Computer Glossary

This long promised glossary is not alphabetical since that doesn't work very well for this type of material. It is loosely organized in some logical groupings but it is short enough that the best approach is just to skim the words in the left column to find ones you've heard and wondered about. Often it seems like you are the only one in the room that doesn't know what the "cloud" is but you are not alone. Here's your chance to catch up and get ahead of most of the people you encounter.

Word	Definition
Mobile Devices	Smartphones and Tablets are the most talked about mobile devices today. In a word, they are computers that are portable in the extreme. They have processors, memory, operating systems, keyboards and touchscreens for data entry and for displaying the output. Most importantly, to qualify as general-purpose computers they allow user installation of programs (apps in today’s vernacular). Without this last requirement some current refrigerators – and future toasters – would likely qualify as general-purpose computers.
Tablet	Tablets are at the large end in terms of mobile screen size – typically seven to ten inch diagonal measurement. The other primary difference from smartphones is that tablets generally don’t have a connection to a cell phone network and if they do it’s not used for phone calls – just for Internet activities. There is nothing stopping a company from putting a cell phone capability into a tablet. Two reasons they probably won’t: the tablet war is turning into a price war and every penny they can cut from the cost is a penny they can keep; the idea of talking into a tablet just seems strange and most tablet owners have or will have a cell phone. Nomenclature will be confusing for a while since someone could – and probably will – put telephone circuitry into a ten inch tablet or remove it from a four inch smartphone.
Phone - Smartphone	Smartphones allow users to install apps of their choosing
Phone – Feature phone	Feature phones can perform tasks using the Internet such as email and web surfing. They come with a fixed set of apps – calendar, contact list, etc.
Phone – Cell phone	Simple cell phones are used only for making phone calls.
Cell phone contracts	Many phones receive service from one of the carriers (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) based on a contract. Monthly charges are based on four elements. 1)    Number of minutes of call time 2)    Number of text messages 3)    Amount of information sent and received (the dataplan) 4)    Fees and taxes Dataplans are likely to cause significant confusion in the future since we are using mobile devices more frequently and very few people know how many megabytes are in a video. Traditional cell phones do not require dataplans. Prepaid cellphones are traditional cell phones that allow you to buy minutes in advance. These are individuals with limited need for a cell phone.
Internet TV	Much of our television in the future will come through the Internet. A simple computer can be incorporated into a TV set or offered as a standalone box. No matter the form, these are real computers – generally with limited storage. Content is streamed from the Internet not stored locally. They use the TV as a display and a remote control or keyboard for input. Some have relatively simple choices while others offer a full web browser on the TV.
App	An app is just a new name for a program. You used to install programs; now you install apps.
Operating System - OS	All computers including desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets have a program called the operating system (OS). In the past the three best-known computer operating systems were Windows, Mac and Linux. Currently the top mobile operating systems are Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS. There are at least ten mobile operating systems today but few are likely to survive very long.
UI – User Interface	Ever since Apple introduced the graphical user interface in 1984 (icons manipulated with a mouse on a “desktop”) the User Interface (UI) has been critical. Methods of interacting with a computer (using a mouse and keyboard) have progressed slowly in recent years but touchscreen technology is changing the UI at lightening speed.
Wireless connections WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.	All of these are just the various types of radio signals that are used to connect devices wirelessly. They’re called radio signals since they were used for radios decades before computers were invented. For a more detailed explanation check out my July blog post.
Cloud	In the simplest terms the Cloud means storing information and running problems on the Internet rather than your PC. For the professionals it is much more complicated and you can read more in my June 2011 Newsletter.
Internet and the World Wide Web (Web)	The Internet consists of millions of computers connected together. They may be gigantic machines but even your personal computer is an Internet computer when it is online. The World Wide Web consists of software and files that allow anyone to use Internet computers to store and retrieve information - information that might be text, photos, music, etc. A web server is one of the most important web programs since it sends files (web pages) to you when you click on a link or type an address into your browser. It sends (or serves) the page to you and then waits patiently in case you want another file – possibly serving thousands of files to other users in the meantime. Sending and retrieving web files is only one use of the Internet. Email is another. Email uses the Internet but not necessarily the web. This situation is somewhat confusing since many email services are now available through your web browser.
Protocol	If two computers (or two people) are going to work well together, they have to agree on how they will do things. Often these agreements are called protocols.  Who sits where at a state dinner is determined by the protocol for state dinners. In the case of computers, how they exchange information is called a protocol that is described first on paper – which signals are going on which wires, etc. To be able to communicate both computers must have a program that implements a particular protocol. Basically it’s a description of what characters will travel between the two computers and in what order. You may hear about IP addresses – these are the addresses used by all computers on the Internet (even yours) according to the Internet Protocol.
Encryption	We all remember making up secret codes at a very young age. Encryption is just the name for a myriad of techniques that can transform a message – text, photo, etc. – so it cannot be understood if it falls into the wrong hands. Breaking enemy codes was a major undertaking in World War II and today any spy agency worth its salt is doing the same thing with information intercepted on the Internet.
