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The iPad, Take Two: A Truly Mobile Blogging Device

Nancy Nally — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:00:31 +0000

We didn’t plan to go, but somehow the pull was inexorable. Our Mac-happy family of three ended up at an Apple Store on Saturday, pushing buttons (or rather touching and swiping) on the newest hot computing device. Even our six-year-old tried it out and promptly fell in love with a musical keyboard app.

After iPad announcement day, I provoked a lot of controversy by writing that I felt that the iPad could serve as a travel computer for me. After handling it and trying out its features, I’m now even more convinced that is true.

I’m a writer, more specifically a professional blogger. I’m not doing heavyweight computer tasks when I travel. In fact, I’m usually not even writing when I’m on the road except for brief updates to my web sites. I’m answering email, conducting text-based research on the web, taking notes, and doing other lightweight tasks.

I’m not the only writer or blogger who thinks the iPad can help in their work. After a week with an iPad in hand, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Ihnatko raved about how useful the gadget is for his workflow on TWIT last week. Mashable’s Ben Parr wrote one of his recent posts completely on the iPad, although he admitted that a few things were a pain, like working with images.

The only real processor- or software-heavy task that I did during my last extended business trip was edit photos in Adobe Lightroom on my return flight, which could easily have waited till I got home. It certainly wasn’t worth hauling around a computer that weighs three times as much as an iPad for almost a week just to get a two-hour head start on my photo processing.

The first thing I noticed when getting my hands on an iPad was how big it was. The size was surprising. I had expected the screen to feel smaller than it does. This was good news for its usability for many of the tasks that I do. Many of these tasks, such as web browsing, can also be done on my iPhone but the small screen makes them awkward. The iPad provides the screen real estate to take notes, browse and read without getting a headache from it.

Besides being large, the screen is also gorgeous. The resolution is wonderful and it is just a joy to look at. As spoiled as I am by using my iPhone screen on a daily basis, the iPad screen is even more beautiful, although it obviously gets streaky easily.

Another thing I noticed almost immediately was the speed of the device. It responds to commands lightning-fast compared to my iPhone. This kind of processor power raises interesting possibilities for what the iPad may be able to do in apps that the iPhone can’t, such as in the area of photo editing. There is already at least one photo editor out for the iPad, PhotoGene, that looks to be very robust.

A lot of commenters on my previous iPad article suggested that instead of an iPad I get a netbook for my travel needs. While there is a price penalty for buying the iPad over a netbook, I see the iPad as a better option for me for several reasons:

Weight: The iPad is half the weight of most netbooks — an important carrying consideration for someone with arthritis in their back.
Compatibility: Since I’m already heavily embedded in the Mac OS ecosystem (I use an iPhone and MacBook with iCal, Contacts and Mobile Me, for instance), all my data will sync natively very easily with another Apple device. I use the iWork suite, so having a device that can use those files is definitely a plus. I can design presentations at home in Keynote and then take them on the road using the iPad. I can take transfer text notes back and forth in Pages.
Speed: The tablet format and quick-boot OS will make it much easier to do quickie tasks (such as making a short note in an application like Evernote) than a netbook. Juggling a netbook for such tasks while standing would be awkward at best, and I could be done and have the iPad put away again before the netbook would probably even be booted up.
Connectivity: For me, the 3G iPad, with its no contract pay-as-you-go connectivity, is the one to have. To have cellular system access with a netbook, I’d have to pay for a connection device like a MiFi or wireless card, which means paying every month for an expensive service whether I really need it that month or not. With the iPad 3G plan, I can have (and pay for) connectivity only when I need it.
Battery Life: Both the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and Andy Ihnatko are on record as saying the iPad can get 11 hours or more of battery life using power saving settings. This far exceeds the average netbook and is just one more reason the iPad is a superior travel device.

So, how do I imagine utilizing the iPad on my next business trip?

First, I have to gear up. I’ll have an iPad with 3G. I’ll install the following apps: Evernote, iWork (Pages, Numbers and Keynote), Things and WordPress (please see disclosure at the bottom). I’ll take the camera connectivity kit and an external keyboard with me, but the keyboard can stay at the hotel during the day which means I save the weight of hauling it.

Some preparation at home will make my life easier on the road. I’ll add to the iPad’s onboard photo library any photos I think I may want to use from my archives while at the event. I can export my Notebooks from Circus Ponies’ Notebook program to view as web sites in Safari if I think I’ll need them. I’ll also prepare in advance blank draft blog posts that are pre-completed with thumbnail photos (for instance, the event logo) and any advertising banners I intend to use. This will save cutting & pasting and photo editing on the road, and will make posting faster in general. All I’ll have to do is write content and use the camera connection kit or my iPhone camera to add pictures to my posts.

