I thought a second monitor was unnecessary until I tried one. Now it's indispensable for me. There seems to be a tipping point in time when everyone started getting a second monitor. It may be the case like so often happens with constrained company budgets today that the guy should just go out and spring for purchasing his own second monitor to use at work. He says it's only $150. If he leaves the company, he should be able to take it with him.

Several reasons I haven't switched:
* Quality improvement of Blu-Ray is only noticeable on really big TV's.
* Blu-Ray players are saddled with lots of DRM. I've even seen notes in ad circulars that say something to the effect of "Note: As with all digital media players, there is no guarantee these discs will play in all players." Say what?!?
* A friend has a Blu-Ray player and it seems the player takes a long time to boot up, and about 45 seconds to get ready to play an inserted Blu-Ray disc. My guess is bloated, slow software (his player seems to run software in a Java VM) and then lots of DRM checking once the disc is inserted.
* Older movies are limited by the graininess of the film stock itself. Blu-Ray is not a benefit in this case. It seems only movies made in the last five years really benefit, and usually (it seems) action-type movies.
* Higher cost of discs without enough perceived benefit.

I recommend, not only for netbooks, but for any system, making a backup of the entire hard drive using Clonezilla. I've backed up friends' and family members' hard drives to my external hard drive in case of catastrophe. An added benefit of this method is that you can clean all the crapware off of Windows first, download any system updates, then make your backup, so if and when you need to restore, you have a fresh, fast(er) copy of Windows installed.