Units – Bit, Byte and Megabyte	We’ve heard that all information in a computer is stored as zeros and ones. If you put enough zeros and ones together you can represent a text book or reproduction of the Mona Lisa. If you take an image from your digital camera or off the Internet and enlarge it many, many times, you will see individual picture elements, (pixels or dots). Each pixel is a single color and that color is represented by a number – a string of zeros and ones. Storage space for a single zero or one is called a bit – just like storage space for a number from 0-9 is referred to as a digit. A group of eight zeros and ones is referred to as a byte. As a rough approximation a single character of text can be represented by a combination of zeros and ones stored in one byte (a=00000001, b=00000010, etc.) A kilobyte is roughly one thousand bytes; a megabyte is roughly one million bytes and a gigabyte is roughly one billion bytes. I say roughly because there are two definitions for each of those terms but they are similar enough for most people to ignore.
Pixel	A pixel is a single point (dot) in an image. A ten megapixel camera can take pictures with approximately ten million pixels. Each pixel requires several bytes of memory to record the color – see pixel depth.
Pixel depth	Each pixel (dot in an image) can represent millions of different colors. The value stored for each pixel indicates the color of that dot. The higher the pixel depth (more bits to store the value), the more colors that a pixel can represent. For example, if you stored the color of a pixel as a two digit number, you could store up to 100 different colors – 00-99. Computers store values in binary but the principal is the same.
Compression (JPEG or JPG for still pictures and MPEG for videos) In practice there are many other compression standards.	Storing a color value for every pixel in an image results in very large files. It is common practice to compress the image by, for example, indicating that a large area of sky is blue with only a few values – the numeric value for blue color and the boundaries of the block of sky. A tiny speck of a bird in the sky might just be tossed out in the process. The higher the compression, the smaller the resulting file and the more image points will be lost or modified. Videos can have each individual frame compressed in this way but add interframe compression; if two successive frames are nearly identical, only the changed pixels are included for the second frame.
Broadband	Generally used to describe high speed Internet access with a variety of speeds. Usually contrasted with dialup connections.
Modem/Router	The telephone system was originally intended to transmit human voices. When we began sending information between computers over phone lines, there had to be a way of changing zeros and ones to sound patterns (called modulating) when they were sent and then back into zeros and ones (demodulating) at the other end. The device we use is a modulator/demodulator (modem) - one at each end of the line. If there are multiple computers in your home or office and only one Internet connection, you need a way to keep transmissions separated. Signals from a computer connected a wireless network go first to the router which attaches a numeric code to indicate which computer sent it. When a response to that transmission is received over the Internet it comes back through the modem and then to the router to send it to the correct computer. Today modems and routers are usually combined into a single device that does both jobs.
HTML	A file type indicates what type of program created or can read a particular file - .doc for MS Word, .xls for Excel, etc. Files that come over the Internet to be displayed by a browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari use .html or .htm as a file type.
Flash	Flash is a type of file often used for video but for other purposes as well. Flash is losing favor as other more modern programming tools are developed, e.g. HTML v5.
PDF files	The pdf file type was developed in response to the many incompatible file types that were causing confusion. The idea was that all computers could have a pdf file “reader” so any document – word processing, spreadsheet, etc. – that could be converted to a pdf format could be read on any computer.
URL	A Uniform Resource Locator is the fancy name for the Internet addressing scheme. You could type an address into your web browser and call it either an address or URL. URL is the cooler term.
Touchscreen	Smartphones and tablet computers use display screens that can detect the touch of a finger or special soft stylus. They can be programmed to respond to various gestures – tap and double tap, as well as sliding motions involving several fingers. Cheaper touchscreens require pressure but later, higher quality screens respond to a very light touch. Touch gestures often imitate mouse clicks – double click/double tap, click and drag/tap and drag, etc.
Domain Names	To provide some structure to Internet addressing, the scheme starts with Top Level Domains. These include .com, .edu, .mil, .gov and .biz - called generic TLDs. They are not associated with any country. TLDs also include two letter country codes .us, . ca. ru, etc. New top level domains are just being rolled out now. Any organization that wants an Internet address can apply for its own name – braley.com or braley.us – consisting of a specific name associated with one of the TLDs. Needless to say most common words and proper names are already taken. This is how requests for information are routed around the Internet. Braley.com is essentially a folder of files stored somewhere on the Internet. One of those files is the home page that will be retrieved if no further information is provided. In most cases, someone might want a specific file and request braley.com/clients.htm. This is a file in the braley.com folder
www, http, https, ftp	A web file usually starts with www (world wide web) but if you leave that out, your browser will generally insert it for you. The Internet operates on Hypertext Transport Protocol - http -but again the browser will often add that to an address. Secure web sites use https and it is important to put that in to access those sites. FTP is the file transfer protocol – not a web service – which at one time required a separate – non-browser – program. But like many other services, FTP can usually be handled by your web browser.
Browser	A web browser was once a program with one purpose – to display files ending in htm or html. These programs have been greatly expanded to perform numerous other functions – see FTP above.
Email and web capitalization	Email addresses are NOT case sensitive. Web addresses are NOT case sensitive up to the first slash following the .com, .gov, .us, etc. Following that slash they may or may not be case sensitive so you need to assume they are unless you know otherwise. Braley.com is never case sensitive but the “file1.htm” in Braley.com/file1.htm is likely case sensitive.

