The Magic of Reality is a science book authored by Richard Dawkins that has recently been released in both print and PDF editions. Dr.(?) Dawkins, if you don’t already know, is a controversial atheist. He is controversial in that in some circles he is regarded as a brilliant scientist and in others a “nut case” to the extent of his being denied access to auditoriums in which he was scheduled to speak! The book, either in print or PDF format is reported to be  targeted at young adults. Having obtained a copy in PDF format I decided that I would “start” to read his book on my iPad. I say “start” because if the book turned out to be below my level of intelligence as an adult then I would not complete it. As it turned out I found that the book covers a variety of science topics as might be discussed in a High School class. Science has come a long way in the fifty years since I attended and I actually read the entire book. As a possible attraction to younger readers it is lavishly enriched  with cartoon-like like illustrations. As an adult I found them quite enjoyable.

There is a series of articles in Wikipedia in which science is broken into five categories as follows:

• Superstition
• Pseudoscience (looks like science but isn’t)
• Fringe Science (treated with scientific method)
• Protoscience
• (Mainstream) Science (Systematized as as scientific definition)

An early chapter of Dr. Dawkins book goes into considerable detail on the science of evolution. This is not at ll surprising as Dawkins describes himself as an “evolutionary biologist”. He talks about evolution as if it were mainstream science. As such,  it is incomplete in that it fails to include the spiritual evolution that accompanies biological evolution. It should be pointed out, especially to youthful readers, that the Darwinian model of evolution is still regarded by many as fringe science. Texts on science do well in explaining how thins work in in the world but fail to include guidance on how we should react to them as spiritual beings. Authors such as Deepak Chopra and Casroline Myss attempt to do this, although at best their work can only qualify as fringe science. I suspect that Dr. Dawkins would classify spiritual matters as myrh and superstition, but in fact they are real and cannot be simply ignored.

In following chapters the book discusses less controversial topics such as the nature of space and time, cosmology and the methods of their measurement. In this respect the book is very similar to the book by Stephen Hawkings entitled The Grand Design. Unlike Dr. Dawkins, Dr, Hawkings only talks about mainstream science topics and wisely avoids controversial ones. This volume is also available in PDF format. It may well be a preferable reading choice to science minded individuals not wishing to get into the arguments between scientists and spiritualists.

The final chapter of the book discusses (and dismisses) “Miracles”. Once again the reader is presented with an unbalanced viewpoint. Dawkins specifically cites the Bible story of “the Jewish preacher called Jesus”  turning water into wine as a myth not to be accepted as truth. There is no recognition that Bible stories can be accepted metaphorically if not literally, again ignoring the spiritual aspect of human beings.

In summary the book does accomplish its goal of showing how scientific truths have replaced superstition and myths over time as our level of technology has advanced. It fails to point out that science itself is evolving. Our “scientific” concept of what reality it is today is quite different from what it was a century ago and a century from now it will most certainly be different from what it is today. Perhaps some of the “fringe” spiritual science will enter the mainstream. Stephen Hawkings tells us that there is no complete scientific “theory of everything”  and even some modern theories are in conflict with one another.That said, The Magic of Reality can only be regarded as an incomplete and unbalanced effort.

I have read reviews of the iPad versions of Apple’s Pages, Numbers and Keynote in which the reviewer describes the apps as “gorgeous”. Sadly, at least in the case of Numbers, beauty is only skin deep. I can only wonder if these critics ever actually try to use apps for practical work. If they did, they would soon discover that Numbers is so buggy that it is surprising that Apple released this app as something other than a beta version.

My first and only project before abandoning the app was a simple record of expenses. The spreadsheet had only three columns…. a column for the DATE, another for the AMOUNT and the third for COMMENT. I envisioned using the tabs to organize the data by months. There was no calculation but had the project progressed I may have summed the amounts, but it never got that far.

The problems began with formatting the DATE. I wanted to see something like 05 Jan or Jan 05. I did not want the year and certainly not the time. I was able to accomplish this for individual cells but attempts to format a column failed. Numbers kept insisting on inserting the year and time. After several attempts I finally got rid of the time but the year would not go away. I could have lived with that bug until Numbers started to display an incorrect date. I would enter Sept. 16, Numbers would display Sept, 11. Deleting and re-entering sometimes helped and sometimes did not. And, by the way, deleting the contents of cell was a tricky operation. A double tap on the cell sometimes brought up a delete option and sometimes did not. Apparently, tapping is somewhat an art in this app.

