See, the problem is in what the 80-85% is defined as.  What do you want and expect this device to do in place of your laptop? For me, I want it to (a) do everything my iPhone already does, at least as well, but hopefully better.  Then, (b) I want it to be able to surf the web using 3G as well as my laptop does. Lastly, (c) I want it to be even more portable than my current CULV 13″ Toshiba laptop that’s exceptionally small, has a great screen, great battery life and a nearly full sized keyboard, HDD and ports.

It’s here that the model falls to pieces.  No flash? Are you kidding me? Just for grins, turn off Flash on your web browser and try to use the web for a couple of days.  Yikes.  How can I reasonably expect to utilize this device as anything other than a toy without the expectation that I can be reasonably certain I can do everything remotely that I can do locally? The answer is that I can’t, unless Apple capitulates (they won’t until Steve is dead) or until there is such widespread acceptance of HTML 5 that it’s a mostly moot point (by which time Steve will be dead, and quite possibly so will I).

Look, the iPad is a great idea. Not a new idea. Not an Apple idea. Just a great idea that has been around for at least a decade and is still looking to solve the same problems of yesteryear. We’re closer now than we ever have been, for sure. Battery technology is improving daily, chips are shrinking, composites are getting lighter and stronger.  In short, all of the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.  Unfortunately, they won’t be in time for this device to be all that it could be. Which is why I won’t be buying one….or will I?

The rub is that there simply is not a similar device produced en masse at this point to challenge the iPad, so that gives it a huge advantage. Unlike the initial release of the iPhone, however, there are dozens of companies that are hot on Apples heels in churning out real competition. Dell’s Mini5, HP’s Slate and a slew of others from Asus, Toshiba and others will be released over the next few months.  By the time the Christmas buying season unfurls, Apple’s product will be adrift in a sea of competition. That simply didn’t happen in the mobile space with the iPhone until the release of Android and the coming release of Windows Phone 7. Apple had that market completely to itself – a luxury that it’s competitors are determined not to afford them this time around.

So,why would I still be considering buying an iPad?  Well, for two reasons. First, I have confidence in Apple’s hardware. Yes, my first gen iPhone was glitchy and eventually crapped out. Yes, my iPhone 3G was unbearably slow after 6 months.  Yes, I jailbroke my iPhone because I was tired of Apple’s draconian rules and regulations.  Still, though, as incredibly complex electronic devices go, I’d say I was very impressed when all was said and done, and I’m fairly certain I will be with the iPad (when I eventually get to see one).  But, the real kicker for me is the 3G service. $30 a month and unlimited data with NO contract? That’s almost worth the price of admission right there, to me.  If I purchased a 3G USB card for my laptop, it would cost me a 2 year contract, PLUS $60 per month, and it would only give me 5 GB’s of data/month. Yuck.  That must have taken some serious arm bending by Apple on AT&T.  I have no doubt that they told them that this device would launch on Verizon exclusively if they didn’t do it. Period.

Well, I still have one day left to decide if I’m going to pre-order one or not.  If the pre-order doesn’t involve a first born and a non-refundable deposit, I’ll probably do it and see if I like it when I finally can hold one.  In the meantime I’ll be hoping that one of those previously mentioned competitors can actually launch their product and give me a reason to NOT buy it…..

Recently, I purchased a Surefire ZX2 ‘Combatlight’ (flashlight) that came with a tailcap mounted pressure switch (to remotely activate the light when mounted on a rifle).  When the switch was depressed continuously for more than a few seconds, the switch became increasingly hot – to the point that you couldn’t hold it any longer.  I tried various solutions (replaced the batteries, cheked the mounting, looked for frayed wires, etc) to no avail. Finally, I sent an email to SureFire asking for suggestions (along with two photos so they could troubleshoot a little more easily).  After a few days (longer than one would expect from ‘exceptional’ customer service, but within the realm of standard business) I received an email response that said “You are not using a SureFire factory pressure switch. We can only surmise that it is a problem with your after-market switch….Sincerely, So-and-So”……Really? That’s it? Okay, I’ll accept their (unproven, untested and wholely subjective) argument that it’s the fault of the non-factory pressure switch. However, maybe some suggestions on how to fix the problem? Maybe even a sales pitch for a different model or solution? Perhaps (and this would really be going out on a limb and doing something that sets the bar for their industry) saying “I tell you what – we don’t support non-SureFire equipment, however, we will sell you our XYZ solution for 15% off the list price, if you send us the defective after-market switch….we want you to have the right equipment and be completely satisfied”.

