I know there have been millions of articles about the iPad. But you haven’t heard my perspective. So, here goes… As soon as I saw the iPad announcement I was of two minds. On the one hand I thought “Why would I want to pay $500 for a glowing screen version of the Kindle?” On the other hand, it was hard to deny a big touch screen device that gives you immediate access to all your content wherever you are is pretty interesting.

Lucky for me, the release of the iPad was relatively close to my birthday. I circled the wagons and let everyone who might be thinking about giving me a gift to give me some money to go towards an iPad. It worked so well that I don’t think that I received any other gifts besides this iPad.

In the first few days of owning any gadget, it is hard not to love it simply due to the novelty. The real test to any gadget is if you still use it on a daily basis a month or two months or a year later. So far, the iPad seems to have staying power. It is a great toy, but it is much more. It is now a part of my work day as well.

iPad as Toy

Here is the thing. We are officially in the future. Think about this. Go back just ten years. Thin TVs existed, but they were pretty expensive. Most people still had those big tube-type TVs. TiVos were around but not very prevalent. If someone handed you a thin screen that you could hold in your hand that connected to the Internet, played movies, played TV shows, played music, let you purchase and read books, you would have lost your mind. This thing is a game changer.

Now that I am using an iPad on a daily basis, it has completely changed how and why I use my laptop. My MacBook has now been relegated to content creation only. All the content consumption has been off loaded to the iPad for me. It is great. When I want to relax, I get out my iPad and browse around all the different types of content at my finger tips until I find something that seems interesting whether it is a movie, podcast, website, book, or whatever.

iPad as Tool

I don’t go to a meeting without my iPad. I have downloaded a killer app that is simply called Todo. All it does is help you create a todo list. But man, the way it does that simple job is worth the $4.99 I paid for it. I can track all my projects. I can see all the tasks that are relevant to where I am at the time. And, the user interface is beautiful. When was the last time you were passionate about a todo application?

The iPad also gives you a quick and elegant interface to manage you email and calendar. It makes the management of your life clean and simple, which for me is a good thing. It makes me a better manager of my life because it is just more fun now.

The iPad is too big to take everywhere, but because nearly everything syncs back to the cloud, I have access to all my data on my iPhone. When it is inappropriate to carry the iPad, I have the iPhone in my pocket. I hate to sound like such a fanboy, but I love it.

The Negatives

The iPad isn’t the panacea for all problems. It is not a great content creation device. I am typing this blog entry on the iPad right now and nearly all the muscles in the upper half of body are starting to hurt as I lean forward trying to type on this thing. It is not a replacement for your main computer which means it is an expensive accessory. In a world where people go to bed hungry or thirsty, there are probably better places to spend your money.

Final Thoughts

I figured that I was going to like the iPad as a toy but I am continually surprised by how useful this thing is in other areas. If you are wondering whether or not to get an iPad because it seems expensive for a toy, rest assured it is much more…

Today may be a banner day in finding the perfect todo list option for me and my iPhone. Enter Google Chrome. For those of you who haven’t heard, Google has released a browser called Chrome.  It is clean, fast, and has some very interesting features that are growing more and more compelling to me all the time.

Google Chrome gives you the option of creating virtual applications out of online applications.  In reality, it is pretty simple, Google Chrome will open an online app in its own window that has the forward, back, URL, and other standard browser buttons removed.  It makes online apps feel more like apps that live on your harddrive.

Here is how Chrome and Toodledo have collided to give me a more interesting and integrated todo option. Toodledo has a very clean interface for the iPhone but their standard interface leaves a little to be desired. The great thing about Toodledo’s iPhone interface is that you can access it in a standard browser on your PC or Mac.  Here is where my head exploded…

I opened the iPhone interface of Toodledo in Google Chrome and turned it into a virtual app.  The Chrome virtual apps remember how they were sized and where they were in the window when you last closed them.

Long story short, I now have a todo widget that lives on the far left part of my workspace that stays out of the way that is always synced on my iPhone.  In other words, it is possible to use chrome to create iPhone app widgets that have their own window and live on your computer.

Hooking a laptop up to a Samsung HD television

Right now I have my laptop connected to my new Samsung HD television via an SVGA cable. You may ask me “Why would you want to do that?” Well, … ummm…. I know there has to be a good reason for this… Hey, I know I could watch those videos that I downloaded but won’t stream through the XBOX.

It works pretty good, but I did have a few problems out of the box. Here is how I fixed them.

First of all, you must be using the right resolution. If you don’t, the TV may show an image but something will be off. In my case, the right screen resolution is 800×600. I don’t have one of those new schmancy 1080P screens, but it looks pretty good!