At this point it was clear that Numbers was too buggy for actual use. Nevertheless, I went on to setup the monthly tabs. I tapped the “+” tab.A blank sheet appeared. I mean really blank without grid lines or anything. Huh??? I soon found that only by copying and pasting from my first sheet could I get a new sheet with column headings and grid lines. This may or not be a bug but it is certainly non-intuitive and certainly a nuisance, This was my point of abandonment  Perhaps I’ll try it again one day when the bugs are fixed, After all, it is gorgeous.

I went on to set this project up in Quickoffice in about 15 minutes. Using an app that offers compatibility with Microsoft Office formats does have some advantages that I will discuss in a future post.

The AirStash is a handy iDevice accessory that provides external storage via standard SD memory cards of up to 32GB. iDevices have limited memory and lack the capability of expanding it with USB flash memory sticks. Full length movies, typically 700MB or greater, can quickly consume the capacity of an iPhone or iPad. External storage is very desirable. Cloud storage is available for a fee but access to it depends upon the availability of an Internet connection. The AirStash provides similar capability and does not require an Internet connection. Out of the box, the AirsStash will work as advertised  Store an iOS compatible file in it and it can be viewed or played with the free AirStash app. This leaves a lot to be desired. First, only files native to iOS can be handled and second, viewing or playing is limited to the features built into the iDevice. What do you do if, like me, most of your videos are in .avi (XVID) format?

The first problem (incompatible format) can be solved by transcoding the video to a compatible (mp4) one. Using the free cross-platform Handbrake app, I transcoded a 700MB .avi file in about 40 minutes. While it did play well after moving it to the AirStash, the procedure was time consuming and would be quite a nuisance to perform on every .avi. It also did not solve the second problem of having only the built-in player with limited features to watch videos. Here is a much better solution.

There are at least two, and probably more, iOS video apps that will play streamed media. The two that I am familiar with are the OPlayer and the BUZZ Player. In this this tutorial I will reference the BUZZ Player although the instructions are similar for any player that supports streaming media.

Preparation: Install BUZZ Player in your iDevice. With it’s USB plug, insert the AirStash into your desktop computer. Open the AirStash icon on your monitor and copy/move the desired .avi file(s) into it. The file will upload into the AirStash. Repeat for other files as you wish. Safely eject and unmount the AirStash from the desktop computer.

Step One: Start the AirStash by pressing its button until the green light blinks.

Step Two: Go to Settings on your iDevice,select Network and switch to AirStash.

Step Three: On your iDevice, launch a browser (Safari will do) and browse to http://airstash.net/files. A list of files on the AirStash will display.

Step Four: Select your .avi file, longpress on it until the menu displays.

Step Five: Tap COPY to place the URL on the internal clipboard.

Step Six: Quit Safari and launch BUZZ Player.

Step Seven: At the bottom of the screen tap the “+” button to bring up the URL dialog.

Step Eight: Longpress in the URL box until “Paste” is displayed.

Step Nine: Tap “Paste” and enjoy your movie!

…”Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.”… John 8:6

When the iPad was introduced in April 2010, Steve Jobs remarked that a stylus would not be needed. The capacitative touchscreen is designed to be sensitive to the electromagnetic properties of the human body and present in the fingers. No stylus was shipped with the iPad then or now. There is no Apple branded stylus. Despite this, styli are available in almost any retail electronics store and are advertised for use on iPhones, iPads, and competing devices with touchsrceens. So do you or don’t you need a stylus? Technically, you do not, but as with many things in life, once you have one it is doubtful that you’ll give it up.

The utiility of a stylus becomes apparrent when you attempt any kind of drawing or writing. I don’t draw very much much but I do take a considerable amount of notes. In the “early” days of the iPad notetaking was accomplished by using the built-in virtual keyboard. It works well but it is a keyboard. A “hunt and peck” typist like myself can work much faster writing on the screen with  a stylus, sloppy as one’s handwriting might be. Several excellent note taking apps are available including Notes Plus, Noteshelf, and Note Taker HD. The developers of these apps have done some remarkable engineering actually making it more pleasurable to write on the screen than on actual paper!

