Yeah, I'd say depends on how much you need/want it to interact with the iPad.

Jessica,

do you know terminal/unix language? You can run file/folder commands from the terminal, which is what I do with big time nested folders.

Use is 80% web surfing (watching the occasional video, but might watch more if it were faster), 15% word processing, and 5% other.

I recently picked up a Chromebook (partly to play around with it, and partly to have a semi-throwaway machine to take to conferences or whatever instead of my much heavier laptop), and I'm really digging it for this kind of use. (I'm typing on it now, AIFG!)

It's not super fast. And your options for apps are limited -- if you need the word processing to be in for-real Word and not Google Docs, you're basically SOL.

But on the plus side, it's very light, the battery life is way up there in tablet range, it can handle anything web based, it never gets hot or noisy, and it cost, like, 250 bux. (Hence the "semi-throwaway" part. If it gets broken or lost in my luggage... I kinda don't care.) I wouldn't want it for my main computer, but as a secondary for typing on the internets while I hang out on the couch, I kinda love it.

Verizon support rep admits anti-Netflix throttling - Boing Boing

Robbo sez, "Dave Raphael of Dave's Blog has an interesting post about a conversation he recently had with Verizon support and discovered some uncomfortable - yet wholly unsurprising - truths about how Verizon is selectively limiting bandwidth to AWS services and adversely affecting the quality of Netflix. The open admission of this by Verizon support was unexpected - but the fact it is happening should be of no surprise to anyone but the ignorant and naive."

Has anyone ever successfully converted a Quicken for Mac data file to Quickbooks for Mac?

This is a necessary step before I can upload my data to Quickbooks Online, but I've tried 6 times now and each time Quickbooks has frozen up.

This is a free trial version which I downloaded just to do this one thing, and I only get 15 chances total! (The trial version comes with 15 "uses" before it requires you to register, so force-quitting to try again is using these up fast.)

Hello, techies. I need something to manage my photos on my Mac instead of iPhoto. I need to be able to easily arrange the photos into actual folders so I can get some of them off my hard drive. Suggestions?

Two iPad questions:

I assume people will say AppleCare is worth it? My greatest fear with this thing is dropping it.

And related to that, anyone have a particular case they particularly like for protection purposes?

I have found my iPad much more durable than originally anticipated. I have the Zagg bluetooth keyboard case. Works great. Not sure I'd say it protects it all that much. I will say, I do not move fast, and don't typically have butter fingers, so dropping hasn't been minimal. It has survived several drops from waist high, to laminate/cement floor. They were "belly flops". The only times I've seen the screens crack, were drops on the corner, and very few cases have all that great of protection there. And those drops on corners, do not take a lot of height to crack the screen.

I've dropped mine a few times with no ill effect. I have the wifi version, so don't really take it anywhere, but had no need for a case or for AppleCare 1.5 years later.

Hmm. So maybe I just get a decent (not insane) case and not bother with AppleCare. I do tend to have butter fingers.