It is the first exercise out with the Surface on a plane, since I didn’t boot up on the flight out here for anything other than doing homework.

I gotta say, the smaller screen is definitely nice when dealing with the cramped conditions we encounter when flying these days. The guy next to me has his 17” out to watch movies and even in the exit row he’s struggling with the screen angle. I’m currently reporting 7 hours of battery life after easily half an hour+ usage - not the new MacBook Air, but not too shabby.

On the other hand, you can only use the “metro” version of IE (which is touch optimized) if it is your default browser. So I had to set it to my default for the duration of the flight (since I’m not supposed to use my Bluetooth mouse according to Southwest’s regs right now). I believe the exact words on discovering this was “bloody piece of shit software”.

So Lizards, if you are ever wondering why it won’t start in anything other than desktop mode, now you know. I solved it for you. Feel free to curse Microsoft; now that the husband is no longer employed by them I’m allowed to do so.