Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
You haven't seen much of the EduGeek lately; I've undergone some personal crises lately that have precluded any thoughts of blogging or writing of any kind. I'll explain what those are soon, but for now lets just say I'd rather have someone ELSE blog for me. I'll get my muse back soon enough, I'm sure.
Every once in a while you run across a story that so completely speaks for itself, and so perfectly sums up your viewpoint on the story's topic, that it's as if the author was channelling YOU when they wrote it. Or experienced it. Such is the case with a story I ran across today on Google Plus.
I don't look at Google Plus much; like many people I need another social networking site like I need a hole in the head, no matter how "innovative" that site might be. At any rate, one of the people I follow on G+ is Tom Merritt, a long-time host of video podcast shows on www.twitlive.tv--shows like Tech News Today, FourCast, CurrentGeek and East Meets West.
Tom and his wife get their television--some of it anyway--through digital means rather than from a cable TV company or satellite provider. By digital means, I mean Apple TV, Hulu Plus, iTunes, etc. Following is an experience they had the other night when they attempted to watch one simple show using said digital media tools.
Tonight Eileen suggested we watch the movie Red Riding Hood (forget whether you think that's a good idea or not for the sake of the rest of this story).
Eileen had paid $2.99 to rent it from iTunes. We wanted to watch it on our TV so she went and launched iTunes on her Mac Pro and we turned on the first gen Apple TV to watch. Except Red Riding Hood was the one movie that did not show up on the list.
I tried making her account default for the Apple TV but it still wouldn't show up. The 'move' button in iTunes was greyed out. Turns out after a little searching that if you rent a movie from your iPad you can't watch it on the Apple TV.
She decided to just watch it on her Mac Pro in the Office and suggested I catch up on American Horror Story so we could start watching it together. I turned on the Roku and launched Hulu Plus. I had suspended my Hulu Plus account since I hadn't been using it, so I went online on the laptop and reactivated it.
Once I launched Hulu Plus on the Roku I searched for American Horror Story. It said Web only. So by paying for Hulu Plus I couldn't watch it. I immediately suspended my account again.
So then we started to talk about other options. We could hook up the media center, launch iTunes, move the rental to that computer and reauthorise. We could move Red Riding Hood on to my iPad (an iPad 2 that I could hook up to my TV) and change the authorization on that iPad temporarily. While all of this would work, none of it seemed worth it for this movie considering the time we had spent troubleshooting. So we gave up.
Eileen went to her Mac Pro in the Office and is watching the movie while I write this.
If we had built our entire system up around unauthorized torrents we could have downloaded the movie and had no rental period, and watched it on any device we anted at any time.
The industry is only making it hard for people to spend money on them. They are not 'fighting piracy'.
PS In the end I decided to play The Old Republic.
Classic, no? This is why I wish that the industry as a whole would stop trying to fight piracy by limiting the ability of their legitimate users to watch and listen to media how and when they want.
As I said, I should be blogging again--for myself I mean--soon enough. :)
--The EduGeek
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The EduGeek on Tech: MacBook Air First Impressions
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
The EduGeek on Tech: MacBook Air First Impressions
I've had MacEnvy for some months now--regular readers of this blog won't be too terribly surprised by this--and I finally acted on it a couple of evenings ago. It might be more fair to say that I gave myself MacEnvy, by blogging about my impressions of the current state of the Mac. As I was writing up the advantages of a Mac (as I see them) over the current Windows experience, the idea that I really wanted a Mac became more and more real for me.
The problem, of course, wasn't on the technical end, but rather the financial one. I simply didn't have that $1600-$2500+ admission fee that's been the bane of potential Apple enthusiasts for decades. So last month when Apple announced the newest flavor of the MacBook Air at $1299 (for the 13" version), I jumped. (I can't really afford $1299, but we'll ignore that for now.) My Mac geek friend and I wound our way up I-25, amongst the still-considerable Ikea store traffic, to the Park Meadows Mac store where I scored said MacBook Air, and I thought I'd share my fist impressions of it, for all those who may be debating getting a Mac themselves.
In this writer's experience, Apple enjoys the success that they do by giving the average gadget customer what they want, how they want it. Pure and simple. Customers wanted to be able to buy digital music and movies on a computer, so Apple gave us iTunes. We wanted a way to carry said music and movies with use wherever we go, so Apple gave us the iPod. We wanted a desktop computer that was easy to set up and use, and consisted of only one simple component, so Apple gave us the iMac. We like the idea of having a laptop computer, but we wanted one that's lighter, thinner, sexier, and easier to use than the typical laptop, and Apple has given us the MacBook Air.
I'll start with the bottom line for once: the MBA is simply a better laptop than a laptop. It's like Steve Jobs had some kind of brain wave absorber, like the one Jim Carrey used in the movie Batman and Robin as The Riddler, and was thus able to read the minds of everyone who ever said to themselves, "This laptop of mine would be perfect, if only it had..." or "If only it did..." (fill in the blank). In this day and age, most people would consider a sentence like that one to be just fanboy talk, just overblown praise for the gee-whiz gadget of the month (that'll be replaced next month by the Next Big Thing). All I know is, this MBA is the laptop I've always wanted, but that nobody seemed willing to make until now.
Now, I should clarify... that MacBook Air is not new by any means. They've been around for about three and a half years, and I don't mind saying, they got off to a rough start. First-generation MBAs were often described as being slow, expensive, and prone to overheating. I remember the general consensus seemed to be that they were great for the CEO or business executive who wanted to wow all the other business executives in the board meetings with how sexy and thin and lightweight their computer was, but that "real" computer users would quickly outgrow them. Apple has been improving them ever since, and this latest iteration--for me at least--has put the MacBook Air in the running with any other laptop on the market.
Apple kept the sexy, thin, and lightweight properties of the MacBook Air, and simply added some beef to it in terms of power, performance, and connectivity. The result is a laptop that has literally everything a typical user would want from a laptop, and some things that a true power use would want, at a very reasonable price. For $1299, you get an Intel i5 processor, 4 gigabytes of RAM, a 128-gigabyte SSD hard drive, a lighted chicklet-style keyboard, an 802.11n wireless adapter, a 13" video display that's absolutely to die for in terms of contrast ratio, color representation and illumination, 2 USB ports, an SD card reader, a webcam, and a Thunderbolt port. Oh, and a multitouch trackpad that's actually big enough and sensitive enough to be usable--a rare quality in a laptop--and a power cord that features a magnetic breakaway connection, so that if you walk off with the laptop and forget to unplug it, the cord simply detaches from the laptop; nothing gets pulled loose or broken.
Now you're thinking, "Come on, how fast could an i5-powered laptop really be?" Especially at only 1.67 Ghz clock speed and a mere 3 megabytes of shared L3 cache? The answer lies in the operating system. Most computer geeks think of computer specs in terms of how fast the computer can run Windows. So the typical computer geek would scoff at specs like those mentioned above. But if you take Windows out of the equation...and all the overhead, the code bloat, and the general sophistication that goes with it...that's when the game changes. With an operating system like Mac OS 10.7, most of those system resources mentioned above actually go toward running your programs, instead of simply supporting the weight of the operating system. Here are some analogies: think of how much better your car would perform if you could reduce its weight by half. Or how much less food you'd have to eat if your body could get twice the energy from digesting it. That's what it's like to go from Windows to Mac OSX (or just about any other operating system for that matter).
Now is a Mac twice as fast as an equivalent Windows computer? No, probably not twice as fast. But when I sat down to this MacBook Air for the first time, I noticed immediately the difference in its operating-system-to-application performance curve against Windows PCs. When I run a program on this computer, it just runs. Almost instantly. No hard drive activity, no hesitation, no error messages--programs just work. It feels like a computer that was built just for me, just to do the things I want to do on it, without making me think or worry about the operating system in which those programs run. (If I want to deal with OS issues, I'll go to the office and assist any one of the dozens of my customers who need support in that area!) For a computer like this, I don't mind dropping $1299. Sure, I'd pay less for a Windows computer, but I'd get less too. Even on a Windows computer with better specs than this MacBook Air has to offer, the overall experience just wouldn't be as good. And that's from someone who sets up new computers for customers all the time.
I should mention, too, that if a Mac user has programs or needs to use external hardware devices that only work with Microsoft Windows, Apple provides a built-in method of installing Windows on the Mac. The user can then boot the computer into Windows if they need to use Windows, then boot into OSX for everything else. There's even Mac software out there that lets you run Windows inside of OSX, so you don't even need to boot into Windows to use Windows! It's not the easiest thing for a non-technical user to set up by any means, and the aforementioned MS Windows doesn't actually come with the Mac; you have to buy your own copy of Windows to install. But you do have the option, which in a very large sense gives you two computers in one.
In terms of the MacBook Air's hardware components, the SSD hard drive is probably the star of the show. SSD stands for solid-state drive, meaning that it stores files on a big memory chip instead of a magnetic disk. Getting information to and from a standard hard drive requires mechanical read-write heads that pass information to a disk platter, spinning at frightening speeds. That's a lot of moving parts that require considerable power to operate, and even at today's level of miniaturization in computer technology, hard drives are relatively large and heavy. An SSD drive can store and retrieve files faster and more efficiently, in a smaller, lighter package that's less consumptive of power. (Oh, and its also completely silent, and runs marginally cooler as well.) Coupled with OSX, the SSD in my MacBook Air gives me boot times of 7 seconds. 7 seconds! And restart times of 10-12 seconds. When restarting a PC, it can take that long just to close applications that have stopped responding to the system!
Coming in a close second to the SSD is the trackpad mouse. Why? It's the first trackpad I've encountered on a laptop that's genuinely usable in operating the computer. It isn't merely an afterthought, the way other laptop trackpads seem to be. Apple has built functionality into OSX which allows the user not only to move the mouse cursor around with the trackpad, but also to do things like switch between applications, zoom in or out, rotate an object (such as a picture), and scroll up and down (and even left and right, in some applications). The user performs multitouch gestures on the trackpad such as swiping, double-tapping, and scrolling with one finger, two fingers, three or even four. It's these gestures that give the trackpad the OS functionality mentioned above. Bottom line: the trackpad and the keyboard give the user all the control of the computer that they need, no external mouse required.
Besides the speed and the trackpad, the other thing that makes the MacBook Air such a joy to use is it's light weight. Since the dawn of the laptop age, we've all come to accept that "portable" doesn't necessarily mean "small" or "light." The first portable computer I ever used wasn't even a laptop; it was called a "suitcase" computer. It was basically a big box that contained a computer and a small monochrome monitor; one end of the box was detachable and doubled as the keyboard. At the time, people were so taken with the idea of a portable computer that they didn't even mind that it weighed even more than a full-size, fully-loaded suitcase. Nor that a good, sturdy table or desk was required just to support the thing. You had them at "portable!" And so it's gone throughout the ages; we don't even notice how big and heavy and clunky most laptops have proven, even today, because its enough for us that we can carry the computer around at all.
Enter the MacBook Air; at a mere 2.96 pounds, it's the first laptop that's portable and convenient. You can easily lift it up with one hand, and I actually find myself needing to do this all the time. At the coffee shop, for example, when I'm sitting on a couch or comfy chair with my coffee in one hand (with really no place to put it down), it's easy for me to grab the laptop out of the bag with the other hand. Or in the lounge chair at home, when I'm typing away, and suddenly there's an angry MEOW behind me, from the cat demanding attention! No problem; I one-hand the computer off to the side so that said furball can hop into my lap. These are examples of how laptop computers are used in everyday life. Maybe not how they're used by everyone, but how they're used by many of us. A laptop really only gives you value when its not only powerful and fast, but also something that you can live with, something that fits the way you operate. From my initial experience with it, that's the real benefit of the MBA over other laptops.
Of course, no laptop is perfect, and the MacBook Air is found wanting in some areas. Probably the biggest of these is in the area of connectivity, that is, the ability to plug other devices into it. For starters, there's no Ethernet network port, so the only network/Internet connectivity you have is through the 802.11n wireless component. Out of range of the wireless network? You're screwed for Internet. There's not even a PCMCIA/Expresscard slot for one of those wireless modems you get from your cell phone company that lets you use your cellular network for Internet access. Your only option is to use an outboard flavor of said modem, one that can be connected to a USB port--if you're lucky enough to find one that works with OSX. The MacBook Air has but two USB 2.0 ports and 0 USB 3.0 ports, so if you have more than two USB devices to connect, you'll have to do some juggling. Also notably absent are a VGA and a DVI port for connecting an external monitor to the MBA should that need arise. The only external video connection option you get is a Thunderbolt port.
Thunderbolt is the Next Big Thing in device connectivity (at least, if you ask Apple). It's a combination video and data protocol, and unlike USB or Firewire, it's daisy-chainable, so you can have lots of Thunderbolt devices plugged into each other yet only one of them has to be connected to the computer itself. The problem? The technology is so new that there are currently only a few T-bolt devices out there, and they aren't cheap. Yet here's Apple diving into the technology headfirst, and expecting their users to do the same. This should sound real familiar to Mac geeks, at least those who've been around a while. Remember when USB itself was in its infancy? That would be when Apple introduced the color iMacs that had only USB ports, leaving customers with PS/2 printers and mice high and dry. Same with FireWire; Apple computers have never had what you'd consider a plethora of USB ports, because FireWire was SO much faster, and customers should really just use that instead.
This points to a big complaint that many have about Apple: You can use Apple devices any way you want to, as long as it's Steve Jobs' way. You get only the amount of flexibility and connectivity in a given Apple device that Steve Jobs thinks you should get, no more. And as far as Apple is concerned, there's no reason to ever change this; they're selling products hand over fist (you can't walk into an Apple store these days when it isn't abuzz with activity) --Apple has more money on hand right now than the Unites States government for cripes sake! Remember what I said at the beginning of this article...Apple gives the people what they want, and the people have beaten a path to their door. So they don't have to care about the geek who wants to connect an external monitor to their Mac, or wants to connect a real Ethernet cable to their Mac for a faster and more solid Internet experience; Mr. Everyman doesn't need to do this, so in Apple's mind, you don't need to be doing it either. That's a corporate philosophy that has turned off many a potential Apple customer over the years, if only on general principles, to say nothing of technical ones.
Its up to each user to decide if, in this space, they want to spend the money on a Mac, but for me, the MacBook Air has been worth every penny. They say that for big-ticket items like a car or a computer, it's best to pay more and buy better, because in the long run, you'll be glad you did. So far, the MacBook Air has borne this out, in spades.
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Sunday, June 12, 2011
The EduGeek on Life: Good Geek, Bad Geek
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
In my travels, I've found there's geekery in almost very walk of life. There are computer geeks, audio-video geeks, food geeks, even 4X4 off-roading geeks and woodworking geeks and clothes geeks. These are folks who've found something that interests them, and who see all the possibilities in their chosen area of interest. All geeks have one thing in common: they're the ones who the rest of us consult when we want information or advice about something in their area of geekery. After all, why reinvent the wheel? If you need to know something in an area that you know little about, it will be only natural to consult an expert.
One small problem with this, however: there are good geeks, and there are not-so-good geeks. To get the information or assistance you're after, you need to choose the right kind. Here's a quick run-down of what my experience has taught me about a good geek vs. a bad geek.
