Apple's Net Book Strategy

In the weeks and months prior to the announcement of the iPad there were all sorts of "wish lists" floating around and many of them were hoping for some sort of "tablet computer" to eclipse the netbook product line. Steve Jobs basically panned this idea, saying that netbooks were slow etc. etc. Apple's answer was of course a tablet but not necessarily a computer tablet; no hard drive or physical keyboard unless you are using the dock. It was a mixed bag when it comes to fulfilling anyone's wish list.

Now we are at iPad 2 and everything has changed and Steve has proved his concept was spot on. Imagine that. The iPad succeeds because it doesn't compete exactly but creates a whole new way of interacting with our stuff, just like the iPod did.

But what about those die hard fans who really wanted a netbook. Well Apple actually has created one, it's called the MacBook Air. One might argue the 11" Air is still a tad bigger than some netbooks but you would be hard pressed to find a slimmer, more trim netbook anywhere. So what is the difference? The MacBook Air is a much healthier system, with flash memory that boots faster than you can sip a Latté and of course it costs a lot more. The moral of this story being that if you want speed, reliability in a compact form and you want it to "just work" then you buy from Apple and pay the price for all that speed, reliability and convenience.

You may be thinking, that's not fair and this guy is nuts but the lesson in all of this is that Apple tells us as much by what they don't say or call things. If you want to know what Apple's priorities are; go to their website and look at the tabs. They are in the content delivery business. Yes, they can do spreadsheets and vertical market stuff and a million other things but they have done something that few other companies have. They've made it simple. Maybe not in the way You wished but simple none the less.

George Eastman said "we will make photography as simple as the pencil" Apple has taken the computer and delivered on that promise.

I must confess to a bit of tongue in cheek with this but this kind of thinking takes over while I'm driving.

Explore These Apps for Phone & Computer

Without much commentary
....and starring in no particular order

Instapaper
Simple Note
Wunderlist [free for every device]
Dropbox
Notational Velocity
Twitterrifc for iPhone
icebird for iPhone
birdhouseapp
Reeder (for google reader)
Mac OS 10.6.x
Kindle for Mac

Services:
gmail
twitter
zenfolio
Wordpress
Blogger
Google Books
Amazon

You will think, I don't really need these until you start using them for awhile. Of course your milage may vary as always.

Further explanation and commentary forthcoming.

None of the above items are affiliate links.

Administration

Due to recent developments with Google and Blogger, I've decided to take a look at using this service as a vehicle for writing up my digital views.

The Answers To Better Photos Is No Secret

First you must go where the photos are.

Take lots of pictures.

Edit Ruthlessly.

Select camera and lens to fit the task.

Three Crucial Tips to Improving Your Photos

1. You can take a great photo with "any" camera. You just can't take any "great photo". You can make a great photo with any camera as long as you understand the limitations of that camera. Example: If you are using a box camera from the 50's you probably won't get a sharp close-up of a bird 50 feet up in a tree. Conversely you could get a stunning shot of your family standing in front of that tree 10 feet away.

2. Vision, knowing how to compose a shot will raise the level of your photography 500 percent. Making a great image can be as simple as getting in the right position to take the shot.

3. It's better to take and make a great image with a "average" camera than to take no image at all because you don't have the latest gear. Use what you have and understand why you need a certain piece of gear; not just that it's the hot item. Having the best stuff is not as important as learning how to use whatever you have.

Spring Cleaning and your online species!

This post is generated to spark an entry on your spring cleaning to do list. We all clean out the garage, attic or closets but what about all the stuff that's collecting dust on your hard drive. Those of us who are avid surfers of the web end up with tens of megabytes in pdfs, emails, photos and trial software. However, the area I want to cover today is bookmarks. We all do it... find some great article, product or whatever and we hit the old keyboard shortcut to save that link. It goes somewhere, but what happens to it in a week, 6 weeks or longer? If you're like me you may visit a couple of times when it's fresh on your mind and then later when you look through your bookmarks you can't remember why you saved it in the first place. I call this species, linkus packraticus. To solve part of the problem you can add descriptons and put them in folders etc. but the real problem is that we are amassing information for which we have only one giant container. How to organize all of that is a topic for another post or perhaps many posts but the real issue is time. How many sites can you realistically keep up with and digest, five or ten?

We're swimming in a sea of information and often cannot connect the dots because the purpose for the information has yet to be defined. The context must be provided by you and I, which goes beyond the fact that someone simply wanted us to see it. Many things are trivial enough that they won't affect our daily lives but some things, big issues take time. There are at least two approaches 1) simply take everything they say at face value and truthful or 2) do your own thinking and research, which takes time. Those who wish to influence our thinking are hoping we will choose option 1.

As the volume of thought and opinon increases and is pushed up to the web, we the lowly digital citizen must learn to navigate the flood so as to not drown in the process. If strategies useful to all are revealed, we will be happy to post them here.

6 Ways to feed your body and Soul - Don't miss these!

Update: Improve your online presence with these two sites:
Hubspot
Grader

Nikon Rumor: Update
No new D5000 from Nikon, for the latest from PMA
check out the 1001 Noisy Cameras Blog


Podcast:
Screencastsonline, Mostly Mac video podcast with great tips, tricks and tutorials, huge backlog
of tutorials for some of your favorite apps. Subcribe at iTunes.

Learn photography & Photoshop:
Pioneer Woman, One of the most interesting reads on the web covering everything from great
cooking to photoshop. Check it out.
Digital ProTalk, Award winning photographer David Ziser hosts a this blog that is chock full of
great photo and photoshop tips, video tutorials and more. Whether you are a pro or not you can
find great information to improve your digital images.

More on digital imaging and your digital life:
This Week in Photography - weekly podcast drops every monday and is a great resource for
photographers of all levels.
Want to mange your digital life? What about those gigabytes of photos etc. sitting there on that
hard drive. For all things mangement and backing up check out this brand new site Managing 
Managing your digital life.

Gold Mine:
Chuck Green's ideabook.com a treasure of graphic design tools and learning, plus jumpola one of the best bookmark pages on the net about design.