Thriving with a Tablet

I got me a tablet. Or as Register prefers to call it, a fondle-slab.

This Groupon, got things rolling for me. The price point was close enough, that I could get into the world of tablets without the worry that I'd have a super-expensive paper weight if I figured the fondle-slab form factor was not for me.

First impressions, the Thrive is a great device. Feels a tad chunky coming out of the box, but on the flip side, the rubberized back feels very safe and the thickness allows it to be gripped well. One is not constantly worried that it is a matter of time before sweat on your palm will cause the tablet to slip.

Logging in with your Google account means that all of your data comes synchronized right away. All your contacts are in the contacts app, Gmail is up and running and the Photo viewer displays all your Picasa albums - all with no further configuration from you. I know this is true of all Android gadgets, but the effect is scary and giddy at the same time.

Final first impression - the screen. The 10.1 inch display packs in a resolution of 1280 by 800 pixels. The device is powered by the NVIDIA Tegra chip, withe graphics handled by a GeForce card. This graphics focused setup churns out crisp and smooth graphics, without a hint of hesitation. The resolution is so good, that looking at my made-for-web 600x400 crops from Picasa in full screen, made them look - ugly. The capacitive multi-touch screen is very responsive, making the user interface thus far, a real pleasure.

Local start-ups on the WWW

BodyShopBids.com is an interesting website, with a lot of potential. If you are ever in an auto kerfuffle, and need some body work done, this seems like a great way to get some bids to fix the damage without a lot of driving around.

I recently got into one such scrape myself, and when a friend suggested this site. I was naturally overjoyed. So, I created an account, took photos of the damage and created a report.

As it turns out the site is predominantly focused on the Chicago area, and did not have too many body shops signed up near me. While the guy from the company who called me up was definitely super-nice about it, the whole experience got me thinking of the travails of start-ups that connect physical world with that part of the world online.

There are some problems shipping can solve, but for something like this, the only answer is a Groupon-scale company. And without the scale, it is life between a rock and a hard place. Do you advertise your limitations on the site, and have potential customer's lose interest? Or spend a lot of time on the flip side, telling users that the service is not available in their area?

While you figure that out, I'll be hoping BSB comes soon to a body shop nearby.