A good geek listens; a bad geek just talks. Yes, this is painfully obvious, and yes, this applies not merely to geeks, but to everyone. I mention it here only because so many of the characteristics of a bad geek can be traced back to this one simple idea. Getting information or advice from a geek in any field requires communication, and as we know, communication is a 2-way street. If the geek you're talking to is more interested in wowing you (and anyone else who's listening) with their vast expertise than they are in really understanding your problem or question, then you probably only have at best a 50-50 chance at having that problem solved or that question answered--and you'll have to endure a lot of blather and yada-yada to get there.
The desire on the part of a geek to impress others with their knowledge is a simple function of the human ego. As ol' Doc Freud theorized years ago, every human has an ego, and we all manifest our ego in different ways. The bodybuilder subconsciously wants to impress us with how big and strong they are, the hunter (sorry, "sportsman") with how many animals he or she has killed. And with the exception of psychology geeks, most geeks probably aren't aware of this link between ego and information dissemination; they probably just figure that the more information they can give to someone about their area of expertise, the more benefit the person will get. That's not a bad or unhelpful position to take by any means, but too often the geek forgets to adequately determine what information the person needs before they begin to disseminate the information. How does a geek determine what the asker is really asking? By listening. By absorbing some information themselves rather than giving it--for the purpose of genuinely helping the person asking the question. It's the geek who knows how to do this that will be the most helpful geek to you. Listening skills trump simple expertise any day.
A good geek advises; a bad geek invalidates. When you consult a geek, often you need more than simple information; you have an actual goal in mind in their area of expertise, and you want advice on how to achieve that goal. A good geek will listen to exactly what your goal is, and give you frank, honest advice as to whether that goal is realistic. If it isn't, they'll guide towards an alternative goal. A bad geek will just invalidate your goal out of hand if they don't agree with it, i.e. if it's not something that they would do. They'll say something like "Why would you ever do it THAT way? Do it THIS way instead." Or worse yet, "Let ME do it." What's wrong with this, you ask? Invalidation of the person's viewpoint doesn't just communicate to the person asking the question or presenting the viewpoint that the geek doesn't agree with it; it implies that the person was foolish and uninformed/misinformed to ever have come up with that viewpoint in the first place. This places a negative connotation on the conversation in general, and gives the impression that between the two people, the geek is the only one who knows enough about that field of geekdom to have an opinion at all, and why would the person asking the question...even ask the question?
As in the case of talking without listening, invalidation serves mainly to stroke the geek's ego, while doing little if anything to get information to the person asking the question, so obviously that's the geek to try and avoid. You're much better off with the geek who communicates that your goal or point of view is valid, but that it may need a little tweaking based on facts that the geek knows, that you may not know. The good geek then points out the facts that may influence your goal or that suggest a more realistic goal, and then lets you decide on a course of action, or assists you if you're having a problem. However much the geek may know, if they're going to invalidate you, then for your purposes they may as well not know anything at all. Let them stroke that ego on someone else, and find yourself a better class of geek.
The good geek patiently explains himself or herself; the bad geek can't be bothered to. You might think this a contradiction to the earlier point about the geek who talks too much, but I assure you there is a difference. You go to a geek because you need information in their area of expertise, yet it's amazing how many geeks will give you that information and assume you know exactly what they're talking about. Assume that you've learned and experienced the exact same things that they have, and you'll be able to take what they say in exactly the same context as they do. In fact, in all likelihood, you're going to need some explanation of what the geek tells you, and you'll want to be sure you deal with a geek who's willing to give that explanation, in a pleasant, informative way.
Not only will the bad geek deem it unnecessary to give you an explanation of what they're saying, they may even be slightly offended at the idea that you'd want an explanation. What do you MEAN you don't understand? Are you saying I'm not good at explaining things? Yep, there it is again. Ego. Why do I keep harping on it? Because I see it over and over and over again. It all comes down to fear--in a geek's case, the fear that they don't know as much about their field of geekdom as they think they do. So everything they say or do is driven by this fear, rather than by helping you. You have to be on the lookout for this, and not just from strangers either; friends, family members, co-workers, everyone can potentially be either a good geek or a bad one. You may like a person or even love them, but that doesn't make them a good geek.
So there are a few thoughts on good vs. bad geeks; do you have thoughts of your own on this subject?
In my travels, I've found there's geekery in almost very walk of life. There are computer geeks, audio-video geeks, food geeks, even 4X4 off-roading geeks and woodworking geeks and clothes geeks. These are folks who've found something that interests them, and who see all the possibilities in their chosen area of interest. All geeks have one thing in common: they're the ones who the rest of us consult when we want information or advice about something in their area of geekery. After all, why reinvent the wheel? If you need to know something in an area that you know little about, it will be only natural to consult an expert.
One small problem with this, however: there are good geeks, and there are not-so-good geeks. To get the information or assistance you're after, you need to choose the right kind. Here's a quick run-down of what my experience has taught me about a good geek vs. a bad geek.
A good geek listens; a bad geek just talks. Yes, this is painfully obvious, and yes, this applies not merely to geeks, but to everyone. I mention it here only because so many of the characteristics of a bad geek can be traced back to this one simple idea. Getting information or advice from a geek in any field requires communication, and as we know, communication is a 2-way street. If the geek you're talking to is more interested in wowing you (and anyone else who's listening) with their vast expertise than they are in really understanding your problem or question, then you probably only have at best a 50-50 chance at having that problem solved or that question answered--and you'll have to endure a lot of blather and yada-yada to get there.
The desire on the part of a geek to impress others with their knowledge is a simple function of the human ego. As ol' Doc Freud theorized years ago, every human has an ego, and we all manifest our ego in different ways. The bodybuilder subconsciously wants to impress us with how big and strong they are, the hunter (sorry, "sportsman") with how many animals he or she has killed. And with the exception of psychology geeks, most geeks probably aren't aware of this link between ego and information dissemination; they probably just figure that the more information they can give to someone about their area of expertise, the more benefit the person will get. That's not a bad or unhelpful position to take by any means, but too often the geek forgets to adequately determine what information the person needs before they begin to disseminate the information. How does a geek determine what the asker is really asking? By listening. By absorbing some information themselves rather than giving it--for the purpose of genuinely helping the person asking the question. It's the geek who knows how to do this that will be the most helpful geek to you. Listening skills trump simple expertise any day.
A good geek advises; a bad geek invalidates. When you consult a geek, often you need more than simple information; you have an actual goal in mind in their area of expertise, and you want advice on how to achieve that goal. A good geek will listen to exactly what your goal is, and give you frank, honest advice as to whether that goal is realistic. If it isn't, they'll guide towards an alternative goal. A bad geek will just invalidate your goal out of hand if they don't agree with it, i.e. if it's not something that they would do. They'll say something like "Why would you ever do it THAT way? Do it THIS way instead." Or worse yet, "Let ME do it." What's wrong with this, you ask? Invalidation of the person's viewpoint doesn't just communicate to the person asking the question or presenting the viewpoint that the geek doesn't agree with it; it implies that the person was foolish and uninformed/misinformed to ever have come up with that viewpoint in the first place. This places a negative connotation on the conversation in general, and gives the impression that between the two people, the geek is the only one who knows enough about that field of geekdom to have an opinion at all, and why would the person asking the question...even ask the question?
As in the case of talking without listening, invalidation serves mainly to stroke the geek's ego, while doing little if anything to get information to the person asking the question, so obviously that's the geek to try and avoid. You're much better off with the geek who communicates that your goal or point of view is valid, but that it may need a little tweaking based on facts that the geek knows, that you may not know. The good geek then points out the facts that may influence your goal or that suggest a more realistic goal, and then lets you decide on a course of action, or assists you if you're having a problem. However much the geek may know, if they're going to invalidate you, then for your purposes they may as well not know anything at all. Let them stroke that ego on someone else, and find yourself a better class of geek.
The good geek patiently explains himself or herself; the bad geek can't be bothered to. You might think this a contradiction to the earlier point about the geek who talks too much, but I assure you there is a difference. You go to a geek because you need information in their area of expertise, yet it's amazing how many geeks will give you that information and assume you know exactly what they're talking about. Assume that you've learned and experienced the exact same things that they have, and you'll be able to take what they say in exactly the same context as they do. In fact, in all likelihood, you're going to need some explanation of what the geek tells you, and you'll want to be sure you deal with a geek who's willing to give that explanation, in a pleasant, informative way.
Not only will the bad geek deem it unnecessary to give you an explanation of what they're saying, they may even be slightly offended at the idea that you'd want an explanation. What do you MEAN you don't understand? Are you saying I'm not good at explaining things? Yep, there it is again. Ego. Why do I keep harping on it? Because I see it over and over and over again. It all comes down to fear--in a geek's case, the fear that they don't know as much about their field of geekdom as they think they do. So everything they say or do is driven by this fear, rather than by helping you. You have to be on the lookout for this, and not just from strangers either; friends, family members, co-workers, everyone can potentially be either a good geek or a bad one. You may like a person or even love them, but that doesn't make them a good geek.
So there are a few thoughts on good vs. bad geeks; do you have thoughts of your own on this subject?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The EduGeek on Tech: Twitter--It's Not Just for Texting Your BFF Any More! Now It's Actually Useful...
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
Many of you out there in Readerland may remember the launch of the social media service known as Twitter back in August 2006. The idea was to go to www.twitter.com and make yourself a Twitter account, and have your friends to the same. You'd then tell Twitter that you want follow your friends' accounts, and they would presumably tell Twitter that they want to follow your account. This would allow you to send text messages to your friends. Known as tweets, these messages could only be 140 characters or less in length, and could only be viewed at the aforementioned web page, www.twitter.com. You couldn't set it up to send or receive your tweets as SMS text messages on your cell phone, you couldn't send pictures or videos to each other, only text--and worst of all, the service itself suffered major outages during those first few months. Not surprisingly, many social media pundits and computer users alike were scratching their heads, asking, "What's the point?"
And that was then. Nowadays, with the advent of full-on social media sites like Facebook, SecondLife, and FourSquare, many computer users have all but forgotten about Twitter. Make no mistake, I was one of them! I figured if I wanted to text-message my friends, I could just use my cell phone...and if I REALLY wanted to communicate with my friends en masse, I could just use Facebook.
But about a month ago, on a lazy afternoon during spring break, I found myself sitting at my computer (try not to faint, everyone) wondering if Twitter, now in its fifth year of existence, could possibly still be that useless or irrelevant. So I did a little research, and what I found was nothing short of astonishing! I'm now an avid Twitter user, at home and at work; Twitter is now a mission-critical part of both. Why the change of heart? Read on!
WHO USES TWITTER? THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU...
I'll skip right to the crux of what I've found with Twitter: sending text messages to your friends represents only the slightest fraction of Twitter's true potential. Why? The answer lies with who uses Twitter these days. No longer is Twitter relegated merely to individuals; now Twitter is used by almost every major company, organization, government entity, and media source on planet Earth. Most people think of Twitter in terms of following their friends, in order to get information and news from them. But it's not just your friends that have news to share; everyone else does too! For starters, celebrities have news to share. Actors, musicians, authors, comedians, politicians, pro atheletes, corporate CEOs and CFOs, just about everybody who's anybody has a Twitter account. All you have to do is go into your own Twitter account (again, at www.twitter.com) , tell it to follow the people you're interested in, and viola! You get all the latest dirt on what they're doing, when, and why. It's not at all uncommon for a given celebrity's Twitter followers to find out about the goings-on of their favorite public figures faster than the news agencies themselves find out!
It doesn't stop there. Those news agencies I just referred to? Yeah...they have Twitter accounts too! Local newsrooms like 9News and MyFoxDenver. National TV news stations like CBS News, NBC News, and NPR. World news sources like Reuters, the Associated Press, and Al Jazeera. News magazines and newspapers like the Washington Post, the New York Times, TMZ and E! Online (yes, gossip counts as news too!!). They all have Twitter accounts, and every developing story that any of these guys are working comes through as a tweet. Here's an example that just popped up two minutes ago while I was writing this blog article: "The FBI has identified the suspect in the Southwest Plaza Mall attempted bombing as Earl Albert Moore." (That came straight from the news desk of 9News.) Three minutes ago, I didn't know that. Nobody knew that, except for the FBI. But I know it now, and I didn't have to wait until the 5:00PM newscast on TV to find out. (Which is a good thing, because I do not have time for TV news!) My favorite news source in Twitter is BreakingNews, which aggregates the most pertinent news from all the major world new providers into their own Twitter stream, so I don't have to follow all of them; following BreakingNews gets me most of the news I want right there.
But, you say, I don't really care about the news per se; what I really want is information and developing news in my own areas of interest. No problem; Twitter's got you covered there too. Let's rap off a few hobbies or interests: geek stuff. Woodworking. Cars and auto racing. Baseball, or any other sport you can think of. Jewelry crafting. Sewing and quilting. Aircraft and aviation. What do all these hobbies and interests have in common? Two things: a) there's at least one magazine, web site, or television show dedicated to news information about that hobby or interest; b) each of these entities has a Twitter account. Guaranteed. My wife is watching the TV show NCIS in the next room; news and pertinent info about that show, or any other, is merely a Twitter follow away. In my case, it's nerd web sites and magazines that I'm most likely to follow--sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), PC Magazine, etc. I don't wait for new articles and headlines from these sites; those articles and headlines come to me, in real time, through Twitter.
But, you say, I don't just want news headlines, I want the actual articles! I want more information on a given topic than a mere 140 characters can give. No problem; most tweets nowadays (or at least, most of the tweets I see) contain web links to articles or other information about that tweet. Just click on the web link, and a new web browser window or tab will open on your computer with all the information on the tweet that you'd ever want. When you're done reading, just go back to the www.twitter.com web page, and sally forth to the next tweet. Here's another interesting feature of Twitter: if you see a tweet that you think might be of interest to those who are following you on Twitter, you can retweet that tweet, so that it shows up in your friends' Twitter accounts as well. I have a couple of really funny comedians who have their own Youtube shows, and when I get a funny tweet from them, I almost always retweet it. Example from a few seconds ago, from a guy named Ray William Johnson: "I've invented a surefire rehab system, based on doing the opposite of everything Lindsay Lohan does." Love it!
Anything that can possibly be of interest to you can likely be followed on Twitter, in some way, shape or form. For example, it's usually a pretty good idea to follow your employer on Twitter. My wife works for the McAfee division of Intel Corporation, and she follows both of them on Twitter. It never hurts your corporate "street cred" to bring up some late-breaking piece of news in a meeting or a lunch that only you know about, because it's so recent that only the company's Twitter followers are likely to have heard about it. Another thing: I drive down a major highway to get to work every day, and thanks to Twitter, I always know the traffic conditions. Similarly, the town I live in has its own Twitter account, so I always know which local roads are being affected by road construction. Many local news agencies have separate Twitter accounts dedicated solely to weather information, and I follow these not only for my own location, but for the cities where my friends and loved ones live as well. Never hurts to know what the weather is like for my peeps, especially these last couple of weeks. (Lately the term Tornado Alley seems to cover most of the nation!)
TWITTER: IT'S NOT JUST FOR THE WEB ANY MORE
So far, we've been talking about the changing face of who uses Twitter, and how its used. But there's another factor that's been rapidly increasing Twitter's usefulness: the advent of Twitter applications for computers and mobile devices. No longer do you need to be in front of your computer, staring at the web page www.twitter.com, to see your tweets; you can now download programs for your computer (Mac or PC) that are dedicated to providing your tweets directly to your desktop. No web browser required. You just go to the program's web page, download the program, install it on your computer, and give it your Twitter username and password. The one I use and would recommend is called TweetDeck, at www. tweetdeck.com. There are versions for both Mac and PC, and the program's user interface is highly capable yet highly user-friendly. The advantage of TweetDeck or any of the other good Twitter programs out there is that they notify you when a new tweet comes in, so you don't have to have your web browser running to see when new tweets arrive. If you don't use TweetDeck, then make sure that whichever program you do decide on comes from a reputable company, and isn't just some spyware or malware program.