Who's Doing What in Tech Today

There are so many products, technologies and companies involved in the rapidly evolving tech market today, I thought it would be helpful to summarize some important facts in a simple table. I made a list of twenty-four products including computers and a variety of mobile devices and software - then added several service related factors such as shelf space and the cloud.

I created a table with eight leading vendors across the top to see how these vendors competed in the twenty-four areas. I think it's going to be difficult for companies to survive with only a handful of products - desktop PCs and laptops for example. You can click on the image below to enlarge the chart. Let me know what you think.

Why Were the Experts so Wrong about the iPad 2?

Right before the iPad 2 hit the stores March 11th most pundits said it was no big deal - a minor upgrade - and thought the demand would not rival the first version that came out eleven months earlier. They could not have been more wrong. Not only did the first shipments sell out within hours but there have been lines of people every morning at every Apple store waiting with baited breath for the next truck. How could the experts have been so wrong?

They tend to overestimate the interest and knowledge of the general public. They believe everyone has the time and inclination to hang on every tweet from every tech vendor and writer. Surprise, surprise most people have real jobs and a variety of interests besides computers. In spite of all the hype about the first iPad a year ago, few people really knew much about it on day one - from the basics of how would it actually work to the more important "is it really suitable for business?" Questions like these prevented the vast majority of people from purchasing the first iPad early in the cycle.

Along the way, three things happened. First, the positive reviews came in and the early adopters showed theirs off to anyone they could corner - friends and coworkers alike. This created the buzz and the associated "cool factor." Next, businesses began to experiment and found that it really was appropriate for many tasks involving their mobile workforce - storage of sales and technical documents for example. Finally, at the end of 2010 many people who decided to buy were advised to wait because the next version would have a camera - or maybe two cameras.

Consequently, when the iPad 2 became available there was a huge demand in spite of the experts suggestion that it was not a major improvement over the original. When you think about it, what would the "experts" have required for a major improvement? It is unlikely in my opinion that any new tablet from any vendor will be considered a major advance over the preceding tablet. Just like the succession of PCs over the last thirty years, each one will be a little faster or have a slightly better screen or camera. The fact that tablets are primarily touch screens with a processor and solid state storage makes improvements primarily a matter of new and upgraded apps. There's not much you can do with the basic tablet slab except speed it up and add a new I/O port or button. I certainly am not saying there will not be better tablets in the future; I'm just suggesting that few new versions will be considered major leaps forward.

