Took Mom tablet shopping. She is going to wait. She tried Nook and Kindle. Her arthritis gets in the way. When tries to pinch to zoom/unzoom she can't. On a Nexus (different store - our local Best Buy had no Nexuses, ) better but still not enough control. An iPad though works great for her. She was pinching and zooming in and out and navigating with minutes. Even the Mini almost works for her, but she has to Zoom to much and finds it a pain to look at such a small portion at once. So full size iPad is the only tablet that works for her. Even with a gift card that is pricey. But a new model should be out in a year or so, and then the current models will drop in price. And we can keep our eye out for sales.

Apple has refurbished 3rd gen iPads for under $400:

[link]

As far as I can tell only the Minis are under $300. Minis are almost OK but not quite what she wants. I agree 3rd generation would be fine - same screen, just slightly slower processor.

Also, I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but there is a way to automatically set (all? Some?) text larger on the iPad. My dads browser, I know, always loads in a larger font.

Yeah, the problem with large text on a mini is it bugs her to see such a tiny portion of the document or web site at a time. But if it is zoomed small enough to see as much as she wants it is not readable for her. The full size ipad does not have that problem for her. She can see enough of the site or document at once to satisfy her and still have the font large enough to be readable.

I like Remember the Milk. Good web client and good clients for Android and iOS.

Interesting by the way that for someone with severe arthritis of the fingers that there is such an *immediate* difference between the iPad and other tablet touchscreens. I could not tell the difference in five minutes in the store when I tried them, but it makes me suspect that in extended use there might be a difference for a lot of people.

Man, how did I live without Lazarus before, I love it so much. What an incredible stress reducer.

He's a pretty chill guy. Pretty cocky though. I didn't know he had moved to SF.

Hive question.

We are doing some remodeling. Part of it is a reworking of our entertainment systems. Cable is going out, streaming is going in.

Here's what we've got: 37" LG TV and LG Blu-Ray player that streams a bunch of stuff. Audio is very old Technics Receiver w/ Boston Acoustics speakers.

We're adding another TV for the rec room. And will likely get a good Blu-Ray + Streaming player for that. Audio is either TV or 2.1 Logitech speaker system we already have.

Questions. What is a kick-ass Blu-Ray player that also does streaming? Streaming is more important than Blu-Ray so Roku + inexpensive player would be an option.

We want to be able to play music from the network NAS (it's a DNLA server as well). The Blu-Ray player can do that but the UI makes it nearly useless. What is a good music playing solution that isn't too spendy? Playlists are a must.

Controlling things with iOS or Android tablet would be really nice.

Ideas?