There are also Twitter applications for PDA cell phones, like an Apple iPhone or an Android phone like a Motorola Droid or an HTC Evo 4G. The caveat here is that in order to use them, your cell phone account has to have a data plan, which is an additional cost per month over the cost of the voice plan. If you do have a PDA phone with a data plan, it's awfully nice to get your Twitter feed directly on your phone; no matter where you are, you're always up to the minute with Twitter. There are even Twitter applications for those newfangled pad devices, like the Apple iPad and Android pads like the Motorola Xoom.
SO--WHAT'S THE CATCH?
The Twitter service is pretty bulltproof, and doesn't generally carry with it the security and privacy pitfalls that are all too common with other social media sites like Facebook. But there are a few things to watch out for:
--overtweeters: overtweeters are the ones who feel the need to post a tweet every 15 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever. Following an overtweeting Twitter account is fine, so long as all the tweets that come through are useful or interesting or pertinent; the caveat is that they hardly ever are. People and entities that overtweet usually do so because they subconsciously see Twitter merely as an extension of their own (wandering and unfocused) mind. There's no limit to the number of tweets you can receive in Twitter, but you'll soon learn that your patience definitely has limits. Unfollow overtweeters if you need to; Lord knows I've done it.
--impostors: when you identify someone you want to follow and you search on that name in the Who To Follow section of www.twitter.com, be sure that the person or entity you choose is the actual one that you want. Twitter doesn't seem to police their accounts very well, so impostors are common. Example: remember earlier how I said I follow PC Magazine? Well, what I didn't tell you was that when I searched on PC Magazine on the Twitter site, I found 4 impostors that I had to sift through before I found the actual PC magazine. Twitter account holders can set up a picture for their account, known as a profile picture, that other Twitter users see when they search on them or when they receive tweets from them. Three of these four PC Magazine impostors' profile pictures were the actual red PC Magazine logo that we all know, and again Twitter doesn't seem to have a problem with this. So be careful; it may help to look up the slogan used by the entity you're trying to follow, and then choose the Twitter account that has that slogan. (The PC Magazine slogan is "The independent guide to technology since 1982," so that's the one I chose, and it was the actual PC Magazine.) If you do follow someone and it becomes clear that they're an impostor, simply unfollow them and try again.
--tweets that don't get to the point: this is less a pitfall than it is an annoyance. Some Twitter entities do their tweets by typing long-drawn-out headlines that don't fit inside the 140-character limit. These tweets usually include a web link to the rest of the headline, and/or to the actual article. You may be OK with this, but it drives me nuts; 140 characters is enough for even a novice writer to make a complete headline, plus have room for a web link to the article. Failure to do so is a sign of laziness on the part of the Twitter entity in question IMHO, so if you see this, feel free to unfollow them. If that Twitter entity is something you really want to follow, though, then you're out of luck; its their way or the highway. TMZ does this, but since they're my best source of gossip news, I pretty much have to deal with it!
--making your voice heard: when you follow a person or entity in Twitter, often the natural tendency is to expect them to follow you in return. Your friends may do this, but it's unlikely that anyone else will. Remember, celebrities and companies and other public Twitter entities have literally hundreds or even thousands of followers; there's no possible way that they could follow all these people in return. If they did, they'd probably have tens or hundreds of thousands of tweets to deal with, and they obviously would not have time to read them all. Even if they hired interns or staff to assist them, there's no way they'd be able to keep up. The general rule that I go by is that the more famous and publicly-known the Twitter entity, the less likely that they'll follow you, or even acknowledge when you reply to one of their tweets. Expect the information flow from such entities to be one-way, them to you.
SUMMATION
So whenever you get some good quality time with your computer, I would surf out to www.twitter.com and set up your Twitter account. Then follow the web sites or companies or TV shows or whatever that you'd like to get news and information about, and away you go! You may just find that the Twitter service you forgot all about is something that you can't live without.
Many of you out there in Readerland may remember the launch of the social media service known as Twitter back in August 2006. The idea was to go to www.twitter.com and make yourself a Twitter account, and have your friends to the same. You'd then tell Twitter that you want follow your friends' accounts, and they would presumably tell Twitter that they want to follow your account. This would allow you to send text messages to your friends. Known as tweets, these messages could only be 140 characters or less in length, and could only be viewed at the aforementioned web page, www.twitter.com. You couldn't set it up to send or receive your tweets as SMS text messages on your cell phone, you couldn't send pictures or videos to each other, only text--and worst of all, the service itself suffered major outages during those first few months. Not surprisingly, many social media pundits and computer users alike were scratching their heads, asking, "What's the point?"
And that was then. Nowadays, with the advent of full-on social media sites like Facebook, SecondLife, and FourSquare, many computer users have all but forgotten about Twitter. Make no mistake, I was one of them! I figured if I wanted to text-message my friends, I could just use my cell phone...and if I REALLY wanted to communicate with my friends en masse, I could just use Facebook.
But about a month ago, on a lazy afternoon during spring break, I found myself sitting at my computer (try not to faint, everyone) wondering if Twitter, now in its fifth year of existence, could possibly still be that useless or irrelevant. So I did a little research, and what I found was nothing short of astonishing! I'm now an avid Twitter user, at home and at work; Twitter is now a mission-critical part of both. Why the change of heart? Read on!
WHO USES TWITTER? THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU...
I'll skip right to the crux of what I've found with Twitter: sending text messages to your friends represents only the slightest fraction of Twitter's true potential. Why? The answer lies with who uses Twitter these days. No longer is Twitter relegated merely to individuals; now Twitter is used by almost every major company, organization, government entity, and media source on planet Earth. Most people think of Twitter in terms of following their friends, in order to get information and news from them. But it's not just your friends that have news to share; everyone else does too! For starters, celebrities have news to share. Actors, musicians, authors, comedians, politicians, pro atheletes, corporate CEOs and CFOs, just about everybody who's anybody has a Twitter account. All you have to do is go into your own Twitter account (again, at www.twitter.com) , tell it to follow the people you're interested in, and viola! You get all the latest dirt on what they're doing, when, and why. It's not at all uncommon for a given celebrity's Twitter followers to find out about the goings-on of their favorite public figures faster than the news agencies themselves find out!
It doesn't stop there. Those news agencies I just referred to? Yeah...they have Twitter accounts too! Local newsrooms like 9News and MyFoxDenver. National TV news stations like CBS News, NBC News, and NPR. World news sources like Reuters, the Associated Press, and Al Jazeera. News magazines and newspapers like the Washington Post, the New York Times, TMZ and E! Online (yes, gossip counts as news too!!). They all have Twitter accounts, and every developing story that any of these guys are working comes through as a tweet. Here's an example that just popped up two minutes ago while I was writing this blog article: "The FBI has identified the suspect in the Southwest Plaza Mall attempted bombing as Earl Albert Moore." (That came straight from the news desk of 9News.) Three minutes ago, I didn't know that. Nobody knew that, except for the FBI. But I know it now, and I didn't have to wait until the 5:00PM newscast on TV to find out. (Which is a good thing, because I do not have time for TV news!) My favorite news source in Twitter is BreakingNews, which aggregates the most pertinent news from all the major world new providers into their own Twitter stream, so I don't have to follow all of them; following BreakingNews gets me most of the news I want right there.
But, you say, I don't really care about the news per se; what I really want is information and developing news in my own areas of interest. No problem; Twitter's got you covered there too. Let's rap off a few hobbies or interests: geek stuff. Woodworking. Cars and auto racing. Baseball, or any other sport you can think of. Jewelry crafting. Sewing and quilting. Aircraft and aviation. What do all these hobbies and interests have in common? Two things: a) there's at least one magazine, web site, or television show dedicated to news information about that hobby or interest; b) each of these entities has a Twitter account. Guaranteed. My wife is watching the TV show NCIS in the next room; news and pertinent info about that show, or any other, is merely a Twitter follow away. In my case, it's nerd web sites and magazines that I'm most likely to follow--sites like Engadget, Gizmodo, TUAW (The Unofficial Apple Weblog), PC Magazine, etc. I don't wait for new articles and headlines from these sites; those articles and headlines come to me, in real time, through Twitter.
But, you say, I don't just want news headlines, I want the actual articles! I want more information on a given topic than a mere 140 characters can give. No problem; most tweets nowadays (or at least, most of the tweets I see) contain web links to articles or other information about that tweet. Just click on the web link, and a new web browser window or tab will open on your computer with all the information on the tweet that you'd ever want. When you're done reading, just go back to the www.twitter.com web page, and sally forth to the next tweet. Here's another interesting feature of Twitter: if you see a tweet that you think might be of interest to those who are following you on Twitter, you can retweet that tweet, so that it shows up in your friends' Twitter accounts as well. I have a couple of really funny comedians who have their own Youtube shows, and when I get a funny tweet from them, I almost always retweet it. Example from a few seconds ago, from a guy named Ray William Johnson: "I've invented a surefire rehab system, based on doing the opposite of everything Lindsay Lohan does." Love it!
Anything that can possibly be of interest to you can likely be followed on Twitter, in some way, shape or form. For example, it's usually a pretty good idea to follow your employer on Twitter. My wife works for the McAfee division of Intel Corporation, and she follows both of them on Twitter. It never hurts your corporate "street cred" to bring up some late-breaking piece of news in a meeting or a lunch that only you know about, because it's so recent that only the company's Twitter followers are likely to have heard about it. Another thing: I drive down a major highway to get to work every day, and thanks to Twitter, I always know the traffic conditions. Similarly, the town I live in has its own Twitter account, so I always know which local roads are being affected by road construction. Many local news agencies have separate Twitter accounts dedicated solely to weather information, and I follow these not only for my own location, but for the cities where my friends and loved ones live as well. Never hurts to know what the weather is like for my peeps, especially these last couple of weeks. (Lately the term Tornado Alley seems to cover most of the nation!)
TWITTER: IT'S NOT JUST FOR THE WEB ANY MORE
So far, we've been talking about the changing face of who uses Twitter, and how its used. But there's another factor that's been rapidly increasing Twitter's usefulness: the advent of Twitter applications for computers and mobile devices. No longer do you need to be in front of your computer, staring at the web page www.twitter.com, to see your tweets; you can now download programs for your computer (Mac or PC) that are dedicated to providing your tweets directly to your desktop. No web browser required. You just go to the program's web page, download the program, install it on your computer, and give it your Twitter username and password. The one I use and would recommend is called TweetDeck, at www. tweetdeck.com. There are versions for both Mac and PC, and the program's user interface is highly capable yet highly user-friendly. The advantage of TweetDeck or any of the other good Twitter programs out there is that they notify you when a new tweet comes in, so you don't have to have your web browser running to see when new tweets arrive. If you don't use TweetDeck, then make sure that whichever program you do decide on comes from a reputable company, and isn't just some spyware or malware program.
There are also Twitter applications for PDA cell phones, like an Apple iPhone or an Android phone like a Motorola Droid or an HTC Evo 4G. The caveat here is that in order to use them, your cell phone account has to have a data plan, which is an additional cost per month over the cost of the voice plan. If you do have a PDA phone with a data plan, it's awfully nice to get your Twitter feed directly on your phone; no matter where you are, you're always up to the minute with Twitter. There are even Twitter applications for those newfangled pad devices, like the Apple iPad and Android pads like the Motorola Xoom.
SO--WHAT'S THE CATCH?
The Twitter service is pretty bulltproof, and doesn't generally carry with it the security and privacy pitfalls that are all too common with other social media sites like Facebook. But there are a few things to watch out for:
--overtweeters: overtweeters are the ones who feel the need to post a tweet every 15 minutes or 10 minutes or whatever. Following an overtweeting Twitter account is fine, so long as all the tweets that come through are useful or interesting or pertinent; the caveat is that they hardly ever are. People and entities that overtweet usually do so because they subconsciously see Twitter merely as an extension of their own (wandering and unfocused) mind. There's no limit to the number of tweets you can receive in Twitter, but you'll soon learn that your patience definitely has limits. Unfollow overtweeters if you need to; Lord knows I've done it.
--impostors: when you identify someone you want to follow and you search on that name in the Who To Follow section of www.twitter.com, be sure that the person or entity you choose is the actual one that you want. Twitter doesn't seem to police their accounts very well, so impostors are common. Example: remember earlier how I said I follow PC Magazine? Well, what I didn't tell you was that when I searched on PC Magazine on the Twitter site, I found 4 impostors that I had to sift through before I found the actual PC magazine. Twitter account holders can set up a picture for their account, known as a profile picture, that other Twitter users see when they search on them or when they receive tweets from them. Three of these four PC Magazine impostors' profile pictures were the actual red PC Magazine logo that we all know, and again Twitter doesn't seem to have a problem with this. So be careful; it may help to look up the slogan used by the entity you're trying to follow, and then choose the Twitter account that has that slogan. (The PC Magazine slogan is "The independent guide to technology since 1982," so that's the one I chose, and it was the actual PC Magazine.) If you do follow someone and it becomes clear that they're an impostor, simply unfollow them and try again.
--tweets that don't get to the point: this is less a pitfall than it is an annoyance. Some Twitter entities do their tweets by typing long-drawn-out headlines that don't fit inside the 140-character limit. These tweets usually include a web link to the rest of the headline, and/or to the actual article. You may be OK with this, but it drives me nuts; 140 characters is enough for even a novice writer to make a complete headline, plus have room for a web link to the article. Failure to do so is a sign of laziness on the part of the Twitter entity in question IMHO, so if you see this, feel free to unfollow them. If that Twitter entity is something you really want to follow, though, then you're out of luck; its their way or the highway. TMZ does this, but since they're my best source of gossip news, I pretty much have to deal with it!
--making your voice heard: when you follow a person or entity in Twitter, often the natural tendency is to expect them to follow you in return. Your friends may do this, but it's unlikely that anyone else will. Remember, celebrities and companies and other public Twitter entities have literally hundreds or even thousands of followers; there's no possible way that they could follow all these people in return. If they did, they'd probably have tens or hundreds of thousands of tweets to deal with, and they obviously would not have time to read them all. Even if they hired interns or staff to assist them, there's no way they'd be able to keep up. The general rule that I go by is that the more famous and publicly-known the Twitter entity, the less likely that they'll follow you, or even acknowledge when you reply to one of their tweets. Expect the information flow from such entities to be one-way, them to you.
SUMMATION
So whenever you get some good quality time with your computer, I would surf out to www.twitter.com and set up your Twitter account. Then follow the web sites or companies or TV shows or whatever that you'd like to get news and information about, and away you go! You may just find that the Twitter service you forgot all about is something that you can't live without.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The EduGeek on Tech: Using a Mac in a Windows Workplace
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
I work in an IT shop that fully supports both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS. But like most IT houses, our enterprise software--as well as a good bit of the client applications we use--comes from Microsoft and was designed with Windows in mind. Apps like Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, Active Directory, SQL Server--you get the idea. So even though we support Macs at an end-user level, actually using a Mac inside of this decidedly Microsoft-centric has proven quite a challenge up to now.