Once on the road, I’ll use Evernote and Pages for taking notes, WordPress or Safari for doing my web posting, Things for editorial planning and Keynote for any presentations. Any contact or calendar changes that I make will be synced to Mobile Me for backup. I can store and pull files that I need from Mobile Me or Dropbox.

I am really looking forward to the day that I can leave my laptop at home when I pack my suitcase.

Disclosure: Automattic, maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

In the Market for a Netbook? Watch the OS Developments

Samuel Dean — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:00:08 +0000

Due to their favorable price points, and how very mobile they are, netbooks — small, light portable computers — remain one of the hottest hardware categories. If you’re in the market for one, I posted some shopping tips on them back in early March. Since that post, there have been quite a few developments on the operating system front, which may affect any planned netbook purchases you may have. Here are some of the key issues that you should factor in if you have your eyes on a new netbook.

Having used netbooks for more than a year now, I have found them to be particularly ideal for mobile writing tasks, and I often tote one in favor of a larger, heavier laptop. That said, I still wouldn’t use a netbook as my primary portable computer, because they don’t have fully stocked local resources. They are best thought of as adjunct systems, when ultra-mobility really matters.

Since my March post on how to shop for a netbook, there have been many announcements related to the two primary operating systems that run on netbooks: Windows and Linux. (Apple continues to stay out of the category, perhaps because of its long-standing focus on premium hardware categories.)

On the Windows front, of course, the big news is Windows 7. It is slated to arrive in the fourth quarter of this year, and will be the operating system found on a slew of netbooks shortly after it arrives. Microsoft’s latest offering is also getting many good reviews, including positive comments about its mobile features. There is every sign that Windows 7 will arrive early in the fourth quarter, so if you are looking to buy a netbook, you may want to wait to try it out.

I made the point in my previous post on netbook shopping that it’s best to try one out in a very hands-on way before buying. That’s especially true for a new Windows 7-based netbook. It’s also likely that Microsoft and OEMs will work in tandem to offer Windows 7 netbooks at good price points.

There has also been much hubbub surrounding Linux-based netbooks. While it may not be immediately apparent, both the Intel-backed Moblin operating system and Google’s upcoming Chrome OS are based on Linux. Intel has handed the keys to Moblin over to The Linux Foundation, and it’s being squarely aimed at netbooks.

There’s a good chance that Moblin-based netbooks will arrive by the end of the year. Moblin is getting notice for its very fast boot times and its performance, and because it’s an open-source operating system, it may arrive in ultra-inexpensive netbooks. If you aren’t planning to get a netbook for a few months, it’s worth keeping on your radar.

In the longer term, systems based on Google’s Chrome OS may also disrupt the netbook space. That said, Chrome OS is getting a lot of hype for a platform that hasn’t arrived yet, and it won’t arrive until 2010. It’s squarely aimed at netbooks, but it faces many uphill battles as a new operating system. If you’re in the market for a netbook now or will be soon, I wouldn’t recommend waiting for Chrome OS. That’s especially true because of how immediately useful netbooks are, and how inexpensive they are. If Google’s Chrome OS is a runaway hit in the space immediately upon arrival — and I think that’s unlikely — you can still get a lot of good use out of a system between now and when it’s delivered.

While many people summarize the decision-making process surrounding netbooks as consisting of little more than deciding whether you can do without some local hardware resources, there’s more to it than that. As we move toward the end of this year and next, which operating system is on your new netbook promises to be an important issue to pay attention to.

Are you delaying a netbook purchase for Windows 7, or waiting for Moblin?

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5 Tips for Netbook Buyers

Samuel Dean — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:00:05 +0000

Netbooks have become a hugely popular hardware category, and I’ve been using them for more than a year, including trying many of the new models. Making compromises is part of the design of netbooks, so it’s important to evaluate them in a hands-on way when you go to buy one. In this post, you’ll find five tips for better netbook shopping.

Don’t buy solely online. Buying online can be a great way to get many kinds of systems at the best prices, but I wouldn’t recommend shopping solely online when buying a netbook. They’re designed to make compromises like the ones discussed below, so it’s important to have your hands on the device before you decide that a particular model is right for you.

