• Is An Online Degree In Web Design Right For You?
• SEO Education: Online Degree Or The School of Hard Knocks

Before anything else let me make it clear that I think knowledge is incredibly important to any career and life in general. In the signature to my email I add a line from a Bob Dylan song. Brownie points if you know the song.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

I use the quote as a reminder to always be learning something new and always striving to grow. The moment you stop doing either is the moment you stop being.

Theory vs. Practical

When it comes to knowledge there are different kinds of knowledge and different ways of acquiring each kind. On one side is theory and on the other side is the practical application of theory. Both types of knowledge are important and both make you better at whatever you do.

I think those who advance the furthest in life tend to be those who acquire knowledge at both ends of the spectrum and acquire it in a variety of ways.

Theoretical knowledge — teaches the why. It helps you understand why one technique works where another fails. It shows you the whole forest, builds the context, and helps you set strategy. Where self education is concerned theory prepares you to set a direction for your future education. Theory teaches you through the experience of others.

Theoretical knowledge can often lead to a deeper understand of a concept through seeing it in context of a greater whole and understanding the why behind it..

Practical knowledge — helps you acquire the specific techniques that become the tools of your trade. It sits much closer to your actual day-to-day work. There are some things you can only learn through doing and experiencing. Where theory is often taught in the ideal of a vacuum, the practical is learned through the reality of life.

Practical knowledge can often lead to a deeper understanding of a concept through the act of doing and personal experience.

Both of the above are important. You won’t survive in any career unless you can bring results and to do that you need practical knowledge. There’s no avoiding it.

At the same time learning how to solve a specific problem only teaches you how to solve that same problem again. Practice can only take you so far. Theory helps you apply what you learned solving one problem to different problems.

Formal Education vs Self Learning

Formal education tends to lean toward the theory side of the spectrum and teaching things to yourself tends to lean toward the practical. You can learn both through either method, but each tends to give you a little more of one over the other.

The key to getting all of the knowledge you need is to understand that whichever route you’ve chosen you’ve probably gained a lot more of one side of the knowledge equation and need to spend some time acquiring knowledge from the other end to balance your education.

If you go the 4 year degree route realize that many people in the work force can already perform the specifics of your job better than you can. It’s up to you to put in the time gaining the practical experience you need to complement the theory you learned. While in school don’t pass on opportunities to gain the practical. Apply for that internship. Try to get a summer job in your chosen profession no matter what the specific job.

If you skip school and go straight to the workforce, understand that you need to acquire the big picture view of what you’re doing. Grab some books on the fundamentals. Audit courses at nearby colleges. Set a more formal path for your own education beyond the day to day. Be more active in understanding why different techniques work as they do. Devote some time to studying themes in your craft.

In the middle is the online education. Its formality offers a chance to learn theory, yet many online courses aim to get you into the workforce as soon as possible. They may not excel at either end, but they do offer you the balance in the middle.

Is That Piece of Paper Worth It?

The question above really depends on your specific goals and the path you plan on taking through your career. If your plan is to go into business for yourself then no, the paper that certifies you earned a degree is meaningless. I can tell you that none of my clients have ever asked to see my degrees.

Then again if my business was in an office that clients physically visited, I bet hanging a degree from a prestigious university behind me would help close deals.

If you plan on working for someone else the degree takes on more importance and the the larger the entity you want to work for the greater the importance of that degree. When you’re beginning your career you have no experience. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 18, 22, or 50. You start without experience like everyone else.

Without experience it can be hard to find a job. That piece of paper with the degree on it, isn’t experience, but it’s a recommendation from a trusted source that says you have the framework in place to gain the practical experience. The degree tells others you have a strong foundation on which to build.

Summary

As I’ve said throughout this post and everywhere else I’ve ever talked about this topic, the education you get is more important than where you get that education. You can easily find examples of people who did and didn’t go to school who went on to great success. You can equally find examples of people who did and didn’t go to school who ended up as great failures.

There is a theoretical side and a practical side to knowledge and both are valuable. The true masters of any craft or discipline understand both ends of the spectrum. They put in the hours to acquire the practical techniques while also putting in the time to understand how those techniques fit into a larger context and tradition and why they work.

Whether or not you go to school or jump directly into the workforce is a personal decision that’s based on a variety of factors. Do you need to start earning a living right away? How do you best learn? Will you be able to pick up the theory and context on your own? Do you need more time gaining the practical experience?

