iPad, Apple Tablet Makes Its Debut Today: Steve Jobs Showed it to the Public

The Apple iPad: First Impressions

Apple brought to the world its tablet computer called the iPad.

What is the reaction of some of the bloggers who’ve never even tried it: “No physical keyboard!” “No removable battery!” “Way too expensive!” “Doesn’t multitask!” “No memory-card slot!”

There will be a lot of speculations until the iPad actually goes on sale in April. Once more people start using, the reviews will change. Bloggers will begin to say good things about the ipad. You can preview what the scenario will be like : positive reviews, people lining up to buy the thing, and the mysterious disappearance of the basher-bloggers.

"The iPad is, as predicted, essentially a giant iPod Touch: aluminum-backed, half-inch thin, with a 10-inch screen surrounded by a shiny black border. At the bottom, there’s the standard iPod/iPhone connector and a single Home button. It will be available in models ranging from $499 (16 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi) to $830 (64 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi and 3G cellular)."

There are a few things that remain the same though. "The cellular signal will be provided by AT&T for $15 a month (250 megabytes of data transferred — think e-mail only) or $30 a month, unlimited. Amazingly, those AT&T deals involve no contract. You can cancel whenever you like. And since this thing isn’t a phone, you don’t have to worry about dropped calls; you’re paying exclusively for Internet service."

So far, the reviewers who have experience writing and reviewing tech gadgets are saying some good things about the ipad.

Poque is saying these things:
"
Web browsing, painting programs, TV and movies, newspapers and magazines all seem like naturals on this 1.5-pound machine, too. The New York Times app is especially appealing to me — and yes, this is my completely independent opinion — because it seems to work like the much-adored Times Reader app for computers.

Overall, the iPad seems like a dream screen for reading and watching—at some loss of convenience in creating. True, there’s an on-screen keyboard, big enough to type on with both hands in the usual way. And Apple will offer a specialized multitouch word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app for $10 each. But I’m guessing that, with no mouse and no physical keys to feel, writing and editing will be more effort than on a laptop."

Who is Ready to Buy the New Google Phone? NexusOne is Ready

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and TechCrunch.com said the phone will be the first phone completely designed by Google and branded entirely with its name. The phone, which will be built by HTC, will be sold directly from Google and won't be tied to a carrier nor will it sell with the normal carrier subsidy that brings most smart phones into the $200 range. Another model will reportedly be sold with a subsidy, according to a report Monday by Reuters.

Nexus One would seem to serve as a flagship for the budding Android operating system, with Google tightly integrating its software into a powerful piece of hardware beyond what's available in current Android devices on the market. TechCrunch said the touch-screen device would sport a 1GHz processor from Qualcomm, a large organic light-emitting diode display and a profile thinner than an iPhone 3GS

Official Google Mobile Blog: An Android dogfood diet for the holidays

Official Google Mobile Blog: An Android dogfood diet for the holidays

Official Google Mobile Blog: An Android dogfood diet for the holidays

iPhone 3 G S, Leader of the Pack: Why should you have an iPhone?

I was one of the early birds who went to hang out at the front door of a local ATT corporate store. After a week of great weather, I expected to have a great time waiting in line for my new phone. It was not the case. It was hot and people were complaining. Those who had pre-ordered the iphone 3G S were able to enter the store and claim their prize from 7 am to 9 am. Those of us who wanted to buy the new phone or trade in for a higher upgrade had to wait in the sun outside.

Many of us, apple product fans, did not complain much. The employees at the store were very happy to pass cups of water to us. However, there were a few guys who started complaining about the long wait. Tensions were mounting. It was like the opening of a new movie. Just like the release of any major action movie, the upgrade to the 3 G S was received with great enthusiasm. Many of us were talking about the great features of the new phone. That was a good reason for us to have.

So far, after using the phone the whole day, I have been pretty pleased with it.