But after many attempts over the years, I have finally achieved this goal. My 2-year-old Apple Macbook Pro is now my primary computer here at work, and I'm more productive than ever. I thought I'd briefly go over the mechanics and details of how I did it; if you're geeky enough, read on!
PROLOGUE--A MAC IN A WINDOWS WORLD? WHY NOT JUST USE A PC?
In the words of the great 20th-century philosopher Wile E. Coyote, a legitimate question. Deserving a legitimate answer. Simply put, Mac OSX just plain works better than Windows. That's been a hard thing for this PC guy to come to terms with, but I've used both Windows and OSX, on my own work computers and on probably hundreds of customer computers over the years. The past was one thing, but in this day and age, I must concede that OSX can multitask faster and better than Windows 7, with far less hard-drive activity to slow things down. Web pages render faster on the Mac than they do in Windows, regardless of the web browser. Programs load faster in OSX than they do in Windows, and in many cases they exit more gracefully as well (none of this force-quitting applications in Task Manager garbage!). OSX handles operating system updates more gracefully than does Windows (although Microsoft has made great strides in this area since the days of Windows XP), and BIOS/EPROM hardware updates on the Mac are streamlined right into the OSX update process (whereas PC users must manually download and install each hardware update separately). Last but not least, Apple OSX isn't subject to the spyware and malware that has plagued Windows users for years.
Speaking of hardware, Apple has made huge improvements to the design and quality of their computers over the last couple of years--to the point that most Macs are simply a better-quality computer than the typical PC that you'd find in the workplace. Macs now pack state-of-the art Intel processors, big hard drives and copious amounts of RAM memory. Apple video displays have superb illumination, contrast ratio and color representation, compared to their (generally) more mundane PC counterparts, and with most Mac desktop computer models, the video display is built right into the computer itself. Macs now use the same powerful computer-to-video adapters that PCs use, and they can run graphic-intensive applications like Photoshop with ease. Apple uses what are known as "Chicklet-style" keyboards, so-called because their keys are farther apart from each other than regular keyboards, making it harder to inadvertently hit two keys at once. And while PCs still use a mouse, Apple is rapidly replacing the mouse with a touchpad, where you move the cursor by moving your finger across the touchpad. Why? Because with a touchpad, you can employ multi-finger gestures to do things like zoom in and out, scroll the screen in any direction, and even switch between applications, things that a mere mouse can't do (at least not as easily).
In my book, though, the biggest advantage the Mac has over the PC has to do with how each platform behaves over time. Once you install OSX on a Mac, it will perform just as well two or three years down the road as it did the day you installed it; not so with Microsoft Windows. It's been my consistent experience that from the moment it's installed on a PC (even a high-end PC), Windows' performance degrades over time, as the user installs new software and updates the current software. Between the Windows software updates and service packs, the temporary files and DLL files that build up over time, and the buildup of system registry information, Windows literally slows down from its own weight, its own unsustainable code bloat. Until finally the computer's performance diminishes to only a fraction or what the computer itself is capable of. A Mac, on the other hand, gives you lasting performance throughout the life of the OSX installation, even if the user upgrades to newer, better versions of OSX during that time. Only if the user installs a very very high number of programs and utilities on the Mac, or if they make a habit of monkeying around with system files and Plists and other OSX nuts and bolts, will a Mac's performance degrade. (Which explains why my old MacPro G4 lasted me for years, in which time I went through numerous installations of Windows on my various PCs.)
The Mac vs. PC debate will probably go on forever. But like it or not, in the modern computer world, the reasons and benefits for using a Mac in the workplace are real. It's not like the old days, when the justification for using a Mac at work was limited to bogus, intangible generalizations like "Macs handle graphics better" or "Macs are better for education". Today's users need fast, reliable productivity from their computers, and a Mac can give them that. Everyone has their own opinion about the aforementioned points above, and I can only say that again, I've drawn my own conclusions both from my computers and from customer computers (Mac and PC).
OK, I'M READY. I JUST NEED TO PLUG MY MAC INTO THE NETWORK AND AWAY I GO, RIGHT?
Well...not exactly. As stated earlier, a Mac is a pilgrim in a Windows world, in the professional realm at least. There aren't too many programs out there that have both a PC version and a Mac version. Why? Software developers have the monetary resources and the development cycles necessary to get their software working in Windows, but many don't have the additional resources that it takes to develop, maintain, and support their software in the OSX operating system. Either that, or they do have the resources but they just assume that there aren't enough Mac users out there to justify the expense. Same with web pages and web applications; most developers will certify them for Windows-compatible web browsers, but for other operating systems' browsers, it's No guarantees or warranties expressed or implied.
Network access and support software for enterprise systems are an issue as well. Much, if not most, of a company's work is created and stored on network resources, like servers and network-attached storage (NAS). Those resources have to be Mac-accessible in order for a Mac to be a viable computing tool. And if your job requires you to maintain enterprise systems like Active Directory or Microsoft Exchange Server, then you have to find Mac OSX software solutions for performing said maintenance. In most cases, the chances of finding such software are slim to none.
For what it's worth, here's how I addressed these and other issues.
ITEM 1: ACCESS TO A WINDOWS PC
If you're going to use a Mac in a Windows workplace, you're going to need constant, reliable access to a PC. Period. No matter how often or seldom you use a PC, eventually you're going to run into an application or web page that only works on a Windows machine. You may be saying, "If I need access to a PC, then what's the point of using a Mac at all?" The point is to use a Mac as your workhorse computer, leveraging the Mac's superior multitasking capabilities to do a much of your work as you can--using a PC only when absolutely necessary. There are three ways to access a PC from your Mac:
1. Use Bootcamp. Every Mac made within the last five years or so has the built-in ability to run Microsoft Windows, through a utility known as Bootcamp. Just run the Bootcamp utility in the Utilites folder on the Mac; it will ask a few questions about how you want Windows to be set up, then it will make a new partition on the Mac's hard drive. That partition will be where Windows is installed, and when you're done, the Mac will give you a choice of which operating system you want to use--Windows or Mac--every time you boot it up. (Note: Bootcamp requires that you have a licensed copy of whichever version of Windows you set up; I'd recommend Windows 7. Also, if you aren't that much of a PC person, you might want to get a more Windows-savvy person to help you with the installation. Bribe 'em with Starbucks if you have to!)
Voila! Insta Windows. Now you've probably already guessed the main drawback to this method: you choose the OS you want to use on bootup, which means that you either run Windows or Mac...but not both at the same time. If you need to use Windows more than once or twice a day, then having to reboot the Mac and boot into Windows each time is going to get real old.
2. Use a Windows virtualization program, like Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Virtualization programs work a lot like Bootcamp; you install the program in OSX, then the program installs Windows on your Mac. Except that you don't have to reboot the computer and choose which OS to run; you run Windows inside of the virtualization program. That way, you can use OSX all the time, and run the virtualization program only when you need to use Windows for something. You can even tell Parallels or VMWare Fusion that you want to use the Bootcamp Windows installation as the virtual Windows PC. How cool is that!
The only real downside to this method, apart from again needing to have a licensed copy of Windows, is that virtualization programs take lots of system resources on your Mac. Whichever program you use needs system memory and processor cycles to run itself, then more memory and processor cycles to run Windows. (Windows itself needs lots of system resources to run, which of course is what this blog article is all about.) This slows down the Mac; how slow it gets depends on how much RAM memory it has and how beefy the processor. Like I said earlier, my own MacBook Pro is a couple of years old and has 4 gigs of RAM, so I'd probably see some noticeable slowdown. Realistically, probably only a nicely-equipped MacPro or one of those brand-new MacBook Pro laptops (with the new Intel chip architecture known as "Sandy Bridge") could run a Windows virtual machine really well, with little or no performance loss. Fortunately, though, there's door number 3...
3. Connect to a PC remotely, using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) program. For those using older Macs, or who don't want to sacrifice any system performance in exchange for using Windows, the best option may be to download the Microsoft Remote Connection Desktop (from www.mactopia.com). RDC lets you take over the operation of a PC right from your Mac; you can then use Windows on that PC as though you were actually sitting at the computer. That's how I roll in my office; I have an old Dell Optiplex 745 desktop computer that sits under my desk, and I connect to it form the MacBook Pro via RDC. Now the limitation for this method, obviously, is that you have to have a physical PC to connect to, and that PC has to be connected to the network. That can be a tall order in an office with limited computers and/or limited network resources. But if you can make it fly, you'll get the best of both worlds: Windows access without the performance pain.
Best of all, the computer you remote into doesn't even have to be all that beefy or all that new. My 745 is about 5 years old, yet it's more than fast enough to be a simple Windows terminal for my Mac. And keep in mind that you only need the computer itself, the "box" as it were. You don't need to connect a keyboard, mouse, or monitor to it; all the input/output takes place on your trusty Mac.
ITEM 2: A OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY SUITE THAT'S COMPATIBLE WITH WHAT THE REST OF THE OFFICE USES
Another thing you'll need to have on any Mac that you wish to use in a Windows office is an office productivity suite that's compatible with the suite that everyone else in the office uses. An office productivity suite is a set of programs used to perform common office tasks; it consists of:
--a word processor program for creating documents like memos, letters, and proposals, etc.
--a spreadsheet program for creating spreadsheet documents, like budgets, earnings forecasts, or even merely lists of information that you want to keep in a grid format.
--a contact management/personal information management program, for keeping information on the people you work with and for keeping track of appointments, meetings, etc. Many contact management programs double as e-mail programs, so you can read e-mails and keep track of the aforementioned information all in one place.
--a presentation program, for use in presenting information to others inside or outside the office. You use the program to put together the information you want to present, then you connect the computer to a presentation medium like a projector, and do the actual presentation.
Now, here's the rub: you have to be able to open the documents that your co-workers create using their office productivity suite, and they have to be able to open documents that you create. Nobody is an island unto themselves; everyone collaborates, and collaboration means that any user's computer can be used to open an other user's documents.
So if you're going to use a Mac, your OSX office productivity suite must be able to open the document files that your co-workers produce, and the documents you produce have to be usable and editable on other computers. I.e., Windows computers. Now, can't you just install an office productivity suite on your Windows PC--the one you obtained using one of the methods above--and use the PC for your memos, spreadsheets, etc.? Absolutely you can. But remember what we said earlier; the point of this exercise is to use the Mac's speed and multitasking abilities to chew through the majority of your work, and for most office workers, the majority of their work--or at least a good percentage of it--is done in their office productivity suite. If you can't even use the Mac for that, then it may not be worth it to use a Mac at all.
Now fortunately, the current standard for office productivity suites is Microsoft Office, and there's both a Windows and a Mac version of Office. In days past, documents saved in the Windows version of Office could not be reliably opened or edited using the Mac version, and vice versa. But with the latest iterations of Office for the Mac and PC respectively, compatibility between the two is virtually assured. That does mean, though, that especially on a Mac, it's critical to have the latest iteration of Office, Office 2011; using an earlier iteration of the program is not recommended. The only caveat here is that although the two versions of Office are compatible, the Windows version includes three programs that the Mac version doesn't: Microsoft Access, Publisher, and OneNote. (Access is used to create information databases, Publisher is used for desktop publishing, and OneNote is used for taking notes in meetings and such.) But again, no worries; if you need to use these programs, that's when you crank up your PC, right there inside OSX on your Mac, and away you go.
Not every business uses Microsoft Office; many are turning to online document creation solutions like Google Docs, OpenOffice, and Microsoft Office 365. But that's actually great news for whose who want to use a Mac in the workplace, since all of these alternatives are Mac-friendly (although Office 365 is still in its infancy, and only time will tell how Mac-compatible it will ultimately be, if at all).
ITEM 3: THE MOZILLA FIREFOX WEB BROWSER
Apple OSX ships with its own web browser, called Safari (just as Windows has its own web browser, Internet Explorer). Safari has come a long, long way from its decidedly humble beginnings, and most web pages load in Safari no problem. But some web pages don't work in Safari, and Murphy's law pretty much guarantees that one of these web pages will be the one that you have to go to. Regularly. So it's important to surf to www.firefox.com (yes, you can use Safari to do this) and download and install the latest version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Once installed, you use it just as you would Safari, typing the URL of whatever web page you want to view in the Address line. Firefox is the browser of choice for many (if not most) Windows users as well, so you'll be in good company.
ITEM 4: A MINI-DISPLAY-PORT-TO-VGA ADAPTER
Apple has had a nasty habit in the past, of suddenly throwing away support for the standard technology that everyone uses, in favor of brand-new technology that hasn't yet been adopted by the computer industry at large. They've mostly grown out of this practice, but one hurdle remains: external video connectivity. For purposes of connecting video monitors, projectors, interactive whiteboards, etc., the standard for years has been VGA (for both Mac and PC). VGA is an analog technology, and it was eventually supplanted (if not necessarily replaced) by DVI, a digital connectivity standard. Then a new video connectivity emerged, called DisplayPort. And while the rest of the industry has been slow to adopt DisplayPort, Apple has now forsaken all other external video display connectivity standards, and gone solely with DisplayPort. (The only exception to this is the MacPro tower models; seems like they still have a DVI connector).
So if you're going to use any Mac at the workplace outside of a MacPro, and if you wish to connect that Mac to a projector or to a non-Apple external monitor (or a whiteboard), you're going to need a mini-display-port-to-VGA adapter. You plug one end of the adapter into the Mac itself, and the other end into a VGA cable, which is plugged into the monitor/projector/whiteboard. Once this is done, you have external connectivity. You can get these adapters from www.apple.com or from computer supply stores.
ITEM 4: KNOWLEDGE OF MAC OSX, AND/OR PATIENCE WITH YOUR IT TECHS
Remember that old mantra that Apple used to use to tout their computers? Think Different. They even made all kinds of wall posters with the photos of people known for going against the grain, like Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, and the like--each poster containing the words "Think Different." If you use a Mac in a Windows workplace, that's exactly what you're doing; you're using a different kind of computer from everyone else.
That means, among other things, that if something goes wrong and you have to call your IT person/people to work on your Mac, they may not be able to fix it as quickly or easily as they can fix a PC. And chances are, as they're working on your Mac, they're thinking to themselves, "Why can't this user just use a PC like everyone else?" Be as patient with them as you can, and of course bribery with food or coffee can smooth things along!
It would also probably be worth your time to get to know Mac OSX. It's an easy operating system to learn how to use, but there are a lot of nuances and "gotchas" and general troubleshooting factoids to learn. Doing so will make you more comfortable with the system, and potentially more able to fix problems that come up. For example, anytime you get an error message or you see wonky behavior from a program, it's a good idea to repair the permissions in the files on your hard drive, using the Disk Utility (found in the Utilities folder, under Applications). Little tidbits of knowledge like that can go a long way toward self-sufficiency in the journey that you and your Mac share in the workplace. A few books you might want to check out:
Mac OSX Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-Snow-Leopard-Missing/dp/0596153287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301285437&sr=1-1
Mac OSX Snow Leopard Bible
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-Snow-Leopard-Bible/dp/047045363X/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301285437&sr=1-6
I work in an IT shop that fully supports both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS. But like most IT houses, our enterprise software--as well as a good bit of the client applications we use--comes from Microsoft and was designed with Windows in mind. Apps like Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint, Active Directory, SQL Server--you get the idea. So even though we support Macs at an end-user level, actually using a Mac inside of this decidedly Microsoft-centric has proven quite a challenge up to now.
