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I don't even have a laptop...I embrace new technology as the spirit moves me. (I have an iPod---great idea, once I figured out how it worked. But my cellphone never went beyond making calls on it.)
Don't know if I need something that, by all accounts, looks like a TV screen / computer monitor that you just carry around...what's it cost?
[left out that last question mark]
[This message has been edited by Robert Nowall (edited April 03, 2010).]
posted
As with any computer-related technology, I strongly recommend waiting until the second or third generation. Let the early-adopters work out the bugs, then jump on board the wagon.
Posts: 487 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:As with any computer-related technology, I strongly recommend waiting until the second or third generation. Let the early-adopters work out the bugs, then jump on board the wagon.
Yeah. There's a reason those who have to be on it call it the "Bleeding Edge".
Besides, with technology, the price nearly always comes down.
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On one of the sites I visited, somebody had a video---no, I don't have a link---of someone whacking their new iPad with a baseball bat. Didn't look at it, but the commentary said it was kinda delicate...I think if I'm gonna carry something around, I'd like it to be relatively durable.
Prediction come true?...in Cordwainer Smith's "Scanners Live in Vain," the characters carry around a screen that they write messages on with their fingernails. iPad? Or is it closer to the reality of texting?
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Wow. That's how you know the younger generation (or perhaps they are my generation) is so jaded with too much money and so consumed with seeking transient fame that destroying a valuable product just for the sake of destroying it *first* is the best reason they could come up with for buying an iPad. Sigh. I don't get. *Some* people have too much time and not enough brains...
At least the video had the (unintentional?) irony that cheering colleagues were recording the video on their iPhones. I could laugh at that.
My friend did buy one. Apparently the page turning ability is pretty cool - but it's hard to read in bright light, which the kindle can do.
But there are other bad aspects. Apparently, it comes with no keyboard or mouse. It can't multitask - i.e. run more than one program at once (until you get the software upgrade - cha ching). You have to buy a keyboard as accessory; it refuse to conect to a mouse. And it has no USB ports - forcing people to sign-up to wireless data transfer using 3G which Apple conveniently charges a monthly fee for. There's also no built in camera, which people really seem to hate not to have.
So I won't be buying an iPad anytime soon - or ever until some changes are made. In the meantime, hand me that baseball bat and lemme at that thing.
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One incidental point---all these things, even things I gladly and joyfully and gleefully use, like this computer and that big-screen TV, all are dependent on one thing---electricity. A book, at least once it's printed and distributed, can be read as long as there's light to read (half the day in most places). Lose that---in this day and age, with oil prices and energy crises on one side, and green thinking and global warming on the other, and someday you might not have the electricity to make it go. What kind of powerhog is the iPad?
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Meanwhile, I'm thinking about taking an old computer I've got out of mothballs and plugging it into my big-screen TV. This one is too far away to make that happen (I don't have wireless connections in my house, though it's on my "for consideration" list.) The TV itself has the connections. With that, if it works, I might be able to pull up some stuff on my TV that I've wanted to see on a bigger screen. If it works...
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I have heard that the Ipad has over 10 hours of battery life. I'm not sure how quickly that diminishes with use.
Posts: 2003 | Registered: Jul 2008
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By the way, that connecting my old computer to my new TV didn't work out---my old computer doesn't have the right connections, and I'm not technician enough to figure out what I would have to do. I'll let it lie...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
If your video card (or manual for the card) for your computer has a jack that reads 'VGA-out' (usually a yellow RCA jack) or 'S-video out' and if your TV has 'VGA-in' yellow jack or an 'S-video in' jack, respectively, then you just need to get the appropriate cable.
If you have a standard 15 pin monitor output on your video card then there might be a converter than takes the signal and convert it to VGA with RCA connections.
If you are absolutely bent on using the old computer, then, and if it is a desktop, then you could install a low-end ATI all-in-wonder graphics card that has jacks that output signal in various formats so your TV can act as the monitor. The ATI video card also allows you to connect coax cables so you can watch cable channels on your computer.
The higher end ATI video cards also have HD output but the video card tends to get very hot churning all that data and it has a greater chance of burning out - unless you invest in cooling it. But even then...
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Probably at some point I'll buy a whole other computer I can plug into the TV from time to time---I already do this with my iPod---something cheap that can do a little of what I want. Thanks, though.
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
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