My PC might arrive early next week, so now it's time to think about a laptop. J wants something that she can take to meetings etc, since she has all her meetings away from the home office.
Personally, the only things I take to meetings are a notepad (to make notes about stuff that needs to be done), a mobile phone (in case I am late, or I can't find the meeting place or the other party), a magazine (to read if I am early or the other party is late) and money to buy coffee.
I have never really seen anyone succesfully use a laptop in a meeting. I find that I can scribble notes in my notepad without tuning out of the meeting, but if I use a laptop (to take minutes), I tune out and lose the thread - which is pretty stupid if you are the one taking the minutes. I just can't multi-task. I certainly can't do something and listen to someone else. My brain just doesn't work that way - it focuses on one thing and one thing only. I can't spin off a subroutine to do something else whilst my focus is on the thing at hand.
A couple of blokes at work used to take their laptops to boring meetings, tap into the wireless network and then send each other emails along the lines of "This is the most boring presentation I have sat through this week", or "Fuckhead is sprouting shit again" (except they would have to do that with IM as our email system picks up naughty words and you get told off if you use them, especially to call a fuckhead a fuckhead).
I would not have called that the most useful and financially sound use of company property, but it helped to pass the time. Thankfully, I no longer have to deal with that particular fuckhead, so I am in no hurry to buy a laptop. I am quite content to pull out my mobile and play "snake" on it during boring meetings.
The blackberry threatened to take over as the boredom conquering machine for a while, but the beauty of a laptop is you can use the lid as a shield to hide from the boring git on the other side of the table. Plus, if you are sitting next to someone equally bored and in a similar frame of mind, you can swivel it a bit to show them some juicy comment from the other laptop user down the table, like "Stupid has had too much coffee this morning and has migrated to his alternate universe again".
Quite frankly, the only useful tool to take to a meeting is a pistol. Fuckwits should be dealt with summarily.
Failing a pistol, the other useful gizmo that I have heard of is very simple - it's two cards, a red one and a yellow one. Say something stupid, or get into a fight, and you get a yellow card. Do it again, and you are red carded - out of the meeting. I am usually more sneaky than that - I just don't invite people who are likely to be a pain in the arse. But I do like the red card idea. The bloke that used it could get away with it because he was the GM of the company that he worked for, so people had to obey, and he was also a big bastard, and could toss people out if need be.
I would just have to settle for a pistol.
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