Not in any particular order of importance… just the most fresh first.

1. Apple releases the new iPad: This is a big deal because this is the first successful tablet PC* on the market. Apple is known for their excellent design in hardware and software. If you like the iPhone, then you’ll like the iPad. This is an excellent product for consumption of media and not made of the hardcore PC gamer or developer. (*Apple products are PCs, don’t let them fool you)
   1. Why does this matter?: This matters because there will be a new consumer product category available for mass consumption. The tablet PC has been around for awhile but no design has allowed it to be used by a typical user. The UI of the iPad OS is incredible and slick. I really like Apple products but I was hesitant about the iPad because I had the mind set that I could buy a powerful PC for the price of an iPad. Once I realized that the iPad was made for eBooks, Magazines, simple email, and other simple fuctions, then I understood the power of this tablet. A new App market is emerging from the iPad that will create more over-night millionaires and really cool products.
   2. What is going to come of this?: Well, a large table market! There are a few competitors releasing their products very soon, like JooJoo and iTablet. We will see a range of Operating Systems from a Windows touch OS to many Linux touch OS’s. There is a producer taking advatage of the Google Android OS on the tablet. I’m excited to see a Ubuntu version of the OS or even a Jolicloud OS!
2. D.C. Federal Court overturns ruling on FCC regulations: On Tuesday, April 6th 2010, a D.C. Federal Appeals Court overturned a ruling that gave the FCC the power to regulate Internet Service Providers like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon from limiting the content that flows through the tubes. This ruling really put a dark cloud over Net Neutrality.
   1. Why Does this matter?: This means Comcast can decrease the download rate for certain IPs. They can limit download/upload rates to Hulu and make it near impossible to view the content. Anyone remember the 56k day? Yea, it’s going to get real ugly. Providers like Comcast will soon begin to limit the access to websites and increase the bandwidth to their own products. Say bye to streaming content… and say hello to new partnerships that will regulate pricing across the board.
   2. What is going to come of this?: Hopefully, nothing. The FCC has a few options left before these Internet Service Providers have complete control over the content. First, FCC can appeal this to the Supreme Court because it could, possibly, be unconstitutional to limit free speech or freedom of the press… somewhere there is something unconstitutional. Second, the FCC is planning on declaring the broadband as a Title II service. This means that the FCC will have the regulatory powers over the ISPs and can recommit the Net Neutrality policies, but right now broadband is a Title I service and the PCC has limited control over the service.
3. HTML5: Don’t be scared of the new HTML5 markup language. It’s basically going to simplify coding and decrease the need of 3rd party applications like Flash. By introducing this new library of tags, we can actually embed a movie that plays with less than half the processing power.
   1. Why does this matter?: It a next step to “Web 3.0″ and equal interaction across any OS and language. Currently, products like the Apple iPad and iPhone do not play Flash video. This video is restricted on these machines because of the energy needed to use the application. With HTML5, videos and games can be plays through a compatible browser easily and quickly.
   2. What is going to come of this?: Well, Flash is going to have to come up with better solutions. I mean, they have some of the best software out there to create great programs and applications through Flash, but the processors and battery life has become very important thanks to portability needs. Plus, we are going to see really fun interactive websites!

I’m going to give the Cons first:

• There is no USB port installed! You need a little dongle that plugs into the iPad to get a USB attachment. Going to lose that in the couch with the Apple remote…
• There is no way to change the battery yourself. This is the a full-body aluminum casing and there is no way to get to the battery but to take it apart.
• There is no way to change the hard drive with out taking apart the iPad.
• It only comes with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of solid state hard drive space.
• Programs can’t run in the background, so multi-tasking is out of the equation.
• It cost $130.oo more for a 3G data card installed… not only are you paying 200x the normal price for this adapter but you have to pay the $30/month for unlimited 3G access (or $15/month for 250MB/month… oh what a deal…) to AT&T.
• It doesn’t come with headphones.
• There’s no mic.
• There’s no camera.
• No Adobe Flash integrated on the browser yet… wtf.
• Low power processor that is only 1 Ghz.

The Pros:

• It’s light at 1.5-1.6 pounds
• It can run iPhone apps that you purchased already.
• Simple interface design… same as the iPhone
• Up to 10 hours of battery life.
• High Resolution screen
• The developer community is excellent and there should be some interesting apps coming to iPad only.
• Play movies that are purchased through the iTunes store.

As you can see, I don’t think the $499 (minimum) price tag is worth it. This thing needs a lot of improvements before I consider purchasing one. Since the unibody design has been released on most Apple products, I refuse to purchase any of them. They may have great hardware and software, but if I can’t upgrade things myself I don’t want it. I’m a tech at heart and I’ve built my own computers, so I know how to save money in upgrades and not waste it on over priced memory or hard drives.

