In any larger city's gay community you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a gay porn performer, past or present.

That's why people spend $3 in the app store for either Air Video or StreamToMe. Both apps have a server component for your Mac or PC that will transcode your gigs of downloaded porn to iPad-optimized video on the fly. Open a port on your firewall, and StreamToMe can stream your "entertainment" from your home Mac to your iPad or iPhone anywhere you are on the net.

I don't know, you can download a number of SSH apps from the app store and use one to connect to a real computer. If one thinks of the iPad as a really smart touch-based, graphical input/output device that has limited resources of its own (like the iPhone), instead of as a one-piece PC with an onscreen keyboard, then that distinction opens up a whole new market that rides on the success of the iPhone, which has already seen more popularity and mainstream familiarity than OS X.

The iPad and its imitators all have potential, but not running Windows or OS X and their apps. Touch screen tech just isn't suited for apps designed for mouse input, because there's only touches: the device can't tell if a finger is hovering, like a mouse pointer with the button up because it only senses touches, analogous to clicking/dragging. Besides their tiny UI widgets, Win/OS X app interfaces are designed with mouse input assumed.

Yes, I know it's the same OS tech underpinning both the pad and the mac. And it would be nice to have Apple allow ad-hoc distribution without code signing, or at least allow app store alternatives that needn't adhere to the Apple-Disney smut scrub, aka App Store Approval Process. But it's their toy and they can lock it down if they want and we can not buy it if we ... oh wait who am I kidding I'll buy two ...

When watching programs like soap operas that don't require full-time attention, we'll be doing other stuff on our computers (work, WoW, newsreading, facebook, email etc) and often not bother to skip commercials if we're not even paying attention to what's playing on the TiVo. It'd be interesting to see if certain classes of shows get commercial-skipped more than others. Here, shows that require full couch-sitting attention will get commercial-skipped a lot more than shows that can be treated more as background noise.

From what admittedly little I've read, so-called netbooks have razor-thin profit margins and the only reason they're selling is because the full-size laptop market is getting closer to being saturated. For people who want an underpowered, smallish laptop for web browsing and email, what's wrong with a 12" PowerBook G4 from eBay? Full-size keyboard, 1024x768 screen, 1 to 1.5 GHz. $250-$300.

My ZoomInfo.com profile says I'm Head of Security for Newman Enterprises in Wisconsin.

Newman Enterprises is a fictional company on The Young and the Restless. The show has a character named Jeff.

In reality I publish a web site for soap opera fans. ZoomInfo gathered my alleged employment history from recaps of Y&R episodes posted by users.

http://www.zoominfo.com/Search/PersonDetail.aspx?PersonID=1219954157