Raven-- I live in a no man's land between Time Warner Road Runner, six miles south, and Fios, six miles north. I am surrounded by beautiful farms and most of them are owned by Mennonites, who aren't likely to use the internet unless they run a business that demands the service. The area is sparsely populated and there is zero plan for any cable to come our way. I have to use TDS for my land phone and DSL, and DISH for TV. I am retired and have all day free most of the time. There is no competition for the poor folks living in Conquest, NY and I believe TDS takes advantage of that. Thanks for the idea of adding another fan to my tower. I do periodically clean it because I have three cats. It has run hot from the day I got it and it doesn't help that my computer and TV are located in my double wide's smallest room. I absolutely hate using a touch pad instead of a mouse, and I have a wireless mouse for my netbook when I take it on vacation. I don't do anything on my Kindle except order and read books so a lack of keyboard isn't an issue. I was hoping that a good tablet would have a touch screen so I could avoid having to use a touch pad to select programs or mail. My house is 44 feet long and the router/WiFi I have works well in all rooms. I was recently on vacation in Maine where I met up with my son from California. He is a whiz on his iPhone and I would like to be able to manipulate images the way he can on his phone. Clearly, if I wanted to write more than a few words I would go back to the PC. Other than checking email and the weather frequently throughout the day, I always check my bank accounts, credit cards and all the monthly bills I pay online. I use two to four credit cards on a daily basis because I charge everything I possible can, paying cash only to the small vendors who insist on cash payments. I always pay my credit cards in full at the end of the month, so using them doesn't cost me anything. I go for the perks offered by the cards and since I never pay any interest, any benefits I receive are totally free to me. I wait until I am eligible to receive 1% cash back and then collect my "free" money. I really think I would enjoy having a tablet with me so I can check the above mentioned information whenever I have a spare minute. It would make waiting through commercials on TV less annoying. Nancy

I never wanted a smart phone either. But I wound up with a Blackberry because my regular, dumb phone died and Verizon offered a free Blackberry. I absolutely love it and wonder how I every lived without it. It is so much better than getting emails on the computer. Its instant, on the phone plus you don't log on and all that stuff. It has so many features, I love playing with them and do use many. It has a tiny keyboard, but I type like a kid with it. My daughter has a IPhone and I didn't like it at all. There is no keyboard and I can't type on the screen. I get the cheapest data plan and 700 minutes. It still is over $100 for my Blackberry and my husbands 'dumb phone,' but I love the phone. I use it more for internet than I do for phone calls. I can do my banking, check the stock market, use apps for shopping, scanning...all sorts of things. My kids have IPads and although they are pretty and very neat to use, I really have no use for them. I love my Blackberry and just hope the company, RIM, doesn't go under. Jane

cathrugg--my DH is in IT as well. He helped to some degree with set-up, but not all that much. Not only doesn't/hasn't he used Apple devices, he has been super, super busy lately, so I've been figuring out a lot of this on my own (some trial and error, some via internet queries and searches). I might have email set to manual already, have to check. My Push notifications might be on though, so that might override the ability to set email settings? Brightness set to auto, I believe (automatically dims in lower light situations). Have to check maps setting. I have iPad locator "on", but I think my other locator settings are off. Running down the battery, and then fully charging it (leaving it on the charger an add'l 20-30 min past reaching 100%), helped a great deal. Now if it's 100% when I go to bed, it's either still 100% when I get up, or it's only down 1% or 2%. It also stopped dropping by 10% or more by the afternoon when it's sitting unused all day. Made a big difference. I'll take a look at the things you mentioned and report back! I really am enjoying mine. Would love to have the 4G of the newly unveiled iPad (I'm spoiled with the speed of our home Wi-Fi, so using my iPad on 3G when I have to, does seem a little slow to me at times). When I get a 4G phone and use that as my "hot spot" though, it shouldn't really matter. Not sure how much diff the A5X chip/quad core processor will make vs the A5 chip in the iPad 2, though the demo at the big unveiling yesterday supposedly showed a big diff in speed. Would love to compare the screen resolutions (iPad 2 vs new iPad) side-by-side, to see how visible the difference really is to my eyes. Would not be happy with the increase in weight and thickness, so all in all, I don't feel too bad about getting an iPad 2 instead of waiting for the new one. Mine's 32 GB, which won't be available in the iPad 2 with the release of the new one, so I guess mine will be a collector's item soon! LOL

Thanks Caroline I brought my iPod over to the laptop so I can add some non-games that I use. Utilities Apzilla 2 has all sorts of different utilities, most of them are worthwhile. Some you might never use. Even though Apzilla has it I also have MyLite (a flashlight) and a Free Level program. (a level for hanging pictures straight)and Free Space, a program that tells you how much room is left on your iPod and battery info. Capacity is another program that does this. Free Wi-Fi tells you when you travel where there is free wi-fi you can log into. 5-0 Radio Pro is a fun Police and Fire scanner so you can listen for any calls that come out in your city or even places in your country. My hearing isn't the best and sometimes the talking isn't too clear for me but it is fun listening to the information. It can run in the background. Shopwise is a program that tells you certain deals. I have World Atlas and Google Earth. Book Crawler is a program that lets you keep track of all of your books. iPlant is a gardening book that is quite good. For notes I use Awesome Notes. MyStuff2 is a neat inventory program I haven't used yet. I use IOwn and Iconic Notes, but I don't think either of those are available now. Someday I will transfer everything over. Ian's Laces as Caroline mentioned is fun but there also is a program called Tie a Scarf for women' scarves. Holiday List is also a great Christmas gift planner. AppSniper and AppShopper are two programs I use occasionally. They tell you the new programs that are out. A lot of programs are free for a short time before they start to charge and these programs as well as others will let you know this. I have a lot of medical programs and photography programs as well but this thread is getting long.