it extremely difficult to compare models based on expected battery life (stores don't seem to expect their customers to care about battery life, often the saleschimps don't even know when you ask them). I know, it's an estimate only and won't apply if you're watching blu-ray movies while converting video and d/ling the Library of Congress in the background, but it still gives the user a better idea of how long they can expect to be able to use their machine for email, youtube and FB. The extended battery laptops may not be available in pink, but for a casual, on-the-couch, email and you-tube watching laptop, a longer battery life = much more satisfied casual user.

A couple of contenders in the 17" division right now are the DV7-6C50CA or 6C70CA for 17-inch models. (sorry about the Canadian links, but they should give you a model number to google...) Acer used to have a 'Timeline' series, that was known for long battery lives, but they discontinued it a while back...as far as I know, HP is the only ones making 17-inch notebooks with extended battery runtimes right now. Dell makes (made?) some 15-inch ones in their Inspiron lineup, and HP, Samsung, Lenovo and Toshiba have each had some of their 15-inch models offer extended battery life, but that's from research done almost six months ago, so now it's hopelessly out of date in the laptop world...:S

FWIW, I went this way when helping my Dad buy his last two laptops, and as a result he thinks I'm a 'frickin computer genius' :) Neither of his laptops went over $700 CAD in price point, either, which is a good thing because the replacement was necessary because of a spill on the first...all over the keyboard :( It still fires up and runs fine, but the keyboard is borked (and yes, we've tried to clean it up), so he uses it as his desktop with an external keyboard. Still, for a $650 machine, I was impressed that it would run at all...

Ok. Wow. And I suppose "TV for men" is just chock full of intelligent, witty repartee and deep philosophical commentary?

You can't BS me, I've seen Spike. Better to say "the TV for the lowest common denominator", since that's what these stations are aiming at, regardless of gender.

Oh, I see, it's a more general prejudice that you hold, not mere sexism. Oh, wait a sec...

...my mistake. Or was this your pathetic attempt at sarcasm? Sorry, I can't tell. FWIW, if I have a day off from my busy career and actually have a chance to watch daytime TV, it's more likely to be Discovery, HGTV (if it's interesting), the History channel or Syfi. And, unlike yourself by the sound of it, my husband actually shares the housework with me so it is not too great a burden on either of us.

Gender equality. You should try it sometime. Oh, wait, you're too busy laying on your ass and bitching about commercials after your 'hard' day at work with your 'sexy' intern.

I just had this adorable image in my head of a bunch of kittens (picture Royale commercials) gamboling around an iMac, batting the mouse around, laying on the top of the monitor and pawing at the screen, puzzled innocence in their wide blue eyes as they try to figure out where the food comes out. Awww... :)

I think the term is actually 'script kiddies', due to the (usual) youth of the wanna-be bad asses. It's simply the difference between the voiced alveolar stop 'd' and the voiceless alveolar stop 't', so it's easy to misinterpret in speech.

Okay, phonetics info-break over, now back to your regularly scheduled discussion...

Hmmm...methinks you've just stumbled on a new market for this product. Anti-graffiti coatings for buildings / billboards / etc. etc.

Course, it won't stop punks trying to etch their 'art' into the public's awareness, but at least it would stop any gradeschooler who got his hands on a can of paint. Also would complicate things if you ever wanted to re-paint anything with this coating applied...but OTOH, the original paint should be protected from rain damage at least, if not fading or impact damage. Hmmm...I think my parents would have liked this very much for our garage door and fences when I was growing up.

Sounds like you've either already read, or should read, Elizabeth Moon's "Vatta's War" series... :)

It's a great 5-book sci-fi series in which these sorts of brain/computer interface devices are quite commonplace. Artificial eidetic memory, command codes for database access, environmental controls, communication, memory storage, etc. It's very well written: if you haven't read it already I suggest giving it a try!

#1 = Trading in Danger
#2 = Marque and Reprisal
#3 = Engaging the Enemy
#4 = Command Decision
#5 = Victory Conditions

And a lot cooler... :)

Good point, though, there's no reason this couldn't be implemented now, especially in larger urban centers. Hmmm...wonder if it would catch on? Could be a cool business opportunity for some enterprising slashdotter... :)

I think the biggest benefit to this scheme, though, would be the privacy aspect. If each vehicle had several separate compartments instead of jamming everyone together like on the bus, people could relax, kick off their shoes, watch some TV without worrying about headphones or shoulder surfers, even change their clothes on the way home if they like (stipulating privacy windows and no video camera monitoring, that is :) If you work with people all day, it's nice to be able to have some alone time on the way home...suddenly that hour-long commute doesn't seem so bad.

Ah, but most of the problem with 'rush hour' is that the majority of those cars are only carrying one, or maybe two passengers.

A city-wide routing system should be able to plan a route to pick up a dozen or so people who are starting from / traveling to similar places, and get it all done in one vehicle. To prevent it from being just like a bus ride, subway or shared taxi (congested, noisy, kids beside you blaring their youtube videos, people breathing down the back of your neck, etc.), all the designers would have to do is build cars/vans that had segregated one / two / four person compartments, each with it's own external door (think a stretch limo with several doors on each side and a wall down the middle). Then you just swipe your pass/phone/whatever to confirm it's you, get in and relax, ignoring any other pickups or drop-offs until you get to your stop (car could 'bing' you at your stop, in case you dozed off).

Higher end services could even stock a mini-bar in each compartment, for those who want to unwind a bit before dinner. :o) Or, better yet, you could have the car 'pick up' dinner for you before coming to pick you up (just send it to your local restaurant and have them place it in the compartment reserved for you).

The possibilities are intriguing, that's for sure...

So...like driverless taxis that accept monthly/annual passes? That would be intriguing...New York would never be the same.

I doubt it will come to that. Autonomous individual personal vehicles, maybe, but not the big rigs that transport hazardous / heavy / wide / etc. loads on public roads. We'll still need someone in the hotseat to deal with situations that the computer doesn't recognize, or take over if the autopilot fails out. It could make trucking a whole lot more fuel efficient and less physically taxing on the drivers, but we'd still need them in position and sharp enough to be ready to take over if required.

After all, we recognize the fact that we still need pilots flying planes, even though, technically, today's autopilot systems are pretty much capable of doing everything a pilot has to do during a normal, uneventful flight. It's the potential (and magnitude of consequences) of abnormal, highly eventful flights that keep us needing those highly trained hands and brains on tap in the cockpit.

I've been asking myself that for years. It makes no sense on Netflix's part, they're just shooting themselves in the foot by locking their app behind MS's bullshit 'Gold' paywall...of course, of the two companies, I think we can guess who swings the bigger club. Microsoft probably just doesn't give them a choice about it...good thing there are a plethora of other Netflix-enabled devices around now.

Also, the constant ad-spamming on the XBox console is making it more and more unusable...it's pretty rare that I actually turn on our console anymore, since I know it'll need three updates and require surfing through a myriad of blinky, annoying screens to get to whatever I actually wanted to do in the first place. I *really*, **really** don't like Sony, either it's corporate ethics or it's policies towards users/customers, but I have to admit that MS's anti-user tactics lately have me seriously reconsidering that Playstation console...