Truely, the iphone is the leader of the pack. Many fellow reviewers only have the greatest things to say about the phone.
"The iPhone 3G S (the S stands for speed) is a more subtle upgrade compared with last year's launch of the 3G. The improvements don't quite blow your hair back on the first pass, but coupled with the new iPhone OS 3.0 software upgrade, they cement the iPhone's status as the best smart phone experience available.

The iPhone OS 3.0 improvements alone might be enough to satisfy many existing iPhone and iPhone 3G users. But if your contract is expiring or even if it's not, there are a lot of reasons to make the jump to the iPhone 3G S, which sells for $199 and $299 for 16-GB and 32-GB versions."

Whether There is a New iPhone or Not, Palm Pre was Released with Great Fanfare

The whole world is waiting. Apple consumers are waiting for what is to come. Every year, Apple's Steve Jobs showcased the company's new products. What will happen this time? Jobs still has to get back to the podium. He has been out for medical leave. No matter what, hardcore Apple consumers are waiting for the next great product.

In the meantime, Palm seemed to have found a way to come closer to consumers with the release of Palm Pre. What is great about this new smartphone?





AppIphone3Gandmore: Palm Pre, Apple iPhone and G1

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What will make you want to buy an Apple iPhone vs. a Palm Pre or G1? Is it the wireless company that sells them or the phone itself or the service. In a lot of ways, the package had to do a lot with my decision. Over the weekend, that is what I had to decide. It was time for me to go from a low end phone which I carried for a few years and upgrade to a smartphone. I had to decide between the iPhone which I could buy online or at an AT&T retail store, the new Palm Pre which is injecting new blood into the Palm brand, and the Google phone, G1 which has made its spectacular entrance a few months ago.

For me, it was a matter of convenience. I wanted to go with something that has been around for a while. Besides, many of my colleagues have the phone. Yes, I was torn between the good package offered by Sprint which carries the new Palm Pre. I knew all three phones would be good for multimedia and multitasking. Among them, there were some similarities and differences.

Let's talk about Palm Pre. It is a great, elegant multitouch smartphone. It seems that Palm Pre is going to be the star of this Summer season. Already, there are a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and among techies about the new phone. It is the blockbuster square off between iphone and palm pre. In many ways, Palm Pre has come to mean a lot to a dying company. Palm relied heavily on this phone being accepted by the public.

To many industry insiders, the Pre is like the iPhone remix. It is a great phone that many customers are going to select. I saw a great demonstration at the local Sprint store this past weekend. People are wowed by it.

What are its main features, specs?

the Pre has the ordinary checklist: Wi-Fi, GPS, 3G (high speed Internet), Bluetooth (including wireless audio), very good camera with flash, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, tilt sensor, standard headphone jack, 3.1-inch touchscreen etc. Many other companies have been trying to copy the iphone, but they have always failed in putting everthing together and making it all work. In the case of the Pre, Palm has done a good job.

Hardware: Coming in a black plastic, flattened capsule, coated with a glossy, scratch-resistant finish, the Pre is an elegant phone. When it is turned off, the screen disappears. It is smaller than the iPhone, about a half-inch shorter and quarter-inch thicker. It is very easy to carry.

Price: The Pre costs $200 after rebate, with a two-year contract. It is much less than the standard iphone with more than 8Gigs. Sprint wants to get the customers. With a $70-a-month plan (450 talk-time minutes) that includes unlimited Internet and text messages, the Pre comes on top. The AT&T plan includes no text messages at all.

What does it look like typing? Unlike the iPhone, the Pre has a real keyboard. the screeen slides up, revelaing four rows of Thumbelina-size keys.

Camera: The Pre has an LED Flash for its 3MP camera, something both the iPhone and G1 lack. Flash cellphone photos are ugly, but for a lot of people, they're good enough.

Browser: All three use a browser based on WebKit, which has become the standard for the mobile web.

Phone: Just pop open the keyboard and stard dialing to make a call on the Pre. You can set up speed-dial keys.

