Apple made it’s name with a truly visionary OS and the idea of a computer as something more then simply a machine.  It recaptured the public imagination after it’s near failing with the iMac and the letter “i” became one of the most recognized symbols of technology.  From the humble iMacs came the real powerhouse of Apple’s resurgents into the main stream market place, the iPod and iTunes and the beginnings of Apples closed system.  From there the iPhone took the world by storm and now the new iPad has surfaced to further push the Apple image.  However some things about Apple don’t make sense and the internet has been buzzing about all of it.  After sifting through more material then I care to remember I’ve tried to make sense of the iPad and it’s role in the modern landscape of computing devices as well as the shift, and seemingly contradictory directions of Apple.

The release of the new Apple tablet device (the iPad) has created quite a stir in the comments section of a number of tech article sites.  This, of course, follows the larger stir of Apple’s stand against Flash and the even older debate, that’s died down but is far from vanishing, about Apple’s closed nature through the use of the iTunes App store.  Take the PC World article with the inflammatory title “Apple iPad Will Leave HP Slate in the Dust” as just one example.  In reading over countless comments I’ve tried to distill what is the real reasoning behind the, often less then cordial, debate between those who see the iPad as an innovative device and those who view it as just a larger version of Apple’s already successful iPod Touch.

Taking the example article from PC World above as a sampling of what you can expect in the comments sections of articles about the iPad I’ve discovered that both sides are attempting to compare (pardon the metaphor that is often over used in these types of discussions as well as the pun that follows) apples to oranges.  The iPad, simply, is a larger version of the iPod Touch.  The HP Slate and other similar devices (Asus Eee Top, Gateway One, MSI Wind Top, etc) are much closer to Netbooks with touch screen capability.  The core difference is in the operating system.  The iPad is little different then an iPod Touch or iPhone OS, while the other devices use PC OS, Windows or Linux and thus are capable of performing the same tasks as a regular PC desktop or notebook.  For this reason the two devices simply can’t be directly compared.  Nor should they be.

The iPad, like the iPod Touch, performs a very limited set of tasks.  All Apple vs PC rhetoric aside Apple’s devices are limited in what they can do despite the iTunes app store.  My personal experience with the iPod Touch and iPhone (I don’t own either but have family members who own both and I have used both devices) showed that the users of these devices rarely required any of the apps provided through the app store.  Rather the majority of their use was focused on accessing the web, texting and MMS.  The various, highly specialized, apps on iTunes seemed to be more novelty acts with little value other then what they garnered in social standing or as a demonstration of the device to a friend or colleague.  The “i” touch devices are nothing more then highly specialized web access panels.  For that reason content for the devices isn’t an issue as the web access provides a limitless amount.

While I don’t own any Apple touch devices I do own a netbook.  The iPad has gotten allot of press as a netbook killer as any google search for “ipad netbook killer” will readily show.  However it is precisely the distinction I drew above that foils the killer argument.  The Apple devices simply don’t do enough to remove the need for something more substantial.  Be it a netbook or notebook you’ll want to have something else on hand that can run a productivity application or two, skype and other web cam activities, as well as Flash on the web all the while supporting connectivity to a number of other devices.

The iPad, while interesting, and very appealing to anybody who likes Apple products, wishes their iPod Touch was larger or simply is looking for something to surf the web with, has a place.  However it is not the holy grail of the all in one mobile device.  If anything I believe it’s a step backwards from the iPhone.

Yet despite the iPad sitting in a class of it’s own, save maybe with the iPod Touch, there is always the desire to compare it to something else.  And while there may appear to be devices that are like it, in reality the devices have more separation than similarity.  It is this desire for meaningful comparison, which cannot be achieved at the present launch of the iPad, that reveals the underling issues between supporters of the Apple brand and their antagonists.

To the antagonist the iPad offers a fresh target with which to aim their displeasure of Apple policy at.  For it is not the iPad that is the problem its it’s mother, Apple Inc.  The real displeasure, that bleeds into meaningless arguments of false device comparisons, is over Apple’s policy of a closed system.  In the now famous Apple TV ad of 1984 that introduced the Apple Macintosh computer:

The rest of the computing industry, dominated by IBM and Microsoft DOS, was an evil, overbearing corporation that controlled what you could do with your computer.  As has been pointed out countless times Apple’s iTunes and it’s system of closed application development for it’s mobile devices rings with the irony of the 1984 TV spot.  The fact that Apple has sought to become the Goliath when once it touted the virtues of being the David rubs allot of people the wrong way.

In defense of the Apple censored app store Apple has claimed it as a security measure.  However this argument doesn’t hold water.  Rather Apple’s control over what gets on an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad allows Apple to profit from every application for their devices as well as having direct control over what is developed.  If they don’t like it, if it competes with an app of their own making or for any other reason Apple can pull the app off the store.  Yet this focus on controlling content through applications on it’s devices doesn’t jive with it’s stance on Flash.

