The second week I had my iPad I traveled to San Francisco – for 5 days. I travel light – I can travel for a week with a single backpack. I have not checked luggage in 10+ years.

So what worked?

No WiFi on the plane, even though it was United both ways. Their bitch airlines (err, partnerships) don’t seem to offer it. But I had placed a number of videos on my iPad that me and a coworker were able to view in-flight that made the flight seem shorter that it was (headphone splitter required).

In five days I never even had to consider battery life – the device just worked when I needed it to. I did plug it in when I remembered – but unlike my iPhone I was not “jonesing” for power all the time.

Email with corporate worked wonderfully until I needed to print, sign and fax something – so I thought I have found the iPad’s Achilles’s Heal. Until I realized that in a foreign office I would not have been able to print the document even from my Macbook Pro. Instead I emailed it to someone in the office, got the paperwork done, and moved on. Easier than installing printer drivers on a MacBook. So no issue.

Connectivity. I do not have a 3G iPad – so I relied on WiFi during the entire trip. Guess what – 90% of the time that is available in a city like San Francisco. Or San Antonio. ONLY once was I left without WiFi and that was in a scary little bar in China town that I should not have been in.

I received no attachments I could not view and comment on (sure – I could not edit them). Basically I had email, and Skype, and GTalk (although not all at the same time – hurry up that multi-tasking, Apple)

Bottom line is that I can travel with just my iPad. No Laptop Required. For what I need to do when on the road the iPad just works. And gives me the added pluses of battery life, entertainment, light weight and being instant-on. When I needed it, it was ready.

So if you have an iPad, and are doing a trip – trust the iPad. It is a good replacement for a laptop unless you have to create a ton of content.

Since I am reviewing the iPad I am also writing his post on the iPad.

I wl not correct any typos
Or odd formatting errors (like the random carriage return above)

As you canp seethe onscreen keyboard is a challenge
Pbut the devce is amazing.

OK – the above was written using the iPad o-screen keyboard – which either I need to get used to, or it sucks. I thought the iPhone keyboard sucked at first but learned to use it, and expect the same is true of this. Right now I am typing with the (optional) bluetooth keyboard – which I have had for two years so I am used to it.

So what is bad about the iPad?

1) It does not multi-task – so for me it can NEVER replace a notebook unless it adds that capability. I am a multi-tasking fool and need Twitter, numerous IM clients and email and Browser open always.
2) I can’t program it with NewtonScript (yeah – leave me alone – I liked NewtonScript!)
3) I couldn’t afford more than one of them.
4) The docking port is in the wrong place. I would have put it so that when docked I was in wide-screen (so I could watch movies, etc)
5) It is WAY too slippery. I would have preferred a rubberized coating that gave me some grip – you almost HAVE to have a case for this thing – which makes it feel much larger that it really is.

What is great about the iPad? Almost everything else. From reading books, to streaming wide-screen Netflix movies, reading news sites – it is amazingly easy to use. It is amazing easy for even me to spend even more time online (and trust me – that is saying something).

It is so natural to pick it up and read on it – especially for anyone who grew up with books. This feels like a good-sized novel. About 1.5 pounds. But it carries thousands of books.

The battery life is amazing. Apple (kudos to them!) sold me a unit that was 96% charged – so after 10 minutes on the charger I had a full charge. After two hours completely undocked and watching video, reading blogs, etc I still am at 93% power.

Apps built for this device look amazing – and apps that weren’t built for it kinda suck – but I still prefer them on this device than on my iPhone – partially because I can actually SEE this screen

I’m sure I’ll have more later, but for now this will have to do. TIme to go watch some Netflix on my iPad!

I spent the day at the new Rackspace Headquarters.  First visit since I went with Scoble early this year.  It was under construction then (I am now a Mosso/Rackspace employee).

What impressed me?  The Dyson Airblade.

Really – a hand blower/dryer that actually works!

Everything in the bathrooms is no touch – even the soap dispenser (which I love, coming from a medical background).

But the Airblade – very cool.  It actually works!  In like 15 seconds!  And your hands are dry.