Battery: While the iPhone does not allow you to remove the batteries, the Pre allows you to do so. Battery life the hiccup with the Pre. Depending on how often you use it, the battery will be dead in no time.

Music: Which other gadget can beat the iPod which the iPhone is? The Pre does a good job of coming close. When you connect it to your Mac or PC, the Pre appears in Apple's iTunes software. You can sync your music, photo and video collections.

App store: The iPhone surpasess the Pre which is building its inventory too.

No matter what, the Pre is a great effort in the right direction for Palm. It is quite an achievement.

Welcome to T-Mobile Google iPhone, G1

The true smartphone that is going to compete against Apple iPhone has arrived. G1 is knocking on iPhone G3 now.

T-Mobile, headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., will officially launch the G1 at its retail stores in 95 cities across the United States Wednesday, many of which will open early at 8 a.m. for the release of the $179 handset, and as many as 1.5 million existing T-Mobile customers have reportedly pre-ordered the devices. But for one night only, a couple hundred customers who lined up outside the telecom provider's store at Market and 3rd streets in downtown San Francisco had the 3G-enabled smartphone all to themselves.

What do you need to know about G1?

The T-Mobile G1 is available with a two-year voice and data agreement. Support for Web-based services from Mountain View, Calif.-based Google includes popular apps like Gmail and Google Maps, and the G1's full HTML Web browser is already winning rave reviews. In addition to T-Mobile's 3G network, the G1 has built-in support for the telecom's Edge network, as well as WiFi and GPS.

The new smartphone, 4.6 inches by 0.6 inches and weighing 5.6 ounces, has a 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen but also sports a QWERTY keyboard, unlike the iPhone. It featurs a 3.2 megapixel camera and a microSD card slot.

The G1 lacks a video player, although there was already a free one in the Market by the time I tested the phone. The YouTube app works exactly as advertised, while the 3MP camera boasts auto-focus and takes decent (if not awe-inspiring) snapshots. There's no video recorder, but someone's bound to build one for the Market.

Can Anybody Buy Happiness? The Pursuit of Happiness and Interdependence Declaration

"Happiness is not a given. It is a goal. And saving more may help you reach it."

With the downturn of the economy and the near-destruction of the financial market and Wall street, many Americans are wondering what is happening to our country. It goes without saying that economic insecurity has also increased. The boom of the late 1990s created unrealistic expectations. Various polls show that more than half of us are worried about losing our nest egg, our retirements, our jobs. After all, having a job in this country allows one to have not only income, but also insurance.

More money does not automatically improve our mood. After all, money-- no matter how much you have--- is only part of the puzzle. According to Oxford University, happiness is more complicated than wealth alone. Americans are less happy on average than people in less prosperous nations such as Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico. It is not the rich that most of us strive to keep up with; it is our families and friends. Bear in mind that trying to keep up with the Joneses is a trap. In our pursuit of happiness guaranteed by the Declaration of Independence, we tend to compete with neighbors, siblings, co-workers, and old classmates. People's ability to act on behalf of what matters to them is fundamental to happiness.

The key to financial happiness is to start saving. Do not be concerned about what and how much others are saving. By saving as much as you can in your particular circumstances, you will get ahead. You will live a happy life even in the midst of hard economic times.

Greater wealth does not generate more national happiness.

Computer Users' Tips: Tell your friends and family members about them

Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User

...All of these are things that certain friends, family or coworkers, over the years, did *not* know. Clip, save and pass along to…well, you know who they are.

* You can double-click a word to highlight it in any document, e-mail or Web page.

* When you get an e-mail message from eBay or your bank, claiming that you have an account problem or a question from a buyer, it’s probably a “phishing scam” intended to trick you into typing your password. Don’t click the link in the message. If in doubt, go into your browser and type “www.ebay.com” (or whatever) manually.