But after many attempts over the years, I have finally achieved this goal. My 2-year-old Apple Macbook Pro is now my primary computer here at work, and I'm more productive than ever. I thought I'd briefly go over the mechanics and details of how I did it; if you're geeky enough, read on!
PROLOGUE--A MAC IN A WINDOWS WORLD? WHY NOT JUST USE A PC?
In the words of the great 20th-century philosopher Wile E. Coyote, a legitimate question. Deserving a legitimate answer. Simply put, Mac OSX just plain works better than Windows. That's been a hard thing for this PC guy to come to terms with, but I've used both Windows and OSX, on my own work computers and on probably hundreds of customer computers over the years. The past was one thing, but in this day and age, I must concede that OSX can multitask faster and better than Windows 7, with far less hard-drive activity to slow things down. Web pages render faster on the Mac than they do in Windows, regardless of the web browser. Programs load faster in OSX than they do in Windows, and in many cases they exit more gracefully as well (none of this force-quitting applications in Task Manager garbage!). OSX handles operating system updates more gracefully than does Windows (although Microsoft has made great strides in this area since the days of Windows XP), and BIOS/EPROM hardware updates on the Mac are streamlined right into the OSX update process (whereas PC users must manually download and install each hardware update separately). Last but not least, Apple OSX isn't subject to the spyware and malware that has plagued Windows users for years.
Speaking of hardware, Apple has made huge improvements to the design and quality of their computers over the last couple of years--to the point that most Macs are simply a better-quality computer than the typical PC that you'd find in the workplace. Macs now pack state-of-the art Intel processors, big hard drives and copious amounts of RAM memory. Apple video displays have superb illumination, contrast ratio and color representation, compared to their (generally) more mundane PC counterparts, and with most Mac desktop computer models, the video display is built right into the computer itself. Macs now use the same powerful computer-to-video adapters that PCs use, and they can run graphic-intensive applications like Photoshop with ease. Apple uses what are known as "Chicklet-style" keyboards, so-called because their keys are farther apart from each other than regular keyboards, making it harder to inadvertently hit two keys at once. And while PCs still use a mouse, Apple is rapidly replacing the mouse with a touchpad, where you move the cursor by moving your finger across the touchpad. Why? Because with a touchpad, you can employ multi-finger gestures to do things like zoom in and out, scroll the screen in any direction, and even switch between applications, things that a mere mouse can't do (at least not as easily).
In my book, though, the biggest advantage the Mac has over the PC has to do with how each platform behaves over time. Once you install OSX on a Mac, it will perform just as well two or three years down the road as it did the day you installed it; not so with Microsoft Windows. It's been my consistent experience that from the moment it's installed on a PC (even a high-end PC), Windows' performance degrades over time, as the user installs new software and updates the current software. Between the Windows software updates and service packs, the temporary files and DLL files that build up over time, and the buildup of system registry information, Windows literally slows down from its own weight, its own unsustainable code bloat. Until finally the computer's performance diminishes to only a fraction or what the computer itself is capable of. A Mac, on the other hand, gives you lasting performance throughout the life of the OSX installation, even if the user upgrades to newer, better versions of OSX during that time. Only if the user installs a very very high number of programs and utilities on the Mac, or if they make a habit of monkeying around with system files and Plists and other OSX nuts and bolts, will a Mac's performance degrade. (Which explains why my old MacPro G4 lasted me for years, in which time I went through numerous installations of Windows on my various PCs.)
The Mac vs. PC debate will probably go on forever. But like it or not, in the modern computer world, the reasons and benefits for using a Mac in the workplace are real. It's not like the old days, when the justification for using a Mac at work was limited to bogus, intangible generalizations like "Macs handle graphics better" or "Macs are better for education". Today's users need fast, reliable productivity from their computers, and a Mac can give them that. Everyone has their own opinion about the aforementioned points above, and I can only say that again, I've drawn my own conclusions both from my computers and from customer computers (Mac and PC).
OK, I'M READY. I JUST NEED TO PLUG MY MAC INTO THE NETWORK AND AWAY I GO, RIGHT?
Well...not exactly. As stated earlier, a Mac is a pilgrim in a Windows world, in the professional realm at least. There aren't too many programs out there that have both a PC version and a Mac version. Why? Software developers have the monetary resources and the development cycles necessary to get their software working in Windows, but many don't have the additional resources that it takes to develop, maintain, and support their software in the OSX operating system. Either that, or they do have the resources but they just assume that there aren't enough Mac users out there to justify the expense. Same with web pages and web applications; most developers will certify them for Windows-compatible web browsers, but for other operating systems' browsers, it's No guarantees or warranties expressed or implied.
Network access and support software for enterprise systems are an issue as well. Much, if not most, of a company's work is created and stored on network resources, like servers and network-attached storage (NAS). Those resources have to be Mac-accessible in order for a Mac to be a viable computing tool. And if your job requires you to maintain enterprise systems like Active Directory or Microsoft Exchange Server, then you have to find Mac OSX software solutions for performing said maintenance. In most cases, the chances of finding such software are slim to none.
For what it's worth, here's how I addressed these and other issues.
ITEM 1: ACCESS TO A WINDOWS PC
If you're going to use a Mac in a Windows workplace, you're going to need constant, reliable access to a PC. Period. No matter how often or seldom you use a PC, eventually you're going to run into an application or web page that only works on a Windows machine. You may be saying, "If I need access to a PC, then what's the point of using a Mac at all?" The point is to use a Mac as your workhorse computer, leveraging the Mac's superior multitasking capabilities to do a much of your work as you can--using a PC only when absolutely necessary. There are three ways to access a PC from your Mac:
1. Use Bootcamp. Every Mac made within the last five years or so has the built-in ability to run Microsoft Windows, through a utility known as Bootcamp. Just run the Bootcamp utility in the Utilites folder on the Mac; it will ask a few questions about how you want Windows to be set up, then it will make a new partition on the Mac's hard drive. That partition will be where Windows is installed, and when you're done, the Mac will give you a choice of which operating system you want to use--Windows or Mac--every time you boot it up. (Note: Bootcamp requires that you have a licensed copy of whichever version of Windows you set up; I'd recommend Windows 7. Also, if you aren't that much of a PC person, you might want to get a more Windows-savvy person to help you with the installation. Bribe 'em with Starbucks if you have to!)
Voila! Insta Windows. Now you've probably already guessed the main drawback to this method: you choose the OS you want to use on bootup, which means that you either run Windows or Mac...but not both at the same time. If you need to use Windows more than once or twice a day, then having to reboot the Mac and boot into Windows each time is going to get real old.
2. Use a Windows virtualization program, like Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Virtualization programs work a lot like Bootcamp; you install the program in OSX, then the program installs Windows on your Mac. Except that you don't have to reboot the computer and choose which OS to run; you run Windows inside of the virtualization program. That way, you can use OSX all the time, and run the virtualization program only when you need to use Windows for something. You can even tell Parallels or VMWare Fusion that you want to use the Bootcamp Windows installation as the virtual Windows PC. How cool is that!
The only real downside to this method, apart from again needing to have a licensed copy of Windows, is that virtualization programs take lots of system resources on your Mac. Whichever program you use needs system memory and processor cycles to run itself, then more memory and processor cycles to run Windows. (Windows itself needs lots of system resources to run, which of course is what this blog article is all about.) This slows down the Mac; how slow it gets depends on how much RAM memory it has and how beefy the processor. Like I said earlier, my own MacBook Pro is a couple of years old and has 4 gigs of RAM, so I'd probably see some noticeable slowdown. Realistically, probably only a nicely-equipped MacPro or one of those brand-new MacBook Pro laptops (with the new Intel chip architecture known as "Sandy Bridge") could run a Windows virtual machine really well, with little or no performance loss. Fortunately, though, there's door number 3...
3. Connect to a PC remotely, using the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) program. For those using older Macs, or who don't want to sacrifice any system performance in exchange for using Windows, the best option may be to download the Microsoft Remote Connection Desktop (from www.mactopia.com). RDC lets you take over the operation of a PC right from your Mac; you can then use Windows on that PC as though you were actually sitting at the computer. That's how I roll in my office; I have an old Dell Optiplex 745 desktop computer that sits under my desk, and I connect to it form the MacBook Pro via RDC. Now the limitation for this method, obviously, is that you have to have a physical PC to connect to, and that PC has to be connected to the network. That can be a tall order in an office with limited computers and/or limited network resources. But if you can make it fly, you'll get the best of both worlds: Windows access without the performance pain.
Best of all, the computer you remote into doesn't even have to be all that beefy or all that new. My 745 is about 5 years old, yet it's more than fast enough to be a simple Windows terminal for my Mac. And keep in mind that you only need the computer itself, the "box" as it were. You don't need to connect a keyboard, mouse, or monitor to it; all the input/output takes place on your trusty Mac.
ITEM 2: A OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY SUITE THAT'S COMPATIBLE WITH WHAT THE REST OF THE OFFICE USES
Another thing you'll need to have on any Mac that you wish to use in a Windows office is an office productivity suite that's compatible with the suite that everyone else in the office uses. An office productivity suite is a set of programs used to perform common office tasks; it consists of:
--a word processor program for creating documents like memos, letters, and proposals, etc.
--a spreadsheet program for creating spreadsheet documents, like budgets, earnings forecasts, or even merely lists of information that you want to keep in a grid format.
--a contact management/personal information management program, for keeping information on the people you work with and for keeping track of appointments, meetings, etc. Many contact management programs double as e-mail programs, so you can read e-mails and keep track of the aforementioned information all in one place.
--a presentation program, for use in presenting information to others inside or outside the office. You use the program to put together the information you want to present, then you connect the computer to a presentation medium like a projector, and do the actual presentation.
Now, here's the rub: you have to be able to open the documents that your co-workers create using their office productivity suite, and they have to be able to open documents that you create. Nobody is an island unto themselves; everyone collaborates, and collaboration means that any user's computer can be used to open an other user's documents.
So if you're going to use a Mac, your OSX office productivity suite must be able to open the document files that your co-workers produce, and the documents you produce have to be usable and editable on other computers. I.e., Windows computers. Now, can't you just install an office productivity suite on your Windows PC--the one you obtained using one of the methods above--and use the PC for your memos, spreadsheets, etc.? Absolutely you can. But remember what we said earlier; the point of this exercise is to use the Mac's speed and multitasking abilities to chew through the majority of your work, and for most office workers, the majority of their work--or at least a good percentage of it--is done in their office productivity suite. If you can't even use the Mac for that, then it may not be worth it to use a Mac at all.
Now fortunately, the current standard for office productivity suites is Microsoft Office, and there's both a Windows and a Mac version of Office. In days past, documents saved in the Windows version of Office could not be reliably opened or edited using the Mac version, and vice versa. But with the latest iterations of Office for the Mac and PC respectively, compatibility between the two is virtually assured. That does mean, though, that especially on a Mac, it's critical to have the latest iteration of Office, Office 2011; using an earlier iteration of the program is not recommended. The only caveat here is that although the two versions of Office are compatible, the Windows version includes three programs that the Mac version doesn't: Microsoft Access, Publisher, and OneNote. (Access is used to create information databases, Publisher is used for desktop publishing, and OneNote is used for taking notes in meetings and such.) But again, no worries; if you need to use these programs, that's when you crank up your PC, right there inside OSX on your Mac, and away you go.
Not every business uses Microsoft Office; many are turning to online document creation solutions like Google Docs, OpenOffice, and Microsoft Office 365. But that's actually great news for whose who want to use a Mac in the workplace, since all of these alternatives are Mac-friendly (although Office 365 is still in its infancy, and only time will tell how Mac-compatible it will ultimately be, if at all).
ITEM 3: THE MOZILLA FIREFOX WEB BROWSER
Apple OSX ships with its own web browser, called Safari (just as Windows has its own web browser, Internet Explorer). Safari has come a long, long way from its decidedly humble beginnings, and most web pages load in Safari no problem. But some web pages don't work in Safari, and Murphy's law pretty much guarantees that one of these web pages will be the one that you have to go to. Regularly. So it's important to surf to www.firefox.com (yes, you can use Safari to do this) and download and install the latest version of the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Once installed, you use it just as you would Safari, typing the URL of whatever web page you want to view in the Address line. Firefox is the browser of choice for many (if not most) Windows users as well, so you'll be in good company.
ITEM 4: A MINI-DISPLAY-PORT-TO-VGA ADAPTER
Apple has had a nasty habit in the past, of suddenly throwing away support for the standard technology that everyone uses, in favor of brand-new technology that hasn't yet been adopted by the computer industry at large. They've mostly grown out of this practice, but one hurdle remains: external video connectivity. For purposes of connecting video monitors, projectors, interactive whiteboards, etc., the standard for years has been VGA (for both Mac and PC). VGA is an analog technology, and it was eventually supplanted (if not necessarily replaced) by DVI, a digital connectivity standard. Then a new video connectivity emerged, called DisplayPort. And while the rest of the industry has been slow to adopt DisplayPort, Apple has now forsaken all other external video display connectivity standards, and gone solely with DisplayPort. (The only exception to this is the MacPro tower models; seems like they still have a DVI connector).
So if you're going to use any Mac at the workplace outside of a MacPro, and if you wish to connect that Mac to a projector or to a non-Apple external monitor (or a whiteboard), you're going to need a mini-display-port-to-VGA adapter. You plug one end of the adapter into the Mac itself, and the other end into a VGA cable, which is plugged into the monitor/projector/whiteboard. Once this is done, you have external connectivity. You can get these adapters from www.apple.com or from computer supply stores.
ITEM 4: KNOWLEDGE OF MAC OSX, AND/OR PATIENCE WITH YOUR IT TECHS
Remember that old mantra that Apple used to use to tout their computers? Think Different. They even made all kinds of wall posters with the photos of people known for going against the grain, like Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Alfred Hitchcock, and the like--each poster containing the words "Think Different." If you use a Mac in a Windows workplace, that's exactly what you're doing; you're using a different kind of computer from everyone else.
That means, among other things, that if something goes wrong and you have to call your IT person/people to work on your Mac, they may not be able to fix it as quickly or easily as they can fix a PC. And chances are, as they're working on your Mac, they're thinking to themselves, "Why can't this user just use a PC like everyone else?" Be as patient with them as you can, and of course bribery with food or coffee can smooth things along!
It would also probably be worth your time to get to know Mac OSX. It's an easy operating system to learn how to use, but there are a lot of nuances and "gotchas" and general troubleshooting factoids to learn. Doing so will make you more comfortable with the system, and potentially more able to fix problems that come up. For example, anytime you get an error message or you see wonky behavior from a program, it's a good idea to repair the permissions in the files on your hard drive, using the Disk Utility (found in the Utilities folder, under Applications). Little tidbits of knowledge like that can go a long way toward self-sufficiency in the journey that you and your Mac share in the workplace. A few books you might want to check out:
Mac OSX Snow Leopard: The Missing Manual
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-Snow-Leopard-Missing/dp/0596153287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301285437&sr=1-1
Mac OSX Snow Leopard Bible
http://www.amazon.com/Mac-OS-Snow-Leopard-Bible/dp/047045363X/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1301285437&sr=1-6
Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: A Guide to Supporting and Troubleshooting Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard
And of course, there's a myriad of Worldwide Web resources at your disposal as well; the best way to find them is probably to do a Google search on "Mac OSX resources" or something to that effect.
IN SUMMARY...