I want one.

I tried to take one, but I didn’t have the right set of tools to steal one.  Besides, I was in a high level meeting, and walking in with the hand dryer would have been odd.

I love great tech – and Dyson makes amazing stuff.  I LOVE their vacuums.  How many geeks do you know that talk about vacuums?  Only the ones who have bought a Roomba OR a Dyson.  The Dyson is a work of technology and art.  The Roomba is a conversation piece.

Some of the key Mosso/Rackspace employees geeked out over the Dyson products today.

I did

Microsoft did a “blind taste test” with a group that thought they were looking at the NEXT version of Windows – code-name Mojave.

Some of the clips showing the reaction of people that had preconceptions about Vista are pretty classic.

First, the “Oh Really?” group: http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/#/?video=v12

Then the main site: http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

I like Vista myself, even though I am now on a Mac every day – I run Vista on it in VMware Fusion.

Nicely done, Microsoft (could have been done in Silverlight instead of Flash – perhaps after the Olympics drive more Silverlight adoption, ok?)

I watched this movie this morning – it was lent by a friend, and I had no idea what it was about. 

It is a musical.

And normally that would have ended my review (and viewing) – there are few musicals I have enjoyed enough to watch all the way through.

If you enjoy music by The Beatles you will almost certainly enjoy this film. 

The movie is a kaleidoscope of the sounds and images of the turbulent 1960’s.  I really enjoyed not just the sound track, but the storyline.

Definitely worth a watch.

Across the Universe is a 2007 Academy Award-nominated musical film produced by Revolution Studios and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was released in the United States on October 12, 2007. The script is based on an original story credited to Julie Taymor, Dick Clement, and Ian La Frenais that incorporates 33 compositions written by members of The Beatles. The film, directed by Taymor, stars Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, and T.V. Carpio, and it introduces Dana Fuchs and Martin Luther McCoy as actors. There are cameo appearances made by Bono, Eddie Izzard, Joe Cocker, Salma Hayek, and others.

Across the Universe (film) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PhotoCycle is a new Video Show with Robert Scoble, Thomas Hawk and Marc Silber.

It hasn’t launched yet, but here is a little teaser.  This is one show I am really looking forward to!

If the video embed below doesn’t work, here is the direct link. 

First, we’ll, be taking you to meet some of the true masters of photography such as our walk with Annie Leibovitz through her show. She told us how she got some of her remarkable shots, for example her nude Vanity Fair cover of Demi Moore.  As Annie told it “Demi led the shoot and dropped her dress”

We’ll also be checking in with the family of photography masters such as our trip  to Yosemite with Michael Adams, Ansel’s son where he told us stories such as how Ansel got his famous shot of the moon over half dome, taken on his way to happy hour—just like you or I could have!

We’ll stop at Wildcat Hill, Edward Weston’s home and stand where he shot many of his famous images and talk with his grandson Kim, who by the way also shoots nudes—should be interesting.

We’ll be going on classic PhotoWalks where we strike out to accessible, photo-rich locations to see shots, discuss how to get them and again learn from these experiences.

We’ll also be exploring the business side of photography to get an inside view of making a living with photography.

Finally we’ll be passing along weekly tips and tricks to better your craft. We’ll learn from those who have mastered digital photography.

PhotoCycle will take you to meet some of the world’s top innovators in photography, yet I’ll be tailoring the show to you and your interests.

The "Deep Zoom" Feature in Microsoft Silverlight (Silverlight 2 beta 1) is pretty cool.  To play with it I made a collection of some of my daughters artwork.

Silverlight lets you zoom in, drag the page around, double click to zoom, etc.

Click on the picture to open a new browser window.  If you don’t have Silverlight installed, you can get it here.  You will need it to watch the Olympics on NBC.com anyway

I started getting some hits from Alltop.com a few weeks ago – not many, and never seemingly from the same URL.  I dismissed them.  Of course, I follow Guy Kawasaki in Twitter (and he follows me) – so I know well what Alltop is.

