Beer Drinking Dog <photodoglv@yahoo.com> wrote in news:SGrgk.2869
$KI7.1302@newsfe08.iad:

There are lots of VoIP programs to run on it, notably Skype, which has a
special program for it to streamline Skype for the tablet's touchscreen
and Gizmo, the Linux phone app that's ported to it to connect it to a
wide variety of systems.

Many IM apps from Linux also have been ported to the tablets.

Skype is the reason I initially bought it.  The pocket Skype phones have
no browser so cannot logon to commercial free wifi hotspots.  The tablet
has a full 800 pixel wide Mozilla browser, which easily solved this
issue.  But, it's very addictive and has gone way beyond my Skype use of
it.

The tablet connects to a Bluetooth enabled Sellphone, in my case the
Motorola ROKR Z6m on Alltel.  This way, I get to choose whether to carry
around the computer....or not, which is many times more appropriate in
different situations.  The Z6m is tiny, works very well as a camera, MP3
player, sellphone and BT DUN modem for EVDO broadband....such as
sellphone data is, far less than real wifi.

If I have an accident, I whip out the tiny Z6m, press the button on the
side, the phone says, "Say a Command" and I say, "Call 911" while trying
to extract my broken body from the plane wreckage before the inevitable
explosion and fire.....same as everyone else.

It's not really "lugging around" the Z6m.  It's FINDING where it's
hiding in my pocket that's more the issue.  I know it's around me
somewheres because the PHONE icon on the tablet shows the tablet is
connected to the internet through it.  There's a cure for that, too!  
Boot Skype and call the sellphone number.  The sellphone starts ringing
like one of those TV remote control finders and I say, "Aha...left front
pocket!  Got it!"

Blackberry is fine if you only need the simplest of webpages and email.  
it's a nice business tool for that.  But, I used to carry a laptop
around so I had entertainment and computing power like word processing,
media players, games and enough storage for a cache of music and DivX
movies.  The tablet does all of these very well on its 800 pixel wide
screen, even full length DivX movies played by mplayer from both of its
twin 16GB SDHC Class 6 memory cards...one internal and one external.  
Popping the card into its USB adapter allows me to fill the tablet's
memory cards with more music, movies, videos, documents, ebooks,
magazines, etc. by simply booting any file handler and using its copy
facility.  We play no silly locked up media games on the little Linux
tablets.  Anything downloaded from alt.binaries newsgroups plays
directly, but I usually, to save space on huge Divx movies, use a JAVA-
based media converter on the WinXP box to reduce the size of the movies
from 1.4GB to 380MB which is more appropriate for the tablet's storage
and smaller screen.  The downconverted movies also won't overrun the
processor with more programs running in background checking email,
downloading weather updates to OMWeather, checking for application
upgrades, etc.  Real Linux multitasks in such a tiny environment very
well with its extremely compact program code.

Lunch today consisted of a wonderful Chinese buffet full of local
Charleston shrimp and crab dishes out of our estuaries mixed with
delicious Chinese foods prepared by a family who owns the place from
Hong Kong PRC...while watching Chinese Music Television from Bejing to
the delight of the black haired beautiful Chinese girls hanging around
my table astonished at the Chinese TV reception on the tiny tablet.  
Wifi to some really serious bandwidth was compliments of the boiler room
telco spammers in the next door unit of the shopping center who left
their Linksys on Channel 6 open and usable at my table.  Thanks, guys!

Now stuffed on shrimp....I've taken the liberty to tap into the minikeg
of my small fridge next to the XP Box and pour myself some Heinekens
made by Dutch craftsmen for several hundred years...(c;

Life is Good!

Beer is Great!