Posts by Techwriter10

Singleton,
Let's be realistic here. I'm not saying Office is good, bad or indifferent. I'm stating an obvious fact. If you have a limited budget and you can do 90 percent of what you need to do on a free tool, you are not going to set up with expensive licenses when there are lots of free and low cost alternatives. If you need Excel, you'll buy a copy for the one or two people who need it, or you'll see if you can get by with Open Office. Excel is not the only option out there and the alternatives are perfectly fine for word processing and presentations without spending money.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

The Colour:
Again, you miss my point in my bluster. Bing, Zune and Hotmail all have innovations within them that will be lost after the initial hype session is over. The fact is that iPod, Gmail and Google Search will still dominate no matter how much Microsoft innovates.

Most people will continue to use their current tool because there is no real reason to switch. It's called inertia. Microsoft is swimming against a very strong current here and it's going to be very tough to make any headway.

Glad you like your like your Zune. :-)

Thanks for the comment.
Ron

Singleton,
I don't use Exchange servers, so no, I don't care. I acknowledged that there probably are some innovations, but only people who come from Microsoft shops are going to care. Individual users like me who use Gmail for my online email aren't going to be swayed to switch and that was my larger point.

I'm not a Microsoft Hater by the way. I'm just a realist.

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

Let me warn you I'm in a bit of an ornery mood today. So when I learned Microsoft is coming out with a refresh of Hotmail this week, you can understand I was less than enthused. Every time Microsoft refreshes a product, the technology press gets all excited about it as though it actually matters. Remember the Zune HD. It was going to blow the MP3 market away, only it never sold very well. Bing was supposed to change the search landscape, only Google still controls most of the same marketshare it had when Bing was launched last year. This week's model is Hotmail.

Over the next several days we are going to have to endure article after article explaining all of the wonderful reasons we should be using Hotmail, only nobody will because there is no impetus to switch. Google and Microsoft will exchange insults and next week it will all be forgotten.

Zune, Ya Right?

I remember when I posted something about the Zune release last year on Facebook. I got a snarky comment from a friend who basically said nobody really cares about the Zune. Turns out, he was one hundred percent correct. Nobody cared. We read about it for a few days and then about 12 people bought one. Oh ya and iPods and iPhones continued to sell like proverbial hot cakes. Nothing changed.

Bing? Tell Me Another One

Then there was Bing. Publishers thought they might even have a competitor …

That sounds like a great approach. Thanks for commenting.

Ron

I've been following the tussle between Google and Microsoft this week with a mixture of amusement and amazement. If you haven't been following along at home, Microsoft took a dip into the cloud with the release Office 2010 Online this past week. Meanwhile, Google, feeling a wee bit threatened by Microsoft honing in on its territory in the cloud, took a few pot shots at Redmond's offering in a blog post on the Official Google Blog.

Microsoft's Alex Payne, director of online product management at Microsoft fired back with a lengthy blog post of his own the following day and the rumble was on. The fact is, however, if you look at these two products with an impartial eye, they actually are very different.

Office 2010 Online

The purpose of Office 2010 online is simple. It provides a place for Office 2010 users to share and access Office documents online. The key here is that you really need to be an Office 2010 user. It will work with earlier versions of Office back to 2003, but the whole idea is to provide an online environment for Microsoft shops. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, just so long as you understand that from the start. This is not really a place for open collaboration or to create a quick document. It's for Microsoft, which is just about par for the course, and shouldn't be anything we should be surprised about after watching Microsoft …

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future...
Steve Miller, Fly Like an Eagle

I've been carrying around that title all week. It came to me on Sunday morning, and it involves the idea of how automatically we record and broadcast our lives in the digital age. One of my favorite illustrations of the automaticity of digital living is the digital camera. If you take a picture of my 3 year old niece, she wants to see it immediately. Think about that for a second. She recognizes at 3 that she can immediately see the picture. Just a generation ago when my 18 year old daughter was born, that wasn't possible. As recently as the 1990s, we were still using film, but with a blink of an eye the digital age was upon us.

