Impressions of the iPad

Let's just say that I spend most of my waking hours working on a
computer and good number of hours each week in genealogy related tasks. I
am always interested at anything that might make my life a little
faster or easier, although I would debate whether or not computers
really make life any easier. Since I have been working on a hourly rate
and keeping track of my time for over 35 years, I am acutely aware of
how much time it takes to perform tasks on a computer. For many years, I
would almost instantly upgrade my computers every time there was an
appreciable increase in computing speed. Finally, a few years ago, I got
to the point with my genealogy files, including all my scanned images,
that all of the computers seemed slow. Although all computers are "fast"
in some sense, as you work on a machine for a while, you find out that
most of the time you are waiting for the computer to perform some
function. There is acceptable waiting and unacceptable waiting.

Waiting is unacceptable when you realize that a faster computer would perform
the function faster. Some things do not necessarily speed up with a
faster computer, for example, I can only input information into the
computer as fast as I can type and no matter how fast the computer is,
my typing is still pretty slow and the computer is waiting for me all
the time. On the other hand, if I scan a photograph into the computer
and then want to edit it somehow, like lighten the image or even repair
or remove scratches or other artifacts, I end up waiting for the
computer all the time. If I am caught waiting for a computer to load a
file or make a change in Adobe Photoshop, then I am not a happy camper. I
am constantly looking for more processing power and more speed.
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