I’m staring at two MacBooks on my desk. One PPC Mini in pieces because of a mainboard failure. And a Macbook in the kitchen which belongs to my wife. The two machines on my desk are updating to OSX 10.8.2 and it is painfully slow. My wife’s computer will not install 10.8.x because the hardware is old enough that it’s no longer supported by OSX. And I have two kids who already navigate our recycled iPhones in order to play educational games. And to top it all off my wife wants me to buy them a computer.

So to say that I’m looking for a new desktop is not exactly correct. To be perfectly clear I’m looking for a new desktop for my kids. And I have some requirements. (a) I do not want to maintain upgrades (b) no moving parts (c) secure (d) inexpensive (e) reboots quickly (f) a preview of sorts for when the grandparents need a new computer.

The chromebox and chromebook are look like real candidates. My first chromebox is on order. It should be here in a few days. I plan to velcro the box to the underside of an Ikea kids table, screw the monitor to the table. and secure the keyboard and mouse to the table too.

I’m hoping that this setup is so successful that I can replace my desktop in the office with one of these too.