Well I think the whole carputer discussion is drifting a bit here, but since we're already going down that road I'll just throw in my two cents by saying that I agree with luca in that I have the embedded box in my Jeep rigged up so that when I open the driver door it powers on and starts booting; with a 10-15 second full boot time the thing is up and running within a few seconds of the engine cranking over and starting. My biggest problem with an "always on/standby" solution is that you are, literally, always consuming power to some degree. Yes you can put extra batteries and things in, but that's not the point. The point is you are tying yourself to a depleatable power source that adds an extra layer of effort without real significant gains. If you want to have your car puter running while you're not in the car all the time, great, but how many things does your car need to be doing without being turned on and you inside of it?... (yea yea I know there are lots but really, be a little practical here!)