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We’ve seen the revolution of smartphone from Apple few years back. Apple managed to cause quite a stir when its iPhone first came on, giving Microsoft, Nokia and numerous other phone manufacturers good dose of jealousy and envy.

Today Apple launched iPad, is it giving the oh-so-well-known-Tablet-computing a kick to challenge for new revolution like it once did with smartphone? How will Microsoft-HP’s recent HP Slate going to be? What will iPad do to the great-idea-but-never-took-off-with-consumer Tablet PC stretching back to Windows XP with Tablet, Windows Vista and 7 with built-in tablet support, or even the UMPC devices?

Well iPad is very different from those devices, it is even different from the market it’s trying to “fit in” – netbook. Apple’s vision for iPad is to sit between iPhone and MacBook, that does almost everything one is expecting on a normal basic computing level – browsing internet, emailing, gaming, reading… the “80%” of ones’ daily basic computing tasks.

Specifications

• 9.7″ LED-backlit glossy multi-touch display (IPS panel), 1024 x 768 pixels resolution, finger-resistant oleophobic coating
• WiFi and WiFi+3G; 802.11 a/b/g/n; UMTS 850/1900/2100mhz; GSM 850/900/1800/1900mhz; Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Digital Compass, Assisted GPS (WiFi+3G model)
• 16GB/32GB/64GB flash drive
• 1GHz Apple A4 custom CPU
• Built-in 25WHr rechargeable lithium-polymer battery, up to 10hrs usage
• more detailed specification at Apple.com/ipad/specs/

Built-in Applications

Since it is powered by iPhone OS, it has all the iPhone apps as well as the ability to run all existing apps and games (either in 1:1 scale or 2:1 scale).

Most of the native apps are optimised for iPad usage, such as Mail, Videos, Photos, YouTube, iPod/Music, iTunes, App Store, Maps, Notes, Calendar, Contacts. New addition is iBooks – watch out Amazon, your Kindle may be in a heat pot where New Zealand can’t even get your Kindle device!!

My perspective

By now, there are handful of websites reported the iPad features, mainstream media are already reporting it and amplifying its wow-factor even more. There are different opinions from everyone, some expressed high interest, some more disappointed, some see the benefits and here’s my opinion.

I have had iPod Touch 32GB (1st generation) when I had to replace my Creative PMC when its battery died, the day before I due to travel on long-haul. I bit the bullet and got myself an iPod Touch 32GB and hasn’t looked back – though there were some limitation but it also brought many opportunity and benefits to use it to fullest!

iPod Touch has been my main device that I found myself using 70-80% of the time when I’m home or nearby to a WiFi Hotspot, serving my internet browsing, emailing, or Facebook and Twitter. It isn’t the king of my computing but it certainly is my internet companion. I just wish it could also be more useful as map had it got GPS.

If I do need to do more complex tasks, I’d just pop on my laptop or PC and be it that way…

So how is iPad be useful, for me? I have yearn wanting to jump on iPhone 3GS bandwagon seeing that I use iPod Touch quite extensively, and my Palm Treo Pro isn’t quite cut it – let’s face it WinMo 6.1 is kinda bit of dog after nearly 10 years without great evolution! WinMo 7 may be different but that’s a different case/time.

So I have a laptop, or PC at home, we got PS3 as well for BluRay and gaming. We all have cellphone/smartphone… I do see iPad can fit into my pocket (so-to-speak, despite it isn’t pocket size!) I have outgrown the use of my iPod Touch as internet companion, it needs to tether to my Palm Treo Pro’s WMWiFiRouter to get on internet (WWAN)… I’m growing tired of that…

iPad could be that new internet companion, iPod Touch can still be my good friend… and Palm Treo Pro? Well… it may get replaced with something smaller yet still a smartphone to sync my contacts/calendar with my Google Apps site. Yes I realised that I have not consolidate as any devices to one… in fact I’d be adding one more on!

