Reinke Faces Life

Major irritations with the way applications are handled on the IPAD. Can’t nuke stuff without going to iTunes. Some applications show up in the “settings”, but most do not. (Why is that?) After upgrading the os, I find I have a new piece of “crapware” added in. Said piece of software has a dumb “sequential” password validation against rules that are not known in advance.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/nov/21/ipad-newspaper-steve-jobs-rupert-murdoch

iPad ‘newspaper’ created by Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch
Apple and News Corp reportedly set to launch joint iPad news publication exclusively via download

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Rupert Murdoch, head of the media giant News Corp, and Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, are preparing to unveil a new digital “newspaper” called the Daily at the end of this month, according to reports in the US media.

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With no printing or distribution costs, the US-focused Daily will cost 99 cents (62p) a week.

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Unless it has the UK Sun’s Page 3 ladies, I don’t see the 50$/year working.

The FLIP application already on the IPAD for free has a better shot.

All these “media moguls” have done is to get “We, The Sheeple” to buy the reader and transfer all the costs to us from them.

The IPAD is a “game changer” but it’s not a “credit card machine” like a toll booth collector. When I first saw it, I thought it was nothing more than a heavy device to sell me stuff. That’s the way these guys are thinking of it. It’s really a tool that puts the cloud at your finger tips.

Just rearranging those proverbial deck chairs isn’t going to do it.

Micro-payments will.

If each issue cost a tenth of a penny, then maybe you have a chance. And, charge me when I buy it. Subscriptions, “applications” that have to be downloaded to do nothing more than cost your wealth, and “copy protection” (i.e., Digital RIghts Management) in general is not how dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom) is consumed on the inet.

(Consumed is a bad word. It’s not “eaten”. It is digested, shared, and amplified. Absorbed might be better.)

This idea is a dud! The continued death throws of the old print media.

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Not immediately apparent how to do it.

Takes a while. Half hour? And, a few syncs.

Not apparent at all how to print from ipad.

Not sure if the upgrade does anything at all for anything.

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EMAIL WITH Prof P

Re: Jasper Jottings for the IPAD

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Right now Jet Tech and I are wrestling with how to get a free book (one that was electronically given to me by the publisher) onto one of the 6 ereaders on my iPad. I like reading on the iPad so I encourage you to go with it.

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As I understand it. IBOOKS on the IPAD can only take an EPUB or PDF format via ITUNES. You didn’t say what format the ebook was in? Assuming (and we know what that means), that you have ITUNES set to export “books”, it should flow right over. I have to assume that the ebook you’re attempting to move is in another format. Depending upon what format it is, you’ll have to convert it. On the MAC, I like CALIBRE. While the UI is terrible, it does “do” many formats that I haven’t even heard of. Let me know what the format is or send me the file, I’ll attempt to convert it for you. After all I’m sitting in ICU with nothing to do. :-) Argh!

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So far the only way I have found to get a book into, or is it onto, the IPAD is via ITUNES. You either have to buy through their store (and boy do they make that convenient) or to import into ITUNES, dock the ipad, and sync it on board. That’s a pain. Amazing that the IPAD and the MACBOOKAIR are both sitting next to each other and they can not communicate by wifi or bluetooth. It’s no wonder that APPLE gets the label “CLOSED” and “DUMB”. Amazing for as good as their hardware is — novel, useful, and thought provoking, their implementations leave a lot to be desired.

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The IPAD today popped up, or perhaps it would be better reported that when the IPAD was syncing ITUNES popped up on McBa and requested permission to report to HQ how the IPAD was being used. For my benefit, of course.

I wonder what it is reporting. User played KLONDIKE. (Who cares?) User updated CARINGBRIDGE. (Now were into medical privacy. HIPPA?) SAFARIed to the following websites. (Now we’re treading close to that privacy line.)

Who knows what gets reported to HQ?

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Something is odd in how the IPAD handles a secondary mail account. It doesn’t appear to work. Yet this morning, I see the test message in the McBa’s inbox for this account.

Wierd?

IPAD is intended, it appears, to have no “moving parts”, It doesn’t tell you the progress steps for making the connection or what errors, if any, occurs under the covers.

Argh!

