Security with Frickin’ LASERS…

IMG_0121I’m not the most “glass half-full” person in the world, but I do try to pry some minor comfort from a situation that can only really be called a “loose-loose situation.”

Last week, our home was burglarized. I can tell you, it’s quite an unusual feeling to come home on a normal day, start about your normal home-arrival routine and start to notice that “…things are amiss.”

After the obvious almost-physical impact of discovering our Wii, all the games, two computers, iPods, jewelry and other sundry items missing, there’s days more of stumbling across little things, like a pair of headphones or a knife missing. Each time you stumble across something it drives home again that… no matter what you do, you cannot fully protect against this sort of loss and it is an enormous invasion of your personal space.

So what’s the positive side? Well, it’s hardly a positive side, but I’ve spent the better part of the week re-enforcing the home defenses. New deadbolts, metal re-enforcing plates, new doors, surveillance systems, alarms and most importantly… and this is the part I like… a security system with frickin’ lasers.

Expensive? Yes.

I only wish I could have worked sharks into it somehow.

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iPad… is there a gap to fill?

IMG_0139I’ve been shying away from reading commentary today about the iPad, mostly because I wanted to form my opinions in a vacuum (like I always do :-) ) on the device.

I’ll say in retrospect that I am one of those people who thinks a tablet computer is generally a bad idea… at least as a mass-produced consumer good. Apart from specialized vertical markets, I’ve just not been convinced that I’d have a reason to use such a device…

…and then there’s the e-book reader.

I can’t get thrilled about e-book readers, either. Certainly, I read enough books (see my pictured current bathroom reading stack) that I ought to appreciate the idea of a single, compact reading device, but I just like books. Equally certainly, I read a heck of a lot of material on a computer screen, so I’ve not got an aversion to screen-reading. The Kindle and the Sony ebook reader both leave me flat. As a small electric device, it will never be where I want it to be, while books are scattered about my house, ready for me to pick up and start reading.

So, given that I don’t like tablets and I don’t like e-books, will the iPad change my mind?

Maybe… but only just.

My iPhone, which I’ve now had nearly two years, was a game-changing device. Most of my e-mail correspondence is done on it. 20% of my blogging, nearly 100% of my Facebooking and 60-70% of my daily news reading is done on it.

I do these things because it’s on my hip or at least within arm’s reach most of the day from the time I get up until the time I go to bed.

I heave learned to rely on it being at hand. No more do I have to get up and toddle into the computer room to look something up or to kill some time reading news. Some might call that laziness, but I call it convenience. I also find that, with constant access, I look more things up. In short, I use more internet time now that I have the iPhone.

Given that, I can say that it would be nice to be using a larger screen, so, provided that the iPad becomes the world’s most expensive coffee table book and I keep it constantly next to my sofa… I might just find it a useful and cool device.

I’ll likely not be running out to the buy one any time soon.

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