Will I get one? It depends… time is still early to tell…

What’s lacking or what’s so cool with iPad?

Lacks:

• No camera?
• no multitasking?
• SD card reader built-in? Secondary storage?

Pretty cool:

• Support all existing iPhone apps
• more screen space for fuller web browsing
• at least usable on-screen keyboard

The above are just the preliminary finding… might add/update later as I have given myself some more time to digest in with the launch announcement.

There are optional accessories that will be available for iPad like keyboard-dock, iPad Connectivity Kit for camera and SD card, leather cover/case.

The keyboard-dock is interesting… seeing that iPad is a companion device, it sits between smartphone and PC, do would it be possible to make use iPad as a secondary screen when docked on Mac/PC? I do hope Apple may consider this… *wishful thinking*

Well, it was good that the wait is over. For nearly a week or so since we’ve made the decision to switch from Meridian Energy to PowerShop – the online power company in New Zealand.

Many other people that I know have made the switch and they have been bragging out the savings and the ease of use and freedom to choose different pricing pack for their power usage.

The experience of changing over to PowerShop was great to start, it is easy to to apply online, and they even have a calculator to guesstimate how much you could be saving if you switch over to PowerShop.

Sure enough (by PowerShop’s advice) that the former power company will call up and try to “offer” a better deal at the 11th hour. I got a call from Meridian Energy, trying to offer me a blanket 20% discount if I stay with them, poor woman on the phone (obviously a staff member of their customer retention team) had to deal with my questions of why only at the very last hour that they willing to offer a better deal to retend their existing customers from moving away, and why not pre-emptively offer a better deal for someone that they called “valued customer for over decade” – if I am valued, why didn’t they offer me great deal 6 months ago, or a year ago or whatever…

Anyhow, paid the last Meridian Energy bills (yes, they sent out two, one for the month prior PowerShop got transfer ‘paper’, then another for ‘final account’.) Then earlier this week, I got the email from PowerShop that I can start shop with them. Yay!

However, it isn’t fully rainbow though… there was some transfer confusion from previous power company to PowerShop. You see, the power usage was only an estimation when Meridian Energy provided to PowerShop, act upon PowerShop’s recommendation, I went and provide the actual meter readings which ultimately start a snowball effect of “missing units”.

Thankfully to wonderful superb staff at PowerShop, that they’re monitoring and looking into this issue and I should hear back from them tomorrow or in next few days with their finding.

What will happen next? Well I’d be “out of units” within next few hours but I won’t be out of power. Ever since the “mistake” of Mercury Energy for cutting off one of their customer’s power, the power companies in NZ are now required to maintain the availability of power to their customers, and all customers are to sign a “dependency” declaration to ensure the power is always available.

I’m looking forward to more saving, but for the meantime, I’ll wait and see what PowerShop can report back to me in regards to my transfer…

It has been a while since I backup any valuable digital content, especially iTunes only allow their content be downloaded once, and once only.

I have quite a few songs, mobile applications, audiobooks and movies that I bought from Apple iTunes Store. I certainly don’t want to lose them all if for any unfortunate mishap should happen to my computer or the hard drive.

So I went ahead and look for the best way to backup, and it is pretty much straight forward to be honest. Built into iTunes, there’s a simple way to do backup to CD/DVD, but what little known (although documented in Apple’s Knowledge Base) is backing up to an external hard drive.

Method 1 – How to back up your media in iTunes

From iTunes, you can back up your library (or purchased content only) by following the following simple steps.

1) Go to File > Library > Back Up to Disc…

2) When the iTunes Backup dialog appears, you have the option to choose either “Back up entire iTunes library and playlists” or “Back up only iTunes Store purchases”. You can also do incremental backup by checking the “Only back up items added or changed since last backup”.

3) Select the Disc Burner from the dropdown menu if you have more than one optical drive. In my situation, my burner did not work as expected so I attached an external optical drive and it works like charm – probably time to upgrade the factory included optical drive…

4) Click “Back Up” to start the process. Depending on how big is your library, this process can take a while to complete.

