iPads and Tablets

[#1]

Thanks for this. I am looking at one now with Misco.  About £540.  Does that sound a reasonable price ?
One other question.  With Android, do you have to download "Apps" for everything ?  I know absolutely zero about "Apps" - it's just a word I keep hearing.  Are they expensive and are there things like Open Office etc. that can be switched between PC and tablet ?

[#2]

You should be able to get it for £500, plus delivery.  Supply still seems somewhat limited as it was only released in the UK about 6 weeks ago.
As with the iPad,  most of the functionality is provided with app(lication)s.  The price depends on what you want to do,  and which app you're interested in.  The only snag with both platforms is that most 'apps' are actually games..        The A.T.P. has access to the Android Marketplace ,  where prices range from free to  alot more!
 
Regarding Office Documents, Android devices tend to ship with Polaris Office,  which is mostly compatible with MS Office,  which Open/Libre Office supports. 
On the Libre Office front,  they currently have a viewer available,  but are working on a fully functional app.

[#3]

Thanks for the info.  This changes everything because frankly I had written off a tablet of any sort for various reasons and decided to go down the netbook route !
However, one final question.  I back up my data onto an external hard disk (a laptop hard disk) which plugs into the USB port.  I belive that the A.T.P has a USB port.  Would it therefore in principle be able to read the files on my extrenal hard disk ?

[#4]

I've only tried a USB Flash Drive, which works fine.  A quick search shows  that it does support USB hard drives.
If you want to see what Apps are available and what they cost,    visit http://market.android.com

[#5]

I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab running Android. I won it in a competition.
I would never buy one of these things. They are little more than toys for grown ups. My Nokia N900 phone is far more powerful and useful. I use the tab for checking whether I have any emails I need to deal with and whether any of my servers need attention. I then run up my netbook to carry out the work.
One use of the tablet is to control my home. My home is controlled by clicking on icons on a web application. This works very well on a tablet.
I have deleted most of the applications that came with the tablet, turned off the Samsung market. I am now trying to load up debian so that it is more useful.

[#6]

Some more about this samsung galaxy tab.
It should make a good web browser but the installed one is rubbish and athough I did download Opera it came in the mobile version. However it is very fast and this is about the best thing it does.
It should make a good music player. There are actually 2 installed. My music is served using uPNP and is encoded in FLAC or OGG. One of the music players works but only if the music file is loaded onto the tablet. The other music player picks up the server and recognises the music files but will not play them. Both my Nokia N900 and linux computer play these without any problem. So it fails here.
It should make an excellent video phone when connected to wifi. It has good cameras on both front and back. However, it doesn't come with any instant messaging applications and those I loaded from the android market before I lost patience were voice and data only. By contrast, my computer comes with empathy, which supports gtalk, voip and skype, and my Nokia N900 also supports gtalk, voip and skype. So it fails here.
Has anyone any idea of what these tablets are for???? It does looks very nice though.

[#7]

Just a thought, but for me the joy of android is being able to root it and flash different roms and play about with the OS itself. Don't get me wrong, this is in no way supported by google or samsung but it will get you extra functionality and may well turn the tab into something you do use - I know one guy here who uses one as his mobile phone and loves it.
Anyway, the best place for all things android is XDA developers - http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=807 is the development forum but there's a list of all device specific forums here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/
If you're into that sort of thing, or like the idea (after all you won it in a competition and the only other thing you could do if you don't want to use it or give it away is sell it - which might be worth thinking about, I'd be surprised if you got less than £250) I'd recommend having a browse through the development forum just to get an idea of the different roms that are available and what they might offer that the current one doesn't.
Hope that helps.

[#8]

Matt,
We have two netbooks, three arm based servers, a mobile phone and an internet tablet all running Debian GNU/Linux all of which we can play with to our hearts content.
These came with inbuilt ability to gain root access without going through a strange power on sequence. While it is true that I had to build the netbooks, this wasn't very difficult - just a matter of booting from a DVD. I fail to understand while I cannot ssh to the Galaxy Pad and then gain root access - this is how I manage the servers and mobile phone.
Anyway, I have found that the Samsung Galaxy Pad makes an excellent switch. Thus I can use it for switching lighting, opening and closing curtains and switching on or off the TV.

[#9]

petertuson
I am intrigued to know how this "switching" works.  I am not technical enough to know - yet !
I have a second home where I use a DTMF signaller via the ordinary PSTN to turn my central heating on and off in cold weather.  The problem with DTMF is that line quality can sometimes make connection difficult - especially, it seems, in cold weather (when I need it most) when I sometimes cannot connect at all.  During this last winter, there were several times when I could not connect at night because it was sub-zero, and would have to wait until the sun had warmed the atmosphere in the morning.  I should add that the telephone cable is overhead, and we are a long way from the telephone exchange, way out in the sticks.
But I do have broadband there, and, while it is only 500 Mb, I can do just about everything, day or night.  For instance, I have a web camera which works fine.  The broadband is not affected in the same way as the DTMF.  So if there is a way of simply activating a contacter to open an electrical circuit direct to the boiler, this might solve my problem.  Any clues would be appreciated !

[#10]

Do any of these items have a configurable firewall?

[#11]

Shermans
I use X-10 within my house to control lighting, TV, curtains etc. I have never tried to control the boiler because I don't like remotely controlling furnaces. X-10 sends signals between electrical devices through the powerline; there are other methods (Z-wave etc) but I started with X-10 a long time ago.
I use one of my linux servers (a sheevaplug) to control the switching of the lighting etc - it does this by sending and receiving signals over the powerline. I also have an RF receiver connected to the server so that it can receive wireless signals from other types of switches (e.g. the ones that B&Q sold for a while). The way my system works is that a light switch sends a signal to the server and it decides what to do. This is usually to turn on or off a light but could be more complicated, e.g. at night turning of the side lights in the living room turns on the hallway lighting, turns of all the living room lighting and turns off the TV.
Then I wrote a web application on the server that allows me to control the electrical devices through the web. This presents icons showing the current state of the device and touching the icon changes the state of the device - and the icon changes appropriately. I can also request the status and change state using e-mail or SMS.
I am thinking about improving the control of my heating system though. Mainly to reduce the cost of it. Conrad (www.conrad.com) appear to provide the right sort of components,  and FHEM (fhem.de) appears to provide the software to control them. Just need to persuade SWMBO that it is worth it in economic terms. The idea is to use programmable thermostats on radiators to control the temperature in a room while the room thermostat tells the boiler if it needs heat. The boiler turns on whenever a room needs heat and because the thermostats (i.e. radiators) are shut off in rooms at their set temperature only the room needing heat gets it. With proper computer control, I could set the temperatures in all the rooms for different days and times, and, if necessary override it remotely. I estimate costs to be about £50 per room plus £100 for the boiler control (this goes in parallel with the overall room thermostat).
My heating is currently controlled with a single programmable thermstat in the middle of the house. I have programmed it for weekend and weekday use as we go out to work. This thermostat changes the set point temperature over time according to rules I put in it. I then leave the central heating system on all the time. I then never let the internal temperature (at the thermostat) drop below 14 degrees C. This may be more suitable for your problem.

[#12]

IanSn,
I do have configurable firewalls (iptables) on all my servers.
I used openvas to assess their vulnerabilities and removed all the microsoft compatibility bits. I have only exposed http and https to the internet.
I don't have firewalls or virus tools on the user devices (netbook, phone). Clamav has never shown anything.