Free or Paid? HTML 5 or Flash? To Apple or Not?

Over the weekend, I got to test drive the Apple iPad with 64G (wifi and 3G). I did not switch on 3G service yet.
Disclosure: I am a big fan of the Apple design, user friendly design and don't own any stock of Apple.
That said, after the initial oohs and aahs from the family and friends, I tried to put on all my favorite stuff on the tablet. Music - check; Photographs - not check; PDFs - check; personal email accounts - check; personal calendars - check; personal contacts - uncheck; work email - uncheck;
My personal style is to have everything in one place and Apple attempts to make an admirable effort in that direction.
I love reading- so I imagined this would be a great hub. Fat chance.
Amazon with its Kindle app and Apple with its iBooks have are building 'Books' portals for themselves.
The number of books available on iBooks is miniscule compared to the availability on Kindle.
This is where they end. There is competition for them in the form of other readers which have much better Digital Rights Management (DRM) capability. Why is this important?
There are 9000 titles available in eBook format which I can download to any computer that supports the DRM control. With this feature, the local public library allows its membership card holders to reserve, download and read these eBooks for the specified duration. After that, the DRM is 'expired'. So what? Well - it does not work on Kindle , it does not work on iBooks because neither of them support the DRM control.

Whether it is Apple or Kindle (owned by Amazon) who figure this out first - they will get to control a much larger user base because - now - even library books can be downloaded to your [insert your platform].
Apple iPad is going the HTML5 way. Amazon with its first mover advantage and a larger publisher base - still does not have a footprint in this area.
Imagine - the thousands of public libraries - you can download the library book to your device, read it for the duration - renew it or just let the loan period expire. It probably would make more people read more books.

How would the commercial portals - Kindle or iBooks make money? Licensing fee from libraries. Increase in the user base. Advertisements. Preview of new books. Suggestions of new books to read that are not yet on the library book shelves.

For now, I test drove the iPad. My family is driving the iPad because - I am not interested in paying for books every week - when I can get them for free from the library; I can't get multiple calendars to sync to one device; I cant add multiple photo albums to the iPad without tearing my hear out. I got my iPod (second gen) that keeps me humming !!! I will probably Apple but not today. Where is its user friendly interface?
In case you are wondering - I did the obligatory visit to the Apple store - and no use there.

What are your thoughts? Let me know if you have figured out a solution to any of the challenges that I faced. After all, there must be an App for that.

Lets take a different view

We strive to take a different view, ask others to see from our point of view, try to see their point of view, view things through others writings.
I can go on.
I bet very few of us see the Astronaut's view from their mission vehicles. And get a chance to admire the view.
Douglass Wheelock on the International Space Station shares his photo views on Twitter - Astro_Wheels.
See this amazing island in Indian Ocean http://twitpic.com/372xbh

Some of the pictures prompt - what if questions - such as the night view along the river Nile.
I wonder how some of the other countries would look under the night sky - lit up along the paths of major cities and 'civilization'. Each of them dependent upon the darker areas for resources - yet decrying their demands for equal light !!

Can you give me the best practices on (pick your topic)

I get variations on this question nearly every week. Any good consultant can search the net and give you something in a neat package. A good consultant will share what worked recently from her experience. Excellent consultants will ask you more about your specific situation - and tailor his/ her experience, search the data banks for something that is most like your situation. She will also caution on what needs to be done by you and your organization to realize the benefits of that best-in-class practice.

Now can you give me the best practices on "effectively using consultants?" Thats for a later post.

Three economists walk into an Irish bar

It is rare to see comics bringing relief to the gloomy economic news. What better than the Irish jumping into this subject? Read on at this http://tinyurl.com/33vygqt While folks in Ireland are cracking up on the state of their economy, NY Times has come up with an interesting tool to make sense of the US deficit. This can be an interesting tool to teach basic economics to high school kids as well.
We need humor as well as visuals to explain and bring folks closer to complex ideas

Why are you not doing this?

I have been asked by very well meaning friends and business associates this question about my own blog.  There are a lot of blogs - just as voices, that do not say anything that has not been said. Very few make me sit back and think. This is an attempt to write/ comment about my interests that hopefully will join that limited set of blogs that make you think.