I can see replacing my 13″ MacBook with the iPad and using my iMac to do the heavy lifting.  I can see using Dropbox and Evernote even more.  I can see converting all my current OOo [OpenOffice] documents to iWork which means that it easily justifies the expense [not that I consider iWork expensive].  In fact, I think that I could buy 1 iPad for each of my family members and then set up accounts on our iMac as the kids get older.  This would allow my boys to each have one for online games and Apps and their own music selections.

While my personal transition to eBooks has been slow, this may entice me to make that move.  I am using Stanza on my iPhone & it isn’t really a compelling experience.  I also don’t have a lot of reading time and find that Audible is a better resource for me right now.  I hope that this iBook software allows for marking and notes because that would be a big failure right out of the gate if it wasn’t included.  I hope that Amazon gets on board like Audible has with Audiobooks available via iTunes; especially if they can keep the books at the low cost they already are for Kindle owners.

I think this beats the NetBook model hands down even if it isn’t quite what I thought it would end up being. Now, a few weeks ago I published my own predictions for the iPad.

I predicted that Apple would release a multi-touch device similar to the JooJoo [aka CrunchPad] that ran Apps, eBooks, with WiFi/3G, iTunes, a built in battery, Lala, and the content aspects of the Sports Illustrated Tablet demo.  I was right on some items and we could still see Lala become part of the service package MobileMe [I was not the first to suggest this].  I will admit that I am still blown away.  I love the device and look forward to heading into town in 60 Days and testing one out.  I think I will have to get a sitter & take the wife to a movie to justify the whole thing.

I know that many people will not get it until they see others using it and that I can understand.  It was the same way with the Kindle and other devices.  I didn’t get the iPod until I owned one.  Yeah, until I owned one and then I felt dumb because I had not invested in it before then.  It was a mind blowing music experience and since then, I have bought a couple dozen albums.

New Prediction, iSlate with Inkwell for writing with a finger or 3rd party stylus.  This will be more like the Axiotron ModBook.  It will be slide between the iPad and MacBook.

iron wil

If you are trying to get to the website to download the software, I hope you have time. It is a waiting game; when I started the download it told me 11 hours. I hope to be installing it in the morning. I checked the BitTorrent Sites to no avail.

I expected them to be better prepared for the release of version 3; more like FireFox was prepared for the release of their last version. Although, they still got slammed with heavy traffic loads. I am excited to get the new version and remove Neo Office for the good old OOo.

Mostly, I am missing the Icons and the Gulls. I am grateful that the Neo Office team ported the OOo to OS X, since it is my primary office software package. I have been using Neo Office for about a year now because that is when we moved to the Mac Platform.

Well, I have 4 hours and 18 minutes to go <sigh>.

iron wil

p.s. 2 hours and 40 minutes to go [2008.10.14 @ 05:38].

The latest version of OpenOffice fixes a security vulnerability. InfoWorld has a neat little article about it. Download the latest version here.

Peace out!

To see a review of the new features, see OOo Ninja’s article here.

get OOo 2.4 here.

I am getting mine now.

iron wil

Mauro Bieg talks about DRM, while our tips&tricks hosts, Gary and Andrew, uncover more GNU/Linux secrets. Andrew Min then tells you how to have the best-looking desktop with Compiz Fusion. Scott Carpenter and Gary Richmond talk about Nautilus and Konqueror in their respective articles, Solveig Haugland comes back to FSM talking about OpenOffice.org… and these are just some of the articles in the User Space section!

The hackers can rejoice reading David Welton’s Hecl (yes, he created it!), how to install a UPS (Ken Leyba), live in command line (Andrew Min), MySQL management (Alan Berg), running a free software project (John Calcote) and much more. This issue is a real feast. Now it’s up to you to enjoy it: it’s free as in freedom.

Read it here.

iron wil

This issue looks at Open Source Publishing, using o3 magazine as a case study. This issue looks at creating documents with Scribus, collaborative document editing with OpenOffice, creating graphics for publication with the GIMP and creating newsletters with OpenOffice.

Contains:

• Creating Newsletters with OpenOffice
• Open Source Publishing with Scribus
• Collaborative Document Editing
• GIMP created graphics for Publishing

Get yours here.

iron wil

This does fix one security issue while providing a host of additional features, like Extensions.

Get yours here.

iron wil

Notes:

1) OpenOffice.org.

p.s. – literally [37%] I am waiting for it to finish so that I can install it.

After five months of electronic balloting, Microsoft failed to meet the two voting criteria to win a designation as an approved standard from the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, or the I.S.O., and the International Electrotechnical Commission, or I.E.C.

The fight over the standard, while technically arcane, is commercially important because more governments are demanding interchangeable open document formats for their vast amounts of records, instead of proprietary formats tied to one company’s software. The only standardized format now available to government buyers is OpenDocument Format, developed by a consortium led by I.B.M., which the I.S.O. approved in May 2006.”¹

I am really glad to see that these standards committees stood up to Microsoft and did what is best for the community at large.

iron wil

Notes:

1) New York Times, Panel Rejects Microsoft’s Open Format.

I have to give kudos to Mark Shuttleworth for his post regarding the situation. He has provided additional insight and some information on what to do to help defeat Microsoft’s attempt to push itself into the arena instead of accepting the ODF standard. His final point is that this is like HTML, one standard with many implementations¹. One can use Firefox, IE, Safari, or Opera to surf the web. Why can’t we have a document format like this?

We have a good solid standard. We need to support the ODF standard and get others on board. Speaking of which, Malaysia just announced their support and backing of the ODF standard². You would think after the ZD Australia article and the commenting and criticizing of Microsoft across the web, including here, that they would see some of this and get a clue as to what the people want. But as we know, they are more concerned with their bank account.

I believe that the better standard has ‘won’ and that OpenXML will follow in the footsteps of things like Passport and Bob.

iron wil

Notes:

(1) Mark Shuttleworth’s Blog, Emerging consensus in favour of a unified document format standard?

(2) ZD Net Asia, Malaysia formally embraces Open Document Format.

His observations and points are well stated and his desire to paint a fair picture is okay. I, however, have to admit that I have been telling people to move to Ubuntu instead of Vista. He does, go back and forth between Ubuntu 6.10 [LTS - probably] and 7.04. So, I am not sure which version he actually tested, because he says, 7.04 in the beginning of the article but later talks a lot about 6.10.

I would still recommend Ubuntu if one doesn’t want to spend the money on Mac hardware for OS X.

iron wil

Note:

(1) InformationWeek, Ubuntu Linux Vs. Windows Vista: The Battle For Your Desktop.