Alltop aggregates RSS feed – "the best of the blogs" but they also sort them by category – and they have a lot of categories.

Today I got a dozen hits from http://life.alltop.com before I wondered what was up.  So I went and looked.  If you scroll down a bit, there is my blog, on the left.

I think the "life" section is probably where my blog belongs – because I talk way more about personal stuff than tech – and when I do talk tech, it’s normally personal!

About an hour later I got an email from Guy Kawasaki telling me they added me to Alltop – a canned email, but that’s cool.

So how did my blog make it?  My Technorati rank is ok – I’ve been in the top 100k often.  My subscribers via FeedBurner isn’t huge – averages 115 people/month.  So how did I get any attention?

I can only guess it was via Twitter.  Depending on who is online and active I may or may not Twit about a new blog post.  If I think it fits the (current) audience, I will.

Twitter gives you a huge voice.  But I’ve found I moderate (usually) what I Twit about depending on who is online, and active.  My Twitter friends online in the daytime are mostly different from those online at 1am.

And I appreciate that Alltop included my blog – it is just another way to make a new connection.

[Update - literally just as I posted this WP 2.5 was officially released.  The widget interface is, I am afraid, unchanged from RC1]

I’m sure people worked very hard designing the new Widget admin interface for WordPress 2.5 – and I really don’t like criticizing someone else’s work.  But I don’t understand the thought process here. 

A perfectly functional (and very simple) interface was completely abandoned in favor of a very busy, very dysfunctional interface.

(click images for larger view)

To the left is the old interface. 

To add a widget to a sidebar you grabbed the widget from the bottom selection and dragged it onto the sidebar you wanted it on. 

You dragged the widgets to the order you preferred. 

And you clicked "Save Changes".  Everything was on one page, in one place.

Simple. Elegant, even

Why did it change?  Especially, why did it change to this:

As you can see, I can’t even view all my widgets without scrolling the screen. 

And I can’t view both Sidebars at once. 

Really.

Seriously – you can’t. 

You can’t just drag a widget from Sidebar 2 to Sidebar 1, either.

In fact, it takes three mouse clicks to change from Sidebar 1 to Sidebar 2.

And each widget now consumes a fair amount of screen real-estate in the admin view.  Why?  Just to show the text that tells me a Calendar widget puts a calendar on my blog?  Why not just do that with a tool-tip as I mouse over the widget?

Here’s a suggested new layout:

Note that there are now two columns to display the widgets – less screen scrolling.

Both Sidebars are displayed.  No screen switching.

This would allow you to drag and drop widgets from one Sidebar to the other.

For the most part, the changes I have seen in WordPress 2.5 are nice – and they make sense.

This new interface for managing widgets isn’t in that category.  This is a huge step backwards in usability.

The changes to widget management seem to have done "just because we can" – and they don’t seem to have given much any consideration to the user experience.

But then – this is just a Release Candidate – so things could change before WordPress 2.5 ships.

For the sake and sanity of every WordPress administrator out there, let’s hope this section does change.

Last year, I blogged that I had purchased a new TV.  It is a Mitsubishi 57 inch DLP High Def TV, and I have really enjoyed it.  So have my kids, and their friends.  They’ve played a lot of hours of Halo on this TV!

So this week, 1 year and three weeks after I bought the TV the projection lamp died.  Of course, it was three weeks after the warranty expired.  I called Mitsubishi parts and the woman on the phone was extremely nice.  I was in a good mood, even though I had just found that this bulb would cost me over 250 US dollars!  I was joking around, and making her laugh and she thanked me for not being upset.  I told her that there wasn’t any reason for me to be mad at her, and then I said, "If I would have called you a couple weeks ago when the "lamp" light first came on, I would have had the replacement by now".

Well, my remembering that saved me $250.  Remembering it, and being nice to the lady.  She put me in contact with Mitsubishi Consumer Relations – and they agreed to cover the bulb under warranty, since it started failing during the warranty!

Thanks, Mitsubishi.  I will do business with you again!

Just a quick note on the Photo-stitching that is included in Windows Live Photo Gallery.

