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

Let's see if I can explain in the limited time I have; if I don't finish, I'll come back later or tomorrow. Have hubby's last chemo & radiation today. In my office I have a dual boot Windows machine - running XP (pro I think) and Vista. I also have the Mac. I have not tried to put Windows of any flavor on the Mac; it was on my list of things to do. I was going to buy the program verses what's on the Mac. My pain management Dr did it; he had some issues with drivers. Not sure if he did XP or Vista. The Mac worked fine at 1st. I was able to Network; I was able to access the Windows machine both sides. When on the Windows PC; I was able to access the Mac from both. I'm not sure what changed and when but eventually I wasn't able to access either puter - I made user accounts on Windows (both sides) and now am able to access Windows (both sides) from the Mac. The problem is accessing the Mac from Windows. Granted, it very well may be me; because I haven't been as "heavy" into building & using the computer since we moved. The most I do is work with pictures; for that I use Windows because the Mac photo program confuses me. I like Windows much better all the way around because of ease of use; software works & I can do things without reading a manual. With the Mac, I feel so stupid some days. I haven't installed anything except firefox.. forgot how. lol It's so simple too from what I remember but I have to get the dummy book to do it again. lol One thing that will not work on the Mac is my Microsoft Works. All of my medical databases are made with works. I looked for a Mac plug in (reader) but they don't have one. I also don't want to have to replace my full Office suite.

One caution: Flash drives contain a "keep alive" battery. That battery may be good for 10 yrs or more, but it is one of the weak points. Beware that sometimes a store may have on sale older drives they wish to move off the shelf. Before you purchase a 'bargain' drive check its date of manufacture on the packaging. If the drive is 5 years old, it is better to buy a newer unit. The memory junctions do wear out. Those are good for about 10,000 writes and rewrites. That's old information so I expect there has been improvements, however, those will eventually wear out. Manufacturers have done a clever thing. internally, these drives contain a program that control writing process. To improve the life of the unit, the internal control shifts the partition and moves the write location so that with use the entire drive gets used, not just the front end. Most of the time, a drive has more space than what is stored on it, so shifting the data location extends life of the junctions by shifting the data location. These drives are just fine for data storage and composing letters with a word processor, or storing photos. I do not recommend using them for active gaming where thousands of rewrites occur during a game session. Its ok for storing the game's data file, but for playing, copy the data files to the hard drive and when the game is done, copy the new data files back to the flash dive.

Probably. This is actually a pretty common failure mode for a battery. Computers and other devices that indicate a battery percentage calculate that percentage by comparing the battery's voltage to a table of standard voltage values correlating to different levels of charge for that particular battery. When your battery is showing 90 percent it's being charged because the computer is plugged in, and the computer is being powered by line current from the electrical outlet. As soon as you pull the plug this puts the battery under load, and its voltage drops very quickly, most likely due to high internal resistance in the battery. Your computer was fooled into thinking that the battery was 90 percent charged because the voltage attained a value that in a good battery would indicate 90 percent charge, but in this battery it doesn't. Notebook computer batteries can fail fairly quickly if they're left charging constantly, as many are. Newer computers may have better charging control circuits to somewhat lessen the effects of this, but a good battery-saving practice is still to unplug a notebook computer when you're not using it rather than leaving it plugged in 24/7. (This is because, even with charging control circuits, the computer will keep the battery topped back up to 100 percent every time it drops a percent or two, creating repeated charge/discharge cycles that shorten a battery's life.) For a rarely used device, recharge the battery often enough to prevent it from sitting in a deeply-discharged state. Leaving a battery sit "dead" a long time can also damage it.