Cool Camera Apps - Part 1

No subject gets more attention in my newsletter than the apps I review. (Note: in case you haven't heard - "app" is just another name for a program. The term evolved along with mobile technology but is now being used for full fledged PC/Mac software as well.)

I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I use my iPhone camera. It's certainly not a great camera but for many purposes it's "good enough" and, most important, I always have it with me. I divide camera apps into two categories
1) apps that are primarily associated with taking pictures (photography)
2) those that are mostly used for editing pictures (editing)
This distinction is not precise since many apps do a combination of the two. I base the distinction on the primary attributes of the app and what I generally use it for. Some apps modify still and/or video images as they are being taken; others operate on images from the library and some can do both. The following two apps cost 99 cents each.

For the photography apps, you can't beat QuickCam - often described as the camera app that should have come with the iPhone. For general purpose iPhone pictures, I've switched completely to Quickcam. It's easy to use and will start up and take pictures much faster than the standard Apple app. It has a rapid fire mode where you can touch and hold the camera button and take two pictures per second. While you are taking video, you can touch the camera button and take a still picture.

ToonCamera is another favorite. It works on both live and stored still and video images to create a cartoon effect by limiting the number of colors used. This picture of a fox taken in our back yard

Cartoon Fox - original shown in inset

shows the results. If you are familiar with the GIF image format, you get the same effect. GIF works great on art and drawings with a limited number of colors but produces the cartoon effect when used with photographs - like coloring with eight crayons!

Here's a quick list of other favorites in this category (many have free and paid versions)

Timelapse - Set your camera in a window and it can take pictures at regular intervals for a specified time. Then save the results and play them back as a movie - watch a flower grow!

ExternalCamera - Monitor the iPhone camera on your iPad - watch and listen to a sleeping baby or keep an eye on your front door.

CameraFun - Variety of special effects.

SneakyPix - Set the camera to take a series of pictures while you appear to be reading email or talking on the phone - that's sneaky.
CanScan - Use this camera app to snap a picture of a document and automatically rotate, crop and adjust the lighting for a perfect "scanned" document.

Tablet Typing can be Improved

Portable devices all suffer from inadequate keyboards - inadequate in that they do not allow rapid touch typing like the "real" keyboards we're all accustomed to. There are ways to speed things up including -

1. Autocorrect features are generally quite accurate and should be allowed to work. Backspacing and correcting errors is such a natural action we waste time making corrections that are already suggested by the software.
2. Apple iPad and iPhone users should use the special key actions such as swiping the period key to enter a quotation mark. Because space is limited, some keys are relegated to secondary keyboards so these special actions eliminate the need to switch keyboards. For more info on this subject including easy ways to enter special characters see this article.
3. Android users who master the Swype app can significantly speed up their routine typing by sliding a finger from character to character and allowing the software make corrections as they go. This brief description will show you how it works.

Comparing Apple and Android App Review Process

There are going to be hundreds of articles comparing Apple (iPad and iPhone) with the numerous Google Android tablets and phones. Two facts may be more important than any others

• Fact 1 - At the present, there are thousands of apps available for both the iPhone and Android phones. Right now there only a couple of Android tablets that run the version of the Operating System designed for tablets and there are about twenty apps available. There are 65 thousand iPad apps available.
• Fact 2 - Apple monitors all apps to make sure they are not harmful while Google does not. In fact the entire process of updating the Android OS is handled by the carriers - the phone companies. This would be like Microsoft having WalMart responsible for updating its software.

Read this excellent article to understand the ramifications of the second fact.

iPad monthly data plans compared

The roll out of the iPad 2 brings additional monthly data plans - that is if you're willing to change cell phone providers. The follow chart summarizes the various plans available. 

Chart from All Things Digital

The issue of monthly fees and long term contracts will become increasingly important and increasingly complicated as more mobile devices become available. I've mentioned before about the inevitability of "tiered pricing" - different rates for different types and quantities of data.