When I had the resolution set to 1026×768 I got some strange strobing and the entire screen wasn’t displayed.

The second step I had to do was to go into the menu of the television and have it sync up to the signal. When I first plugged the computer into the tv, I got a signal, but it wasn’t aligned right on the screen. I did the sync step and the image was aligned, but I was getting the strobe…thus the whole resolution thing.

I have one remaining problem and that is how to get the image into native 16×9. If I use the 16×9 setting on the TV, it stretches and distorts the image. (My laptop is sending a 4×3 image.)

I went online to look to see if the drivers for the video card in this laptop have been updated, but alas the latest drivers were from 2004, before the crush of 16×9 monitors on the market. My video card assumes that the only monitor it would ever be hooked up to is a standard 4×3…drats!!!

That means if I want to watch a movie from my laptop on my schmancy HDTV, I will have both letterboxing and pillars. If you don’t know what that means, do a Google search…well let me save you the trouble. Simply put, it means that I have a big black square surrounding my video content….again drats!!!

With a quick upgrade of my laptop, I should be in business. And since I am swimming in an ocean of money, that shouldn’t be a problem….wait…..DRATS!!!

Oh well, at least I have a schnazzy new monitor to look at www.murdog.com.

By the way, even I am getting sick of the ‘sch…’ thing. I believe I will stop that now!

I just started using Google Notebook today. I don’t really know what it does yet, but it has that twinge of cool to it. You need to check it out at www.google.com/notebook. If you already have a gmail account, then you are in.

It really starts getting cool when you download the browser plugin that allows you to take notes no matter where you are on the net.

Again, I am not quite sure why yet, but I feel like this is cool for some reason, and I wanted to blog about it.

What will they think of next? Computer titan Dell is adjusting its years old strategy of selling its computers only through direct sales. On June tenth of this year, you will be able to walk into your neighborhood Wal-Mart and take home a brand-new Dell Dimension.

Hooray, I couldn’t be happier. I am sure there are those out there who will not like this development, but who loses? No one! Dell expands its reach to customers who are unwilling to purchase online, and they become a stronger company for it.

Of late, Dell has been struggling. The company who was once the stalwart at the top of the computer manufacturing list was overtaking by HP a couple of years ago and have been struggling ever since. What is it that HP does? Well, glad you ask…they sell computers at Wal-Mart, among other places.

Dell spent too long resting on it laurels and cut costs to the point of alienation of its customers. I believe this move will gain back some new customers and will push Dell back to the lead.

I know I hate waiting for computers, and I only by Dell for my office PCs. If I spend my own hard earned cash, I want the computer now. All that to say that I have a Dell at work and an HP lappy at home. (The HP is getting old, it may be time to purchase a new Dell…from Wal-Mart.)

Oooh I couldn’t be more excited. Adobe had a big announcement today to tell the world that the new version of their Creative Suite is ready to hit the street. It is kind of bittersweet because it costs so much to get in on the suite and even though it isn’t quite as expensive, it costs a ton to upgrade.

Adobe does a great job of making their updates just good enough to really get you licking your lips for the new version.

CS3 is the first full version from Adobe since they acquired Macromedia, the software company behind Flash.

As a creative director of a web start up and Organizational Development company, I make videos, layout books, design web graphics (Note the GenoNow Graphic in the top left corner..) I need just about every tool that Adobe makes. I am a jack of all trades because my job necessitates that. That means that I am going to have to go to bat for an upgrade in the near future.

Right now I have CS2, and I love it. I can’t wait to play with the newest version. I am going to have to do some more exploration to see what aspects of the new version drive me to open the old wallet.

One thing that I know is that they now have no less than 4 CS3 packages to choose from. Here are the four versions:

1. Design Premium – Which contains:
   InDesign
   Photoshop
   Illustrator
   Flash
   Dreamweaver
   Acrobat
2. Web Premium – Which contains:
   Dreamweaver
   Flash
   Photoshop
   Illustrator
   Fireworks
   Contribute
   Acrobat
3. Production Premium – Which contains
   After Effects
   Premiere
   Photoshop
   Flash
   Illustrator
   and Adobe’s replacement for Audition, Soundbooth
4. Master Collection – Which contains
   …EVERYTHING

Of course, there is a part of me that longs for the CS3′s Master Collection that has it all. But upon further inspection, there are a lot of things in the Production Premium collection that I won’t use. I use Sony’s Vegas, and I am very loyal to that platform. It is just down and dirty fast…I likes it. So, that eliminates Premiere. Well, then again, I would use everything else in that package. I don’t know what to do.
In the past there used to be two worlds of Adobe. The print/design world and the video world. Now, with the release of CS3, those lines are getting blurred. And for good reason. We are in an era of fast computers that allow designers and creative types to branch out and explore new mediums.