Do you think they’d have a customer for life if they did that? You bet your bottom dollar they would. At any rate, they did not do that, which caused me to email them back and ask “What would the correct SureFire part number be to replace the non-factory tailcap pressure switch?”. Again, a standard one-day delay, then an email with the part number. Nothing else, just the part number. “Okay”, I thought, “at least now I can order the part and see if that solves my problem. Only one little difficulty: The part number was no where to be found on their web site. So, the c/s rep provided me with a part number that didn’t exist.  Great. After a phone call to the company, I discovered that the part was ‘backordered’ and that there was no anticipated date for it to arrive. Hmmmm.  So, the part number doesn’t show on your web site, doesn’t show when (if ever) it will arrive and this is the one and only solution to my problem. Anyone else want to venture a guess what I did next?? Started looking for another vendor.

In a nutshell, anything less than ‘above and beyond’ when it comes to customer service is unacceptable. No matter who you are as a company, no matter how firm your stranglehold on your market – someone will come along and take you to task by doing it better, faster and cheaper.  If you don’t stand out, in some superlative way, then your lunch can and will be eaten by someone else.  Listen up, corporate America…

Back to what I was saying – Update for all of you that think Twitter and it’s ilk are going to be of any social or technological value beyond thirty six months: You are nuts.  The core group of Twit’s are a small group best described as hard-core nerds. There is no value in twitter as a business tool (beyond Instant Messaging or Text Messaging now provides). The only real use of Twitter, as we saw at SXSW, is a truly childish kind of mob mentality.

For those that didn’t hear the news, check out the Wired blog (http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke.html) for a good synopsis.  If you don’t have the guts to stand up, state your name and make your case – then shut up and sit down. The ‘lynching’ that was attempted at SXSW of the reporter interviewing Mark Zuckerberg (Sarah Lacy) was inexcusable. It was immature. It was the perfect example of a bad use for a good technology.  Can you imagine giving a speech nowadays – with live streaming, the audience actively online (both the Internet and services like Twitter)? It would be impossible to give said speech, without constant interruptions and a dialog going off in a myriad of tangents.  This is NOT a good use of such a potentially powerful service. It’s enabling people with short attention spans and A.D.D. to rule the roost that the rest of us cohabitate. Kind of like giving the keys to the mental asylum to the patients.

There is a reason your mother has never heard the term “social networking”, and that’s because it is irrelevant at this point.  In fact, given it’s current trajectory, there is a significant chance that the next big, new ‘thing’ will transplant it before it ever has a chance to establish itself with any real value. In the rapidly changing and evolving web ethos, there is a very small window for applications to entrench themselves into the collective conscious. MySpace already missed theirs. Facebooks window is rapidly closing. Twitter is proving itself to be an interesting idea with a rapidly declining interest group. So, why are companies paying millions upon millions of dollars for these online enterprises? They must know something we don’t, right?  Wrong.  It’s the same phenomenon as paying tens of millions of dollars for a thirty second Superbowl ad.  Eyeballs.  Companies know that there are X number of eyeballs or uniques at a specific web site on a regular basis.  They also know that if they can market Y number of products or services for the anticipated (short) life span of that site, they can generate Z revenue.  Pretty simple, really.  So, while the tech community pats itself on the back for ‘creating’ such valuable commodities, in reality they are nothing more than glorified billboards on the tech superhighway. Only 800 more miles till Pedro’s South of the Border….

Wanna really win me over, besides fixing the interface? Make the quality of the music available in a range from, say, average mp3 all the way up to audiophile lossless versions. Let me decide if I want to take up the extra space on my iPod for certain tracks.

Check out their site for yourself at www.amazon.com. They’re referring to it as a public beta, so consider it what you will.

R.

In a nutshell, the “HD” options on Vudu, AppleTV, Xbox 360 and many cable and satellite providers are nowhere near the same picture quality as “true” HD content available on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

This posits two questions: First, why are they permitted to call their content HD when it’s not truly HD? This dilutes the brand-name if you will, and it makes people lump poor quality in the same category with outstanding quality. If you listen to the “HT Guys” podcast, and I suggest you do if you are interested in home audio and video, then you may have heard them call for a different moniker such as “near-HD” or “DVD-plus” as opposed to HD. This is an excellent idea and should be called for by everyone who knows the difference. Personally, I don’t have a problem paying a premium for true HD content…but I do if I am paying for it but getting something less.

Second, with all of the recent talk about ISP’s throttling band width, how will the proliferation of these set-top delivery boxes further exacerbate an already unhealthy situation? Even with unacceptable levels of compression, the amount of data that must be pushed thru the pipeline for a single movie is large when compared with web surfing. If you wanted to deliver a real HD experience, under current bandwidth limitations, it would take all but a select few of us literally a day to download a single movie. Yikes.