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The IPAD is a platform which may or may not be an appliance. It may or may not depend upon the cloud. It may or may not be: a stand alone platform (not so good), a bridge to the cloud (maybe good), a thin Client with cloud integration (not so good based on the Caring Bridge application), a true Client / Server Client platform (haven’t seen that), or something else.

Right now to me it is in the “something else” category .. as long as you have a credit card?

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The IPAD doesn’t come with the iworks or ilife suites. iworks is sold in three a la carte apps for 30$. I’m not sure the equivalent functionality is available. Searching for the apps is cumbersome.

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The IPAD can not connect to the RWJUH wifi.

The RWJUH wifi is ‘available’ to patients and guests. But it has an ‘old style’ mickey mouse interface. It reminds me of the internet cafe system where you buy a User id and password for a few bob. (Sorry last time I bought inet access a la carte was in England. Before that in Biloxi, a life time ago. So bob it is.) And, you use that to authenticate to the network.

The RWJUH wifi splashes you a screen that makes you agree to be good, honor your Mum and Dad (that the English memory bubbling over), and a bunch of other stuff. Then it passes to the traditional uid and password challenge. If you don’t have an id, you can create one for free. It then spaws a small popup saying you’re logged on and “feel free to close this”. But if you do, you’re very quickly back a square one, the agreement page.

The uid and password stays active for awhile or until they wipe the database. That’s happened twice, with no rhyme, reason, or calendar schedule.

The RWJUH wifi “burps” a lot — there are even two type of burps. One, a stoppage where if on the McBa you stop and start you’r airport wifi, you pick up where you are and can keep on going. The other is a five minute, or what seems to be, time out and you start over from the splash.

So apparently, the IPDA can take the splash screen but it won’t allow the pop up after  uid / password. It makes no difference if you have the Safari web browser active or not.

That demonstrates that the IPAD’s wifi is substantively different from the McBa’s. Both machines are on the most current release of software.

Makes you wonder what else is different?

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https://www.defectivebydesign.org/macappstore

Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, shame on me.
Posted On: Fri, 2010-10-22 13:39 by mattl

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Well, it’s official. Apple has now announced it’s bringing the App Store concept to the Mac and it looks like they’ll be restricting apps with FairPlay DRM too for good measure. When we first began talking about the problems with the App Store on the iPhone and iPod Touch, people wanted us to drop it and stop talking about the DRM tricks being pulled by Apple on the grounds that the iPhone wasn’t a general purpose computer (it is, and the iPad is too) but rather an appliance.

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It really doesn’t do too much out of the box.

It does keep the User captive in the box. I’d call it more of an “appliance” than a computing platform. And, while the User Interface is intuitive, what happens when the User doesn’t “intuit” so well. Where’s the F1 Help button?

My first road block is how to delete an application.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? IPAD apps have to come from Apple. Without the cloud, it’s really limited. A grand for the pad, capital cost. 250$/year for the 3G, with a bandwidth cap. So far it’s a very small expensive island. We’ll see if it can bridge anywhere.

It has to have a huge value equation if it’s just an island; a bridge can open new worlds.

Jury’s still out imho.

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Ok, maybe I am a “fanboy”. Of new technology. Maybe it’s supplanted my love of new cars. Just maybe.

What attracted me to the IPAD, and made me spend a lot of money imho, was the idea that it is a game changer for children. I’ve seen the stories of younger and younger human beings making use of it. Even those with different abilities seem to be able to deal with it. If they can, why not a fat old white guy injineer?

If it’s that good, then maybe this is more important than a cell phone for children?

At the very least, instead of children hauling a Herculean load of books, they carry an IPAD.

I was interested in the fellow who had the whole Talmud on an IPAD with translations and expectation. You ever seen all the books of the Talmud?

And, how does this change the ability to deliver dikw (i.e., data, information, knowledge, wisdom)?

And, is it a closed infrastructure? Or is it a computing appliance?

And, is it a good Christmas – Birthday – Every Occasion For The Rest Of Your Life type gift?

And, does it need the 3G option?

FIrst blush, after a day out of the box, it’s a game changer. It’s virtually brain dead without the cloud. (Or am I?)

There are a lot of design flaws or tradeoffs I don’t care for.

But, we’ll see if it grows on me.

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