User Experiences and Opinions

Game changerScott Kelby says:

Just saw the apple keynote live blog. I’m very impressed. You can nit pick it (like people did the first iphone), but it’s a game changer.

Connecting the iPad to the Mac or PCJohn Gruber says:

When you connect iPad to your Mac or PC, you get a file system mount point with “shared documents”, for interchange with iPad apps.

SpeedDaniel Eran Dilger writes:

It’s also unbelievably fast and smooth, making even the iPhone 3GS look a little slow. I witnessed the iPad cold boot within about fifteen seconds. However, you don’t need to wait for it to boot because it remains on in standby for days (Jobs said a month on a single charge).

John Gruber adds:

Lastly, there’s the fact that the iPad is using a new CPU designed and made by Apple itself: the Apple A4. This is a huge deal. I got about 20 blessed minutes of time using the iPad demo units Apple had at the event today, and if I had to sum up the device with one word, that word would be “fast”.

Will the iPad be great for self-publishers?Scott Bourne opines:

If Apple opens up the iBook store to self-publishers, all the photographers who think their book should be published will have a chance to go out there and build an audience and sell a book. Imagine the pictures we might see that wouldn’t be profitable for a big book publishing company to publish, but may be very realistically self-published via the iBook store! Or perhaps we’ll find the next Photoshop guru! Just as podcasts democratized radio, the iBook store could democratize publishing.

Possibilities of using the iPad in an enterprise / corporate / office environment – Here’s nkhm’s “vision”:

Maybe I can try – the vision to be able to hold something in your hand that has a useful screen size which can easily be taken into meetings to make notes, to check email, to connect to a projector, to look up reference material and to have a working day battery life, while being light enough to be carried in your standard briefcase without having to lug around a second case for your laptop all day.

The vision to take a small device into any office and quickly pair with a blue tooth keyboard (and I suspect also a bluetooth enabled printer) to get some simple email typed, if the on screen keyboard isn’t to your taste.

The vision that all of this is costing only $10 more than a kindle DX, and costs less than a blackberry or iPhone on contract, so small companies can make savings and let their employees have cheap cell phones with cheap price plans, further saving costs.

Just the first few thoughts off the top of my head.

Accessories

Keyboard support – From Apple’s iPad design page:

There are lots of great accessories that have been specifically designed for iPad. The Keyboard Dock, for instance, is a dock with a full-size keyboard. There’s also a standalone Dock. And because iPad has built-in Bluetooth 2.1, it’ll work with an Apple Wireless Keyboard, too.

References

Miscellaneous

Download the keynote, “Apple Announces iPad – Magical & Revolutionary Device at an Unbelievable Price” for free at iTunes.

A photo of how Daringfireball.net looks like on the iPad.

It’s a shame the iPad doesn’t have an SD slot.

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Internet access via wifi at the Copthorne Orchid Hotel, Singapore, doesn’t come cheap, but at least it’s reasonably fast. Here’s the relevant results, as measured by Speedtest.net.

WiFi speed at Copthorne Orchid Hotel, Singapore, measured by Speedtest.net

Download: 4.91 Mb/s
Upload: 0.66 Mb/s
Ping: 27ms

I signed up for the 24 hours internet access package at the reception counter, which set me back SGD25 (before GST and other fees). The 24 hours of access is valid and accumulated over a 7-day period.

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Nexus One / Google Phone Reviews, Opinions and References

December 15, 2009

Advantages
Advanced hardware & technology, breaks carrier lock-in – caf opines:
I don’t think any Android device could compare to the iPhone before the Droid. The Droid has hardware that matches the iPhone (better in some ways, but worse in others, but overall a pretty good match, especially for those that prefer physical keyboards). And when you [...]

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(Mac) Path Finder in MacUpdate’s 2009 Winter Promo Bundle

December 10, 2009

I’d heard about the virtues of using Path Finder over the stock Finder on Macs numerous times in podcasts, blog posts and forum discussions, but had always felt that the $39.95 asking price was a little too rich for my blood.
Well, it’s now included in the MacUpdate 2009 Winter Promo Bundle. $49.99 buys you the [...]

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Maybank Malaysia’s iPhone 3GS Giveaway

December 5, 2009

I saw this ad in the The Star newspaper (issue Dec 02, 2009).
(Click to see a larger image. The photo was captured using a Fujifilm FinePix F200EXR, and edited using Adobe Lightroom 2.5.)

Maybank is giving away 50 iPhones in a contest that runs from 1 Dec 2009 to 28 Feb 2010.
Each time you spend RM50 [...]

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Building a Hackintosh to match a Mac Pro

December 5, 2009

The following is from Nano_tube’s Hackintosh Guide in an AppleInsider forum thread discussing the virtues (or otherwise) of purchasing a Mac Pro.
OS X Updates. If a Hackintosh is installed with a Retail version of OS X (mainly SL) and the hardware does not include an Atom processor (netbook), then there is no issues. It’s just [...]

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The importance of site load speeds and revenue

December 5, 2009

How fast a page loads on your website can directly affect the revenue earned from the site.
Excerpts from Kottke.org’s article on Google DNS follow.
Google VP Marissa Mayer:
After a bit of looking, Marissa explained that they found an uncontrolled variable. The page with 10 results took .4 seconds to generate. The page with 30 results took [...]

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Rename Google Reader Folders on the Mac

November 25, 2009

I’m not sure why there does not exist an option to rename folders in Google Reader.

If urgently need to rename numerous folders, I currently know of only one way – install an RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader on your Mac, and then use the rename folder functionality within that app.
Try either Gruml or [...]

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ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Reviews

November 25, 2009

Reviews
Dave Winer writes:
The Asus is a much better travel computer than the MacBook Pro — primary reason: battery. There’s a quantitative difference that means you don’t look for power outlets. I’m writing this in the airport lounge at Logan and some people have their computers connected to power outlets. When I got here all the [...]

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Require Failed Warning in RubyFrontier

November 16, 2009

After successfully installing the RubyFrontier.tmbundle in TextMate, you might encounter the following error when you publish a page, site or run the Build RubyFrontier Docs script:
Warning: Require failed
This could cause trouble later… or not. Here’s the error message we got:
no such file to load — exifr
page built in 0.263298988342285 seconds
Rendered /Users/abc/default.txt
A little Googling for “exifr” [...]

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