It is drop-dead-easy to use.  And it can produce some pretty interesting results.  Like these pictures combined from the photos I took when FastComapny.TV was filming at Sea World, San Antonio.

Click to enlarge.

Here Shel is talking to Scoble, talking to himself, AND merged in with Fran from Sea World.  This merged five photos. I know it looks like four – trust me, it was five

This is a stitch up of a couple photos showing the lake at Sea World (and another coaster in the background)

You can get Windows Live Photo Gallery here.  It is free.

OK. If you haven’t read my previous post where MOSSO blew my mind, go read it now.  Then be prepared to be REALLY blown away.

I said I could create one domain that runs Windows and another that runs Linux – all on the same account.

I said I could run Windows with MS SQL or with MySQL.

I said I could run Windows and Ruby on Rails, or Linux and Ruby on Rails.

All of that amazed me.

But I had NO IDEA that I could run, ON ONE DOMAIN .Net, PHP, MySQL, and MS SQL.  I didn’t realize that my .Net app could talk to my MySQL database AND my MS SQL database.  Or that my PHP app could talk to my MySQL and MS SQL databases.

That my Linux apps could talk to my Windows databases.  And vise-versa.

All on the same domain.

All on the same domain!

I didn’t realize how many choices I had, and how many ways I could serve my clients all on one box – regardless of the application, database, Operating System, etc.

I honestly need to sit and think for a while because I have no clue how all of this can be true.  Just thinking about the back end that serves this is making my head spin a little bit.  The front-end – the part *I* work with is just DROP DEAD EASY.

I’ve got a feeling the back end is a bit more complex

The back end is where the BMVS (Black Magic Voodoo Shit) happens.  And it is some serious magic.

In my F.A.Q. page I say DesqView X is my favorite software ever.  Because it was magic.

But I think I need to update my F.A.Q. now.  MOSSO is making my head spin.

It honestly seems impossible.

And if I would not have been lucky enough to just talk to one of the inventors of the technology I probably still wouldn’t believe it.

My brain must rest.

Amazing.  After being at Rackspace all day yesterday, and visiting their new site the day before, I was already wondering if I shouldn’t just go work for them.  Rackspace is an amazing company.

But now I know.  If I leave consulting, I am applying at MOSSO.

It is that freaking cool.

I opened an account on MOSSO today. It was VERY easy. Name, address, email, password, credit card number.

Bam! Everything just happens. I didn’t have to pick out a server configuration, a data plan, a firewall, anti-virus – none of that crap that is just a pain in the ass to keep up with.

In fact – I didn’t even have to decide if I wanted to run Windows or Linux — because I can make that decision for each domain I add. I am NOT bullshitting you! I “bought” one server. I created two domains. One runs LAMP and the other runs Windows Server. Really!

I can create another domain and run Ruby on Rails. I can run a domain on Windows with MySQL or MSSQL. I can run Linux with Ruby on Rails, or Linux with PHP/MySQL, etc. One box. One price. One login. One thing to manage. Very sweet!

All on the same “cloud” in the sky. All without worrying about updating anything, managing firewall ports, updating Anti-virus, etc.

Truly amazing technology! This is cloud computing without all of the pitfalls you get with other cloud computing platforms (you have to be a programmer, lightning can strike you at this altitude on some platforms, and the air gets thin up in the clouds).

But MOSSO protects you from ALL OF THAT. Really.

So far, so good. I still have some stuff to learn – and there are two things I don’t like – they aren’t big things, but sometimes it is the little things that bother me.

• First, I can’t pick the day of the month my credit card gets billed. I wish I could.
• Second, it costs $10.00 to transfer an existing domain. Sure, that gives you an extra year on your domain, but I think the first domain transfer should be free – as an incentive for me to move to MOSSO.

Like I said – these aren’t big issues, but they are areas I think MOSSO could improve on.

I won’t really put anything live on the new server until WordPress 2.5 comes out next week. No reason to do an install just to upgrade.

But the back end of this system must be VERY freaking cool. I must talk to them more about it!

