When I was a kid, a tablet was basically several sheets of paper bound to a stiff cardboard backing by a coating of glue across the top. You could easily use the top sheet then cleanly tear it off and have a fresh unused sheet ready to use.

Even the word notebook was different. I used a notebook to hold multiple sheets of paper in one place. The notebook had a series of clasps inside and the paper would a corresponding number of holes prepunched in it to insert between the rings. You could release the rings and remove or re-order the pages easily. Now the children have to call them binders and a notebook is just another type of computer.

So I still have to maintain a separate calendar. I wish I could customize the Facebook calendar and add in the ones that I want.

If I have a full hour to spend on R&R I’ll try to find a good partner and play one or two Spades games. If I only have a few minutes I’ll play something fast, like backgammon or cribbage. Sometimes I like the cutthroat strategies of Hearts to sharpen my mind. These are not time wasters as much as they are mental exercises to keep me alert and sharpen my critical thinking skills.

Well, since school is out for the summer, I thought it would be a great idea for him to build his own computer from a Do It Yourself kit. That way he can pick and choose exactly what components he wants and he will learn a lot from the hands on experience of putting together a computer.

I’ve heard a lot of people fussing about bugs in the VISTA program, but to be honest, I’ve been using VISTA for over a year and I love it. Knock on wood – I’ve not had any problems with it. There have been a couple of odd things, but usually when I restart the computer everything is back to the way it should be.

I think my only concern with the VISTA and the way I use my home PC is that sometimes I like to take a break and step away from the computer, leaving multiple windows open so I can resume my work later. But a few times when I come back to the computer, it has automatically downloaded updates and has restarted the computer on its own. So all my windows get closed and that ticks me off.

She’ll be turning the extra bedroom into a home office so she can do more work from home and not have to pay for child care, plus she’ll be saving cash by not having to commute. Of course, setting up the home office will take a bit of cash, but you can’t make money if you don’t spend money.

We’ll be underwriting some of the home office equipment to help her out. Since we are on a tight budget, we are looking for ways to save as much money as we can, yet we can’t always get the cheapest products – there are some quality and reliability issues to consider as well as price.

A great source for money saving coupons is a website I found online. There are a variety of coupons to save significant money on Dell small business computers. We are also going to need some home office furniture, at the very least a computer desk and task chair.

I’m not sure which way to advise her on a printer for her new home office. I haven’t had much luck with the last ones I’ve bought. At the moment I’m using a cheap laser printer that only prints black and white, but it is a workhorse and I can use refilled toner cartridges, which saves a lot of money. I think for the sake of just getting started, she should probably have one like what I’m using, and when she starts making money she can upgrade to a color printer later.

Some of the improvements expected are:

1. Downloadable hot hit tunes from within the game to your own iPod or MP3 player

2. New graphics engine with more details and less load times

3. New cell phone for communication between characters and more activities for the characters, such as throwing darts, drinking beers, bowling, etc.

4. New multiplayer mode that allows up to 16 other players in a game.

5. New, more accurate targeting for shooters.

So I thought it would be good to buy another one just like for the home office and we can give the old PC to our grandson. He has just started school and he loves to play with letters and numbers, he can read a couple hundred “sight words” and he like to play with numbers, too. I’ve shown him how to get online to play a couple of good children’s sites games, like Thomas the Train and Dora the Explorer. He can even play a couple simple card games. We are so proud of him!

So I’ve searched everywhere for this Slimline PC and can’t find it for sale anywhere!

Well, I play a quick game on the computer. I have my favorites but I’m always willing to try something new and see if I am any good at it. Fifteen minutes is just about right to play a game and forget about the world at hand. You focus on shooting targets or gobbling up pacman dots or whatever, and when you are done you can take a deep breath and jump back into your work with a clear mind and a better attitude.

This will be a strategic move to try to regain Motorola’s #2 position in world-wide sales. Multi-faceted Samsung holds the #1 spot and LG is currently in #2.

The invisibleSHIELD case is invisible and invincible – the shield does not scratch and protects your cell phones and MP3 players, digital cameras, etc from getting scratched. It has a “grippy” feel, which even makes it less likely to slip out of your hands or get dropped. There are case designs to fit over 2,000 branded electronics, and if they don’t have exactly what you need they are willing to custom make it for you.

If you are looking for an iphone case you should check out the invisibleSHIELD website and watch the cool online video demo.

The Bay Area is a magnet for biotechnology as well as the southern neighbor of San Jose being Silicon Valley with the world headquarters of Yahoo, Google, EBay and dozens of others. The only big boy missing from this gathering is Microsoft, based in Seattle.

What’s missing from all this development are good restaurants. Most eateries are little local holes in the wall that you have to just put down your money and take your chances. In the six months I lived there, the best place I ate dinner was a national chain, Romanos Macaroni Grill. The food was top notch and the service was excellent. Now I search out Romanos in other cities when I have a craving for good Italian food.

This is true for Pragma Systems, too. This company was founded in 1990 to design, develop and port networking software for the big corporations, like Sony, Boeing, HP, Motorola and dozens more of the Fortune 500 companies that we all know and recognize.

First, to be completely honest, I don’t have a desk. LOL I use a narrow 2′ x 5′ table designed for adult classrooms. It does not have any drawers, and the legs are recessed to give you knee room. It was free, and I love the light colored wood top, which matches my living room and dining room blond furniture – a tough finish to find in furniture stores these days.

So at this moment, on my table is:

• an Epson printer,
• my HP slimline desktop PC and flat screen monitor, keyboard, mouse
• a small table lamp with shade,
• a string of mardi gras beads draped over the lampshade,
• my National Guard dog tags also draped over the lampshade,
• Nashville Predators mousepad
• a large ceramic coffee mug from California that I use as a pencil and pen holder,
• a little robot-looking gizmo with arms and legs that was supposed to hold a hand sanitizer pump – but I use it as a cell phone holder,
• my ironstone mug from 107.5 The River with my hot tea,
• a bottle of Aquafina Flavor Splash water that Hubby bought for me to try last night and just gave me
• and behind my monitor where Hubby can reach it from the couch is the remote control to the TV.

I’m so glad I cleaned off this sucker last weekend! If she had asked me this question on Friday, the list would have been four times longer!

In the less than two minutes it takes to go from the computer desk in the living into the kitchen to retrieve a cup of hot tea, a 5 year old can wipe out your list of bookmarks and change the settings of the desktop display, increase the display font size and delete the last 6 downloaded albums.

And let’s not even talk about how jelly got down in between the keys of my keyboard.

Of course the same principal for video websites and small plasma screens could be done so at anytime someone could touch the screen to start the video would be really neat as well. Anyways if you like to see photos then this is the place for you, like it is me.

Of course video downloading is becoming very popular to and is going to take off just like blu-ray over the next couple of years.

I would appreciate any suggestions from your own experience. Does your own child play this game and like it? What part of the game is the most interesting to your child? What do you like or dislike about it from a parent’s perspective?

Please let me know if you are recommending the game for either a boy or a girl.

Thanks so much!