Yet the digital camera was just the tip of the digital iceberg. Today, we have affordable smart phones, and with that we have social networking, and we can broadcast our lives without so much as a thought. A decade ago, this type of broadcasting was unthinkable. As recently as 5 years ago, the technological underpinnings were in place, yet most of us couldn't afford the equipment to do it. Today, with advent of more sophisticated mobile networks cheap phones, and app stores; it has all come together and we can publish and broadcast with the touch of a finger.Cell Phones/Smart Phones

Part of that automaticity is the idea of always …

At just 25, Aaron Levie is a youthful CEO. His company, Box.net , is a cloud-based storage and collaboration solution. He originally conceived and developed Box in his dorm room with a friend when he was just 19 years old because he was simply looking for a way to solve a problem of sharing files online. He has grown the company from a pure online storage play to an enterprise collaboration environment and has set his sites on content management. He's not there yet, but he's an unabashed cloud computing advocate and I asked him 5 questions about his business.

DW: You started Box.net in your dorm room and have built a successful company. Are you surprised by how well you've done so quickly?

AL: I'm very excited to see the success of our product and the continued penetration of our service in larger and larger businesses. Organizations from SMBs to Fortune 100 companies are adopting Box, and they're using our platforms in increasingly interesting and sophisticated ways. This momentum is incredibly inspiring. And I think we're well positioned for future growth: IT departments across businesses of all sizes are rethinking their legacy software deployments, and considering cloud-based services as low cost, user-friendly alternatives. Box is in the right market at the right time, and we're investing heavily in our platform and partnerships to make sure we deliver the best product possible.

DW: What do you say to people who claim they …

Ron,

<snip>

That being said, I have to disagree with you about the Ipad. I don't think he was targeting the Ipad in particular. He was making a sweeping generalization that, while untrue and stupid, was only untrue and stupid because he attributes faults to a device that is incapable of faults...

Just my two cents.

I agree he wasn't targeting the iPad per se, but he was lumping it in with other devices including game machines and MP3 players, and by doing so, he was equating all of those devices. To me, they are distinctly different, and in most cases, not used to gather or disseminate information. The iPad on the other hand can and is often used to gather and consume information. That's why I concentrated on the iPad over those other devices.

Thank for your comment and for your regular contributions.

Ron

Exactly right. The medium doesn't really matter does it and in some senses, it can actually give you more varied points of view than you would get from traditional print sources.

Thanks for your comment.

Thanks for the comment Amged. I don't think it was stupid per se, but I do think it was ignorant to lump technology he doesn't understand to make a broader point.

Ron

Walt:
This wasn't from the press club dinner roast. It was quoted in a report on Sunday (yesterday).

As for your other point, I understand it was in a larger context, and I acknowledged this in my post, but the president really should have some clue about the technology he lumps under this umbrella before he goes after it in this fashion. I don't think he did himself any favors by showing a lack of understanding.

Thanks for the in-depth comment. I appreciate you taking the time to share you thoughts with me.

Ron

I don't think so David. He says, "...information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.” Games are not a form of information. MP3 players don't for the most part provide information. He's making a blanket statement about these devices without having used any of them and having no real understanding of them. Let him use the iPad and tell me it isn't a great information device. He's the president for goodness sakes. Don't make statements unless you know what you're talking about. In this case, he clearly doesn't.

Thanks as always for your comments, David.