Purchase price will be less important as vendors attempt to lock users into long term, complicated, expensive contracts.

iPad 2 - first look

There were no big surprises today when Steve Jobs introduced the latest iPad - except for the fact that Steve Jobs was on hand for the introduction. The iPad 2 is a solid but unremarkable upgrade to the best selling first iPad. I for one look forward to the faster processor - particularly when showing presentations with Keynote - the Apple version of PowerPoint. The Motorola Xoom - the current contender for the tablet throne - compares favorably on a feature by feature basis.

The big advantage the iPad has, and it is a big advantage right now, is the huge app collection. Developers have written over 50 thousand apps specifically for the iPad in addition to over 300 thousand iPhone apps that run on the iPad. Because the Honeycomb version of the Android OS is brand new, there are only a few dozen apps written for the Xoom.

Many people thought that competitors would need to be lower priced than the iPad to get in the game but if anything the Xoom is slightly more expensive than the iPad. The low price point set by the first iPad was a real shock last year and it put to rest the idea that Apple products were expensive.

The tablet market is just getting off the ground; Apple has a commanding lead right now. The fun is just starting! Stay tuned.

Three Tablet Contenders Compared

There will be dozens of companies and hundreds of products involved in the Tablet competition ahead; just like there were when PCs were introduced in the 1980's. The difference now is that there are some powerful, big name, experienced companies involved. In the 80's they were mostly companies you'd never heard of making products they'd never made before.

Click here for an early look at three contenders - Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom and HP TouchPad. The Xoom is coming this summer; the Touchpad is due this month and a second version of the iPad should be out within two months.

Mobile Operating Systems Galore

First a little history - Some of us are old enough to remember what life was like before Microsoft Windows dominated the world of desktop computing starting in the late 1980s. For the previous ten years there were a dozen or more hardware designs and operating systems including Radio Shack (Trash 80), Commodore (Pet), Sinclair, Franklin, Timex, Altair, Atari, Heathkit, Ohio Scientific and of course the venerable Apple II. None of these survived or thrived for more than a few years. Even Apple faded into the background for a long dark night.

We are today in the middle of a similar struggle involving mobile operating systems. Early leaders included Palm and Blackberry. Now the question is: How many products can survive in the long run. In particular which operating system(s) will dominate. Once that is decided, phone and tablet makers as well as carriers will fight to differentiate their devices - all based on one of the dominate operating systems. The OS competition today involves Google Android, Google Chrome, Apple iOS, HP WebOS, MS Windows Phone 7, MS Windows Mobile, MS Windows 8 (possibly) and RIM Blackberry OS. And you thought it was a two way race.

How did this turn out in the PC world when (almost) everyone used Windows and also used basically the same hardware? It turned into a price war and there were many casualties. Hundreds of small and large companies went into and out of the PC business in the last twenty years. Technology was a minor consideration - shelf space and advertising budgets were what mattered most. PCs became commodities which meant the death of companies and the death of innovation.

There is every reason to believe this will happen in the mobile field as well. It's an issue of software developers, shelf space and mindshare. Companies can only develop apps for a limited number of operating systems; retailers have room for only a few products in their stores; and consumers and companies cannot spend countless hours choosing between dozens of platforms.

Watch this space (and every other space) for ongoing discussion of this exciting topic as the Mobile Internet unfolds before us.

About time we named these new gadgets

For several years now we've called our most popular new gadgets Mobile Devices. That's a name only a geek could love. We have smartphones and tablets of all sizes and they all share common characteristics so it makes sense to name this group. I think they should be referred to as - drum roll - Companion Computers. First, they really are computers and should be identified that way. Some are used as phones but referring to them as phones misleads the public into thinking they are primarily phones - they are not. We've had desktop computers and laptop or portable computers so it makes sense to use the word computer here as well. In fact, some survey organizations are now including iPads in computer sales statistics as I believe they should.

Companion has two meanings. First, many of these new devices will be with us constantly and will be our companions. Certainly smartphones and the smaller tablets - think smartphones without a phone - will be in our pockets, our bags and our cars. Larger tablets can be taken and used everywhere much more easily than "traditional" computers. Second, these computers will also be companions for our desktop and portable computers. They will not replace them in the near future and will coexist peacefully and perform whatever tasks each one does best.

I'd certainly like to hear what you think - other nominations are welcome.