I’ve read a few reviews and I understand that this is not suppose to be a full-powered PC but a simple task-oriented PC, but if I’m paying up-the-wazoo for this computer, I should have the ability to enhance the performance to my needs. Maybe I want to edit movies, built websites, and play WoW with out the computer lagging or taking 5 years to encode a media piece. I can only imagine if WoW was released on a multi-touch tablet PC…OMG!!

Let me know what you think about the iPad. I’m up for suggestions… maybe it will convince me to purchase one.

**All images on this post belong to Apple Inc.

At first glance, I thought this is could be the least secure way to pay someone but a very innovative way to pay someone. They are calling the payments a “promise” to pay. When someone sends a payment through a tweet, Paypal send the money from the Tweeter’s account to the Tweet recipient’s account. From there, the two parties work out the transfer (payment) on Paypal and that is it. So, the payments aren’t direct payments but an offer (promise) and then the acceptance.

I have a few worries about Twittpay:

First, Twitter accounts have been hacked left and right since the launch in 2006, so these Tweets can be of Hijacked accounts and your money can be drained quickly. The safeguard to this problem is if the user only has a very small amount of funds in their Paypal account.

Second, all payments are public with a direct (@) Tweet. If I see a user giving out thousands of dollars a week I would worry about the safety of that person. I would worry about his person and his account.

Lastly, each user needs a Paypal account to make this work. If they don’t… where does the money go? I mean, you can just Tweet to a user a promise to pay, but why make it public? How about a Direct Message (private) to the person for an email address to transfer the money? They have to go through the Paypal steps anyways.

Though, there is a clever way to send money on Twitpay. On the Guide page is shows users that they can Tweet a beer or tea to another user. For example, you can tweet me (@tskaggs twitpay a beer) and it will send $3 to me. This gives Twitpay a lovable charm and brings more realism to the Twitter world.

Check it out for yourself. I think it’s a good start to a good idea.

**All Twitpay logos are propery of Twitpay

I tested the app by copying and pasting a test proposal from Microsoft Word into the WYSIWYG editor and it formatted perfectly. I had to upload the images into the image placeholders and that was about it. I couldn’t find a feature to add a header or footer, but I’m sure that is coming soon. The simplicity of using this web app is outstanding.

Oh, did I mention that there is an analytics feature to measure the times the proposal was viewed, the total time , first view date, last view date, and a pie chart showing the sections clicked or viewed. The analytics are crazy cool! I’ve been in the business with proposals and it’s a pain to wait for a client to notify me that they viewed the proposal. Deep down I know the client looked at it but they are just too busy to let me know. Now, I’ll know that a client viewed it and much more… I feel sneaky.

Proposable is an excellent application developed by Sproutbox and the brainchild of James Kappen.

Let me know what you think of Proposable!

**All logos are property of Proposable

For those of you stuck under a rock or on Bing, you might have missed the release of Google Buzz. Google Buzz is another status report/micro-blogging system like Twitter but for Google. Google gives you no choice but to use Buzz if you have a Gmail account. You’ll have to privatize your Buzzes and Google Profile if you don’t want your Google information to be see by billions.

There really isn’t much to say about Google Buzz other than it’s a Twitter knock-off and it’s kind of annoying. I’ve been using it for a few days now and I’m following my friends (who never post anything) and some tech people. When someone Buzzes that is internet famous, their Buzzes are lost in a sea of comments… I have probably 5 new Buzzes but it takes me 20 minutes to scroll through the garbage to read those Buzzes. Plus, now there is a popularity contest going on with Buzzers to get the most followers… random people are trying to follow me and they’re all boring!! Just because you have 1,200 followers in the first week of the release of Google Buzz doesn’t mean you are interesting.

Oh yeah, did I mention you can link your Buzz account to Twitter… blah.

The only good things to come out of this mess is that your Buzzers can be public, so when you Google your name the Buzzes show in the searches. That’s about it. So, I say to you reader(s), harness your Google Profile and make it worth using Buzz.

My Google Buzzes

My Google Profile

Let me know what you think and I might change my mind about Google Buzz.

Now, Seesmic has just released a downloadable new app for Windows called Seesmic Look. This app is based on Windows’ Silverlight technology, so OS X users can not use this Application. So far, the app is very pretty but definitely geared toward the simple consumer and computer user. If you like advance searches and trend seeking, then this isn’t going to work every well. But this app looks great for the simple computer user to understand Twitter and the information out in the world. The great thing is that the a user won’t need a twitter account to use this application.

There are a few not-so-great things about Seesmic Look. The application is Windows only… I’m a OS X fanboy, so I won’t be using it very often. The interface is too flashy and load time is slow, and there is no advanced trend options. Lastly, the launch and app seems like a very large branding commercial for Microsoft and all the people on the “channel” area on the application.

We’ll see how this goes and the updates to come. Look through my past posts and there are better solutions for Twitter management like Gist, HootSuite, or Brizzly.

#1. HootSuite : In my past post about the web app, you will notice I have a real attraction to the User Interface. Its so easy to manage your Twitter account in the HootSuite interface by scrolling left and right and inputing your message. Also, there is a feature to watch keywords used by users on Twitter, this is great to keep track of trends.

