Disruptive Conversations

UPDATE - I gave in and bought a MacBook Pro (with 4 GB of RAM!).  More on that later...

With my impending change in employment, I need to get a new laptop and, given that I'm thinking strongly of going the consulting route, I'm going to pick it up myself right now (versus waiting for an employer).  Obviously I want a laptop that works very well for participating in the world of social media.  An integrated webcam seems to be an absolute must.   People involved with video tell me that Apple Macbooks have the best quality video cameras and, being relatively agnostic toward operating systems, I'm open to Macbooks.  I'd love to get a laptop with a built-in camera that can rotate so that you can face it away from the user and toward the other people in a room, for instance.  But it seems that the current crop of laptops no longer have that - they all seem to have fixed cameras. 

Another "must-have" is the ability to work with a second monitor, but that's usually simple with a laptop.

So I've got a couple of questions for those of you working out there with blogs, podcasts, flickr, etc.:

• Do you have any specific thoughts on the best laptop for "social media" participation?
• Any recommendations about specific laptops with integrated cameras?  Know of any that aren't fixed?  (I've looked at the major vendors and they all seem to now be fixed.)
• Mac versus PC?  Mac users who still have to use Windows apps, have you been happy with Parallels? (Or vmWare Fusion?)

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  Thanks.