However, I think you might be using your laptop suboptimally. For me, my laptop is always either sleeping (suspend to RAM) or active. I almost never leave it in shut down mode. So, putting it too sleep takes about 5 seconds, and resuming from sleep takes about 5 seconds as well. This is far better than a clean shutdown taking 20 seconds, and a cold boot taking 1 minute. Secondly, if I needed to check e-mail, I would keep Outlook/Thunderbird always running, so that it doesn't need to read the program and e-mails from disk again and again.

With these in place, this is how I would check my e-mail: Turn on laptop (5 seconds), log in (5 seconds), connect to Wi-Fi (about a minute), hit Sync button on e-mail client (10 seconds), done. The Wi-Fi is unfortunately the slowest part, and it is beyond my control.

I insist on using my laptop to do these things because I can't justify buying an iPhone/iPad/smartphone. I'm trying to extract as much value from my laptop as possible.

But really, your problem is not the laptop. It's Outlook.

Why?

At the end of the day, we've got a very heavy software payload working to give us the ability to work with our computers offline. (The cloud sort of sucks in that environment, after all.)

The problem is, more and more people have little need to work offline. I'm in the minority on that – I don't want to pay for multiple 3G connections I don't need, tethering is cool but still a fumble and I also live in a rural area where all broadband choices are patchy and don't work the first time 100% of the time.

Software also assumes I need "everything" while offline. What if iTunes was architected to not show me artwork if the background process hadn't finished processing them?

Here's the problem: it's considered acceptable for software to lock up and be unavailable while doing the "catchup" process that doesn't benefit the user. SSDs, faster processors, more memory, all of that is great – but at the end of the day, software needs to be architected to do background work without an immediate benefit to the user IN THE BACKGROUND while the computer is fully idle.

This is not primarily an OS architecture issue as much as it is an app architecture issue. OS X is lighter weight because Apple is better at drawing lines in the sand and saying "we won't support old tech in our new tech."

I love Windows 7. If Microsoft had the guts to ship a version that could only run Vista and 7-compatible apps, I'll bet that would be a lightweight OS that could beat OS X on boot and wake times.

Nothing is going to beat iPad for a long time. It has no tail of compatibility to load.

fyi – as goes Verizon, so goes Sprint. I learned from a very senior Sprint exec last year (neither Verizon nor Sprint publicizes this) that Sprint has a "silent roaming agreement" with Verizon. So when you fall off of Sprint, you're actually using Verizon's network. That explains to me, how much smaller Sprint is able to maintain such a strong nationwide footprint – even when I'm out in HI, their footprint is huge. I can't tell the difference when i'm traveling, between Verizon and Sprint – i've switched back and forth 3 times, the past two years. AT&T is a whole nuther' story.

Things *sizzles* on the iPad, as a way to manage lists of actions pending. You can drag todo's by their handles, up and down in the lists; it's a great multi-touch interface. There are hundreds of GTD apps out there, I've tried many of them but this one gets my vote as the best for heavy day-to-day use. I have a blog post and demo video in the works about it. This one app, for me justifies the cost of an iPad. The MBP and iPad data can be kept coherent using the Things' built-in synchronization function. They are working on more seamless web syncing.

Another obscure, but sweet app for OSX is BBEdit, for managing your code – it's the closest thing I've found to a windows-based version of the trusty old command-driven "vi" editor – ultra-robust, smart text editor for coders. And there's the OMNI suite – I prefer THINGS over OmniFocus, which is overly complex and hard to use. But the OmniPlan app, and OmniGraffle apps rock – the latter for wireframing, diagramming, or doodling during Board meetings. Both on OSX, and coming to the iPad.

Also on my short list of recommendations: pick up a copy of Adobe Creative Suite CS5, mostly for Photoshop & Illustrator; install the free Evernote OS X and iPad clients; and subscribe to/install BackBlaze, the only online back-up service for Macs (that I've found) which not only backs up your internal drive, but also every external drive that it finds connected via USB or Firewire – and no backup size limits.

I don't get the part about not taking the EVO. That thing's a portable hotspot, and in Alaska you're bound to need it. For example, to covertly download a programming book onto your iPad when you're out and about:) But maybe you have the 3G iPad. I run a Wi-Fi iPad, so no monthly charge for data, but with the EVO i have either 3G or 4G service on the iPad now – with no cap or over-runs on the data plan (thanks, Sprint).

[I intended this reply for "A Month of Mac" - looks like somehow it ended up on the prior post "Rethinking the Laptop]