I've really only scratched the surface on the subject of using a Mac in a Windows world, and there are countless other observations I've made since December when I first started doing so, that I just don't have room to mention in this article. But if you have a Mac that's two years old or newer, if you're sick of all the spyware and code bloat and general drudgery that plagues Windows users, and if you don't mind learning a few things and putting forth a little effort, you too can enjoy the Mac experience in this Windows world.
I've really only scratched the surface on the subject of using a Mac in a Windows world, and there are countless other observations I've made since December when I first started doing so, that I just don't have room to mention in this article. But if you have a Mac that's two years old or newer, if you're sick of all the spyware and code bloat and general drudgery that plagues Windows users, and if you don't mind learning a few things and putting forth a little effort, you too can enjoy the Mac experience in this Windows world.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The EduGeek at the Workplace: Who's in Customer Service? Everyone!
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
Ever go to one of those training seminars for work? The kind that they have at hotels and last like 2 or 3 days? I've only been to one, back in '94 or so, called—get this—How To Deliver Knock-Your-Socks-Off Customer Service. Had a cute little logo of a pair of feet with the socks flying off and everything. Aww.
I didn’t mind going, mind you; it got me out of the office for a couple of days, and they had the good taste not to have it at one of those horrid downtown hotels where you have to drive around for half an hour looking for a place to park. And for the most part, it was pretty much as expected, just a bunch of Powerpoint bullets on what customer service means and what you would do in this or that situation. There was one thing they said, though, that actually stuck with me:
Everyone is in customer service.
Meaning that whatever it says on a given employee's business card--accountant, IT manager, teacher, whatever--that employee is in customer service. That employee has a customer base, consisting of the others inside and outside of the company who depend on them, hence that employee is in customer service.
It sounded pretty hokey at first, but since then I've often thought of how much more efficiently a company or government entity could function if they would take on this philosophy.
Pretty much every company or organization out there has a customer service department of some kind. It might be a full-on call center, or it might be the desk receptionist in a small business, or it might be the outsourcing company in India or Bangladesh. Anyone who holds a position in that department is considered to be “in customer service,” whether its someone who takes the phone calls, someone who goes out and works with the customer to get the problem solved, whatever. These folks are in customer service to serve the company’s customer base, i.e. the people who pay the bills. The company probably has many other departments—billing, marketing, fulfillment, executive management—and conventional wisdom says that the people who work in those other departments are not in customer service, because they don’t have customers per se.
That’s conventional wisdom. Now lets look at the benefits of taking this broader view of customer service.
Lets pick a random department of a company as an example, say the accounting department. The lead accountant has the daunting task of balancing the books every month. Does this involve dealing directly with the company’s customer base? No. But there are a lot of people in the company who need the lead accountant in order to perform their jobs. The company’s executive management—the top brass, if you will—depends on the lead accountant for information on how much money is in the company’s budget, so that they know whether or not they can kick off that new project they’ve thinking about. The department heads of each of the company’s departments count on the lead accountant knowing how much money is in their budgets as well. If the company uses an auditing service to periodically audit the accounting department, then the auditors need the lead accountant for accurate, up-to-the-minute information on their accounting practices.
The point of all this? The executive management, the department heads, the auditors—these folks (among others) are the lead accountant’s customers. They’re the people who the lead accountant serves, and that’s what makes them the lead accountant’s customers. Therefore, the lead accountant is in customer service!
This may seem like an oversimplification, but it’s not. Practically all businesses with 20 or more employees companies have accountants (or at least accounting services), and all accountants have customers who they serve. Their job titles may differ from business to business, but they still depend on the accountant to do their job, and that makes them every bit as much a customer as the people who actually pay the company for their goods or services.
The same goes for the IT department. This is a much simpler example, because pretty much everyone in the company needs the IT department for something. Department heads need IT to develop computer systems for their information processing. The marketing/advertising department needs IT to maintain the web servers through which they advertise the company’s product or service. And of course everyone with a computer needs IT for computer maintenance and for tech support when things go wrong. All these folks are the IT department’s customers, and just like the company’s paying customers, if they don’t get the service that they need, they won’t be able to provide the company with the things that the company needs. If a paying customer doesn’t get the service they need, they take their business elsewhere, which deprives the company of the customer’s money. By the exact same token, if the IT department’s customers don’t get the service they need, they can’t do their job, which deprives the company of their effectiveness. (Example: it’s pretty hard to create that meeting agenda if your word processor isn’t working!) One of these scenarios is just as bad for the company as the other, but most companies seem to only recognize the first one, the loss of paying customers.
I could go on and on with examples, but the bottom line: everyone has a customer base, regardless of their role in the company. That customer base consists of the people in the company who need them to get their own jobs done. No matter how low on the totem pole an employee thinks they are, someone else needs them. Often.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Fine, Edugeek; so what? I probably won’t be able to singlehandedly get my company’s top brass to adopt the philosophy that everyone is in customer service, so how is all this relevant?” Well, it’s relevant in how each of us does our job—or more specifically, how each of us interacts with our own customer base. If we all adopt an attitude of performing good customer service, whoever the customer, then the idea that everyone is in customer service will take care of itself. Here are some pointers:
If someone contacts you, get back to them. If you get an e-mail message from someone, reply immediately. If you get a voice mail message, call them back. If the person is asking a question of you or they need something from you, reply to them right away and let them know that you either have what they need, or that it will take time to get them what they need. Try not to leave them hanging if you can possibly avoid it, because when someone asks something of you, it’s usually because there’s something they have to do or some information they need to provide—and it’s contingent on your answer. Oh, and if you’d prefer that people contact you via e-mail rather than by phone, let them know that. Make an outgoing message (OGM) on your phone that says something like “For faster response, please e-mail me at ____.”
If someone asks you a question, get the answer yourself. This sounds obvious, but it’s all too easy to reply to a question with “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask ____.” When you do that, you’re basically giving that person the runaround, in their own office! You expect for someone to get the runaround when they call a state or local government office or something, but it shouldn’t happen in their own office, among their own co-workers. If someone asks you something that you don’t know, say “I don’t know; let me find out and get back to you.” Then go ask the person who you think might know, get the answer from them, and relay it back to the original person. Yes, that’s a lot of work on your part, but what you’re really saying to them is, “Your quest for this answer ends here; you can count on me to get you the information.” Now the answer may be more involved than you can easily relay to the person, especially if its in an area that you don’t know much about; in cases like this, you can say “OK, I asked Jane and she said _____. But she could probably give you a more detailed answer.” Nothing wrong with this; you still did the leg work, and you reaffirmed to the person who asked that you can be counted on to get them what they need, in the form of an answer or at least a referral to someone who can better help them. That’s what they really want, after all, just like it’s what you want when you need information.
Don’t tell yourself stories about people. This applies more to people who are in the actual customer service department than it does people in other departments, but to some extent, it holds true everywhere. For example, if someone needs something from you, don’t say to yourself “What a lazyass, why can’t he do it himself?” Because what you’re doing is telling yourself a story about the person, in this case telling yourself that the person is lazy. But in most cases you have no idea whether or not the story is true; you’re mostly telling yourself that story just to reinforce to yourself why you shouldn’t have to do whatever it is they’re asking you to do. In this example, yes the person may just be lazy, but there are a lot of other possible explanations as well. Maybe they need this thing from you because their computer isn’t working at the moment. Maybe getting this thing requires a key, or a system access password, or some other resource that they don’t have. You don’t know, and as in life, there’s nothing to be gained by assuming the worst. Now if someone asks you for something over and over again, at that point its time to show them how to get whatever it is they need, or its time for you to get with their supervisor and let them know what’s going on, or however you want to handle it. But in general, give a brotha or a sistah a fair shake; they’re your customer after all!
Be liberal with praise and gratitude. This isn’t really anything that you didn’t learn in kindergarten, but thank people when they do something for you. Many people know to thank their friends and their family when they do something nice for them, but don’t know to carry this attitude over with them at the workplace. Similarly, when a co-worker realizes some kind of achievement, like getting a degree or certification, give ‘em props. Publicly. There’s a lot of negative energy floating around these days, so its important to be a source of positivity if you can.
Follow up. This is closely related to getting back to people, but it’s more of a long-term thing. Like whenever I take my car into the shop and they work on it, about a week later I get a follow-up e-mail message, asking how things are going since the work was done. That’s what a good customer service rep does, and it’s a good thing to integrate into your own behavior at work. If you provide an answer or if you’re otherwise a resource for someone, follow up with that person and make sure that what you did or what you gave them was really what they needed and that it really helped them. This is a particularly good idea if you answered a question for them or gave information, because it serves as a verification for you that your answer was really the correct one, or that your answer wasn’t correct and the correct answer is ___, or that your answer was correct but also could have included ___. That’s how you make yourself an effective resource for your customers, whoever they may be.
There are probably numerous other good habits that you can adopt that would give that good-customer-service quality to your work; feel free to name some of them them in the comments section. Your customers will thank you!
Ever go to one of those training seminars for work? The kind that they have at hotels and last like 2 or 3 days? I've only been to one, back in '94 or so, called—get this—How To Deliver Knock-Your-Socks-Off Customer Service. Had a cute little logo of a pair of feet with the socks flying off and everything. Aww.
I didn’t mind going, mind you; it got me out of the office for a couple of days, and they had the good taste not to have it at one of those horrid downtown hotels where you have to drive around for half an hour looking for a place to park. And for the most part, it was pretty much as expected, just a bunch of Powerpoint bullets on what customer service means and what you would do in this or that situation. There was one thing they said, though, that actually stuck with me:
Everyone is in customer service.
Meaning that whatever it says on a given employee's business card--accountant, IT manager, teacher, whatever--that employee is in customer service. That employee has a customer base, consisting of the others inside and outside of the company who depend on them, hence that employee is in customer service.
It sounded pretty hokey at first, but since then I've often thought of how much more efficiently a company or government entity could function if they would take on this philosophy.
Pretty much every company or organization out there has a customer service department of some kind. It might be a full-on call center, or it might be the desk receptionist in a small business, or it might be the outsourcing company in India or Bangladesh. Anyone who holds a position in that department is considered to be “in customer service,” whether its someone who takes the phone calls, someone who goes out and works with the customer to get the problem solved, whatever. These folks are in customer service to serve the company’s customer base, i.e. the people who pay the bills. The company probably has many other departments—billing, marketing, fulfillment, executive management—and conventional wisdom says that the people who work in those other departments are not in customer service, because they don’t have customers per se.
That’s conventional wisdom. Now lets look at the benefits of taking this broader view of customer service.
Lets pick a random department of a company as an example, say the accounting department. The lead accountant has the daunting task of balancing the books every month. Does this involve dealing directly with the company’s customer base? No. But there are a lot of people in the company who need the lead accountant in order to perform their jobs. The company’s executive management—the top brass, if you will—depends on the lead accountant for information on how much money is in the company’s budget, so that they know whether or not they can kick off that new project they’ve thinking about. The department heads of each of the company’s departments count on the lead accountant knowing how much money is in their budgets as well. If the company uses an auditing service to periodically audit the accounting department, then the auditors need the lead accountant for accurate, up-to-the-minute information on their accounting practices.
The point of all this? The executive management, the department heads, the auditors—these folks (among others) are the lead accountant’s customers. They’re the people who the lead accountant serves, and that’s what makes them the lead accountant’s customers. Therefore, the lead accountant is in customer service!
This may seem like an oversimplification, but it’s not. Practically all businesses with 20 or more employees companies have accountants (or at least accounting services), and all accountants have customers who they serve. Their job titles may differ from business to business, but they still depend on the accountant to do their job, and that makes them every bit as much a customer as the people who actually pay the company for their goods or services.
The same goes for the IT department. This is a much simpler example, because pretty much everyone in the company needs the IT department for something. Department heads need IT to develop computer systems for their information processing. The marketing/advertising department needs IT to maintain the web servers through which they advertise the company’s product or service. And of course everyone with a computer needs IT for computer maintenance and for tech support when things go wrong. All these folks are the IT department’s customers, and just like the company’s paying customers, if they don’t get the service that they need, they won’t be able to provide the company with the things that the company needs. If a paying customer doesn’t get the service they need, they take their business elsewhere, which deprives the company of the customer’s money. By the exact same token, if the IT department’s customers don’t get the service they need, they can’t do their job, which deprives the company of their effectiveness. (Example: it’s pretty hard to create that meeting agenda if your word processor isn’t working!) One of these scenarios is just as bad for the company as the other, but most companies seem to only recognize the first one, the loss of paying customers.
I could go on and on with examples, but the bottom line: everyone has a customer base, regardless of their role in the company. That customer base consists of the people in the company who need them to get their own jobs done. No matter how low on the totem pole an employee thinks they are, someone else needs them. Often.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Fine, Edugeek; so what? I probably won’t be able to singlehandedly get my company’s top brass to adopt the philosophy that everyone is in customer service, so how is all this relevant?” Well, it’s relevant in how each of us does our job—or more specifically, how each of us interacts with our own customer base. If we all adopt an attitude of performing good customer service, whoever the customer, then the idea that everyone is in customer service will take care of itself. Here are some pointers:
If someone contacts you, get back to them. If you get an e-mail message from someone, reply immediately. If you get a voice mail message, call them back. If the person is asking a question of you or they need something from you, reply to them right away and let them know that you either have what they need, or that it will take time to get them what they need. Try not to leave them hanging if you can possibly avoid it, because when someone asks something of you, it’s usually because there’s something they have to do or some information they need to provide—and it’s contingent on your answer. Oh, and if you’d prefer that people contact you via e-mail rather than by phone, let them know that. Make an outgoing message (OGM) on your phone that says something like “For faster response, please e-mail me at ____.”
If someone asks you a question, get the answer yourself. This sounds obvious, but it’s all too easy to reply to a question with “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask ____.” When you do that, you’re basically giving that person the runaround, in their own office! You expect for someone to get the runaround when they call a state or local government office or something, but it shouldn’t happen in their own office, among their own co-workers. If someone asks you something that you don’t know, say “I don’t know; let me find out and get back to you.” Then go ask the person who you think might know, get the answer from them, and relay it back to the original person. Yes, that’s a lot of work on your part, but what you’re really saying to them is, “Your quest for this answer ends here; you can count on me to get you the information.” Now the answer may be more involved than you can easily relay to the person, especially if its in an area that you don’t know much about; in cases like this, you can say “OK, I asked Jane and she said _____. But she could probably give you a more detailed answer.” Nothing wrong with this; you still did the leg work, and you reaffirmed to the person who asked that you can be counted on to get them what they need, in the form of an answer or at least a referral to someone who can better help them. That’s what they really want, after all, just like it’s what you want when you need information.
Don’t tell yourself stories about people. This applies more to people who are in the actual customer service department than it does people in other departments, but to some extent, it holds true everywhere. For example, if someone needs something from you, don’t say to yourself “What a lazyass, why can’t he do it himself?” Because what you’re doing is telling yourself a story about the person, in this case telling yourself that the person is lazy. But in most cases you have no idea whether or not the story is true; you’re mostly telling yourself that story just to reinforce to yourself why you shouldn’t have to do whatever it is they’re asking you to do. In this example, yes the person may just be lazy, but there are a lot of other possible explanations as well. Maybe they need this thing from you because their computer isn’t working at the moment. Maybe getting this thing requires a key, or a system access password, or some other resource that they don’t have. You don’t know, and as in life, there’s nothing to be gained by assuming the worst. Now if someone asks you for something over and over again, at that point its time to show them how to get whatever it is they need, or its time for you to get with their supervisor and let them know what’s going on, or however you want to handle it. But in general, give a brotha or a sistah a fair shake; they’re your customer after all!
