The Core

This is better than HP just killing it, or selling it to somebody who will never use it in a production device.  I still want a WebOS phone. Bad.

Well tell them to convince somebody to put webOS on a phone, slab type please. One, each.  Cos right now our choices are only so-so: Windows Phone which still does not do major updates OTA; Android loaded with IQCarrier plus Google spyware; iOS the walled garden.

Sigh.

Thanks Brad, Zite is very cool. (free) makes a magazine style output of news categories you pick.

Touch Surf looks good too, I'll probably grab that as well. ($1) Bookmarking/surfing tool.

You can now make your Touchpad dual boot with Android.

http://forums.webosnation.com/android-touchpad/310720-cm9-touchpad-heres-your-get-started-guide-27.html

It is Alpha, but seems stable. A friend made his dual boot and reports no problems other than the usual annoyance of having to switch between OS's.. I did my 9 mos in the trenches as an Android phone user and dumped it for a new webOS Pre3 phone I bought on eBay so I'm not setting up my TP to dual boot unless webOS completely fails.

Currently there are still good deals on TP's  compared to pure Android tablets.

News-

the open sourcing of webOS is proceeding a pace, and will be complete by Sept 2012.

Meg Whitman has said that HP will probably make new openwebos tablets sometime in the future, just not sure if it will be in 2012.

More apps are being produced for Touchpad.  Slow progress but it is quickening now that Enyo has been open sourced.

WebOS Rumors-

There is talk of porting an emulation layer to webOS so that most Android apps could run on the Touchpad.

Here is a better tutorial on installing Android.
http://m.webosnation.com/how-install-cyanogenmod-9-android-your-touchpad

>deals

Best deal from a respectable retailer is from Newegg $215 for 16GB factory refurbished, and $260 for a 32GB refurb.

If this one died tomorrow, I would buy another one in an instant.

>Advanced Browser

I will look into this again.  I like it better but not being able to set it as default is a pain.

>pain

I just put a site/browser icon on the task bar then surf all my usual reading sites from quickstart icons.  I haven't run into any problems with it not being the default so far.

Yeah I retested it after writing that and found it works as you said, so I'm in business.  Thanks.

The Advanced Browser lets me Tweet it or send to Read it Later which were things I was really missing.

What I'm finding is that I prefer the Touchpad for all my reading and posting even over the iPad 1.  I'm even preferring a tablet over my laptop for the morning review of forums, news and blogs and I really only resort to the laptop when I have lots of typing to do.  I'm a little surprised at this sea change in my habits.

A friend has a TP with the dual boot to Android or webOS and the hardware runs Android like a champ.

News is that the official port of OpenwebOS will not run on legacy devices, although the community is free to port it just like they did with Android.  But it looks like officially my TP and my Pre3 phone are at a dead end.  Eventually I'll put Android on the TP and use it till it dies.  I'm hoping the phone and some critical apps stay working until somebody comes out with a decent webOS phone, otherwise it's back to an iPhone or try a Win8 phone.