Back to School With…What?

I don’t have kids who are college age; in fact, I don’t have kids at all. Nor am I a college student. But you may be in one of these situations, gentle reader, so I thought I would share this article with you:

10 Reasons Not to Buy an iPad Instead of a Laptop for a College Student

Don’t get me wrong, I have an iPad and I LOVE IT. But I agree with this article, which argues that an iPad is probably not the best option for a student. People ask me all the time about the best photo editing app or writing app, etc. for the iPad, but while there are apps available for just about any task under the sun, an iPad (and indeed any table) is designed for media consumption rather than media creation. If you want to read books, watch videos, chat with your friends and check the internet, a tablet’s your thing. But for powerful word processing, photo editing, sound recording and tasks of that nature, and document storage, you need to horsepower and stability of at least a laptop. An iPad is like a sports car; fun, sexy, extravagant, fast and light. But when you need to do some real grunt work, you’re going to wish you had something a little more practical.

But don’t get a Sony VAIO. Just don’t.

Upgrading Your Browser

A few posts ago, I discussed the Browser Wars. While everyone has their favorite browser, you will always have a better web experience if your browser is the most up-to-date version available. Many website designers and web software developers don’t bother trying to accomodate very old browsers, so if you’re running IE6 (or heaven forbid, IE5), you should consider an upgrade.

Upgrading your browser is almost always free (it is definitely free for the most poplar browsers like Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome) and pretty easy to do. You can upgrade without losing your bookmarks/favorites. This link describes the reasons you should stay current with your preferred browser, and links you to the newest versions available.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/07/10/dear-web-user-please-upgrade-your-browser/