Tidbits of news and other things I find interesting

So there I was… giddy like a schoolgirl at a Jonas brothers concert, reading the live blogs as Apple’s Steve Jobs announced the next greatest thing ever in the history of mankind! Then suddenly there it was…. the iPad! Wait… the what!?! Did he say iPad?

Um….what?

Is that really the best name Steve and the team could come up with? Immediately the jokes started playing in my head. Almost like a bad skit on MadTV.

Anyway, back to the announcement.

So I watched and waited and watched and waited and then it was over. My first reaction was….eh… I thought it would have and do more. Maybe it was the overhyping by all the Apple rumor sites or maybe it’s the fact that I work in the technology field and wanted/expected more….I still felt…eh…..

I came out of my office to find that my coworkers all felt about the same ….eh…. So, I intentionally held off posting a blog post for a week to let it sink in and give a true reaction about what was announced so here it is..

This will probably revolutionize the way my mom / my wife / (insert non computer savvy person’s name here) will use a computer.

Now, before you get all crazy and start frothing at the mouth and start yelling and tell me I don’t know what the hell I am talking about or how I probably pray to the great Steve once a day, let me explain. The iPad is the first computing device that when I showed my wife she actually had technolust in her eyes. You know the look. It’s the same look you had when you first held the controller for your Atari 2600 (I am dating myself here) or Super Nintendo or (insert any technology you opened on Christmas morning as a child). That is the look she had. Yes that one. Now realize up to this point my wife has and does use her Macbook on a regular basis and has come to love her iPhone the way Steve intended, but her favorite piece of technology is a P-Touch labeler I bought her a couple of years ago….. That’s right a labeler.

P-Touch Labeler

So, for her to have that look in her eyes it was a startling revelation. The iPad is for folks that don’t care how many Gigahertz their processor has, how much RAM they can install, how big the hard drive is or which of the 4 Web browser they have installed they are using. This is for folks that just want to go to “the internet”, check email, play music, look at photos, and (dare I say it) read a book. They don’t want to wait for the computer to start up, they want to pick it up and do the one thing they need and put it down again (by the way put me in that category).

For years we have talked about how the future of computing will involve devices that are computers themselves yet we don’t think of them that way. They will not be dedicated devices that we are tethered to by way of mouse and keyboard (even wireless ones). Yet when something comes along that moves us in that direction we can’t even see it for what it is. I’ll admit it, I missed it.

Now I’ve heard all the complaints from “it doesn’t have a camera” to “it can’t run flash” and there are plenty more out there and many are valid, but I think you have to step back and look at it from a different viewpoint. Would your mom care? I’m not so sure she would. I think she wants to go look up the latest news or weather or maybe find a recipe online and Steve knows there are plenty of apps in the app store that fit that bill.

So, I’ll be thinking about the iPad the next time my mom calls me to tell me that her computer is not working anymore, or to ask why her hard drive is full or when the long lost friend (that only calls when they have computer problems) calls to say “so I went to this website and my computer froze”. The thought of finally hanging up my “free family tech support” hat for good makes me feel giddy again.

Will it revolutionize the world and make us all hold hands and sing kum ba ya, my Steve, Kum ba ya? Probably not. Will it fill a void and work for a lot of folks? I think it will.

I think they are going to sell a million of these things to “sons/husbands/son-in-laws” just like me.

Steve bless.

Looks like Microsoft Vista is the BOMB! Well, at least some sort of bomb. Last night Windows Vista won the 2009 Fiasco Award. For those of you not familiar with the Fiasco Awards this is a quote from their website:

The aim of the Fiasco Awards is rewarding the best projects in the ICT field that have ended up as a FIASCO.

Out of the 6,403 folks that voted a resounding 5,222 voted for Vista. Quite a fan base Microsoft has built there with there less than stellar operating system. Interestingly enough, I have had friends that have been very happy with Vista. Well, at least until they try to install a piece of hardware.

I think the biggest mistake Microsoft made was not necessarily with the operating system itself, but by pretending as if nothing was wrong for so long. Hey Microsoft, spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign with Jerry Seinfeld isn’t going to fix the fact that there are lots of people really pissed at you right now, because they are completely frustrated with their operating system. Can anybody over at Microsoft even spell crisis communication? I would venture to say no.

I have been asked quite a bit about how to use Google Reader for the reading of RSS feeds. It is what I use to keep up to date with all of my news sources. Luckily Google created a video with a short tutorial on how to use Google Reader. Enjoy.

Official Google Reader Blog: Google Reader for Beginners

Ok Apple, you better fix this one. Now it seems that those passwords that we all like to use to lock our iPhones are quite useless. According to this article from PC World, not only can you easily access all the favorites on a locked phone, with a little playing we were able to access not only text messages but read all the emails on a locked phone. You can even send an email. Geesh Apple, come on.

Try this at home:
1. Turn on your locked iPhone
2. From the password screen hit emergency call
3. Now double tap the home button
4. Shazam! you now have access to all the favorites.
5. If you click on any of the blue arrows to the right you can access all kinds of goodies.

Try this goody:
1. After you are reading one of your favorites info click on that person’s email
2. From the new email screen hit cancel.
3. You can now read all the emails and even change accounts if there are some.

Yeah real secure. I hope that Apple fixes this ASAP.

Update: It’s not just if you have iphone firware 2.02, my buddy has 2.01 and it does the same thing on his.

Update 2: You can change the behavior of the double click of the home button and do a workaround to keep your phone secure. To do that do the following:

1. Go to settings
2. Click general
3. Click Home Button
4. Now change your setting to Home.

That will lock it back up. Enjoy.

This story is great. Someone took the time to do some nice work here.

Http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,401044,00.html