The end of an era

Most Exciting Consumer Electronics Show Ever
By Horace Dediu (asymco)

At this year’s CES (Consumer Electronics Show) two unthinkable things happened: The abandonment of Windows exclusivity by practically all of Microsoft’s OEM customers. The abandonment of Intel exclusivity by Microsoft for the next generation of Windows. Many of Microsoft’s customers chose to use an OS product from Microsoft’s arch enemy. Some chose to roll their own. Microsoft, in turn, chose to port its OS to an architecture from Intel’s arch enemy.

These actions confirm the end of the PC era. Although most people would characterize the era as exemplified by a particular form factor or market, for me the definition of that era is the way the value chain was structured and hence how profits were captured. That era was marked by the condensation of profits around two companies, Intel and Microsoft, with the simultaneous evaporation of profits from all other participants in the value chain.

To achieve this, Microsoft maintained a monopoly on the distribution of operating systems and Intel maintained a monopoly as the single supplier of chip architectures for that operating system. These monopolies are both over. And they both ended at the same time. And it happened this week.

Who says CES is boring this year?

How many was that again?

It's generally claimed but probably not true that IBM president Tom Watson said the world would need five computers. In 1980 many people thought the world needed just over four billion Internet addresses - wrong again! We know they believed this because that's how it was designed. All Internet addresses are numbers. The addresses we use - www.Braley.com for example - are immediately translated into a number (the real address of the site) before they are sent whizzing off to their destination. Imagine that you were setting up the records for a small town and decided to record every resident using a three digit number - after all it was a small town. Of course when person number 1,000 moves in, you have a problem.

That's exactly the predicament faced by the Internet - the 4.2+ billion Internet addresses are almost used up. People have seen this coming for a long time and created a new addressing system  that will be phased in over several years. Internet addresses are called IP addresses for Internet Protocol. The current version is IPv4 and the new version will be IPv6. IPv4 addresses consist of a 32 bit string of zeros and ones - bits. IPv6 will be 128 bits long. Keep in mind that every bit you add doubles the size of the maximum number. The fact that everything from cell phones to printers and refrigerators may get an IP addressed assigned in the future is no cause to worry since a 128 bit address is inconceivably large - a 4 followed by 38 zeros - just shy of a duodecilion!

Internet based TV - are you ready to cut the cable or dump the dish?

Imagine sitting with a tablet computer such as the iPad on the table or in your lap and doing the following things: 1) Write a blog entry, 2) Use the iPad Remote App to turn on your Apple TV, 3) Then use the same app to select some Christmas music from your PC or MAC to play through the TV, 4) Select photos from your computer library to display on the TV while the music is playing, 4) Continue working on the blog, reading email or the news and checking the weather, sports scores or traffic.

You don't need to imagine any longer; that's what I just did while working on this blog post. I've seen the future and it is Internet TV. Both Google and Apple are plunging full speed ahead in this exploding field. This really is the next big thing. Since the Apple TV is reasonably easy to understand I'll explain how it works.

What is the Apple TV? It's a very small computer that comes without a monitor, keyboard or mouse. It costs $99US and requires a $20US cable to connect to the HDMI port on a digital TV. It will not work on old TVs. To use it, you go through a set up process like any new computer - enter settings to add it to your wireless network, access your Netflix account, iTunes account, etc. This is all accomplished using the Apple TV remote control. Finding your account passwords may be the most difficult part.

Once it's set up, you can use the tiny remote or the Remote App on an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to do dozens of incredible things.
> View Netflix movies
> Choose from thousands of free podcasts
> Rent movies and download music through iTunes
> Stream music, video and photo shows from any PC or MAC on your network to your TV.
Here are a few screen shots to show the simple on screen menu.

The Apple TV is a general purpose computer that comes with a set of programs (apps) to handle this type of home media application. I'm sure within a year you will be able to download additional apps for other tasks from an Apple TV app store. Starting January 6, 2011 that's one way you will purchase and install software for MAC computers - not just iPads and iPhones. 2010 will be remembered as the year the Mobile Revolution began and 2011 will be the year of The Internet TV thanks to Apple and Google.

Buying a new phone: the four questions you need to answer first

Buying a mobile phone is a lot more complex than it used to be. If you intend to invest in a smartphone with a long term contract, there are four questions you should answer at the beginning.