#2. Ow.ly : This is a URL shortener for those long-pesky URLs. This also works with HootSuite to keep track of your click-throughs. What an excellent way of seeing what your followers like and dislike. Don’t be afraid of the URL shortener, its good.

#3. WeFollow : This is the best Twitter directory out right now. There are a few other directories that are good but not great. Sign up is easy: Username, Password, Keywords and submit. Now when someone searches a keyword on WeFollow your username will appear on the list. You are ranked by followers or influence. So, go and get noticed!

#4. Twitpic : Submit your pictures and share! This is an excellent geo-tracking web application that works like flickr but its just for Twitter. This also places a geo-tag on your photo so it can be found by region, city, or town.

#5. Friend or Fellow : Do you have trouble finding the people who you are following but they’re not following you? This is the web app that will easily make the list of people that are not following you, so you can either suggest that they follow you or you can remove them from your follow list. Twitter has a give/take etiquette and if you follow someone they should follow you back, but you can use Twitter how you want because I follow about 50 people that will probably never follow me back.

That is it! Let me know what you think of the list…

Foursquare is a smart phone app. It uses GPS or signal triangulation to find where you are in a city. With your location found, the app will find a list of nearby restaurants, book stores… anything that can be named and located. So, I go to my favorite coffee shop, Pour House Cafe in Bloomington, and I click ‘check-in’, the app finds me and gives me the list. On the list I select Pour House Cafe and complete the check-in. This gives me points and I compete with my friends who are on my Foursquare social network. You can manage your friends and information via smart phone app, but the web app is bigger and easier to manage. You can not ‘check-in’ on your computer (or at least I haven’t found how) which is a down side, but it’s fun and you can keep track of your friends favorite places. Oh yeah, you get ‘badges’ for checking-in the most or at a number of different places. Lastly, there are Mayors of places on Foursquare. This means they have been there a lot.

Try it out! Have fun with friends and family, and let me know what you think about Foursquare.

Here are some screenshots:

#1) Outlier : the story of success by Malcom Gladwell

This is an excellent book about success and how outliers are made. The outliers are the rich successful people you read about or see on TV. An example is Bill Gates, how did he become the brilliant Bill Gates? Read this book and it’s very eye opening. Outlier is a collection of great stories of people growing differently but becoming just as successful as the last guy.

#2) E-myth revised : Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it by Michael E. Gerber

If you want to start a company you must read this book. Michael takes you though a true story about years of watching a small business basically run into the ground. Through this experience he realized the problems with small business and what needs to be done to not fail. This is eye opening and a great motivator.

#3) Blankets : an illustrated novel by Craig Thompson

I know what you’re thinking, “It’s a comic book, you can’t be serious!”. Don’t judge this book based on the illustrations and the fact that it’s a graphic novel. This book is a touching story about two people in love and the fun, pain, hurt, needs, and wants of a couple in love. It’s a movie in a book and I can read this every year. Blankets is a excellent book and the illustrations are beautiful.

#4) Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good : The rebirth of Silicon Valley and the rise of web 2.0 by Sarah Lacy

If you’re a geek like me, this book is for you. It doesn’t teach you code or techniques, but it tells the story of your favorite geeks of the west coast. If you’re in the Kevin Rose fan club, you will love this book. There are some photos but don’t get too excited. It’s interesting how connected the silicon people are to each other. It’s a very interesting read and enjoy dreaming of geeky fame and fortune.

#5) Crush It! : Why now is the time to cash in on your passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

This book is a 200 page power house of motivation to get up off your butt and do something you want. After reading the book I thought that it must be very exhausting to live with Gary. This guy is all about branding and building your name though the web. He is a self-taught pro in the world of Social Media and Social Marketing, and has the audience to prove it. The book is fun and will eventually teach you some techniques about building your brand.

Send me your favorites! If you’re in the Bloomington, IN area let me know and we can meet to discuss books. Maybe start a book club?

Collabtive is an open source project manager that can be placed on your server. This project manager allows you to create projects, timelines, schedules, add/remove teammates, and adds a progress bar. Teammates can message each other about the project they are assigned and also upload files to the database. Installing is easy with Linux and MySQL and starting is a matter of creating an Admin account.

Here is the complete list taken from the site (http://collabtive.o-dyn.de/about.php):

Core functionality

• Unlimited projects, milestones, tasklists, and tasks
• Unlimited members with user profiles
• Role-based permission management
• Messaging and instant messaging
• File management
• Timetracking

Reporting and notifications

• Timetracker reports, activity logs and messages in PDF format
• Export user profiles as vCard
• RSS feeds for messages and tasks
• Synchronization of calendars via iCal task export
• Excel files from activity logs and timetracker reports
• E-mail notifications

Other

• Search, tags
• Basecamp import
• Fully themeable
• Available in more than 25 languages
• Full UTF8 support

Let me know what you think of this program! I love it and makes project management easy.