As I said, the touchscreen relies on properties of the human body to work. A gloved hand will not work. Neither will a simple blunt instrument like a chopstick. Do a little searching on YouTube and you will find instructions on how to construct a makeshift stylus from a blunt insrument, some aluminum foil and some scotch tape. It works by extending the body’s electrical properties through the foil. While it does work do you really want to rub on your your screen with a foil tipped makeshift device? I also know how to fold piece of paper into a clever wallet that will hold a few bills and credit cards. I might give one of these to a waitress with a tip inside but I’m certainly not going to replace my leather wallet with it. Commercial styli mimic the body’s electrical properties and have soft tips not unlike fingers. They can’t scratch a screen and they can be used with a gloved hand.

Prices for styli vary greatly. I have two, a modestly priced ($13) Targus model and a higher priced ($30) Wacom “Bamboo” model. The Wacom stylus is a bit longer, a little heavier, and has a smaller tip than the Targus model. The smaller tip offers a little more precision while drawing and might be preferable for people who do this type of work. For simple notetaking either one works well. I have seen advertisments for other, more expensive models. They undoubtedly have their merits, but for a first purchase I would recommend something cheaper.

After buying your iPad, the first accessory you should purchase is a carrying case, the second should be a stylus.

Ten years ago we had the choice between either a desktop model or a laptop compiter. Three years ago netbooks were added. Retail electronic stores had numerous netbooks to choose from. In 2010 Apple introduced the iPad, a tablet computer, inspired by it’s popular smartphone,  the iPhone. The iPad was huge success and now, with no surprise, other manufacturers are offering competing devices. The stores are now flooded with tablets instead of netbooks.

Although the iPad is currently the front runner due to the astounding number of available apps, all tablets have many things in common.. touch screens, lightweight, ultra-portable and unfortunately limited storage capacity. While desktops and laptops have hard drives of at least 320 GB, tablets are offered in 16, 32 and 64 GB models. This is sufficient for quite a few software “apps” and their related data but when you start adding videos, full length movies, photo albums and etc. the space gets gobbled up.

Most tablet owners will want to store  files and media on some sort of external device. Storage on an external device not only saves space on the tablet but (if networked) will  provide a location through which the owner can share files with others  Apple iPads do not have USB ports. However, many iOS apps do provide connectivity to remote  servers, Depending on your needs you can use several types of remote external storage.

Cloud storage gives you the ability to share files on a remote server accessible to anyone with proper credentials (password). For several years Dropbox has been avaiable and is extremely popular. For “small” users, Dropbox provides 2GB of free storage. Users who need more will have to pay a fee, but it is reasonable. That is, it is reasonable only if you truly need to share files remotely with others, via an Internet connection. For sharing via a local network, or just taking your files with you when you are away from home, other solutions may be more practicle.

You can share files with others on your local network, including your own tablet computer by installing a local file server on your desktop machine. The easiest way to do this is to enable a WebDAV server. If you are not familiar with WebDAV, it is a replacement for old fashioned FTP but is much simpler to use offering a “drag and drop” interface and accessible via a web browser. WebDAV is built into both Mac OS X and Windows 7. Ubuntu users will need to install “apache2″  if it’s not already there. In all cases a few steps must be taken to enable it. I am providing three “howto” links that were good as of this post. Otherwise put the keywords “WebDAV’, “setup” and your OS name into your favorite search engine.

• Windows 7 users look. here. Windows Vista/98 users go here first.
• Mac OS X users look here.
• Ubuntu (or other Linux) users look here.

Users of Apple’s iWork apps (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) on the iPad take note! iWork apps will, of course, connect to Apple’s own iCloud service that is now in beta and will be available to the public soon. iCloud will offer 5GB of free storage and will be a serious competitor to Dropbox, at least for small users. At this time iWork apps will connect to a WebDAV server.  With or without iCloud there is an an incentive to enable a WebDAV server on your local computer.