Apple has taken a stand against Adobe Flash by not supporting it on any of it’s mobile devices.  The latest in a slew of attacks on Flash, starting with how it is a resource hog and security risk, has culminated in the old Linux/Unix mantra of an open internet.  Flash keeps to much of the web content depended and beholden to one company.  Yet the real reason is competition.  If developers could build Flash applications that would cut into the app store’s sales.  Any other rhetoric is simply diversionary.  Apple and Jobs will stand firm against Flash indefinitely in order to protect the lucrative nature of the iTunes app store.

Its obvious that the days of grass roots apple computing are long dead.  Without question Apple has become a mover and a shaker in the corporate cabal of the free market.  However it’s products, though tied to this corporate culture of control and limited competition, should not be judged simply on those merits.  Let them stand for what they are.  Technology, developed to do something that either makes our daily lives easier or entertains us.  If it’s a debate about corporate policy, an open internet or open computing that you want to have, then the devices have nothing to do with.  Keep the technology reviews to the technology or you risk politicizing the hardware, which in an of it’s self has no politics.

So I just started using Google’s new browser “Chrome” on my MSI netbook.  Just for kicks I went through the process of setting Microsoft’s “Bing” as my search engine.  I figured a little role reversal would be good for both of them.  While not as simple as sifting through a list of search engine bar add-ons as Mozilla’s Fire Fox web listings provide, a quick search is all you need to find the simple instructions you need to set it up.

Now I’m a FF user.  I’ve been one since the earliest release and I’m sure anybody out there who is a diehard FF user can tell you a large part of it is the extensive library of great plugins, add-ons and themes.  Google’s Chrome doesn’t have any of this fleshed out yet, granted it’s still in beta.  While there are themes and plug-ins out there (search-able even on Bing) they are all unofficial, unorganized and generally unappealing.  So for right now FF has a solid place on my main machines as the “default” browser.  On the netbook the position isn’t so certain.

Chrome is definitely better suited to dealing with the limiting factors involved with Netbooks.  The resolution on my MSI Wind is 1024×600, while the width is enough for nearly every web application the height can require a significant amount of finger work when reading an article or review.  To accommodate this limitation I have my Application Bar in Windows XP on auto hide granting me a few extra lines of text.  With FF and no tabs open I have four bars at the top, one of which (the standard MS Windows window bar is completely useless until I want to minimize or close), however with chrome it’s only three.  This comes out roughly to a 23px gain for Chrome.  When I open a new tab that number grows to five in FireFox but stays at three in Chrome and the pixel gain grows to roughly 50.  In addition to two more top bars with tabs open firefox also has a permanent bar on the bottom of the window.  This is quite handy for some plugins, particularly web development and debugging plugins, on the Netbook personal browsing environment this takes away an additional 23px.  This brings our total vertical screen space gain to roughly 72px giving you an inch or more of extra vertical viewing in most browsing situations.  Chrome does have a lower bar when a page requires you to scroll horizontally or when you are downloading files (no extra pop-up window) but the latter can be hidden.  For the Netbook screen environment Google’s Chrome has a significant advantage.

Another item that I find heavily effects the Netbook web experience is memory and resources.  How much space and power the browser is using.  With memory (RAM) FF is eating up 67mb with only my blog open, Chrome takes up a much more modest 23mb.  Now I do have two add-ons with FireFox, most notably and another big Netbook browsing factor is a flash blocker, the other is from AVG (which Chrome “seemingly” doesn’t require).  Here I’m a little conflicted.  Chrome is still in beta and it would be expected that add blockers and flash blockers would become common place soon and definitely after the “beta comes off”.  However the advantage of a flash blocker become obvious when you visit a site that uses allot of flash advertising in the vertical column spaces such as Tom’s Hardware Guide or Gamespot.  Because Flash is a processor intensive media, and Netbooks aren’t known for their processors, hitting one of these adds can slow your scroll to a painful crawl.  Having more available RAM doesn’t alleviate this.

SIDE NOTE: Nvidia’s new Ion platform for Netbooks, incorporating (relative to the platform) a robust gpu, and Adobe working with Nvidia to move towards Flash taking advantage of available GPU power may remove this concern, as may faster more powerful CPUs for Netbooks.  Presently it still remains a concern.

Firefox also has another thing going for it, customization.  You can pull in a number of different buttons (history, bookmarks, dividers, etc) onto your main url bar and move them around however you wish.  You can add a number of different search engines to your search bar and select them quickly.  You also get a divider in your bookmarks to better organize them.  These are all small cosmetic things but they add up to quite a bit of flexibility in personalizing the browser to your own way of using it.

All that said, for now at least I’m actually going with Google’s Chrome (beta) browser and the kicker was the extra inch vertical page space.  While the lack of a flash blocker is a significant annoyance, having the 4-6 extra lines of text, image, interface, whatever, is even harder to give up.

When I first started this blog I made a commitment to myself to make at least one post a day. For those few who follow Kuh-nek-shuhn I’ve clearly let that slip. However it’s not for lack of commitment. Rather things have taken off which is both a good and a bad thing. We all want to move forward and have continued success in our lives. However with that forward movement and increased success comes putting aside some things that we thought we’d never have to reduce or give up.

