Day: April 2, 2010

Putting the iPad in perspective – April 2010 edition

I’ve been reading alot of pro and con articles about the iPad. David Pogue at the NYtimes.com had both in his review. And now there’s this:
Cost and Redundancy Issues Confront iPad – NYTimes.com. I partially agree with this: the early adopters are going the snap up the iPad, just like they did with the iPhone. And if the iPad was a design dead end, then I would worry if I were Apple. But of course it’s not a design dead end; if anything, it is designed as just the start of a new platform for people. There are lots of things that can be done to improve the iPad, and I am willing to bet Apple will include those overtime. Overtime the people with netbooks and laptops and other portable devices will be looking to upgrade and then they will buy an iPad or some other tablet device. (I wouldn’t assume that Microsoft is going to be left out of this, or RIM for that matter, or Acer, or HP or Dell.)

I would be hard pressed to imagine some future other than one where Apple sells alot of these. Then other devices like the Touch will die off. Costs will come down as competition ramps up, too. But by that time, Apple will have some new device. It’s a pattern we have seen before, and I can’t see it being broken.

As for me, eventually I will get one, I think. I love my Touch, I have a few iPods, and I like my netbook and my laptop. I think it will be a good thing to have, but it is just a computing device, and not even a terribly innovative one at that.

How people hack your password

If you get nothing else from this frightening article, How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords on Lifehacker, get this: make you password is long (at least 8 characters) and make sure it has upper and lower case letters with some numbers and other characters (e.g. “curse” symbols like #$%@) mixed in.

I knew alot of this stuff, but something I should have guessed was this: if you can’t use a different password for every site you log into, make sure the really important passwords (e.g. for banking) is very good and very different than those sites (e.g. newspaper sites) which may have weaker security.

Hey, it’s your money and your identity. Protect it.

What do you want to be when you are 80?

Well, if you are Bill Cunningham (who is 81), you want to continue to be a great photographer. The Lens Blog has a story about Cunningham and a documentary about him. What I love about him, though, is that he is “old” only in the sense of having lived many years. Otherwise, there is little that is old about Bill Cunningham. He is a hard working fashion photographer, a role that needs you to think “new”, not “old”.

So what do you want to be when you are 80? And if you are 80 already, then you should be planning your 100 birthday. Please invite me.