Recently appearing in the maeketplace are some gadgets that also provide portable WiFi storage, They are expensive (as compared to a USB stick) but can easily pay for themselves if you are now paying for cloud storage, The Kingston Wi-Drive and the AirStash devices are available now. The Hitachi G-Connect drive will be avalable soon. Personally, I like the concept of the AirStash drive. It costs $99 and uses standard SD memory cards (not included) for storage. SD cards are small and easy to carry. They currently retail for less than $3/GB. I have a couple of 8GB cards on hand and I have ordered the AirStash device. Upon arrival, I will share the device with my wife and give her an SD card. In a future post I will review the product.

Which solution is right for you?

I am starting to see ads for the forthcoming Microsoft tablet that will run a version of Windows 7.  Of course this is no surprise to anyone. What does surprise me is the price! It will sell, at least initially, for a measly $1099 , and that price even includes a stylus! What a deal! I can see the lines forming now.

All kidding aside how in the world can Microsoft justify this? Yes, there are some folks who insist on using Windows but is this niche large enough to support the product? Does Microsoft need to charge that much to recoup their development and production costs?

The Wi-Fi Motorola XOOM will launch next week with a price tag of $599 (32GB). Although a bit heavier then the iPad 2, it offers Google’s Android OS and a huge selection of apps from the Android AppStore. It will be a strong competitor to Apple. Hewlett-Packard has projected June to include the launch of their WebOS tablet, I don’t know what the price of that device will be bur you can bet that the Motorola team will be closely watching XOOM and Microsoft.

Another concern I have about a Windows tablet is Windows malware. A Windows desktop user is just about forced to simultaneously run antivirus and antispyware products. These consume processor power. Tablet computers have less processor power than their desktop counterparts by design. What will a user do when the tablet’s OS is trashed? Will there be a way to “flash” a clean OS image to the device? Even at a more reasonable price these would be questions that I would want answers to before I made an investment. Yes, I have some gripes about iTunes and my iPad 1,  but in the unlikely event that I trash its OS, iTunes will restore it.

Historically, Apple products are innovative and generally priced higher than competitive products that followed. The iPad was an exception being priced competitively with laptops and netbooks. Whether this was intentional or unintentional it did set a price point that competition would have to meet. At $1099 the Microsoft tablet will fail. Intelligent buyers will quickly recognize a lack of value.

On Friday, March 11, Apple launched the iPad 2. Two days before, in preparation for the event, iOS 4.3, and iTunes 10.2 were released. The launch of the new iPad was heavily hyped in the press and, amongst other goodies, a video was widely distributed showing a new multi-finger gesture that would replace “home” button pushing to bring up the multi-tasking screen. Sadly, the feature was not implemented in the actual release. The only new feature to surface was Home Sharing in iTunes. This feature adds some “server” functionality to iTunes. The iTunes library can now be shared among users of the same local network. While new to iTunes, and undoubtedly liked by iTunes fans, the same capability was already available in several iPad apps, for example, Air Video. Most current iPad owners would miss little if they passed up the upgrade except….

Hackers quickly discovered that the missing multi-tasking gestures could be enabled by Macintosh users. Many “how to’s” quickly appeared on the Internet. For your convenience, here is one of many links. I have enabled the gestures on my iPad and while I highly recommend the procedure I will point out some caveats. First, and obviously, only Mac owners running the latest OS version (Snow Leopard) can implement it. Second, the procedure requires the installation of the Mac XCode package. This package is over 4GB in size. It took me several hours to download. Finally, after installation, running xcode will not be obvious to a Mac newbie. It does not appear in the Applications folder. There are several ways to bring it up, the easiest being to type “xcode” into the “spotlight” box in the upper right corner of the screen. Another is to go to the /Developer/Applications folder and double-click on the xcode icon. As of this post I have not seen any comments from Apple.

There are times when a simple “To Do” list can be extremely useful. Last year I moved into a new home. Aside from numerous address changes, there were several remodeling projects, each involving a series of tasks that needed to be accomplished. While I could have made a pencil and paper checklist, I knew that my messy work station would quickly eat it and I also knew that a little searching would reveal an app for my iPad or my desktop. Ideally, I would find one for both that would sync between the two. I was pleasantly surprised to find two such apps.