Ron

I'm the first one to defend the president, but I don't think that's what he was saying if you read the quote. He blamed hardware for the spread of misinformation. People can get plenty of misinformation face to face too, although I grant you getting out and meeting and helping people is valuable and necessary for society. But, I have met and become friends with many people through online social networks, so there is value to that too. Ultimately, just blaming machines for any problem is wrong-headed and blaming them when you don't really know what you're talking about is just not very smart.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

I'm a huge fan of the president. I loved how his campaign used social media to help drive him to victory in 2008. I think he's generally a smart, well-informed and extremely articulate man, but today he said something incredibly stupid about the iPad and I have to say something. Mashable reports the president while speaking on misinformation in general blamed the iPad in part for the spread of inaccurate ideas:

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”

Let me say, he sounded downright foolish with this statement. First of all XBox and Playstation: They're used mostly for games, not for news, blogs and other information. Secondly iPods are used mostly for music, the Touch being an exception because you can access the App Store. Finally, it's clear he never used an iPad or he wouldn't have lumped it in with larger point he was trying to make.

Information is Power

If the president had taken five minutes to actually use an iPad, he would know that it is incredibly empowering. Yes, there is lots of information out there. Yes, it can be distracting and sometimes wrong, but he should look at the BBC app or the Guardian's photojournalism app or any number of choices that provide information at your fingertips just by opening the …

Two days ago, the Dow Jones Industrialized Average plunged almost 1000 points in a half hour . That's almost 10 percent of the entire value of the market in 30 minutes. That's insane! What happened? Well, it turns out, it was a fairly simple technological trigger that caused the problem. Seems a trader entered a buy order for $16 billion when he meant to enter $16 million, and the race was on. In the words of the late, great Emily Latella on Saturday Night Live, "That's very different."

Panic on the Street

The mistaken trade caused a panic as automatic trading mechanisms kicked in causing massive sell orders and the precipitous drop. At no point, did it reach the magic 10 percent threshold that will pull the plug on trading for 30 minutes. Instead, there were 30 minutes of madness until people began to figure out something was wrong and the market was able to get back a significant chunk of the value before trading closed on Thursday.

Politicizing the Situation

Politicians seized on the situation to call for smarter regulation of the system.

Senator Ted Kaufmann of Delaware was quoted by Reuter's as saying:

"The battle of the algorithms -- not understood by nor even remotely transparent to the Securities and Exchange Commission -- simply must be carefully reviewed and placed within a meaningful regulatory framework soon."

Simple Ideas for Complex Problems

It my very well …

You're totally wrong. I don't hate Apple at all. I'm writing this on a Mac Book Pro. Read my review of the iPad in this space. If you read my body of work, you would know I'm actually an Apple fan, but just because I think they make good stuff, doesn't mean they they always act in a responsible way as an organization. It's my job to point out when they don't.

Thanks for your comment, but please try to keep it civil.

Thanks,
Ron

If you consider that My Space was *the* place to be a few years ago and Facebook was nothing, I do believe it could happen. Facebook alienates its users and takes them for granted. This is not an algorithm like Google. It's not actually all that complex from a programming perspective to create an open source-transparent alternative. I will grant you that it will take a major momentum shift, but no, I do not think it's crazy, and yes, I do believe it's possible if the right circumstances came together.

Ron

That same effect, David, could very well play out on another service. Just look at Friendster and My Space.

Ron

I like baseball, movies, good clothes, fast cars... and you. What else you need to know?
~Johnny Depp playing John Dillinger in the movie Public Enemies

I love that quote from the movie Public Enemies . Everything you want to know about a guy in one sentence. If you think about it, Facebook knows everything about you too. It doesn't ask you for a succinct, pithy summary like Dillinger gave his would-be girl friend, but it collects that information just the same in bits and pieces, and it sells it to marketers who want to know everything about you.

Facebook has been getting a lot of press lately. Some like Michael Arrington at TechCrunch believe we have entered " The Age of Facebook " and all other technology companies should be afraid, very afraid. Others are very unhappy with Facebook for its various privacy issues including the automatic opt-in in its recent "instant personalisation feature" that shares your activities on Facebook as you move around the web.

