HP TouchPad Thoughts

What follows are my growing notes on the TouchPad.  It’s not really just about the touchpad but to help me understand why iPad is continuing to kick butt in the tablet market.  Some say that there is no tablet market, there’s an iPad market.  The vote is still being counted on that one but early polls show iPad with an unbeatable lead for the next few years.  This isn’t anything new but in review is in part my quest to understand the “why”.   Part of it may indeed be the emotional connection that Apple somehow makes with a very large segment of users.  The Gardian author of “Why do some people really hate Apple” and Donald Norman’s book “Emotional Design” get in touch with this idea.  Although not the key topic of this article I give my thoughts on the Gardian article at the end.  

The Cloud as Your Mobile Shared Disk

Although I’ve mentioned it in the past, I want to do a quick review of Dropbox, a “cloud network file system” for all your devices.  Although I had Dropbox installed for a while, the power of it really didn’t hit me until I talked about it with my friend Bill and using my new iPad.  I realized how it could solve several problems and truly further my goals for living in the cloud (compute wise that is).  If you need to share files between multiple PCs, phone, tablets (yours or with other people), this is the way to go.  You get all of this, wait for it..., for free.  You can sign-up for Dropbox for free and receive 2GB of space.

After the break, I’ll explian more about what it is, some of the key features, and a few use cases to demonstrate the benefits.

Cloud Docs on the iPad

I wanted to be able to continue to use the cloud for editing my documents in Google Docs.  If you need a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation editor that will open your Google documents, or equivalent Microsoft product files, try Docs to Go.

My attempt to use the rich text editing in Google Docs on my iPad 2 was a dismal failure.  Although Google offered “desktop mode” from the iPad Browser, I would designate it as #FAIL for the iPad.  This forced me to look for a real solution for rich text editors for the iPad and I was pleasantly surprised.  As proof of my success, most of this article was written using the iPad with “Docs to Go” and an Apple bluetooth keyboard.  Combined with Google Docs and Dropbox, Using Docs To Go is a very powerful tool for document editing on the go.

After the break, I’ll compare some core capabilities of Office2 HD and Docs To Go.

What's New in Google Apps

Originaly published on 2/1/2011
As promised, this is my what’s new article on Google Apps. Google Docs has been around since 2006 and has been going through a continual cycle of enhance and extend (as I discussed in 2008). 2010 marked a time of furious change in Google Docs, now a part of a suite of tools called Google Apps, and I’ll review some of those here. This rapid release of change is partially enabled because of Google's distribution system, the Internet. This is an advantage of cloud computing (for the most part) over the client software in a box method because there is nothing to install and users don't have to "upgrade". Upgrades are released to everyone at once (mostly). If you receive a feature you don't like though, it could turn into a disadvantage.

Before identifying what’s new, a quick description is in order. In general, Google Apps is a suite of online office productivity tools. Individual users can access most of these tools using a Google Gmail account. The basic tool set covers all the classic office productivity tools similar to those found in Microsoft Office Basic. All access to Google Apps is via the WEB and users’ data lives in the “cloud” on Google servers where it is regularly backed up, and accessible from anywhere, and any device. When people think of operating “in the cloud” this is a prime example.
UPDATE: Look at the end of this article for a update regarding mobile

Online Invoicing In The Cloud

I recently started moving more of my business into the cloud. The business cloud application examples I’ve written about so far are more related to office productivity - word-processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. I took my small business and put its invoicing into the cloud by using the software as a service model (SAAS). Although I used ZOHO Invoice to do this, I’ll quickly discuss ZOHO along with others in it's class, like FreshBooks.

By utilizing this model, I’m saving money on software, can work from anywhere (they even have an app for the iPhone), and I look more professional. In addition, I can have multiple users, and I don’t have to deal with software licenses, upgrades or hassle that comes with installing off-the-shelf applications like this. The solution integrates with Google apps and has cool PayPal integration making you look good and boost productivity. While I was finalizing this post, ZOHO released a full accounting module that would of course include invoicing.  (Updated 6/20/11)

Backup to your USB Drive with SyncBack

Exec Summary

I don't like to depend on backup programs that create one big file and hope it works when I need it. My alternative is to use this method combined with a tool that backs up all your files to the destination with the same layout, easy, simple, more reliable. That program is SyncBack.

Backup your PC to the NET, or just backup!

Have a laptop or PC you don't back-up. If you have a USB drive for backups, do you use it? Where do you put your backups in case there is a fire? OK, most of you are probably saying you have a problem. I've helped many a friend transfer or try to recover data because of a disk crash or mistake. Millions of people loose data every year because of theft, fire, or system failures. Don't be one of them!

!Update! (2/26/2012)
Please read the updates at the end of this article.