1. Are you restricted by current contract, location or desire to a certain carrier or carriers?
2. Will this be your only mobile device or will you also own some type of tablet?
3. Do you want or require a specific operating system - Apple, Android, etc.?
4. Is compatibility with some other device important?

Once you answer these questions you will be in a much better position to begin your search and say something more intelligent than "I think I like the blue one".

Apple TV: What's going to be in your stocking?

The second generation Apple TV was introduced this summer and gained additional capabilities when the Apple iOS operating system was upgraded. iOS4.2 is the operating system currently used by the iPhone, iPad and iPod. The Apple TV represents Apple's first salvo in the battle with Google and others to control your TV viewing. I will be trying the device soon and will give a further report shortly. In the mean time you can read this review from the generally reliable CNET.

Favorite Apps - My Brand New List Is Here!

The Twitterverse is full of requests from new iPad users for app suggestions. NOTE: an "app" is just the new name for a program. Since there are over 300,000 apps (programs) available you can see why a newbie might be overwhelmed. I certainly haven't tried them all but I have used over 400 on both the iPad and the iPhone. Remember iPhone apps will work on the iPad; they will just use a small portion of the screen and will resemble the iPhone display. Of course most iPhone apps will also work on the iPod Touch. In many cases a company will provide two versions - one for the iPhone/iPod Touch and one that takes advantage of the large screen on the iPad. Many newspapers do this.

So - what do I like?

Travel

• The built-in Maps - for navigation and traffic displays
• Beat The Traffic - large screen version for the iPad
• GPS Drive - locating coffee shops, etc.

Voice Input

• Dragon Search - I use this for Google searches even when I'm at my computer
• Dragon Dictate - tiny keyboards be gone! it's time to talk
• Vlingo is the current alternative but I have not used it

Photo Editing (one of  my favorite hobbies!) - The iPad doesn't have a camera but editing on the large screen is fantastic

• Photo Delight - a wonderful and easy to use special effect app
• Alien Booth - a simple version of iMac Photo Booth
• Transfer - to move photos wirelessly between iPad, iPhone and iMac.
• Filterstorm
• Photogene
• Framed! - you'll love this one
• Imikimi
• Fingerdesign
• CameraFun
• ToonCamera - can't wait for the video version
• iFlashReady - compensates for the lack of flash on early iPhones (before version 4)
• dpReview - digital photography review site

News and Weather

• Fluent News - aggregates news from a variety of sources
• SkyGrid - similar to Fluent News but more organized
• Dozens of other general, technical and political news sites
• Built-in weather app
• The Weather Channel
• ESPN - for all things sports

Calendar, Contacts, Etc.

• The built in Calendar and Contact apps are integrated across platforms and the web
• Bento - this easy to use Filemaker lite database greatly improves on the standard contact app and integrates with it
• W&Y Pages - White and Yellow Pages
• MobileMe - a service that has apps for syncing contacts and calendars
• Bump - moves contact info, calendar dates and other information between Apple and Android devices - by bumping them together - you have to see it to believe it.

Presentation

• Keynote - a version of the Mac program
• Picture Frame - built in iPad photo display app

Reference

• World Atlas - National Geographic
• US Documents - text of 100 important documents from the Constitution to the Louisiana Purchase Treaty and the Gettysburg Address
• Dictionary.com
• MyConvert - thousands of conversation factors - just fun to try - did you know there were 12,152.23312 cubits in a league!

Entertainment

• Netflix - Watch movies on your iPad or stream them wirelessly to TV
• IMDb - movie database
• TV Guide
• YouTube
• Movie Vault - free movies
• Pandora - music
• Flip Clock - radio
• Several dedicated radio station apps

Stock Market

• Stocks - Built in iPhone app
• QFolio HD - A powerful iPad app

Apps for finding Apps - you'll need these!

• BestAppSite
• AppAdvice

Miscellaneous

• FlightAware - flight tracking
• Big Tipper - calculate tips and split restaurant bills
• World Clock - display clocks for numerous locations of your choice.
• TweetDeck and Twitter - for Tweeting
• Sketchbook Pro - drawing and painting
• Dropbox - file exchange

New tablets: all sizes including extra large!