Be liberal with praise and gratitude. This isn’t really anything that you didn’t learn in kindergarten, but thank people when they do something for you. Many people know to thank their friends and their family when they do something nice for them, but don’t know to carry this attitude over with them at the workplace. Similarly, when a co-worker realizes some kind of achievement, like getting a degree or certification, give ‘em props. Publicly. There’s a lot of negative energy floating around these days, so its important to be a source of positivity if you can.
Follow up. This is closely related to getting back to people, but it’s more of a long-term thing. Like whenever I take my car into the shop and they work on it, about a week later I get a follow-up e-mail message, asking how things are going since the work was done. That’s what a good customer service rep does, and it’s a good thing to integrate into your own behavior at work. If you provide an answer or if you’re otherwise a resource for someone, follow up with that person and make sure that what you did or what you gave them was really what they needed and that it really helped them. This is a particularly good idea if you answered a question for them or gave information, because it serves as a verification for you that your answer was really the correct one, or that your answer wasn’t correct and the correct answer is ___, or that your answer was correct but also could have included ___. That’s how you make yourself an effective resource for your customers, whoever they may be.
There are probably numerous other good habits that you can adopt that would give that good-customer-service quality to your work; feel free to name some of them them in the comments section. Your customers will thank you!
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The EduGeek on Tech: An iPad vs. a Netbook
Brian the Education Geek writes an occasional blog with observations about life, geek stuff, politics, and just whatever strikes his fancy.
After careful deliberation and painful soul-searching, I decided to pick up an Apple iPad last July. (I couldn't really afford an iPad, but that's another story.) So I thought I'd share my thoughts and observations on it, specifically in the context of the question I get asked most often amongst the iPad skeptics who know me: why get an iPad when you could just get a netbook computer instead?
I don't think I need to explain what an iPad is; we've all seen the commercials, maybe even seen one up close or used one.
A netbook, for the uninitiated, is simply a very small-scale laptop computer.
Netbooks don't generally have a great deal of raw computing power, and accordingly are not very expensive to buy (usually in the $400 to $600 range, maybe a shade under); like the iPad, their use is generally limited to web browsing, e-mail, social networking, e-book reading, and light applications, with the occasional casual game or Youtube video thrown in, if the user is so inclined. Like the iPad, netbooks are very lightweight and portable, so they're a favorite among college students and the younger crowd in general. With few exceptions, most netbook computers are PCs that run some flavor of Microsoft Windows.
So let me run down the general areas in which I've found that the iPad and netbooks seem to butt heads, as well as my view of how each device stacks up in these areas.
Form factor. A computing device's form factor refers to the physical attributes of the device, and how the device is used based on those attributes. A netbook computer employs a laptop form factor; it has a QWERTY keyboard, a video screen, and a trackpad mouse, and all of these components are necessary for its use. An iPad employs a pad form factor; it's basically a flat, thin plastic or metal shell that encases a small video screen. You don't use a trackpad to move a cursor around the screen; you use your fingers to touch and swipe the screen itself. You don't use a keyboard to type; a virtual, graphic image of a keyboard automatically appears on the screen when you need to type.
To some, the difference in the form factors of an iPad and a netbook make the two devices so different as to render any comparison between them invalid. Apples and oranges, as it were. I can understand this viewpoint, but I don't share it. There are advantages and disadvantages to each form factor, and it's up to the user as to which form factor works better for them. For me, no matter how small a netbook computer you buy, you're still stuck with the laptop form factor, and you still need the keyboard, trackpad mouse, and video screen (along with their requisite size and weight). Additionally, if you're low on battery, you also need to plug in a power supply, and if you don't like using the netbook's trackpad mouse, you have to plug in a mouse.
To me, only a pad device like the iPad offers true portability, combining both input and output in a single screen. But I will admit, one thing I've found with the iPad is that holding a pad in your hands really pretty much sucks after only a few minutes of use. There's just no good way to do it; if you hold it in front of you like you're holding the steering wheel of a car, your arms get tired. If you lay it on a table, the viewing angle prevents you from seeing the screen, so you still have to hold it at the proper angle with one or both hands. If you cradle it in one arm, it's hard to keep the screen straight; your view of the device is tilted left or right. The only effective solution I've found is to use an iPad stand to support the device (there are stands of many varying types ands sizes out there). That gets it out of my hands altogether, and plus I'm free to type.
But then, that adds another component to the pad's form factor; now it's not just a pad, but a pad with a stand that I need to lug around with me. So my verdict on form factor: it's six of one, half dozen of the other. Neither device's form factor makes that device the hands-down winner in this writer's opinion.
Cost. It's hard to beat a netbook computer in terms of low cost, and the iPad can't. Like most Apple products, the iPad is marketed as a premium, high-end gadget; at $500 to start, there's little thought toward the iPad as being a bargain. As stated, a good netbook computer usually falls in the $400 to $600 range. But there's a big caveat here: that $400 to $600 price range is for base models. Most companies that manufacture netbooks give you the option to upgrade certain hardware components, like RAM memory or hard drive space. Some of them charge more money for these hardware upgrades than the upgrades themselves are worth, so it's very easy to go in with the intent to spend $400 on a netbook computer, and end up spending $700 or $800 or more. But...here's what you would spend on an iPad:
$500-iPad with 16 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$600-iPad with 32 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$700-iPad with 64 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$629-iPad with 16 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
$729-iPad with 32 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
$829-iPad with 64 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
With those last three options, keep in mind that you also need to pay a monthly fee for Internet access.
Bottom line: as long as you're OK with the hardware specifications for the base model of whatever netbook computer you're looking at, you'll likely spend less money on a netbook. I should point out, though, that the quality of the video display--arguably the most important component of a computing device of any kind--varies rather widely between netbook brands and models, so some comparison shopping may be in order. iPads don't have that problem; you get a gorgeous, responsive 9.7-inch multitouch display no matter which one you buy.
Operating system. Like I said, most netbooks have some version of Microsoft Windows on them, where iPads use Apple's proprietary iOS. There are a couple of pad devices that run Google's Android operating system as well, but the pad market right now is overwhelmingly iPad/iOS. So which operating system is better? Well, again lets look at what a netbook and a pad computer are generally used for: web browsing, e-mail, social networking, e-book reading, and light applications. These are fairly simple and lightweight duties that don't require an overly sophisticated operating system, and in my experience that's what Windows IS. It's a highly capable and feature-rich operating system, and one that's accordingly big, complex, clunky, and fairly demanding of computer hardware resources (memory, disk space, processor speed, etc,) to run. Apple's iOS, on the other hand, was designed for phone and pad devices like the iPad, so it's not nearly as complex as Windows, its much faster and easier to use, and it doesn't need a particularly powerful device to run. Windows also suffers from malware and spyware, computer viruses, and the tendency to slow down the more software and/or hardware peripherals (printers, digital cameras, etc.) that are installed; iOS has none of these problems. In my book, this makes iOS the clear winner for pad/netbook-type duties.
Applications. This is a tricky subject, and there's probably no clear winner here. Netbook users have a vast number of Windows applications to choose from, and iPad users have a vast number of iOS applications; to me, the difference is in the KIND of application that Windows and iOS have to offer. Windows applications generally seem to run more toward the productivity and utilitarian side of life. If you need office productivity and connectivity tools, or if you're going to college and you're required to have applications like software development tools, or if you need certain web browser plug-ins--you're much more likely to find these things in the the Windows world than you are the iOS world. iOS applications, on the other hand, tend to gear more toward the entertainment, leisure, artistic, and K-12 education side of things. There are certainly productivity and utilitarian applications to be had in the iOS world, but they're few and far between; iOS's forte lies more with educational applications like the periodic table of the elements, or with e-book readers, or digital interfaces for popular magazines like People or Motor Trend. Another example: Comcast cable television subscribers can download an application for the iPad that allows them to use their iPad as a remote control for their cable box. This is what an iPad is mainly for; applications that won't necessarily change the world or anything, but that are fun and handy to have around.
So when choosing between a netbook or an iPad, it's wise to consider the general type of application that you 'd use it for. An iPad is a great choice for casual users, where a netbook might be better suited for the more serious, productivity-minded user. It's worth noting, though, that even the more productivity-oriented user may be able to find applications in the iOS world to suit their needs. That's because iPads are flying off the shelf and are in very high demand, and software manufacturers of all manner of software are taking notice--even companies who once thought the Windows market was all they'd ever need to cater to.
Autonomy. That's a weird measure of a computing device; let me explain. A netbook operates autonomously, meaning that once you get it it, you plug it in, turn it on, and away you go. iPads aren't like that; in order to begin using an iPad, you have to connect it to another computer. It can be a Mac or a PC, desktop or laptop, doesn't really matter; it just needs to have Apple's iTunes program installed. Why? iPad users must occasionally connect their iPad to the computer for a process known as synchronization. The iPad synchronizes, or syncs, with the iTunes program on the computer, and in this process the iPad's software is backed up on the computer, and it gets updates to its iOS operating system from Apple. All well and good--but you have to have the computer to sync with! If you don't already have a computer, or if you don't know someone who would allow you to use their computer as iPad sync fodder, then you'd best skip the iPad and go straight to Best Buy or Micro Center to begin your search for a netbook.
Web browsing experience. Most people assume that web browsing is web browsing, whatever the device or operating system. Not so, however, due to a couple of semi-questionable choices on Apple's part (more specifically on the part of Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs). Mr. Jobs has decreed that iOS does not, and likely never will, support the Adobe Flash protocol for web page graphics, animations, and video. Most of the major web sites in the world use Flash for some or all of their web content, so no Flash support means that the iPad can't do all of the things in the average web page that a Windows-powered netbook can. Another thing on the iPad: of all the major web browser choices that Windows users take for granted, only the Safari browser is allowed on the iPad. No Google Chrome, no Firefox, no Opera; you can either use Safari, or install a no-name browser and hope that it doesn't crash.
As to the absence of Flash support, Jobs cites browser performance and security concerns. Fair enough; Flash can indeed consume a fair amount of system resources, and it is used by a number of spyware and malware installer programs on the Windows side to carry out whatever evil plans it has in store for infected computers. But how does the absence of Flash, in a worldwide web that uses Flash so heavily, affect the overall web browsing experience on an iPad? After 7 months with an iPad, I can honestly say, not as much as I'd have thought. I read reviews of the iPad when it first came out, describing the web experience as "broken," but I've not really found this to be the case. There's definitely functionality on some sites that does not work on an iPad, no question. (Try and watch video on www.g4tv.com using an iPad, and you'll see what I mean.) But most of the web sites that I've used on an iPad rely on Flash only for certain components of the site; the overall functionality of the site isn't affected. Take Facebook, for example; only when I try to play a Facebook game or watch an embedded video that one of my friends has posted do I get a Flash error message; everything else in Facebook I can do with no problem.
I do occasionally run into web functionality problems that stem not from the lack of Flash, but rather because of some weirdness or incompatibility that web site has with the Safari browser. (And I wonder aloud what would be so horrible about there being another major browser available for me to install on the iPad.) But this is proving increasingly rare; as stated earlier, the runaway success that Apple is currently enjoying with the iPad and with their OSX computers seems to be getting the attention of web developers these days. The message from more and more companies to their web developers seems to be, Make our site work with Safari! Same with Flash; whether Steve Jobs should start supporting Flash or not, many web site developers (Youtube, for one) are seeing the folly of relying on one content development company, Adobe, for so much of their content, and they're now moving toward open standards like HTML 5 to replace Flash content.
I'm not really all that concerned about how web sites look in Safari on the iPad anyway, because so many of the major web sites now offer iPad applications that provide the same content as the web site, but in a nice, tight, organized fashion that completely nullifies the need to use their web site for anything at all. NPR, CNN, BBC News, Twitter, Engadget, Ars Tecnica...all of these content providers now have iPad apps that work infinitely better than their web site counterparts. And the best part? No ads! So for an increasing number of content providers, I don't need the web and I don't miss it. To harp on the Facebook example again, there's already a Facebook app for the iPhone; once they roll out the iPad Facebook app, I'll promptly forget all about www.facebook.com.
So although netbooks win the web experience battle for now, the iPad web experience should more than suffice, if indeed you have to use the web on an iPad for your content at all.
Peripheral and network connectivity. Netbook computers have USB and VGA ports, through which users can connect peripheral devices like an external hard drive, a video monitor or projector if need be, a digital camera, pretty much anything that uses a standard port. Netbooks also have an Ethernet network port, so that users can connect the netbook directly to an Ethernet network if they want faster, more reliable networking than their wireless/cellular network has to offer. iPads, however, have exactly one connectivity port, an Apple-proprietary port on the bottom of the device that doubles as the electrical charging port. The only way to connect a peripheral device to this port is through a plug-in adapter. This gives Apple complete control over what kinds of devices can be connected to the iPad; if Apple doesn't make an adapter for it, you can't connect it. Period.
The only adapters available are a USB port adapter, an SD card adapter for accessing SD memory cards, and a VGA adapter for connecting an external monitor, projector, etc. This does cover most kinds of peripheral devices, but there's a catch: even once you get the peripheral device connected, you can only use it the way Steve Jobs allows you to use it. Those USB and SD reader adapters? All you can do with them is copy digital photos to and from the iPad. Forget about using an external hard drive with the USB adapter to augment the pad's storage space; not allowed. Oh, and no Ethernet network connectivity either; it's wireless or nothing. Netbooks don't have any of these limitations; once you get your peripheral device connected, away you go.
The iPad's connectivity issues prevented me from buying one for a long time; the inconvenience aside, I didn't like the idea of forking over hundreds of dollars for a gadget, and then being told how I could and could not use that gadget. And however much I may like my iPad, I would understand anyone's reluctance to buy one under these circumstances. But I'm nevertheless forced to admit that in the end, connectivity just isn't a big part of the whole iPad gig. If you want to copy picture files up to the iPad, all you have to do is import them into iTunes on the computer you use to sync it, and then...well, sync it! Voila, insta photos. And since the next version of the iPad will likely have a camera built-in, the photo upload issue soon won't be much of an issue at all. Yes, giving the iPad more storage space would be nice if I wanted to store all my pictures and music on it, but honestly, I have a computer for that. The iPad is for reading and surfing and geeking out on cool apps and such. A netbook can do all these things, though...and connect up to peripherals...so I must admit that a netbook comes out on top in this area.
The final analysis. Now that I've gone over the key comparisons between a netbook and an iPad, let me sum it all up. In then end, when I fork over a few hundred bucks that I don't really have (again, long story), I want to get a gadget out of it. I want a shiny new toy, something that's unlike any other gadget I have. I want to do mainly fun stuff on it--watch videos, play some Angry Birds, read a book or magazine, get caught up on the latest news...but I also occasionally want to be productive on it. Bottom line, what I don't want, is a computer. And that's what a netbook IS. A computer. Another Windows computer, like what I use at work. No matter where you go, there you are; it's still the same old, stodgy Windows that we've all been using for years. For my few hundred bucks, I want something more, and the iPad fits that bill perfectly.
My head tells me, "Geez Edugeek! Read your own blog for cripes sake! You can do so much more with a netbook!" But my heart says, "I don't want to do more. I want to do what I want to do, and do it in a fun, unique, cool way." There's also the portability factor. The smallest netbook out there, is still nothing but a laptop computer. Keyboard, screen, trackpad mouse, and possibly other components to boot. A pad is nothing more than pad, period. I can take it with me anywhere, stuff it into a car's glove box or a bike's handlebar bag, wherever. I can take it when I go on vacation and not feel guilty, not feel like I'm taking technology with me to someplace where I ought to be trying to get away from technology. I can--and do--take it to the coffee shop, connect to the wireless network, and away I go...and I'm the envy of everyone around me besides!