Keyboard size is critical. Many netbooks are kept small and lightweight by compromising on keyboard size. Especially if you have big hands, a tiny keyboard can be a major annoyance. The Dell Mini 9 netbooks have good-sized keyboards and are reasonably priced, and the Acer Aspire One systems have nearly full-size keyboards. Many of the Asus netbooks have smaller keyboards.

Pointing devices matter. Quite a lot of shipping netbooks use trackpads, which annoy some people. Compounding that, the trackpads on some netbooks are set to behave in a hyperactive way, where you can sometimes barely touch them and your cursor will fly somewhere that you didn’t intend it to go, or the page you’re on will start scrolling unexpectedly. Put in some time playing with a netbook’s pointing device before you buy.

How much battery life? Battery life varies widely among netbooks, but you actually can get some units where the battery will last much longer than notebook batteries do. The new Asus Seashell line claims a whopping 11 hours of battery life. My experience with two previous Asus netbooks, though, is that I get about four hours of battery life if I’m doing tasks that don’t involve video and audio, and about 2.5 hours if I am doing video and audio. Think about the applications you use most when evaluating battery life, read reviews, and remember that you can maximize battery life if you turn the brightness down.

Display size. Netbooks originally came out with tiny 7-inch screens, but the displays have gotten much larger in many cases. However, the displays are typically not very large vertically, so make sure that the display on the netbooks you’re evaluating will suit the tasks you want to perform.

Share your netbook buying tips in the comments.

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4 Essential Utilities for Windows Netbooks

Samuel Dean — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:00:33 +0000

I’ve been using netbooks for over a year now; they’re great for the times when I just want to tote a lightweight machine for performing basic tasks, or even cruise around the house, working in various places. They’re also a very hot product category. If you’re new to netbooks, or thinking of getting one, in this post I’ll round up four utilities for Windows netbooks that will make working with them much easier and more efficient.

RocketDock is an animated application launcher that works very much like the Dock in Mac OS X. It’s specifically designed to run on computers that aren’t speed demons, and sticks to simple animations such as icons that bounce as you hover over them. It’s a very handy way to launch applications, particularly on a netbook’s small screen.

TinyResMeter provides a pop-up summary of the system resources that you have in use. Since many netbooks have limited resources, this can be handy in warning you to shut down processes or applications that are hogging resources. It’s not the prettiest resource monitoring application, but it’s not meant to be. It’s lightweight, and stays focused on essential system processes.

VLC Media Player is an open-source media player application that is much more lightweight than its competitors. I use it all the time, and love it. It supports most popular audio and video formats, and has a very active open-source community that constantly improves it.

USB Thumb Drive. While a USB thumb drive isn’t exactly a software utility, it’s one of the most essential sidekicks you can get for your netbook. They have risen in capacity and fallen in price: you can get a 64GB thumb drive that fits in your pocket for under $100. I highly recommend downloading PortableApps, which delivers a huge collection of useful open-source applications and utilities that you can keep on your thumb drive. Netbooks generally have limited storage space, so you can’t hoard large collections of apps. It’s reassuring to know that whenever you need to carry out a task, it’s highly likely that there will be something in the Portable Apps collection on your thumb drive that will be able to do it.

Share your netbook tips in the comments.

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4 Things to Remember When Netbook Shopping

Samuel Dean — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:00:37 +0000

Netbooks — small, light and inexpensive portable computers — have become very popular in the past year, and come in enough flavors that many web workers may want to consider getting one. I use an Asus Eee PC netbook as a secondary machine for mobile work, when I don’t want to carry a heavier notebook. Netbooks guarantee compromises, though, and there are a few key areas where you should closely study compromises you may have to make, before you buy.

Here are four significant examples.

A Comfortable Keyboard. JKOnTheRun has a good piece up today on the netbooks that readers of the Smarterware blog are using, and why. The majority of them — almost half — use Asus Eee PC systems. Still, if you look at some of the user comments from netbook owners in the post, you’ll see some of the Eee PC users complaining about the small keyboards they have. The keyboards on the Acer Aspire One netbooks, and other models, are larger, and if you have big hands, this may be an important consideration.

Solid Battery Life. Small and light as they are, netbooks are very convenient to carry around for mobile work, such as writing on the go. In the past year, when I’ve needed to write from a remote location such as a conference, I’ve frequently chosen to carry my Asus Eee PC netbook instead of my bulkier ThinkPad X40 sub-notebook. You can really shoot yourself in the foot, though, if you don’t get a netbook with strong battery life. This varies widely, and some of the netbooks have extraordinary battery life. This CNET story from a few months ago, for example, shows Acer Aspire One netbooks (very popular models) getting two hours, while the Asus EeePC 1000 got more than five hours. Look for reviews on models that you are considering.

