Hardware

Pamela has a flip phone and her dad has an iPhone 4S. She tries to text, but it doesn't work right. Texts come out in gibberish. Leo says it's odd that the flipphone is messed up because SMS is good on all platforms. So that doesn't make any sense. Pam can use the iPod Touch if she has Wi-Fi access to do it. It only will work through Apple's iMessage, also. Pam can get other apps like What'sApp, Google Chat, or Skype, which all would handle messaging.

Lynette watched all of the speeches at Google I/O this week, and thought all the talk of the Google environment was interesting. She was thinking about getting a Chromebook but doesn't know if it'll run Java because she loves playing games online. Leo says she'd have to hack the Chromebook to get Java on it, and Leo doesn't advise that. She should just look at a regular laptop.

Bob is a computer consultant and he's been dealing with the challenge of recommending computers with the low margins and cheap service. He's very frustrated. Leo says that the problem is that most computers are made overseas and even the support is marginal at best. The only real solution is to buy the additional support package. Also, there needs to be an outcry for the manufacturers to take issues seriously. This is why Leo buys from major retailers because they'll back it. He also thinks that this is why people are choosing tablets, rather then computers.