And I’ll let the rest of you know more about MOSSO as I learn more.

So far I am more than impressed. I almost cannot believe they are doing what they are doing. It seems illogical!

And what would you expect to pay for this kind of power and flexibility? $1000/month? $500/month? No! It is only $100 a month to run a wide variety of sites on one platform that grows and expands dynamically – as you need it.

Really. Fucking. Amazing.

My host (1and1.com) performed an “upgrade” to my server overnight.

I woke up to a dead web server.  I could FTP in, but a dozen domain names were down.  For HOURS.

And what did this upgrade give me?  What was my “benefit”?

• Perl Version 5.8.8
• Python Version 2.4.4
• Python Version 2.5
• Ruby Version 1.8.5

NONE of these things interests me whatsoever.  So there was no benefit to me to have this “upgrade” that killed my web sites for hours.

In related news, after meeting with the Rackspace team this week, I am trying out MOSSO.  From the MOSSO site:

The Hosting Cloud is advanced technology made extremely simple. The applications you load on the Hosting Cloud immediately and automatically inherit clustered processing, load-balancing, and redundant storage. The moment you upload an application, it’s set to scale across an entire fleet of computers. There are no devices to think about or servers to configure. You don’t install an operating system, you simply select one. You don’t administer the underlying systems, you develop your own unique applications.

In fact, we built the Hosting Cloud to meet a unique set of goals designed to make the process of web development faster and easier:

It had to be “device-less.” There are no servers, VPSes, operating systems, or devices for you to setup and configure. Simply upload your application, and you’re off and going.

It had to scale automatically. It’s hard to predict when you’ll need to scale quickly, and really, you shouldn’t have to. Because clustering is built right in, the processing powering your application simply surges when your traffic surges.

It had to be flexible. Who are we to pick the technologies you use? We chose a far better approach: to build best-practice environments for lots of technology, so you can choose the framework that best fits your needs.

It had to be easy. You can launch a new application with almost no setup. Just use our online software to provide the domain where your site or application will live and then pick the technologies you want to power it. The entire process takes about five minutes. We even do some DNS magic so you can get started before your domain name fully migrates.

It could never be obsolete. Most importantly, the Hosting Cloud is a dynamic environment where you are automatically provided upgrades, patches, and even new technologies without any effort or migration on your part. That’s a sure cure for server obsolesce and a welcome change if your current provider charges you month after month for an aging setup they racked a year ago.

MOSSO costs a bit more than my current server – about twice, actually.  But for the scalability, ease of setup and management, and the Fanatical Rackspace Support (REAL PEOPLE ANSWER THE PHONE!) I think it may just prove to be worth the added cost.

I won’t be moving my main domains to MOSSO to start with.  As I learn about the platform more, and build up a sense of security with it, I may move everything to MOSSO. 

I certainly would have paid the extra $50 today to not be down for 6+ hours!

Three times over the last two days Scobleizer made a statement that 3G cellular data network here in San Antonio was the best he had seen, or simply that it “Kicks Ass”.

ATT is headquartered here, and Robert uses ATT – so I would hope the network was above par.  Plus we have a lot of large companies here and a huge Military presence – all are heavy consumers of high-speed wireless data.

Just another reason San Antonio is a great place to build a business.  The Scoble videos coming up over the next few weeks will give you many more reasons.

Here’s one of my favorite – The Flying Saucer (and yes, I know other cities have a Flying Saucer – but not as nice as mine!).  From last night – a Scoble Qik video – live streaming videos of a gaggle of geeks guzzling grog.  And yes, that’s me on the still frame below.  I am afraid to say.

And yes – this was March 12, 2008.  And yes, nobody has a jacket on, and there is no snow.  Just the way I like it!

I do not understand this Microsoft Vista error dialog I got yesterday while editing my Registry.

A few years or so ago I bought a low-flow toilet. One that uses less water to get rid of my waste.

It’s made by Kohler.

And it never worked well. From day one it leaked around the “flapper valve”. Not much, but a little. Enough I could hear it. About six months ago it started leaking a lot more. So I bought a new flapper valve. Then another, and another. Still it leaked.

