American Malls

Today, I decided to go shopping in a mall. After careful consideration, I chose Valley Fair in San José, since it is on a convenient bus route.

It was... different.

Not only was it considerably bigger than a UK shopping centre, but it was also packed full of American clichés. Incredibly fat people and youths "hanging out at the mall" were everywhere, and shop staff kept asking me if I was okay every twenty seconds.

Several of the shops actually had fat display mannequins.

On the way home, a crazy man who sounded like Tom Waits (although I have now heard so many of these that I'm sure I'll be saying Tom Waits sounds like a crazy man before long) told me that he had a cellphone like mine in his plastic bag -- I did not believe him.

iPad 2 Vs. Eee Pad Transform - 5 mins down the pub

So work gave me a opportunity to play with these two tablets for about five minutes. They just got delivered before Friday lunch at work, so we grabbed one of each and took them to lunch.

Packing is very much the same, in fact down to the way the charger and documents sit in the package.

After turning both on and starting up the results where straitforward: the Eee pad was an attractive to use, quick to work out bit of kit, that as the image below shows looks great. Whereas the iPad was returned to its box, needing to be plugged into iTunes before we had any fun. We where already surfing on the Android tablet by then.

The matt patterned finish was great, keyboard and trackpad very usable. I would get one of these over a notebook any day I think. The iPad looked a bit regular and dull next to it. 

 Even if the interface between the tablet and dock is a bit on the fiddly side, we figured it was worth it to make sure the connection was secure, which it really seems to be.

So, after 5mins the Eee Pad all the way!

Best screen background for work

Have to say that Futurama's vision of the Nixon election poster (or more a war-time style motivational poster) really cheers me up at work. Seeing it on the program is one of my fonder moments. Cant think about Nixon without shaking my cheeks and shouting CHECKERS! any more.