* Nobody, but nobody, is going to give you half of $80 million to help them liberate the funds of a deceased millionaire…from Nigeria or anywhere else.

* You can hide all windows, revealing only what’s on the computer desktop, with one keystroke: hit the Windows key and “D” simultaneously in Windows, or press F11 on Macs (on recent Mac laptops, Command+F3; Command is the key with the cloverleaf logo). That’s great when you want examine or delete something you’ve just downloaded to the desktop, for example. Press the keystroke again to return to what you were doing.

* You can enlarge the text on any Web page. In Windows, press Ctrl and the plus or minus keys (for bigger or smaller fonts); on the Mac, it’s the Command key and plus or minus.

* You can also enlarge the entire Web page or document by pressing the Control key as you turn the wheel on top of your mouse. On the Mac, this enlarges the entire screen image.

* The number of megapixels does not determine a camera’s picture quality; that’s a marketing myth. The sensor size is far more important. (Use Google to find it. For example, search for “sensor size Nikon D90.”)

* On most cellphones, press the Send key to open up a list of recent calls. Instead of manually dialing, you can return a call by highlighting one of these calls and pressing Send again.

* When someone sends you some shocking e-mail and suggests that you pass it on, don’t. At least not until you’ve first confirmed its truth at snopes.com, the Internet’s authority on e-mailed myths. This includes get-rich schemes, Microsoft/AOL cash giveaways, and–especially lately–nutty scare-tactic messages about our Presidential candidates.

* You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.

* When you’re filling in the boxes on a Web page (like City, State, Zip), you can press the Tab key to jump from box to box, rather than clicking. Add the Shift key to jump through the boxes backwards.

* You can adjust the size and position of any window on your computer. Drag the top strip to move it; drag the lower-right corner (Mac) or any edge (Windows) to resize it.

* Forcing the camera’s flash to go off prevents silhouetted, too-dark faces when you’re outdoors.

* When you’re searching for something on the Web using, say, Google, put quotes around phrases that must be searched together. For example, if you put quotes around “electric curtains,” Google won’t waste your time finding one set of Web pages containing the word “electric” and another set containing the word “curtains.”

* You can use Google to do math for you. Just type the equation, like 23*7+15/3=, and hit Enter.

* Oh, yeah: on the computer, * means “times” and / means “divided by.”

* If you can’t find some obvious command, like Delete in a photo program, try clicking using the right-side mouse button. (On the Mac, you can Control-click instead.)

* Google is also a units-of-measurement and currency converter. Type “teaspoons in 1.3 gallons,” for example, or “euros in 17 dollars.” Click Search to see the answer.

* You can open the Start menu by tapping the key with the Windows logo on it.

* You can switch from one open program to the next by pressing Alt+Tab (Windows) or Command-Tab (Mac).

* You generally can’t send someone more than a couple of full-size digital photos as an e-mail attachment; those files are too big, and they’ll bounce back to you. (Instead, use iPhoto or Picasa–photo-organizing programs that can automatically scale down photos in the process of e-mailing them.)

* Whatever technology you buy today will be obsolete soon, but you can avoid heartache by learning the cycles. New iPods come out every September. New digital cameras come out in February and October.

* Just putting something into the Trash or the Recycle Bin doesn’t actually delete it. You then have to *empty* the Trash or Recycle Bin. (Once a year, I hear about somebody whose hard drive is full, despite having practically no files. It’s because over the years, they’ve put 79 gigabytes’ worth of stuff in the Recycle Bin and never emptied it.)

* You don’t have to type “http://www” into your Web browser. Just type the remainder: “nytimes.com” or “dilbert.com,” for example. (In the Safari browser, you can even leave off the “.com” part.)

* On the iPhone, hit the Space bar twice at the end of a sentence. You get a period, a space, and a capitalized letter at the beginning of the next word.

* Come up with an automated backup system for your computer. There’s no misery quite like the sick feeling of having lost chunks of your life because you didn’t have a safety copy.