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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We are down to 4 laptops, and two i-pads. 3 of the laptops are hooked up to 22" screens, but can be unplgged from them for portability. The 4th is a little one I use just for internet.
I've had my i3 desktop PC for over 2 years now. I love it! But my techie friend sings his version of that ancient Three Dog Night song to me: "Just an old-fashioned desktop.. coming down in a three-part blue screen.."
I almost exclusively use my iPad. I need a PC for a few things, but I use the wife's laptop or my office PC for those.
I'm a pastor, so I do all my sermon prep on a PC in my office, then I sync a folder to an iPad app, "GoodReader". I have the notes to every sermon I've ever preached on my iPad, along with other documents relating to my ministry. I then preach off of the iPad on Sunday morning.
Can't get rid of the desktop. I have five monitors hooked to it and use it for my business. If all I did was e-mails and web browsing a laptop would be fine but I don't.
Re: Earthquake:
Here's the thing about landlines that I learned during 9/11: during a crisis, they don't work either because the lines are jammed...
That was years ago, when most people still had landline. Now, most people do -not- have landline, and it's much less likely that the lines will be jammed in any random location.
Also, 9/11 is not the same as Hurricane Blahblah the 42nd. Both are crises, but people already know to expect hurricanes. 9/11 was an unprecedented situation. Hurricanes, earthquakes, building burnings, generic violence - are not.
During a 9/11-type of crises, you'd expect everything to be jammed up - including the internet even if you do have power in the house.
But if you don't have power in the house, and you do have a landline, you have an actual shot at getting through to someone whereas if the cell tower is down (which can and do occur during hurricanes) and you have a cell phone, you have no shot at all.
As for the desktop: if mine breaks and they've stopped making them, I'll do without. Til then, I'm keeping mine. I've had this one since they first came out with win7, and I've had to do one factory restore on it. Other than that I"ve had no problems with it. I'm thinking of possibly upgrading to win10 but I'm letting my windows tablet experimentation results be the deciding factor on that. And I have an android tablet in case my windows tablet gives me trouble.
Yes, I realize everything I do could be done on a laptop, BUT even my laptop's 17" screen is too small for displaying some of the work I do or things I need to read online, AND getting to my laptop's one and only CD drive is more annoying than just reaching over to my desktop's tower and putting in a CD.
I've been doing a ton of writing lately on both my laptop and desktop, and I know for a fact that the type of keyboard makes a big difference -- fewer typos (thus more efficiency) on the desktop keyboard, which is one reason I bought an external keyboard for one of my laptops, and the bigger monitor in my face means I catch typos faster.
It's all about what one does with a computing device to make a determination of what is mandatory and what isn't and why.
I normally use my laptop. I have a tablet which died in two months, but didn't like it enough to bother having it fixed. But I also have a desktop which is going to be hooked into the tv for a monitor. I hate watching video's on the laptop since you have to block all light hitting the screen. So the tv will be a good use. And I'd like to be able to proof writing files with a bigger screen when I'm tired.
I have another laptop as a backup, bought used, and plan to keep fixing this one. It's much more convient to write on this one. The screen is slightly bigger and completely fills.
But as for keyboards, I use an ergonomic raised one, and made a desk that fits it since its larger than normal. Typing is stressful for my fingers and they go numb, but this one keeps them at natural angles and its quite comfortable. It will be used on computer I'm using. I can't stand flat laptop keyboards. I use that on my thumb operated track ball over the installed varietys.
I also have an old xp laptop which still runs. I don't know why but the tones of music you get from that one are so much better than the new ones. I'm going to set it up as my music machine, hooked directly into the speakers for the tv system.
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