Many companies are coming out with devices to compete with Apple's iPad and most of them are small with 5-7 inch screens. The iPad is 9.7 inches. Since these are diagonal measurements a 7 inch screen is a little less than half the size of the iPad. One company, however, has gone to the opposite extreme and will be releasing a 14.1 inch dual screen whopper. It will open like a book and is intended for the education market. The company, Kno, has partnered with a number of content providers to deliver textbooks for the device, including McGraw Hill, Pearson, Random House and Macmillan.

iPad comparisons are inevitable and this one has a much larger screen, a higher price and it's heavier. A single screen version will be available. The dual screen model will weigh 5.5 pounds and sell for $899 and the single screen version will weigh half as much and sell for $599. They will have touch screens but also feature pen/stylus input for making notes and marking up text. Weight would seem to be the biggest drawback since the dual screen model will be heavier than many laptops. Click here to read more.

What's not to like about the iPad?

Generally speaking I'm very impressed with the iPad. Given that it is a brand new category of device, Apple got a whole lot of things right on Version 1.0. This is the reason dozens of other companies are struggling so hard to create an "iPad Killer". Just do a Google search on "iPad killer" and you'll see what I mean. The size, weight and basic design are excellent. Apple has always been "minimalist" in terms of hardware features. They have preferred to let software handle most task and have gone from a one button mouse (that I have always disliked) to a one button iPad which I love.

Apple set the functionality bar high and the price low;  most people thought it would be nearly $1,000 and there was a noticeable gasp at the announcement when the base price was quoted at $499. So it's really hard to come up with something that's "better" in some important way or lower priced.

What don't I like in the current model?

• Arranging icons on the ten home screens is tedious since they are displayed in simple rows and columns and must be dragged from place to place in a clumsy and sometimes frustrating process. Apple went a long ways toward fixing this problem on the iPhone when they came out with their new operating system - iOS4.1. This version includes folders which contain multiple apps and greatly simplify app organization. It will be available as iOS4.2 on the iPad in November.
• The iTunes store has evolved from a simple music download service to a powerful but overly complex infrastructure for all manner of activities. These include app downloads as well as syncing and backups for iPhones and iPads. An overhaul of this service is overdue.
• A camera would be nice and rumors are that the next iPad will have a front facing camera for video conferencing.
• The iWork productivity applications are weak on the iPad. I use the Keynote app for all my presentations and it is very limited compared to the iMac version. It appears Apple wanted to demonstrate that the iPad was a business tool and rushed these apps out to make the point. I'm definitely looking forward to an upgrade of these apps.
• Printing capabilities are very limited. Again, the iOS4.2 upgrade will include wireless printing capabilities and it will be important that they get that right.
• There is currently no USB connection which makes it impossible to connect directly to a printer.
• There is no memory card interface. Internal memory up to 64GB should be more than adequate for most people at the present. Other devices that offer memory card capability often provide significantly less internal memory. And since more and more of our information and media will be stored on the Internet (the Cloud), internal memory should become less and less important.

Decisions, decisions: which gadget should I buy?

You probably won't be forced to choose between a tablet or ereader or make other similar difficult decisions very much longer. One reason, of course, is that their capabilities are being merged in ways that may make a single device suitable for many uses - but that is not the main reason you'll avoid these agonizing choices. With all the uses for this versatile crop of new devices, it's very likely you'll have more than one. We certainly have numerous magazines and books on hand not to mention newspapers. If tablets, ereaders and smartphones become universal tools, a family will most likely have several.

After all, it's not uncommon to have multiple PCs in the house; it often makes sense to keep an older machine when upgrading since they have little resale value and work quite well at common tasks. Of course students regularly use computers for homework and the competition for "the computer" can get fierce in the evening.

It's important to note that we are in the early stages of the Mobile Revolution and dozens of different shapes and sizes of devices will come out soon. Distinguishing between tablets and smartphones will become increasingly difficult and naming conventions will evolve rapidly.

In any case, it is quite likely that a variety of tablets and other mobile devices will be used to replace collections of books, magazines and other publications. No matter how much we enjoy the feel of a "real book", we will rely increasingly on electronic means for much of our information and that means more electronic devices will be needed for access.