Topic: Well I gave in to temptation..

[MEJHarrison]

That's funny.  One of my teammates here at work is currently on a 4 week vacation to Germany (his son is playing German pro football; American football) and he's a total workaholic.  Always takes his laptop wherever he goes, puts in 50-60 hour work weeks just because, etc.  Anyway, he's gone for a month and only took his iPad with him.

While I won't need to use it for work, I totally can see that. E-mail is obvious, then there is programs for spreadsheets or text documents, presentations... Just like Sebstien pointed out, longer typing session directly with the onscreen keyboard can get tiresome.

I think he's been banned from doing work on it.  He's barely answering a few emails a week!

Not sure about the actual screen size of your device (unless I just overread it ), but even the iPad is still recognized as mobile device by many websites, even though it basically has full resoultion (1024x768). I usually switch to the normal site then, especially as I can easily zoom in at any spot I may need to.

There are browsers in the App Store that let you tell sites you're not a mobile device to skip the mobile web sites.  Atomic Web Browser is a fairly highly regarded one I believe and cheap too.  I'm sure there are others.  I'd bet there are similar things for Android.

[RossRoy]

Well for Android there is Dolphin that allows you to set a custom user agent - so you could spoof it to make it look like you are running say Chrome on Windows .. but I couldn't find exactly what to enter in there so I just gave up

[Kathy]

Ahh...but can you upload DVDP to Android? 

[Dragonfire]

Ahh...but can you upload DVDP to Android? 

I knew there was something I forgot to ask last night... :lol

[Halo2]

We have been seeing a number of Windows based slates lately. Samsung, Asus and Fujitsu mostly. I must say that they under-whelm me so far.
A lot of people want to use them as notebook replacements, but they fall well short of their expectations. Not that we didn't tell them this in the beginning,
they just wouldn't listen. Now we are trying to work with the OEMs to meet the unrealistic expectations of the end users.

 

[RossRoy]

Acer has the Iconia Tab in a Windows 7 based flavour. But I just couldn't see the point. Android/iOS are much better suited for these types of device. Maybe the Windows Phone OS would work, but a full blown Windows 7? I think that's way overkill for a tablet.

Well, unless you expected a tablet to perform as well as a laptop ..

[Dragonfire]

I could see using one of the tablet things for a few online things..check email and stuff like that...  I would never think to try typing up a review on one or something like that.  While I still don't know a lot about these things, I've never thought they would replace a laptop.

[Achim]

I could see using one of the tablet things for a few online things..check email and stuff like that...  I would never think to try typing up a review on one or something like that.  While I still don't know a lot about these things, I've never thought they would replace a laptop.

This is the key, knowing what you need a certain device for. It's also what I tell friends or colleagues when they want my opinion on certain gadgets.

But, yes, that is mainly what I use my iPad for. These days I enjoy reading some stuff on the internet just after waking up (Sat/Sun) or before going to sleep. It is also great for e-mail. But I also wouldn't dream to type longer bits just on that.

[RossRoy]

Well, I've decided to bring back the tablet this morning.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice little device, and I can totally understand its appeal - heck I wanted one so bad! But after having it here for almost a full week, I came to a realisation - I have no need, at all, for such a device.

I thought I could use it to watch some movies when I go to bed .. but I'm usually asleep within 1-2 minutes, and if not, I actually prefer reading a book.

I thought I could use it to look up info on IMDb and stuff while watching a movie .. but I'm usually watching movies on the computer, and it's much faster to actually type it in the computer than it is to look it up through the tablet.

I thought I could use it to look at walkthroughs while playing games .. but I'm usually playing games on my PC monitor, and again, it's much faster to just switch my monitor to PC mode and look up the info.

Basically, every intended use I could think off, i could either do it faster on the PC, and did do it at all. So that money is better sitting in my account, than in the stores' simply because in my personal situation, the tablet is utterly useless.

It also made me realise that even a phone would be utterly useless. So no Android device for me - it would just be wasted money.

But like I said, don't get me wrong. It's fantastic device. It works well, felt really snappy and fast. It's just not a device I see myself using all that much in the end.

[Achim]

As I said, it's all about what you need it for. I Actually use it for most the things you described, but I play games on the console, watch movies on th TV, read Internet in bed... So the shop took it back just like that, returning all the money...? If so:

[RossRoy]

Well .. I did bend the truth just a teeny weeny bit .. 

I told them I had bought it for a gift, and that the person already had one so I was returning it .. 