The above steps are in detailed on Apple’s Knowledge Base – HT1382.

Method 2 – Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive

This method is slightly more complicated, and depending on which version of iTunes you are using. For me I’m using iTunes 9.

1) Make sure your iTunes library is stored at a location you can find easily in the later steps. It is also helpful to make sure that you allow iTunes to “Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library”. You can check this option in iTunes preferences by going to Edit > Preferences… > Advanced tab and check the iTunes Media folder location (for later use) and checked the appropriate checkbox as mentioned earlier.

2) Consolidate the content by going to File > Library > Organize Library… and check the “Consolidate files” – this will put all content to the designated iTunes Media folder. If you recently upgraded from earlier version of iTunes to iTunes 9, it is a good time to check the “Upgrade to iTunes Media organization”. Click “OK” and this should take a short while for iTunes to reorganise your files around.

Note: In the above step, iTunes will/may leave some empty folders behind when it shifted files around, so feel free to remove empty unwanted folders, or not… if it doesn’t bother you much.

3) Once the library has been reorganised (and upgraded), you can just simply copy the whole iTunes Media folder which contains all your songs, mobile applications, audiobooks, podcasts, movies and what-not. The location of this folder is mentioned in step 1.

4) Copy the now consolidated iTunes Media folder to an external hard drive or somewhere safe for future restore/import.

The above steps are in detailed on Apple’s Knowledge Base - HT1751.

Yes folks… it is that time of the week again, in fact probably the best day of the week! FRIDAY!

So a lot had happened this week. First off, I am an uncle again as my sister (Annabel) gave birth to Yohann Edward Xi HO on 17 October 2009, 8:01pm. And helped out with my eldest sister (Rosabel) to do our bits with the mother and the newborn. So I took up the chef role to carry out the traditional Sarawak-Chinese postnatal confinement dish for my sister – Ka-Cangma, which is high with ginger and motherwort herb. Well I only need to do it for few days until Annabel’s friend – our family friend anyhow – whom offered to help out to take care of Annabel.

Then, today, I picked up the WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 Collector’s Edition for PS3. Kinda excited with it but doubt that I’d have any time to play it as Dean and I are going up to Auckland tonight for a quick weekend getaway. When we changed our flight to this weekend, I did not realised it is Labour long weekend, so we’ll be back in Christchurch on Sunday, which allowing us to have quiet Monday to rest.

Another few good things happened this week; Apple announced new Mac line-ups, and that 27″ quad-core iMac is supa-sweet! Love to sink my teeth into that big boy! Oh and Microsoft released Windows 7, whatever… *lol*

It is Armageddon Expo this weekend in Auckland, Dean and I are still deciding whether or not we’ll be going to that – we don’t actually have any plan for the weekend. And if we do end up going, we may be looking for some cool collectable items or BluRay movies.

Oh! Harvey Norman is having a 4-days sales, and best of, they have 4-years interest free deal! Might check it out on Monday, as Rosabel is looking to get a notebook, I’ll try my best to sway her over to Apple MacBook

To all, have a good weekend and remember kids, don’t do drug, and don’t drink and drive. Stay safe this long weekend!

Yay! Just saw the announce for push Gmail support via Exchange ActiveSync Support with Google Sync when I was doing my usual read up at Engadget. Over at Google Sync’s blog, the team said the support is current available for iPhone/iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices.

This is surely very handy for me as I carry both iPod Touch and Palm Treo Pro (Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro) and I have my contacts, calendar currently synced with Google Sync, with the arrival of push Gmail, I can say this is a great welcome to put Google/Gmail/Google Apps in better position against Microsoft’s offering of Exchange/Hotmail/Hosted Exchange.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was on a mission to find the best PS3 Slim deal to reward myself. And since Sony has refined their PS3 system and with a new RRP of NZ$629.95, it is a good time to get one considering that it is marginally more than typical BluRay players out in the market.