The solution to all of this has yet to present itself. Currently, the work around is what we are experiencing – highly compressed poor quality delivery. What we absolutely do NOT want to do is become complacent and accept this pale imitation as true HD, much like we do now for .mp3′s. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I listen to iTunes purchased music piped through my home stereo or even car stereo, it sounds average, at best. Some might even say “flat”, too much midrange and that’s about it. I can certainly hear it when I play a lossless format followed by an .mp3, and I’m no audiophile. We’ve traded the convenience of having the music be portable for the audio quality. That’s fine for schlepping around in my iPod, but not on my stereo. Same for video codecs – if I’m watching it on my iPhone, I’m willing to accept more compression and less quality because portability is the primary issue. It’s not useful to me if I can’t fit it on my device. A set-top box, however, is usually equipped with a hard drive and a processor, all hooked up to a HD capable video display. Therefore, I should, and do, expect excellent HD quality when that’s what I buy.

So, from now on – tell everyone that you know that this is NOT true HD but what amounts to a first generation attempt at delivering as good a quality experience as possible under current limitations. But not HD.

R

George Ou’s blogpost: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=959

HTGuys: www.htguys.com

You’ve got to be kidding me.

After going through this technical, arduous process – I finally had WM6. Yippee! Of course, it wiped my device clean, which the backup didn’t seem to really back up much at all. Every one of my previous settings, from screen preferences, ringing preferences, even software – was gone. Okay, not a problem – this is a good upgrade, so it’s worth the little bit of aggravation….right?

Well, I’m not going to do a review of WM6, since it’s been out for (seemingly) forever, but suffice it to say after using my Blackjack for two days – it’s going back into its box and resuming it’s roll as backup phone. I feel bad for my Blackjack. Its not a bad phone at all, it does 3G, it has amicroSD slot, it has a full QWERTY keyboard. It’s a good overall smartphone. It’s just not the iPhone. Imagine Tom Brady’s backup on the Patriots. He may be a good QB. Maybe even a really good QB. He’s just playing behind a great QB, so he’s not going anywhere.

Maybe someday Windows Mobile will get it’s act together, stop trying to behave like a mini-Windows OS and realize that pull down menus and nested options are not the way to go. My guess, however, is that WM is at least two generations behind the iPhone interface. Maybe even more. So, for the time being, I’ll take my iPhone with its slower data connection and all….because, for now at least, it’s head and shoulders above any other options.

R.

The latest affront to our legal system was recently mentioned on Gizmodo (link below). The idea is that (a) if the police stop you for an “arrestable” offense, and (b) that offense happens to be a traffic stop for a violation that MAY be arrestable, then (c) the police have a right to search you, your vehicle and any personal data that may be contained in your cell phone,PDA, digital camera, etc.

Huh? Search my PDA? For what, a record of my driving history? A list of my plans to drive poorly in the city limits? Or are they simply attempting to use the pretense of a traffic stop to go on a fishing expedition for something either I or someone else, did? That sounds a little closer to the mark, if you ask me.

We seem to be taking one step forward and one step back. Recently, a court upheld a defendants assertion that he needn’t divulge his password to encrypted files (under the protection of self-incrimination, I would imagine). That’s a good thing. Then,
along comes this. My hope is that any Judge worth his weight in salt would see right through this and not be led astray simply because the medium upon which information is kept happens to be electronic.

Oh, and for all of you that made the simplistic argument “well, if you have nothing to hide, why would you be afraid?” – you need to be aware that if you provided unfettered access to your life, there is a very real possibility that you did something that was a no-no and that you could face legal consequences for. Even unfounded charges if brought, can ruin your life. They don’t need a conviction in a court room to convict you in the court of public opinion…you don’t want to go down that road if you can avoid it.

Gizmodo link: http://gizmodo.com/347915/cops-can-search-youand-your-phones-memory

R.

Everything was done correctly. Everything was locked down the way it should be. No one went in an modified the site or posted a fake link or anything of the sort. What happened was the school allowed people to be “friends”. The school checked the initial “friends” site, approved it and went on its merry way. The problem is that in this day and age of everything being within 7 degrees of separation , there is no such thing as a “safe” link that links anywhere else. The school found this out the hard way when it was discovered that one of the “friends” had a friend that had a link to a porn site. So, indirectly at best, you could make the argument that the school therefore had a link to a porn site. Yikes….is that insane or what?

The really terrifying thing about this is that parents were complaining and an investigation was launched as if someone in charge were storing kiddie porn on the schools web site. If there are officers of the court and/or police that do not understand computers and how the web works, it terrifies me that they may hold a school (or principal, or staff or SRO) responsible. I can tell you one thing: I would never accept the responsibility in such a circumstance to be responsible for a schools web site without some sort of a clear contract limiting my liability.

Does anyone out there think there is a way around this? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, as would about a million other people – especially educators.

R.

Update The school and the School Resource Officer (SRO) in question were cleared of any wrong doing, after it was correctly determined that there was no knowledge of such a link, to the best of their ability. The investigators  discovered that the only way for such a person to be certain that such a link did not exist would be to check every linked page, every da, along with their links and so on. Simply impossible.  As an added bonus, it was determined that this is still a valuable tool to interact with students, despite the potential occasional problem.  Chalk one up for common sense…..