Wasn't sure what to title this one.The only thing that really differentiated today from any other day was the successful trip to the five-mile-trail for the walk/jog. I decided pretty much that I'm going to do the five mile thing every day it's projected to be sunny. Which according to iGoogle the last time I checked is at least through Saturday...well i just checked and now iGoogle says it's going to rain Friday. I wish it would make up it's mind. In any case every day that it seems to be sunny and possibly warmer than 50 degrees or so I'm going to try and do that five mile jog/walk. That means I should probably do a lot more stretching multiple times a day as well. So I don't injure one or more parts. As they say in Zombie Land: limber up. And not just in case of zombies either. For like other stuff as well. Like jogging.

I wonder if it's really a trend my posts are getting shorter and shorter. I don't know if I've really run out of stuff to write about, when I had so much before, or if I'm just putting off the enevitable dive into "current events". I don't know If I'm really interested in posting about current events. Maybe I'll just start with the iPad.

Yes, technically the iPad was announced several weeks ago. I guess I'm thinking about it more now than before on account of I am still a couple weeks behind in my podcasts so all those podcasts I subscribe to are just now talking about it.  So it's kind of fresh on my mind.

Anyway with all those grand-grand-grand-rumors and mock-ups and whatever the announcement comes and it's pretty much just an iPod Touch with a larger screen. Well I don't even have any interest in an iPod Touch so the double-sized screen iPod touch doesn't exactly excite me any more than that.

I mean I thought the main reason the few people that like tablets/touch screens liked them was becauase there were things like pressure sensitivity so say sketching in whatever application was that much more effective.

Well obviously you can't do that with the iPad: it's not the full Mac OS so no Photoshop or whatever else and it's designed to be used with fingers anyway so it's wouldn't really be an option. 

Of course what I thought would have been really cool before it came out, when I was just imagining things, is that it would be some kind of touch/tablet but also have 720p video put and be able to pair with bluetooth game pads. In otherwords it would be a psuedo games machine. 

Of coure there are several problems with this wish or prediction or whatever it is: first and foremost that Jobs guy I don't think has ever been a big games guy. That was always Woz's bag. Secondly Jobs has never been a big buttons guy. Take a look at the Pixar movie Wall-E to see the fatnasy computer interaces of "that Jobs guy". Not buttons. Unless iPod Touch/iPhones could some be paired and used as a controller. Hmmm. That'd be ane expensive game pad I think. Might actually work though. 

Anyway I knew it was a long shot but it certainly would have been crazy unexpected, wouldn't it. I mean it wouldn't be a real console, it would be less of a console then the Wii is now, I'm just saying it'd be pretty cool. I mean have this tablet you carry around with you, can play against people both in the same room with you and over a network/Internet and hook up to a TV and connect with game pads for full screen gaming on the big-screen? 

Well I guess so many people have iPhones anyway it's not really that far out there. The only thing preventing it would be the ability to pair iPhones with the iPad, the two of them interacting with each other in real time and the iPad's ability to out put video to a TV. Which it can probably do actually I just don't feel like looking it up.

Anyway I'm not really that interested in an iPad for the same reason I haven't purchased an iPhone or iPod touch: the things it does other stuff does better and the other stuff also does the stuff the iPad doesn't. 

Let me translate...myself...my netbook can run a real OS, has tons of software, can multi-task, and best of all for me doesn't handcuff me to that horrible horrible mess known as iTunes. 

Have I mentioned I hate iTunes? Well just in case lets go over it again for the first time: it installs back processes and services. I once tried disable some of the services only to find them re-enabled upon reboot. Unless I don't remember correctly. I'm pretty sure that's right though. I actually went out of my way to disable services in Windows. Not just stop but disasble them. Rebooted. The services were re-enabled. It really pisses me off. 

Also, and I'm much more confident of the accuracy of this one, it defaults to have the apple browser Safar checked by default with their update iTunes feature. That means I get a browser I don't care about or want, another attack vector for viruses and best off all I get to wait through all the subsequent updates that now come down for Safari. Which I didn't want in the first place. That was years ago they started attaching Safari to iTunes updates and that was the day I removed iTunes and haven't installed it since. And is also one of many reason I will not be buying an iPhone, iPod touch or the iPad.

Also, and I haven't checked this recently, those devices have never really played the Divx/Xvid formats have they? So many devices are able to play the universe of video formats beyond H.264. Don't get me wrong, that's a terrific format, I just would like the option of something more.

Now apparently at CES there was a new device announced with the follow features: a full regular laptop with keyboard and screen and all that and....the screen detaches and is a tablet device in and of itself. It has it's own battery and wifi and whatever on which to browse. And while it's out the laptop portion can still be connected to an external monitor for use. Then you can simply re-attach the table to the laptop base and continue using it. The laptop a regular Windows 7 type device whilst the tablet is some kind of Linux thing. Don't remember if that was Android or something else entirely. Anyway if I was going to get anything I would probably want to get that. It sounds like the best of both worlds although waiting for the second gen of that particular product probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

There's also supposed to be some "convertible" netbooks coming out at some point. You know, the kind that are regular laptops and then the screen swivels around and attaches and there's a whole touch screen to interface with. That'd be about the same screen size and work around the same way. 

The few times I have attempted to use tablets in a real-world sort of situation the thing seemed overly heavy after a couple of hours of using it. Seriously. So a netbook, screen size not withstanding, might be preferable.

And here I thought I wouldn't have anything to write about. I guess I didn't need to worry too much, eh? I guess I'll end this post here. Oh and this is Post number 41 by my count (31 days of January plus 10 of February...probably 41). I hope I'm getting better. Still.