When they asked why it was opened - I said I had charged the thing so that they could use it right away .. 

[Achim]

 

[MEJHarrison]

This is the key, knowing what you need a certain device for.

Exactly! I want an iPad.  But at this point all I have at home is a desktop, so I'd also like a laptop.  And it's hard to justify at this point getting an iPad.  I couldn't develop and Windows software on it.  I couldn't rip a CD with it.  Not sure if there's a way to do something like Quicken on it or not; or if it would be secure enough for that anyway.  It sucks.  There's just a couple things holding me back.

The good news is we've been hearing rumors for months about work just giving us our laptops to keep as our own.  We're switching to virtual machines (or were until they realized what we tried to tell them for months... that virtual machines don't make the cut for developers).  Now the plan is to get us really powerful desktops that we can log into remotely.  So the thought is to give us our laptops and we can use those to log in remotely.

If I get my laptop handed to me for free, an iPad is next on my list! If not, it's going to be a hard choice.  But I'm leaning more and more towards just skipping the laptop idea and making do with my desktop at home.

Really I think what it comes down to is holding out hope for a "retina" display on the iPad 3. 

[Dragonfire]

What the heck is a virtual machine?  I read something recently about work switching to that over the next several years..supposed to save on computer costs or something.  But I don't get what it is.

[MEJHarrison]

What the heck is a virtual machine?  I read something recently about work switching to that over the next several years..supposed to save on computer costs or something.  But I don't get what it is.

Well... It's a virtual computer.  

There are servers in our data center (so there is real hardware), but each server is currently hosting about 60 users.  And they're aiming to get that up to 100 users per server.  Of course these are serious servers we're talking about.  Like 128-256GB of RAM, tons of disc space, tons of processors, etc.  Not something you'd look for at Best Buy.

Anyway, to the user, it looks and behaves like a desktop computer.  But it's really just a dumb terminal networked into the data center.  You still have your keyboard, mouse and monitor.  But the box they plug into isn't a real computer in the tradition sense.  It just communicates with the computers in the data center.  They look much like a cable modem or router.  About the same size and shape.  And while I'm sure the servers themselves are insanely expensive, you make up for it by people not needing a "real" computer at their desk.  And there is the savings from not needing to support all that hardware as well.  And if someone's "machine" crashes, a new one can be created in seconds by clicking a few buttons.  So downtime from broken hardware is a thing of the past as well.  Plus even though the servers have tons of disc space, it's not as much as you might guess.  In the past each user had Office installed for example.  Take that space and multiply by hundreds and you get a lot of disc space being used for the same thing.  Our servers run software to de-duplicate things.  So for those users on our virtual computers, you only need one copy of Office taking up disc space.  Same thing with any file.  If I have a large spreadsheet and share it with my team, on these servers, just a single copy would be stored as long as each "copy" remains identical.  Same thing with programs loaded into memory.  If two or two hundred people are running Word, there only needs to 1 copy of it in memory that everyone can share as if it were running on a desktop on their desk.

Of course that works for the normal users.  They tried to do it with us IS people and we had tons of issues.  Enough that they abandoned the idea entirely for us.  Instead we're each getting our own super powerful desktop.  But we'll have similar software.  So from home I can connect and work just as if I was sitting at my desk.  Which means we won't really need our laptops anymore.  If something goes wrong during the night, I can just connect to my machine here at work over the internet (which really isn't a new idea of course).  Of course we still need the laptops.  Like if I go to the coast for the weekend and something goes wrong, I'd rather not drive to work or home to get logged in.  But since we're moving away from laptops, one idea was to just give them to us.  They would be ours, but they would be used to connect when needed.

Of course they have their downsides too.  Last week a company came out to test our fire suppression system used in the data center.  They do that at least yearly.  In the event of a fire it cuts power, fills the data center with a gas or something to kill the fire, etc.  Anyway, during the test, they had something hooked up wrong.  And as soon as they started the test, the first thing it did was cut power to the whole data center (bypassing even the backup generator that powers the place if we loose power).  So everyone in our entire company lost their "computer" instantly when the data center got shut down. Not that those of us with real computers could do anything either.  We had power of course at our desks, but every server in the company got shut down, so we couldn't actually do anything.  And that includes the network, so we couldn't surf the web either.  But at least we could stare at our desktops!  

Oddly enough, when I got my first "real" job after college, we used dumb terminals connected to mainframes.  So we're really come full circle!