Many were expecting a high price, but then again we were expecting a better device. Granit it is the first generation, however Apple should have enough experience with the iPad’s brother the iPod. Overlooking the similarities of Apple’s previous devices, the iPad doesn’t include many essential features that we would expect from a device of similar price. It doesn’t include multitasking, which would be helpful in a netbook replacement. [picappgallerysingle id="7695472"]Also another cool feature would be a camera which would allow for teleconferencing and other video applications. One of the biggest things missing, however, is Flash support. Flash makes up a very large part of web content and a device that is suppose to give you, “the best web experience”, does not deliver. There is a lot brewing up on the web about the Flash support and Adobe themselves, the makers of Flash, respond to the no Flash iPad in a blog post. Stating on the Adobe blog, Adrian Luidwig said, “It looks like Apple is continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers.” It is clear that Apple should rethink the web experience and hopeful come out with an update that includes Flash support.

Apple’s new book store, iBooks, was bound to come. Considering the expanding market for e-books and e-readers, it was clear that Apple had to get in. Although the iPad has nice 9.7 inch, LED backlit display, it does not mean it is a good reading device. I have not got a chance to try the device out for myself, but from what I have seen there is no way it could replace the quality of e-ink devices (or a real book). Because of this, the iPad will not cut away too much at the Amazon Kindle market, and other markets. The iPad is made much more for reading textbooks and business documents, not full novels.

It is clear that this is not a device that could replace the laptop. Despite that it is light and carries features like a stripped down version of iWorks and the Apple Appstore, does not mean it is a replacement for a netbook, let alone a laptop. It is clear that the iPad (1st gen.) may go the way of the Newton, but I hope that Apple can make a better 2nd gen. tablet that is more like a netbook or even a laptop replacement.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

http://10gui.com/

One of the easiest sites is keepvid.com. All you have to do is paste the URL of the video (make sure it is the direct URL) into the box and click download. It will download the video as an .FLV, which can be a down side if that’s not the format you want.

A second website will download and convert the video this site is called, vixy.net. This is one of our favorite because you paste the video URL into the box, select which type of format you want (MOV, AVI, MP4 (iPod) 3GP (cell phones) or just the audio MP3), and click start. It will convert the video and then give you a download link. When picking a video conversion type you may want to consider MOV and AVI are higher quality and could be used for DVDs, while MP4 and 3GP are lower quality.

The only problem with sites like these is they don’t always download the video the first time so you may want to try a few times or try a different site.  We are going to put a list of other downloader sits below if the above don’t work, comment if you have a question.

• savevid.com
• If using Firefox you can use this plug-in: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
• gazzump.com

Today the internet was abuzz about Google saying they will come out with their own Operating System, Google Chrome OS. As said on the Google blog last night, “the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.” Google said that there new Operating system will be made for netbooks, which will be made available the second half of 2010. They also said that the OS will open-source its code later this year. One of the most interesting statements they said on the blog was, “…we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates…” Now days that seems almost impossible, especially with an OS based mostly on the web, never the less it is very intriguing. The general sense of the OS is “open wide” let everyone in and everyone out. They say it will be easy to develop for and can have programs written for it which can also be cross platform. Over all it looks like a great project I just hope it comes out as strong as they say it will.

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• Introducing the Google Chrome OS (googleblog.blogspot.com)