Just today, TechCrunch reported about a bug that left private chats exposed to friends. I realize it's a bug and these things happen, but you have to place this in context of everything else that's happened recently with Facebook. I get the idea that maybe people are getting a bit fed up with Facebook, but to paraphrase a quote from another movie, An Officer and …

Exactly right. Good lawyers and piles of cash will help you snuff out a less well financed rival, but won't help in the case of a government investigation. If Apple is in violation of the anti-trust laws, chances are their money won't help them. It didn't help Microsoft in the 90s, did it?

Thanks for your comment.
Ron

I think they will continue to support this phone for the time being, but as I wrote, I wouldn't be surprised if as you say, there is no Nexus Two phone.

Thanks for commenting and for the link.

Ron

I agree, cperez57. This is a short-sighted and unnecessary approach to development and it's all about command and control of the devices. This move in particular could come back to bite Apple (pun intended).

Thanks for your comment.
Ron

You make some good points, although I wish you could have been friendlier about it.

I think it's easy to dismiss Flash. We are all aware of its warts, trust me, but the fact is many sites still use it and it is not pleasant when you run into the Flash wall (as I've written before).

I would say, how you interpret Jobs' memo is in the eye of the beholder. Jobs sounded fairly aggressive to me.

As for Lala, you could be right. I'm not as familiar with the details as you seem to be, but I know that I enjoyed having Lala in my Google results and I will miss it.

Thanks for your detailed comment, but please try to tone it down a bit in the future.

Ron

I find it's much faster and responsive than my iPhone.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

Apple's feeling pretty good about itself lately and why shouldn't it? It sold a million iPads in the first month. That means iPad sales reached a million units twice as fast as the original iPhone. The revenue spigot remains wide open and I'm sure investors are happy, but Apple has shown a few signs lately it may be getting a little too big for its britches.

Consider these recent news stories:Just last week, it announced it was shuttering the Lala music service just months after purchasing it.
Steve Jobs got even crankier about Flash posting a public letter on the Apple web site, which prompted some observers to wonder if it was a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Apple recently prevented developers from using any third party development tools to develop iPad and iPhone apps, which has anti-trust regulators sniffing around.
It got me thinking that Jobs and company are beginning to resemble the 1990s Microsoft throwing around its considerable weight and generally pissing people (and governments) off. Maybe it's time to take Apple down a notch.

First, There was Lala

Lala was an interesting experiment that started to make some headway when Google began including Lala in music search results. If copyright allowed, you could play a whole song one time. After that, you got a 30 second snippet. Lala technology could have given Apple the ability …

Hard to say how the Slate would have performed. It did fill in many of the iPad's holes (USB, Flash, etc.), which would have given it a fighting chance in the market. We'll see how the next iteration does running Palm's OS.

As for the Courier, I think you underestimate what the iPad can actually do as a work device, but I agree that it was compelling.

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

In quick succession, HP and Microsoft reportedly killed off two iPad wannabes this week. With HP's purchase of Palm and its WebOS, it meant that the Windows 7 tablet that Steve Ballmer showed off at CES in January (and which you can see here in this video ) is suddenly shelfware. Meanwhile Microsoft, which has been leaking teasing videos of a so-called Courier Tablet dual-screen digital journal , announced that it had no plans to build the device at this time, leaving some (like me) wondering if they ever intended to build it all.

Two weeks ago I wrote a post called Five Ways iPad Wanabees Can Compete . What's interesting is that these two tablet devices could have (possibly) been real competition for the iPad based on my criteria. Yet HP and Microsoft, two companies that certainly have the money and the clout to compete with Apple, quit before they even started. The question is: Why?

HP, Palm and Leaving Microsoft Behind

The answer, for HP at least, had to do with the other big news from HP this week, namely its purchase of Palm , and with it, its WebOS. The move gives HP its own mobile OS, freeing it from the clutches of its rival Microsoft and enabling it to build its own line of devices running Palm's mobile operating system. HP wasted no time killing the Windows tablet, canceling the …

I've often discussed in this space, the ongoing battle among the technology titans--that constant struggle to find the missing link to control the computing world. This week, HP made its move when it purchased Palm for $1.2 billion . On first blush, it looks like an incredibly stupid step, overpaying for a company nobody wanted and that was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Yet some technology analysts see this as a very shrewd move on HP's part, one that gives it its own mobile operating system and entree into the lucrative and growing mobile market.

