I'm using an Asus EP-121 full time at work now. Add OneNote 2010 and the pretty good handwriting recognition in Windows Tablet and I've got an excellent, two and a half pound tablet with a real processor (dual core i5 1.73 Ghz), 4 GB of RAM, and a 64 GB SSD and a Gorilla Glass screen. The only moving parts are the two fans. When I need to type a lot (and not just take notes) I use the included Bluetooth keyboard. This was at the $1100 price point, and while it has a few warts (mostly related to the stylus driver) it's been a great way to abandon paper and share notes from meetings, etc.

But just *try* to buy one: when I last checked everyone was sold out (even Microsoft), and when retailers get them in stock they're gone within hours. The market for tablets with handwriting recognition and full MS Office is out there even if it isn't as big as the market for iPad and Android toys. Compared to my last 7.5 pound Fujitsu tablet, the promise of the notebook replacement has finally been fulfilled.

My company is aggressively hiring Java developers. We're trying to recruit from all over the country, but we've also got a high bar and a lot of people won't consider moving to the intermountain West and that thins the pipeline quite a bit.

The jobs are there, although I had to move from Seattle to actually find companies that would follow-through with full-time offers for Java devs. It was a great market for .NET.

IA64 == Intel.

AMD has the Athlon 64. It has an NX (Non-Executable) bit that can be set on page tables so buffer overruns can't be exploited (as easily).