The first I that I found is Things. Originally this was (and still is) a Mac application. The interface is very simple and elegant. The user names a project and lists all the tasks associated with the project. Activities are described, due dates are assigned and high priority tasks are identified. Mac users can download and tryout Things for 15 days before they need to register it. If you like it, you can also download the companion app for your iPhone or iPad. There is little to criticize about this app except for its price. The desktop edition costs $49.99. The companion iPhone/iPad apps cost $10/$20 respectively. At these prices I would reconsider pencil and paper.

The second that I found is Wunderlist. In the above description of Things, if you replace the word “project” with the word “list”, you will have an accurate description of Wunderlist.  At their website the devlopers have provded links to both Mac and Windows desktop apps, companion iPhon/iPad apps, promise an Android app and an app tat wlll work via a web browser. Surprisingly, the price of all this functionality is FREE! For Windows users this is a no-brainer. For Mac users it’s almost a no-brainer unless you have very deep pockets. Try them both, as I have, and if you disagree please post a comment!

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A few days ago I visited my local Books_A-Million bookstore. On the way in I walked by the Joe Muggs Cafè that shared the brick and mortar storefront. Upon entering the first display I encountered featured the Nook and various Nook accessories. This display had been there since the 2010 holiday season. Now, as everyone knows, the Nook is branded by Barnes and Noble. Turning it on will bring the user to a Barnes and Noble web site where books can be purchased from that bookseller. Books-A-Million does have its own website. What Books-A-Million does not have is a branded device, so it is not difficult to imagine how this partnership came to be!

Continuing down the center aisle of the store, I next passed attractive displays of toys, games and puzzles. I thought about the town I lived in a year ago. It had two bookstores, a Barnes and Noble on the north side and a Books-A-Million of the south side. Like its competitor, the Barnes and Noble also featured a coffee shop and sold many items other than books and magazines. In early 2010, Barnes and Noble closed that store. While there are many reasons for closing a retail store, it is most likely that the store was not profitable. The digital revolution is quickly overtaking the publishing industry. The costs of paper, ink. printing presses, distribution, the physical store and all the associated labor are driving the price of printed material beyond what the consumers are willing to pay. The booksellers are not providing coffee and toys as a matter of convenience. They are necessary to keep the stores in business.

My final stop in the store was at the magazine section in the rear. There I found a few new magazines describing apps for portable devices. I was tempted to buy one until I noticed the $18 cover price (before tax). Instead, I took a few notes on apps I might like to follow up on. Later that day I visited the App Store on my iPad and actually did purchase one of the apps that I had noted. Not a good experience for Books-A-Million or the magazine publisher, but I suspect it’s typical of many shoppers. The next time I visit I’ll buy a coffee.

As I mentioned, Books-A-Million does have a website to sell books digitally. There are two apps in the Apple store that will bring you to it. One is the BAM Reader, the other is the Bluefire Reader. The BAM Reader is “powered by” Bluefire. I installed both of them and found that they appear identical. In addition to accessing BAM, the Bluefire app is designed to access public libraries that have installed appropriate servers. Both apps support a form of DRM copy protection developed by Adobe Systems. My local library does not (yet) offer this service. Libraries in other nearby Florida counties do, and it will not surprise me if my local library does offer it in the near future. The Bluefire app also features a built-in server. It is fairly simple to download PDFs and ePub books (not DRM’d) from your Mac, PC or Linux desktop computer. The wireless transfer operation is not described in the built in docs but instructions are available at the website www.bluefirereader.com. If you don’t mind being limited to a single pane display, the apps function quite well as ePub readers and include a few extra reading features. The 50MB PDF that I tried to import crashed Bluefire and necessitated a re-install. As a PDF reader, I cannot recommend it. There are numerous other PDF apps in the App store. In a future post I may review a few of these.