Make no mistake though, this is all about getting the best of Microsoft, Google and Apple. And with this purchase, HP gave notice it was grabbing a place at the mobile table. But their ticket was a washed out brand with little or no market share. What's more, the other players are far ahead of HP. It's difficult for me to see how HP dollars can magically transform Palm into a silk purse, but they have paid the money and they believe they can make it work.

It's Going To take a Huge Investment

Some writers like analyst Michael Gartenberg believe that HP can give Palm what it's been lacking, namely money and manufacturing scale, but the billion dollar question is whether HP can throw enough money at this deal to ever make it work? Analyst Adam Leach from Ovum says …

That's the whole point of my piece. Google decided to let HTC take the lead with its new phone instead of marketing its own phone (if I understand you correctly). That's what I found interesting and why I chose to write about it. The CNN article just reinforces my thoughts.

Thanks for commenting and for sharing the link.

Ron

I'm not so sure about that. A phone was a little out of character for them to start with, but let's not forget, they haven't walked away from Nexus One yet, but they certainly are backing away from it and letting their partners' products take the lead (which as I wrote is how I think it should be).

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

Google took an interesting step this week when it announced on its Nexus One blog that customers who want to use the Verizon network might be more interested in the HTC Droid Incredible instead of its own Nexus One. I've never hidden my disdain for the Google Nexus One strategy (as I wrote in Google's Boneheaded Retail Strategy ). I could never understand why Google, which worked so hard to build up its partner eco-system would then undermine its partners by producing its own branded phone. Further, I couldn't fathom why Google would ever want to get into the retail phone business when their underlying corporate strategy is far better served by acting as a catalyst using Android to run Google services and sell Google ads.

Perhaps this week's announcement is actually a sign that maybe I was right, and Google could be pulling back from that retail strategy and letting its partners take the lead again.

This Phone Really Looks Incredible

I took a look the Droid Incredible on YouTube and it really does look like a loaded phone. It includes an 8 Mega-pixel camera with a flash (now that's something) and it has a slot inside the phone for 16GB MicroSD card. The bad news is you have to pop the cover to get at the SD card slot, but that's a minor annoyance when you look at the specs on this baby including …

I've since gotten my hands on one and I liked it very much. You can check out my DaniWeb review for my thoughts.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

There are all the perks, but there are also high expectations and a system that hires a certain type of personality that's highly intelligent and self-motivated. I think it's easy to look at the perks and really miss the fact that Google has a very high-achiever culture and that drives innovation every day there.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

I wonder if age has anything to with it. I wonder how many older adults regularly check their credit scores or verify a web site is legitimate or do any of these things.

Perhaps leaving compromising pictures is one that younger people are more likely to do, but the other things are behaviors many people are ignorant about.

Ron

So you want your company to be innovative like Google. You want to have a lab and a constant flow of ideas, but you don't know where to begin. In an entertaining speech the other day at the AIIM 2010 conference in Philadelphia, Cyrus Mistry from Google explained some the drivers of Google's corporate culture of innovation. He says it starts with Type A personalities, the type for whom an A- was never quite good enough, but if you can get past that rather daunting entry point, consider these other ways to make your company more innovative:

1. Treat your employees like adults

That means there's no sick time, no vacation schedule and there's certainly no time clock. You want to work from home, you work from home. If you come in at 9:10, there isn't an angry manager standing at the door staring at his watch and giving you the evil eye. Mistry says at Google: "They don't care what time you come in. They just expect you to get the work done."

2. Put your work in the cloud

No big surprise coming from a guy who works at Google and sells cloud services for a living, but there's more to this than a pure marketing play. If you don't care where your employees work, you have to make their work always available and the cloud lets you do that.