Wireless Broadband Options. Easy and affordable wireless broadband solutions are available for use with many netbooks, and even if you aren’t going to go this route to begin with, consider your options before you buy. Netbooks are defined by their limited connectivity, and there is such a thing as too limited. Many people just want to hang a netbook off the Wi-Fi network in their homes, but you may end up wanting to use ubiquitous wireless broadband plans if you fall in love with the light weight and convenient size of your netbook. Check your options up front.

Affordable External Storage. Some people shy away from netbooks altogether because they often have very limited local storage, but if this is a sticking point for you, consider good, available workarounds. I carry a USB thumb drive around with 64GB of capacity, and it works great with my Asus Eee PC. I mostly write on it, and the files I want to store and back up aren’t huge, so the thumb drive solves the storage problem for me. These are very cheap right now, too. Alternatively, you can choose from the many free, online storage sites, such as ADrive, which I wrote about here. It gives you 50GB of capacity for free.

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Are Cellphones Really Displacing Laptops?

Imran Ali — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:00:34 +0000

Back in October I wrote about the myth of all-day computing, noting that the need for a 24-hour battery cycle is perhaps diminishing in the face of altering and fragmenting usage patterns – particularly the rise of the netbook and the iPhone.

Indeed, last week ReadWriteWeb and the BBC’s celebrated Ian Forrester noted that the iPhone is Apple’s Netbook, representing almost half of all traffic through wifi networks.

Regardless of hyperbole, there’s mounting evidence that cellphones are indeed displacing laptops. Back in October, the Wall Street Journal published a piece on whether it was Time To Leave The Laptop Behind, analyzing the impact of smartphones on laptop usage.

Some of the more interesting findings from Nick Wingfield’s article included…

Mobile workers rely on their laptops to create PowerPoint presentations and do other heavy-duty computing. But then they leave the laptops in their offices, homes or hotel rooms and take their smart phones out into the world — to client meetings, say, or factory visits.
‘road warriors’ are going even further, ditching their laptops entirely and doing all their mobile work from smart phones.
in a survey of 1,402 technology users, only 3% of smart-phone users said they rely exclusively on a smart phone when they’re on the road. 52% said they could envision using a smart phone in the future as their sole computing device.
12,000 of Verizon’s field technicians have moved over to BlackBerrys….replacing 1’500 laptops and eliminating the need to buy 5-7’000 more in the future.

Though the laptop sales remain undiminished, usage patterns are certainly fragmenting and will only deepen as performance increases and prices decrease. Already, I’m finding myself using Mail, Twitterific and Google as much on my iPhone as my MacBook Pro.

I wonder how many other web workers are seeing their attention dividing increasingly between their smartphone and laptop.

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Is Integrated Wireless Broadband the Best Choice for You?

Kevin C. Tofel — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:23:41 +0000

If you’re not familiar with “netbooks”, you’re missing out on a potentially great little web-working tool. And I do mean little as these are small, fully-functional notebooks that are easy to use on the go. They tend to offer long battery life as well, due to low-voltage processors and small, LED backlit displays.

There’s a new functional trend emerging with these portable productivity tools now that Asus is starting to offer integrated wireless broadband in the product line.

But that begs a question about wireless connectivity: do you go with integrated or opt for a plug-in solution?

The answer is a personal choice of course, but there’s a key factor involved: do you plan to web work on a single device or will you be using several? If you’re going to work mainly using just one device, an integrated solution ought to work just fine. There’s a wireless radio inside the device, similar to a WiFi or Bluetooth card, and you can seamlessly connect to the web anywhere your provider offers coverage. It’s as simple as using WiFi to connect to a hotspot: it just works.

Using more than one device though? Here’s where it gets sketchy because that wireless broadband card in your notebook only offers fast Internet service to that notebook. There are software solutions to share that connection by essentially creating a WiFi hotspot, but that means you have to have the computer with you. At that point you might as well use that one in lieu of any other that doesn’t have wireless broadband, right?

Multiple device owners are better served with a card or dongle that offers the same 3G capability. You can find them available in a number of form factors: PC Card, ExpressCard and USB.

I opted for this small USB device shown which works with every one of my PCs and Macs. This allows me to be connected to the Internet wherever I am and with whatever device I have with me.

Remember, these wireless 3G plans can set you back around $60 a month: why limit the plan to just a single device if you have many that can use it?

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