I feel just as comfortable in the video world as in the print world as in the web world. I am not a deep dive expert in any of those worlds, but I’ve got the chops to hang in all of them.

This all happened because computing power has risen to the point that we can now do all those things relatively inexpensively. There is going to be some hard thinking and selling in the future when it comes to this upgrade. I’ve got to start working on my pitch right now.

The good news is that no one is getting their hands on the new version until the end of April. I am sure it is going to be a little longer before I get my dirty little hands on an upgrade.

My last post not withstanding, this Boingboing posting is worth a quick look. Funny!

Boing Boing: Vista error stickers for bus-shelter Vista ads

I am being a little facetious here but apparently there actually is a market for Microsoft Vista despite the endless blog and news reports about its many “failings”. Microsoft’s latest operating system, Vista, is actually selling.

I am not a Microsoft head, but I also hate the haters (regardless of the product). Vista has received more that its fair share of bad press.

Every product has its good points and bad points and pledging total allegiance to only one product in any class of products is extraordinarily limiting. I am currently updating this blog with my old Mac laptop. Across the room is my home desktop PC that is a dual boot XP/Linux box. I know that I am hardly representative of most computer users, but I really don’t give much thought to the operating system anymore. Each OS has its good points and each has its frustrations. So the fact that Microsoft sells 20 million Vista licenses hardly comes as any surprise.

The rumors of Microsoft’s demise have been greatly exaggerated, and when it comes to computers, I am agnostic.

I want to let my circle of friends know what I am up to in my new job. A big part of it is filming, editing and rendering videos and other “learning objects” for a brand new website on the Internet. It is a site called www.genonow.com. Our hopes is that this site will become the go to place for corporate training.

Initially, it is small because it is brand new. It is still in alpha. Technically, it isn’t open to the public, but go by and kick the tires. We are waiting to get our 30th learning object. Once we get there, we will pronounce it open to the public. Until then, other than this blog post we are keeping it a secret.

Once we are fully up and running, we will be adding new functionality like search, tagging, user-ratings and more. Our hope is to build a community around the content.

Why GenoNow

So, you may be asking, “Why are you building this site?” That’s a great question, let me answer it like this. Let’s say you are the head of Human Resources in a company, and it’s your job to train your work force in their areas of deficiency. Before www.genonow.com, you had to rely in broadcast training. Here is what I mean. Let’s say that 20% of your people have real time-management problems. So, in order to address that problem, you fly in a time-management guru, and spend $20,000 to address a problem that only 20% of your people really suffer from.

What if you could train your staff in a way that is much more granular and focused? That is where GenoNow comes in. You could take that same $20,000 you invested in the time-management seminar and put that into credits for your whole staff. That way the 20% with time management problems could focus on learning objects devoted to effective time managment. The remaining 80% of your staff could seek training in their area of deficiency. That is a much more effective way to spend your training dollar.

Better Training for Less Money For Your Organization

Not to mention that, but we partner with companies to host their training objects. Through the partnership, companies have an easy effective way to broadcast their message to all their employees without having to invest in a distance learning environment. We do all the hard work.

Trainers Needed

We need trainers! We need people who can teach to offer up their training in return for the chance to make some money. The revenue sharing with content creators is very simple. If you sell your content for $20 on GenoNow then you will make $10. GenoNow splits the revenue 50-50 in return for hosting and marketing learning environment object.

Our long term goal is to be a long tail provider of corporate training. That means that you may be surprised at what we would deem as appropriate for the site. Another goal is to allow content owners and trainers to be able to upload and manage their own content. That is coming, but isn’t available yet. Our development team is hard at work creating the product. (Remember you are seeing it in an early stage, there is a lot more to come as far as functionality is concerned.)

If you are a trainer, or if you know a trainer, I want to talk to you. My email is mwilliams (at) sviworld (dot) com. (Please excuse the way I had to publish my email address, I am trying to avoid unwanted emails.)

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . The $7 TV Network | PBS

Inexpensive, massively distributed video distribution has been possible for over 10 years.  This function apparently has been baked into every router made in the last decade.  We don’t get to use it because the admins don’t turn it on.

Put your thinking caps on if you want to and dig into this I, Cringely blog post.  Warning: heavy reading…but still interesting…