3. Never, ever have meetings

This …

That's impressive if you are that comfortable typing on the iPhone. The iPad is definitely an improvement, but it's strange because it's big enough to use both hands, but of course if you lay your hands on the keys, you activate them, so you can't type in a normal way. See my full review here on DaniWeb.

Thanks again for your thoughtful comments. Always appreciated.

Ron

Good points, all, but remember, the iPad is good for limited typing. Having used the touch keyboard, I can tell you it's functional, but I can't see doing meaningful writing on it. Sure, in a pinch I could use it, but without an external keyboard, it's not a work tool. It's a media device for viewing movies, playing games, reading books and so forth. I'm not suggesting you couldn't do work on there, but if you are a writer like me, it would be very difficult. I think the lap top still has its place. This device fits somewhere in between the laptop and the netbook. And if you need a keyboard, it brings us back to the original UMPCs with external keyboards, and that gets a bit awkward to carry with us.

Thanks for commenting and sharing your thoughts.

Ron

The camera wouldn't be for taking pictures it would be for services like Skype to have conversations with video, a common use for it.

In fact, many people do care about Flash and I found when I used an iPad for the first time, when you run into the Flash wall, on Hulu for instance, it's not pleasant.

Finally, they could try to compete on the OS level, but as you say it's not going to be easy. I actually included the idea of applications, so we agree on that point.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

The iPad hasn't been out three weeks and already we are hearing reports that Google , HP , Dell and Microsoft are planning tablet computers of their own.

Much like touch phones, these devices are not likely to be created equal and it got me thinking what these companies must do to compete with the mighty Apple on this front.

Here are five ways they can compete with the iPad.

1. Underprice: If the competitors hope to compete with the iPad, the first thing they need to do is come in much cheaper. I'm thinking $100-150 below the lowest price iPad.

2. Double the hard drive space: If Apple is 16 and 32 MB, make yours 32 MB and 64 MB and remember #1. Give more, charge less. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it's really the only way to compete with iPad.

3. Link it to a Mobile OS: Link the tablet to an existing mobile OS with an application eco-system in place. This is the only way to play against the App Store, which remains a key iPad strength.

4. Work with Flash: Seems simple enough, but if the iPad eschews Flash, then the competitors should embrace it.

5. Fill in the missing pieces: That means include a USB port, a camera and even an SD card reader. Whatever the iPad can't do, make your machine do it.

It may be difficult for manufacturers to compete …

Ndoom:
Thanks for the comment. I think Microsoft and Verizon have to come in very low in terms of price for this phone if they have any chance at all of selling in large numbers, but as Seldon said, as hard as they try, they simply don't have a cool factor and that will be the downfall of a phone aimed at teens.

Thanks again for commenting.
Ron

Thanks, Jim. I was going to bring up Microsoft's retail strategy in this post, but I thought it was piling on. I'm glad one of my readers did it for me.

Thanks for the comment.
Ron

Thanks Evans. Nicely put and I appreciate the support.

Ron

Murthy:
Well, we'll see. As I say, I believe it's ill conceived, and there's little room for it in a cell phone market that's already crowded. I actually did think about it before I wrote it, believe it or not. I have been watching Microsoft and the cell phone market for years. I freely admit I could be wrong, but I do have a body of work and the background and experience to speak intelligently about these subjects. I think the phone lacks both form (it's ugly) and function (the interface is a mess). Mine is just one opinion, but before *you* criticize me and lump me in with all the internet pundits you seem to have a problem with, understand that I have some perspective on this.

Thanks for your comment.

Ron

I admitted in my post I wasn't the target market, but I'm still not clear why you create an entirely new phone for one target market when you're not even in the phone business. Why not get them used to using Windows 7 Mobile. The whole strategy and implementation doesn't make sense to me. You could be right that I could be wrong (it wouldn't be the first time), but I think this is an ill conceived product.

Thanks for commenting.