Now now, I’m not ending Kuh-nek-shuhn, but rather my ability to maintain it as a regular every day thing as diminished. It’s interesting how as we reach closer to our goals we have to leave some things behind. Never-the-less I’ve embarked on another addition to Kuh-nek-shuhn. Through-out the years I’ve written a few articles on things that have sparked my interest and I plan to begin introducing them to the online world. For those few how follow this blog please look forward to the addition of an “articles and essays” section containing completed works on a wide variety of topics.

Long live the weblog.

Loneliness is a major bitch. Remember your first time in a new place. That feeling. Where your on your own again and alone in the world. Sure there is family and friends elsewhere but what’s the point their miles away. I’ve always been good at being alone. Never the less those first few days or weeks in a new place, or even a place you’ve been before but this time your not near by your connections, are always a bitch.

I’ve never found that balance between going crazy in the local scene to meet people and being a complete hermit. I’m usually one extreme which usually leads me back to the same spot. Drinking alone and surfing the internet. Now it’s occasionally blogging.

It’s amazing how even in a city full of people you can feel alone in the world. Loneliness, defiantly one of the top five causes for excessive drinking and stupid decision making. I’m trying to keep both to a minimum. I think one of the saving graces of loneliness is that we do know there are other people out there, maybe not just like us, or even people who would want to have anything to do with us. But rather, lonely people. We’ve all been lonely and in that we share something in common which brings us a little, read micro teeny tiny bit closer together. But sometimes that’s all you need to lift your spirits.

Computer building is a little hobby of mine. If you’ve ever shopped for a PC with all the numbers, acronyms and assorted measurements it can make your head spin. However, with a little grit you can easily research all these seemingly obscure items and understand them quite quickly. Furthermore you’ll come to realize that some numbers you thought where important aren’t that significant and other acronyms you never paid any attention to can make or break your machine. I’ve been building my own PCs and PCs for others since 2002 when I put together my first sweet AMD Athlon system. Oh how times have changed.

It’s now time to put together another box. Money is usually the motivator for when and if I can build a new machine. However this time money isn’t a problem. Rather it’s the rapid pace of technology. I generally operate three computers at once. One for the real heavy stuff, video, 3d and gaming; another for standard work mode stuff, web development, flash and graphics, and a third for downloading, watching movies and listening to music. I cycle them down, as one machine gets replaced it takes the job of the one beneath it and so on. I usually cannibalize my lesser machines into a fourth machine that does little but hook up to the network and store backups.

Normally I like to get in near the beginning of a new technology release just after the prices go down. This assures that I’ll get my money’s worth but also that I’ll have a machine that will last for years and be upgradeable. My current machine is a Core2Duo 6400 and has been running for three years now. I was able to swap out the motherboard on the cheap to get more RAM capacity and higher speeds. While I have been eying the new Intel i7 chips and this entirely new platform the prices right now are so astronomical and the technology so new that I just can’t justify going that road. Instead I’m about to do something I’ve never done before. Buy old tech for bare bottom prices.

My choice is the AMD (I know wtf right) Phenom 9850 Black. If you know anything about the CPU wars then you know that AMD is light years behind Intel. So why would I pick up a AMD quad core chip when I could pick up and Intel? My reasoning is that I’m building a transition machine. Something to give me more horse power over my current C2D system but without shelling out the doe for the new, untested, unimproved shit (i7). I could go the Intel road and pick up a 9450 or 9550. However the surrounding costs of the motherboard, ram and the CPU it’s self push me to close to the i7 route. I could back down and buy old Intel tech like the 6600 to save the cash but the savings don’t translate into performance over an AMD based system.

To clarify if I went with an Intel 6600 based CPU system I’d spend about $50 more then an AMD Phenom 9850 Black CPU based system and I’m actually gaining performance with the AMD system. How you say? Well the nice thing about these “Black” chips is that they come unlocked, meaning you can over clock them easily. I’ll be able to push the Phenom, which is shipped at 2.5ghz (0.1ghz higher then the Intel 6600), up to around 2.8ghz with my cooling solution before it becomes unstable. This gives me a performance edge over the Intel 6600 all the while saving me money.

Now I suspect that the i7 chips from Intel will have a second release shortly and (hopefully) the associated costs of a tri-channel ram motherboard will come down in price along with the i7 chips themselves. This will set up my current Intel 6400 system as a great movie watching and download bot and my new AMD system as a great machine for everyday working tasks, all the while I’ll be enjoying the brain-splitting performance of a new, refined, i7 system for video and 3d… and gaming of course.

PCs are all about what you use them for. And stepping down systems to do particular tasks is a great option for the home builder like myself. With so much emphasis on energy efficiency it’s getting even more viable to run a lot of machines. Render farm anyone?

I’m a sucker for Irony. First we have a fellow named Madoff (pronounced “made off”) stealing money through and investment scam. Now we have an anti gay preacher, Rick Warren who’s slated to speak at President Elect Barack Obama’s inauguration, who belongs to the Saddleback church! Priceless.

You simply can’t make this stuff up. I know most of you must think it’s childish; but clearly if there is a higher power or some kind of intelligent design behind it all, whatever it is sure has a sense of humor.