All of this may change this summer in light of Apple’s recent announcement of pricing policies for apps with subscription content and apps that link to other vending sites. Publishers will have to pay Apple 30% of their revenue, and all “in-app” sales must be routed through Apple. The decision for a publisher to stay or leave is not at all dissimilar to B&N’s decision to close brick and mortar stores. The app either will or will not be profitable. Other blogs cite Hulu+, Netflix and Kindle as possible app casualties and I suppose that the Bluefire apps can be casualties as well. On the other hand, the Bluefire apps are unique (at this time) in supporting DRM protection with access to public libraries. I suspect that the Bluefire app will remain but the BAM link may disappear.

If publishers do pull their apps from Apple. Apple may have “shot itself in the foot”. As pointed out in my last post many competitors will soon appear in the tablet market and your choice of a tablet will, in part, depend upon the available apps.

I would have liked to entitled this post R.I.P. iTunes but I really do love my iPad and intend to keep it for awhile despite the horde of competing Linux based tablet devices that will soon be available. Credit for inventing the defining product must go to Apple, as it historically has before. I bought the iPad (and before that the iPod Touch) knowing full well that it would be tethered to iTunes for its lifetime. After nearly a year, I do not regret those purchases but I truly look forward to the Linux based tablet devices and the freedom afforded by not being tethered to a clumsy non-intuitive piece of desktop software.

Several manufacturers have announced tablets that will run on Google’s Android OS. Hewlett Packard will soon release a tablet featuring Palm’s WebOS. If you are not already aware, both of these operating systems are Linux based. It would not surprise me to see others and, of course, Microsoft could come out with some tablet running a version of Windows. If not, Microsoft will at least file complaints about violations of their “intellectual property”. It appears that 2011 will at last be the “year of Linux”, although not as a desktop distro as the Linux advocates have imagined. Does it matter? Many enthusiasts believe that tablets will replace desktops and laptops. Some even envision schools passing out tablets instead of textbooks.

The difficulty with Apple’s iOS is Apple’s unwillingness to open the devices’ file systems. Apple tightly controls what goes into and what comes out of the Apple products. Firmware upgrades can only be done via iTunes. Data input for many apps is done with iTunes. It’s usually not difficult but the user is required to have iTunes on his/her PC. Linux users are challenged as there is no Linux version of iTunes. Technically advanced users will “jailbreak” their devices to overcome some of these restrictive Apple policies. Jailbraking an Apple device will install the Cydia app. Cydia is sort of a rogue app store allowing the installation of apps not acceptable to Apple. The downside of jailbreaking is that the device cannot be upgraded without losing the jailbreak benefits. The user must wait until hackers figure out how to jailbreak the current release of the Apple firmware. This can be weeks or even months and there is little assurance that the loosely knit jailbreaking teams will continue their efforts.

Some apps do have the ability to connect with external servers such as Dropbox, thereby allowing data to enter the device via an Internet connection. The GoodReader app has a built-in webserver. Not only will it connect to Dropbox and other servers, it can connect directly to shared folders on network connected PC’s. Any filetype that the Apple device natively accepts will be viewable or playable in GoodReader. In my Goodreader I have several mp3 recordings of verbally read short stories. They are short audiobooks. While I would prefer to listen to them as bookmark-able audiobooks, I have yet to find an audiobook app that will connect to a local server. In the meantime Goodreader gets the job done. Before spending the $2.99 for this app, you might want to visit their website at goodreader.net.

Of interest to book readers, another remarkable program is Calibre. Calibre is not a device app but is a server for ebooks with (free, donationware) versions available for Windows, Mac and Linux. Calibre will load your ebooks into your Kindle, Nook or other device via USB. It will convert most popular ebook filetypes into that needed by your specific device. It also features a web based content server. On your Apple device all you need do is to open the web page with Safari. Select your ebook from your collection and it will open in iBooks. Most ebook readers are Linux based tablets. If you don’t have a stand-alone reader there are many apps to choose from including Nook and Kindle. Some critics have said that the ebook apps on tablets are “killers” of the dedicated devices. I can assure you that the serious reader (I’m married to one) will opt for the feather-weight hand-held with an e ink display.

Available hardware specifications from the major manufacturers indicate that most will be worthy competitors of the Apple products.. Their success will depend on available apps, pricing and, as discussed in this post, open operating systems. I am looking forward to my untethered tablet later in the year. The choice will be difficult.

Technorati Tags: iPad, Android, WebOS, Nook, Kindle’ iTunes