Ron

Microsoft released a couple of phones on Monday, Kin 1 and Kin 2, supposedly aimed at teens. Kin 1 is shaped like a hockey puck. Kin 2 looks more like a conventional smart phone (but it's not). The only thing these phones appear to have going for them is a nice keyboard. The Kin 1 has an awkward shape. The shared interface is ugly and confusing and as of now (the release announcement), they have no SDK for building additional Apps. It connects to Facebook and MySpace (MySpace? Really?!) and of course connects to Zune music services, but it doesn't take advantage of the Windows 7 Mobile interface, which I thought was pretty nice.

I realize that Microsoft wasn't looking at middle aged men when they designed this phone, but I don't see young people going ga-ga over an ugly phone unless they price it so low that teens go for the bargain. Although part of me wonders if they could even give the Kin 1 away.

Did They Really Think This Through?

We all know Microsoft is slow and awkward, but let's take a jaundiced view of the mobile phone market, shall we? It's crowded. There's lots of nice texting phones with touch screens out there. My son uses a nifty Samsung Impression and it does way more if he wanted it to. We don't need another phone added onto the pile, and unless it really had something incredible to …

Thanks. I have an iPhone 3G and I've been more than satisfied with it. Adding video was fantastic, but I've been able to do that with an App on the 3G, so I'm not sure beyond battery improvements and better hardware, what kinds of functionality I'm not getting with the 3Gs. That said, I think waiting is always prudent, but I can tell you this is a great device out of the gate in spite of my complaints. :-)

Just spied on Twitter that the international release has been delayed by a month. Maybe you'll change your mind by then. :-)

Thanks for commenting.
Ron

Hi Val,
Thanks for commenting. And yes she is very smart. :-)

Ron

Product: Apple iPad 32GB Wi-Fi Web site: http://www.apple.com Price: $599 for reviewed model Pros: Fantastic screen resolution, responsive touch screen, great battery life. Cons: Need to connect to iTunes on a computer for first use, finger prints, not all app store apps are tuned for iPad, no Flash support. Stars: 7 out of 10 Reviewer's View: The iPad is a new type of device. Out of the box, it's a joy to hold and look at and the apps are the great differentiator. It's not perfect. Flash is conspicuously absent, for instance, and finger prints abound, but it's a wonderful little device, despite its flaws and people should enjoy using it.

After all the hype before, during and after the launch of the Apple iPad, I had high expectations when I went to my local Apple Store last Thursday. My goal was to buy an iPad. I had planned on getting the 16 GB Wi-Fi model for $499, but they were out of stock, so I went with the 32 GB Wi-Fi model instead for another $100. I also purchased 2 additional years of Apple Care protection for $99, which I've done with other Apple products and found it to be well worth the extra cost. I skipped the Mobile me account discounted from $99 to $69 at purchase because I wasn't sure we would use it enough to justify the additional cost.

The thing about the iPad is it doesn't really fit into …

There has been a lot of talk the past couple of days about Apple's new ad network . The way it will work is that ads will live within the closed environment of the App Store apps. This supposedly means that that Apple will fully vet each ad it allows in the network and we users can happily click them knowing that we won't be getting spyware, adware, whateverware. Let's all hale the great and mighty Apple.

According to an article on ReadWriteWeb , some analysts are predicting a 4+ billion dollar a year business before it even launches. Before we get too far ahead ourselves here, let's keep in mind that ads are ads and it doesn't matter who validated them.

Do You Know Where Your Ad Has Been?

More importantly do you really care? In fact, most people don't click ads, and this TechCrunch article confirms that people on mobile devices (of which I will classify the iPad) are even less likely to click ads. So in the vast universe of ads, whether on the web or a mobile device, very few people actually click ads and mobile users even less. I'm left wondering how that translates into a multi-billion business.

Of course, Google ads generate billions and billions of dollars worth of revenue, so somebody has to be clicking them, right? Perhaps people don't realize they click ads because they don't recognize them …