But that's me. Leave your opinions on the matter in the comments section below!
UPDATE 2-20-2011: My stepson Kevin informed me that the prices I listed for netbook computers were not entirely accurate. He found netbooks on www.Newegg.Com that go for ~$250 to start. That's half the price of the cheapest iPad. I stand corrected! --Ed.
After careful deliberation and painful soul-searching, I decided to pick up an Apple iPad last July. (I couldn't really afford an iPad, but that's another story.) So I thought I'd share my thoughts and observations on it, specifically in the context of the question I get asked most often amongst the iPad skeptics who know me: why get an iPad when you could just get a netbook computer instead?
I don't think I need to explain what an iPad is; we've all seen the commercials, maybe even seen one up close or used one.
A netbook, for the uninitiated, is simply a very small-scale laptop computer.
Netbooks don't generally have a great deal of raw computing power, and accordingly are not very expensive to buy (usually in the $400 to $600 range, maybe a shade under); like the iPad, their use is generally limited to web browsing, e-mail, social networking, e-book reading, and light applications, with the occasional casual game or Youtube video thrown in, if the user is so inclined. Like the iPad, netbooks are very lightweight and portable, so they're a favorite among college students and the younger crowd in general. With few exceptions, most netbook computers are PCs that run some flavor of Microsoft Windows.
So let me run down the general areas in which I've found that the iPad and netbooks seem to butt heads, as well as my view of how each device stacks up in these areas.
Form factor. A computing device's form factor refers to the physical attributes of the device, and how the device is used based on those attributes. A netbook computer employs a laptop form factor; it has a QWERTY keyboard, a video screen, and a trackpad mouse, and all of these components are necessary for its use. An iPad employs a pad form factor; it's basically a flat, thin plastic or metal shell that encases a small video screen. You don't use a trackpad to move a cursor around the screen; you use your fingers to touch and swipe the screen itself. You don't use a keyboard to type; a virtual, graphic image of a keyboard automatically appears on the screen when you need to type.
To some, the difference in the form factors of an iPad and a netbook make the two devices so different as to render any comparison between them invalid. Apples and oranges, as it were. I can understand this viewpoint, but I don't share it. There are advantages and disadvantages to each form factor, and it's up to the user as to which form factor works better for them. For me, no matter how small a netbook computer you buy, you're still stuck with the laptop form factor, and you still need the keyboard, trackpad mouse, and video screen (along with their requisite size and weight). Additionally, if you're low on battery, you also need to plug in a power supply, and if you don't like using the netbook's trackpad mouse, you have to plug in a mouse.
To me, only a pad device like the iPad offers true portability, combining both input and output in a single screen. But I will admit, one thing I've found with the iPad is that holding a pad in your hands really pretty much sucks after only a few minutes of use. There's just no good way to do it; if you hold it in front of you like you're holding the steering wheel of a car, your arms get tired. If you lay it on a table, the viewing angle prevents you from seeing the screen, so you still have to hold it at the proper angle with one or both hands. If you cradle it in one arm, it's hard to keep the screen straight; your view of the device is tilted left or right. The only effective solution I've found is to use an iPad stand to support the device (there are stands of many varying types ands sizes out there). That gets it out of my hands altogether, and plus I'm free to type.
But then, that adds another component to the pad's form factor; now it's not just a pad, but a pad with a stand that I need to lug around with me. So my verdict on form factor: it's six of one, half dozen of the other. Neither device's form factor makes that device the hands-down winner in this writer's opinion.
Cost. It's hard to beat a netbook computer in terms of low cost, and the iPad can't. Like most Apple products, the iPad is marketed as a premium, high-end gadget; at $500 to start, there's little thought toward the iPad as being a bargain. As stated, a good netbook computer usually falls in the $400 to $600 range. But there's a big caveat here: that $400 to $600 price range is for base models. Most companies that manufacture netbooks give you the option to upgrade certain hardware components, like RAM memory or hard drive space. Some of them charge more money for these hardware upgrades than the upgrades themselves are worth, so it's very easy to go in with the intent to spend $400 on a netbook computer, and end up spending $700 or $800 or more. But...here's what you would spend on an iPad:
$500-iPad with 16 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$600-iPad with 32 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$700-iPad with 64 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi Internet (as in you need a local wireless network to access the Internet).
$629-iPad with 16 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
$729-iPad with 32 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
$829-iPad with 64 gigabytes of storage and 3G Internet (you can use the AT&T cell phone network to access the Internet, so you don't need a wireless network).
With those last three options, keep in mind that you also need to pay a monthly fee for Internet access.
Bottom line: as long as you're OK with the hardware specifications for the base model of whatever netbook computer you're looking at, you'll likely spend less money on a netbook. I should point out, though, that the quality of the video display--arguably the most important component of a computing device of any kind--varies rather widely between netbook brands and models, so some comparison shopping may be in order. iPads don't have that problem; you get a gorgeous, responsive 9.7-inch multitouch display no matter which one you buy.
Operating system. Like I said, most netbooks have some version of Microsoft Windows on them, where iPads use Apple's proprietary iOS. There are a couple of pad devices that run Google's Android operating system as well, but the pad market right now is overwhelmingly iPad/iOS. So which operating system is better? Well, again lets look at what a netbook and a pad computer are generally used for: web browsing, e-mail, social networking, e-book reading, and light applications. These are fairly simple and lightweight duties that don't require an overly sophisticated operating system, and in my experience that's what Windows IS. It's a highly capable and feature-rich operating system, and one that's accordingly big, complex, clunky, and fairly demanding of computer hardware resources (memory, disk space, processor speed, etc,) to run. Apple's iOS, on the other hand, was designed for phone and pad devices like the iPad, so it's not nearly as complex as Windows, its much faster and easier to use, and it doesn't need a particularly powerful device to run. Windows also suffers from malware and spyware, computer viruses, and the tendency to slow down the more software and/or hardware peripherals (printers, digital cameras, etc.) that are installed; iOS has none of these problems. In my book, this makes iOS the clear winner for pad/netbook-type duties.
Applications. This is a tricky subject, and there's probably no clear winner here. Netbook users have a vast number of Windows applications to choose from, and iPad users have a vast number of iOS applications; to me, the difference is in the KIND of application that Windows and iOS have to offer. Windows applications generally seem to run more toward the productivity and utilitarian side of life. If you need office productivity and connectivity tools, or if you're going to college and you're required to have applications like software development tools, or if you need certain web browser plug-ins--you're much more likely to find these things in the the Windows world than you are the iOS world. iOS applications, on the other hand, tend to gear more toward the entertainment, leisure, artistic, and K-12 education side of things. There are certainly productivity and utilitarian applications to be had in the iOS world, but they're few and far between; iOS's forte lies more with educational applications like the periodic table of the elements, or with e-book readers, or digital interfaces for popular magazines like People or Motor Trend. Another example: Comcast cable television subscribers can download an application for the iPad that allows them to use their iPad as a remote control for their cable box. This is what an iPad is mainly for; applications that won't necessarily change the world or anything, but that are fun and handy to have around.
So when choosing between a netbook or an iPad, it's wise to consider the general type of application that you 'd use it for. An iPad is a great choice for casual users, where a netbook might be better suited for the more serious, productivity-minded user. It's worth noting, though, that even the more productivity-oriented user may be able to find applications in the iOS world to suit their needs. That's because iPads are flying off the shelf and are in very high demand, and software manufacturers of all manner of software are taking notice--even companies who once thought the Windows market was all they'd ever need to cater to.
Autonomy. That's a weird measure of a computing device; let me explain. A netbook operates autonomously, meaning that once you get it it, you plug it in, turn it on, and away you go. iPads aren't like that; in order to begin using an iPad, you have to connect it to another computer. It can be a Mac or a PC, desktop or laptop, doesn't really matter; it just needs to have Apple's iTunes program installed. Why? iPad users must occasionally connect their iPad to the computer for a process known as synchronization. The iPad synchronizes, or syncs, with the iTunes program on the computer, and in this process the iPad's software is backed up on the computer, and it gets updates to its iOS operating system from Apple. All well and good--but you have to have the computer to sync with! If you don't already have a computer, or if you don't know someone who would allow you to use their computer as iPad sync fodder, then you'd best skip the iPad and go straight to Best Buy or Micro Center to begin your search for a netbook.
Web browsing experience. Most people assume that web browsing is web browsing, whatever the device or operating system. Not so, however, due to a couple of semi-questionable choices on Apple's part (more specifically on the part of Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs). Mr. Jobs has decreed that iOS does not, and likely never will, support the Adobe Flash protocol for web page graphics, animations, and video. Most of the major web sites in the world use Flash for some or all of their web content, so no Flash support means that the iPad can't do all of the things in the average web page that a Windows-powered netbook can. Another thing on the iPad: of all the major web browser choices that Windows users take for granted, only the Safari browser is allowed on the iPad. No Google Chrome, no Firefox, no Opera; you can either use Safari, or install a no-name browser and hope that it doesn't crash.
As to the absence of Flash support, Jobs cites browser performance and security concerns. Fair enough; Flash can indeed consume a fair amount of system resources, and it is used by a number of spyware and malware installer programs on the Windows side to carry out whatever evil plans it has in store for infected computers. But how does the absence of Flash, in a worldwide web that uses Flash so heavily, affect the overall web browsing experience on an iPad? After 7 months with an iPad, I can honestly say, not as much as I'd have thought. I read reviews of the iPad when it first came out, describing the web experience as "broken," but I've not really found this to be the case. There's definitely functionality on some sites that does not work on an iPad, no question. (Try and watch video on www.g4tv.com using an iPad, and you'll see what I mean.) But most of the web sites that I've used on an iPad rely on Flash only for certain components of the site; the overall functionality of the site isn't affected. Take Facebook, for example; only when I try to play a Facebook game or watch an embedded video that one of my friends has posted do I get a Flash error message; everything else in Facebook I can do with no problem.
I do occasionally run into web functionality problems that stem not from the lack of Flash, but rather because of some weirdness or incompatibility that web site has with the Safari browser. (And I wonder aloud what would be so horrible about there being another major browser available for me to install on the iPad.) But this is proving increasingly rare; as stated earlier, the runaway success that Apple is currently enjoying with the iPad and with their OSX computers seems to be getting the attention of web developers these days. The message from more and more companies to their web developers seems to be, Make our site work with Safari! Same with Flash; whether Steve Jobs should start supporting Flash or not, many web site developers (Youtube, for one) are seeing the folly of relying on one content development company, Adobe, for so much of their content, and they're now moving toward open standards like HTML 5 to replace Flash content.
I'm not really all that concerned about how web sites look in Safari on the iPad anyway, because so many of the major web sites now offer iPad applications that provide the same content as the web site, but in a nice, tight, organized fashion that completely nullifies the need to use their web site for anything at all. NPR, CNN, BBC News, Twitter, Engadget, Ars Tecnica...all of these content providers now have iPad apps that work infinitely better than their web site counterparts. And the best part? No ads! So for an increasing number of content providers, I don't need the web and I don't miss it. To harp on the Facebook example again, there's already a Facebook app for the iPhone; once they roll out the iPad Facebook app, I'll promptly forget all about www.facebook.com.
So although netbooks win the web experience battle for now, the iPad web experience should more than suffice, if indeed you have to use the web on an iPad for your content at all.
Peripheral and network connectivity. Netbook computers have USB and VGA ports, through which users can connect peripheral devices like an external hard drive, a video monitor or projector if need be, a digital camera, pretty much anything that uses a standard port. Netbooks also have an Ethernet network port, so that users can connect the netbook directly to an Ethernet network if they want faster, more reliable networking than their wireless/cellular network has to offer. iPads, however, have exactly one connectivity port, an Apple-proprietary port on the bottom of the device that doubles as the electrical charging port. The only way to connect a peripheral device to this port is through a plug-in adapter. This gives Apple complete control over what kinds of devices can be connected to the iPad; if Apple doesn't make an adapter for it, you can't connect it. Period.
The only adapters available are a USB port adapter, an SD card adapter for accessing SD memory cards, and a VGA adapter for connecting an external monitor, projector, etc. This does cover most kinds of peripheral devices, but there's a catch: even once you get the peripheral device connected, you can only use it the way Steve Jobs allows you to use it. Those USB and SD reader adapters? All you can do with them is copy digital photos to and from the iPad. Forget about using an external hard drive with the USB adapter to augment the pad's storage space; not allowed. Oh, and no Ethernet network connectivity either; it's wireless or nothing. Netbooks don't have any of these limitations; once you get your peripheral device connected, away you go.
The iPad's connectivity issues prevented me from buying one for a long time; the inconvenience aside, I didn't like the idea of forking over hundreds of dollars for a gadget, and then being told how I could and could not use that gadget. And however much I may like my iPad, I would understand anyone's reluctance to buy one under these circumstances. But I'm nevertheless forced to admit that in the end, connectivity just isn't a big part of the whole iPad gig. If you want to copy picture files up to the iPad, all you have to do is import them into iTunes on the computer you use to sync it, and then...well, sync it! Voila, insta photos. And since the next version of the iPad will likely have a camera built-in, the photo upload issue soon won't be much of an issue at all. Yes, giving the iPad more storage space would be nice if I wanted to store all my pictures and music on it, but honestly, I have a computer for that. The iPad is for reading and surfing and geeking out on cool apps and such. A netbook can do all these things, though...and connect up to peripherals...so I must admit that a netbook comes out on top in this area.
The final analysis. Now that I've gone over the key comparisons between a netbook and an iPad, let me sum it all up. In then end, when I fork over a few hundred bucks that I don't really have (again, long story), I want to get a gadget out of it. I want a shiny new toy, something that's unlike any other gadget I have. I want to do mainly fun stuff on it--watch videos, play some Angry Birds, read a book or magazine, get caught up on the latest news...but I also occasionally want to be productive on it. Bottom line, what I don't want, is a computer. And that's what a netbook IS. A computer. Another Windows computer, like what I use at work. No matter where you go, there you are; it's still the same old, stodgy Windows that we've all been using for years. For my few hundred bucks, I want something more, and the iPad fits that bill perfectly.
My head tells me, "Geez Edugeek! Read your own blog for cripes sake! You can do so much more with a netbook!" But my heart says, "I don't want to do more. I want to do what I want to do, and do it in a fun, unique, cool way." There's also the portability factor. The smallest netbook out there, is still nothing but a laptop computer. Keyboard, screen, trackpad mouse, and possibly other components to boot. A pad is nothing more than pad, period. I can take it with me anywhere, stuff it into a car's glove box or a bike's handlebar bag, wherever. I can take it when I go on vacation and not feel guilty, not feel like I'm taking technology with me to someplace where I ought to be trying to get away from technology. I can--and do--take it to the coffee shop, connect to the wireless network, and away I go...and I'm the envy of everyone around me besides!
But that's me. Leave your opinions on the matter in the comments section below!
UPDATE 2-20-2011: My stepson Kevin informed me that the prices I listed for netbook computers were not entirely accurate. He found netbooks on www.Newegg.Com that go for ~$250 to start. That's half the price of the cheapest iPad. I stand corrected! --Ed.
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