Today I went to Home Depot. They had a dozen flapper valves that all looked alike. I stool like a deer in headlights trying to make a choice. Eventually an employee came us the aisle helping another customer. When he was finished with that customer, I asked for his help.

Although he seemed as if he couldn’t care less that I was a customer he did ask about my toilet – the he found me a flapper valve made for Kohler toilets. And he walked away. OK – the service wasn’t friendly, but it was efficient. I am now listening to no water running at all. Not even a trickle.

But I wonder – flapper valves have been pretty much “designed” for the last couple decades. WTF made Kohler design a “different” one? Why make me take 5 trips to the hardware store? Why not be “interchangeable”?

Of course I know the answer – there isn’t a lot of money in “interchangeable”. The margins are a lot better if you aren’t a commodity. Even if you build potties.

I never had a really clean way to visualize my home/home office network usage before.  I had a very complex network with multiple sub-nets, dual routers, etc.

But as I explained last week, I reconfigured my network.  One of the advantages is that now all of my data – both home and home office all goes through one router (even though I have two cable modems on different networks).

This allows me to see the total data we’re moving around here.

So here is a picture from the last few days usage:

You can click the image to make it larger.

Monday was a heavy lifting day on some rather large databases I needed to share.  And I was downloading some “free” music (really – not stealing it!) via BitTorrent.

But I like seeing how much data I am eating.  I’m sure it is more than the average Time Warner cable modem customer – after all, I have 14 PCs and 26 “Internet Enabled” devices here! In any case, it makes me feel better about the money I spend for my cable modems!

I can also see a daily graph of my data usage:

That huge spike in traffic at about 10 am shows when my son woke up, and started playing World of Warcraft (he has several level 90 characters – which I guess is maxed out).  Whatever.  Traffic drops off sharply at 5 as my kids go do whatever teenagers do.  And I took a nap

I can also use QoS (Quality of Service) settings to shape my network – to give some data types a higher priority than others.  I haven’t adjusted anything related to QoS yet – but it still shows me a pretty graph.  I plan on giving priority to email, browsing, and IM clients.  Then a lesser priority to my kid’s games, and a lower level to BitTorrent, Microsoft Update, etc.

So I am happy so far with the new setup.  It hasn’t needed any tweaking since I turned it on, and I haven’t had to reboot anything lately!

As I learn more about the software, I’ll share more.  The logging appears to be excellent, for example.  But I haven’t had a lot of time to dig into it.

I mentioned on Twitter a few days ago that I had just completed rebuilding my home network.

I had two primary design goals in mind – make it easier to manage, and reduce the equipment it takes to do it.

One of the first things I realized is that I didn’t need a dedicated Firewall computer, as much as I loved the software.  It was always on, and always noisy.  I could do better.

I ended up buying a Linksys WRT54GL for $60 from NewEgg.  I put Tomato on it – an open source Linux-based firmware drop that does my Wireless, my router, and my Firewall – all on the Linksys Linux-based PC.  And it does it very well (and easy to set up to boot).

So I spent about three hours, and I replaced three devices (router, firewall, WLAN) with one very small and very quiet device.

I owe Tomato a PayPal donation.  My office is much quieter, I am consuming less power, and I am even better protected than before.

This could be fun. Over on the right sidebar you see this widget. Click on it and you can ask me a question. I’ll probably try to answer it!

The questions/answers are index and searchable. Interesting.

I’ll test it here for a while – feel free to use it!

 

Askablogr is an integrated blog question and answer (Q&A) service that:

* Makes it easy for blog readers to submit questions to their favorite bloggers, while protecting the privacy and attention of the blogger

* Makes it easy for bloggers to answer some questions and decline others (or permanently block certain questioners) without hurting anyone’s feelings

* Automagically publishes these Q&A exchanges to the blogger’s blog

* Creates a master index of all the participating bloggers, readers and Q&A sessions (with links back to the source blogs) to help readers find and participate in this new kind of blog conversation

Askablogr – How it Works