I have always think that Sony should have marketed their PS3 as BluRay player with the ability to connect to Internet and playing graphically sophisticated games, instead of game console that can play BluRay titles… etc.

Anyhow, went to 8 different retail outlets in search for a good PS3 Slim deal. And what I discovered for the current PS3 Slim deals: EB Games had the best offer; Sony Style is true to their corporate image; and Harvey Norman could at least do better to make a sale.

Below is my summary/discovery from my tweets during my hunt:

#1: The Warehouse – $595 console + HDMI cable.
#2: Noel Leeming – $598 console + 1 free PS3 Platinum game + 6x$10 game vouchers.
#3: Sony Style – $629.95 console.
#4: Dick Smith – $599 console + Batman Arkham Asylum.
#5: EB Games – $598 console + 1 free PS3 Platinum game + $90 pre-order game vouchers + HDMI cable.
#6: Norman Ross – $798 console + HDMI cable + 4-way surge board + 2 years warranty.
#7: Harvey Norman – $595 console.
#8: GameStation – $595 console + 10x exclusive game rentals.

As mentioned, EB Games currently has the best deal (in Christchurch) at the moment. Despite that their vouchers only usable for selected pre-order games, but they have a free Platinum game AND an HDMI cable included. All other places are either a Platinum game, or recent released game, or just HDMI cable, or rudely just plain-ol’nothing….

I’ve mentioned to the guy that sold me PS3 Slim – and he welly deserved the commission as well – that EB Games would win even more sales hands-down should they offer discount vouchers to be usable on any game title other than the selected pre-order games.

Sony Style store just keep it at RRP, which is why I said that they’re true to their corporate image. Harvey Norman on the other hand, the salesperson came across very unhelpful as isn’t even attempting to spice his talent to make a sale when I asked that is that their best deal? Well enough, they lose the sale.

I haven’t check Gamesman, but they’re essentially an EB Games since they’ve been bought out by EB Games. Shamefully we don’t have JB HiFi in Christchurch as I’ve been told they are one of the few that have cheapest sweetest PS3 Slim deal. I didn’t bother checking Smith City/Powerstore as they’re usually overpriced. I didn’t give MightApe a chance as they’re online store and I want my PS3 NOW – hence on the hunt!

So… if you’re looking to get a PS3 Slim, EB Games has the best deal at the moment. If you’re interested with Batman Arkham Asylum game, then go for Dick Smith’s deal. If you want a game and with wee extras, Noel Leeming is quite handy. If you happen to need HDMI cable, The Warehouse’s PS3 Slim + Mad Catz HDMI is handy. If you need to make use of hire purchase, then Harvey Norman/Norman Ross or GameStation (in Christchurch).

There you have it… enjoy

p/s: if you’re curious about my PSN username,  it’s TheFirstKel – which is also the same as my Xbox Live. You’re free to add me to your PSN/Xbox Live friends but I’d be screening at each friend’s request just to be sure I’m not getting weird unknown strangers…

I’ve spotted this neat WordPress plug-in that allow your blog to be displayed in its bare essential, minimalistic way that’s friendly to your mobile audience. It created by Crowd Favorite, whom brought us the wonderful tool like Twitter Tools. So I went ahead and gave WordPress Mobile Edition a try and seems like it’s working quite nicely. The theme used for the mobile friendly is Carrington Mobile – which is based on Carrington Blog by alexkingorg.

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Just doing my usual Facebook thing and thought to explore around my settings and checking out Facebook Mobile section (again). I have known that Facebook Mobile has long since been available for Telecom NZ customers but not quite there for Vodafone NZ yet, or is it?

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Today, New Zealanders have a new option when it comes down to finding a mobile network to be on. Welcome 2degrees mobile, which made famous with the recent TV commercials who plays the manager Murray in Flight of the Conchords, Rhys Darby.

So what’s on the news, with their pricing plan?

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