Only you can answer those questions and only you can determine which is the better path to start out on. However, focusing only on one side while ignoring the other will limit you in ways you may never even realize.

I had thought of blacking out this site, but as it’s unlikely a site the internet would miss for the day, I thought I could do more by keeping the site up and pointing you to the video and accompanying description below.

You’ve may have seen it already, though please watch it you haven’t. It’s only a few minutes long it will explain better than I can the dangers in the proposed bills.

To learn more and take action please visit Stop American Censorship at americancensorship.org/.

Thanks.

Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! – www.fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting “creativity”. The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites– they just have to convince a judge that the site is “dedicated to copyright infringement.”

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that’s for a fix that won’t work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.

If you’ve been reading here for a few years you know that every year at this time I take a week or so vacation and visit family in New York. You might also remember that we typically take a trip into Manhattan and I take some pictures that I share here.

One difference this year is I decided to leave my usual camera at home and exclusively shoot with the camera on my new iPhone 4s. I took some similar shots to previous years and you can compare how the iPhone camera holds up to my Canon Power Shot.

• Thanksgiving 2010
• Thanksgiving 2007

Sand’s Point

First up is Sand’s Point on Long Island. It was an overcast day, but some of the images turned out pretty good.

The water in the 1st three images is Long Island Sound.

I have a thing for old broken down fences.

And piers that have been washed away.

The shack above is along the path the took us to the water.

New York on a Cloudy Day

It was another cloudy day in Manhattan as you can see in the images below. We had been worried it would rain, but most of the rain fell overnight before our day started.

So cloudy the top of the Empire State Building was obscured.

All of the Chrysler building was visible, though.

One of the lions guarding the New York Public Library.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We didn’t stop long enough for me to get an image of the skating rink at Rockefeller Center, but I did manage to grab the lego version inside the lego store.

Christmas Windows

One of the fun things do see in the city this time of year are the store window displays at some of the department stores. We walked past 3 of the biggies.

Above and below are from the display at Macy’s

The next 2 are from the display at Lord and Taylor’s

This last image is from the window display at Sak’s 5th Avenue.

Apple Stores

Most everyone in my family owns Apple products and so we naturally visit some of the Apple stores around the city. We had been hoping the new Grand Central store would be open, but it was only the coming soon sign that was visible.

Below is the glass cube entrance to the Apple store on 5th Avenue.

We caught the Apple store on Columbus after dark.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Our walk up 5th Avenue takes us by St Patrick’s Cathedral and as luck would have it, the one time it did rain during the day was as we approached St. Patrick’s so we went in.

It’s a beautiful building, though images don’t do it justice. If you ever find yourself in New York a visit is a must.

The stained glass windows are amazing, though again the images don’t do them justice.

Central Park

We always cut through Central Park on our way to the parade floats. We didn’t meander through the park like usual this year, but I did manage to capture a few images.

Above is the fort/castle we usually pass. Our normal route through the park has us walking on the other side. Below is a typical look at the park this time of year.

Parade Floats

We arrived later than usual to the floats being blown up and foot traffic was crazy. We only took in one of the 2 streets of floats this year.

Sonic the Hedgehog was at the front of the street and one of the easier floats to capture.

The Cool Aid guy was waving to the crowd.

The Aflac duck made his very first appearance in this year’s parade.

New York at Night

After seeing the floats we stopped for a bite and by the time we were done eating the sun had set on the city.

Here’s Lincoln Center with the lights on. The Opera House is above and below is Kotch Theater, home to the NYC ballet and opera.

We continued toward Times Square and walked out of the Hershey’s store with more chocolate than we really needed.

Even in the dark Time’s Square finds a way to shine. The neon lights really are bright on Broadway.

I hope you enjoyed some of the images I’ve taken while on vacation. We didn’t have the nicest weather this year, though it never got too bad.

The iPhone 4s camera held up well. I have a feeling my year old Canon won’t be getting used all that much in the future. If the iPhone had a zoom lens it would be all I’d need for most picture taking excursions. Even without it’s a pretty good camera.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Time here to get the last few things done before our guests arrive.

We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy to use, fun to use, so that they really fit the users — the users don’t have to come to them, they come to the user.
— Steve Jobs

Above: Steve Jobs narrating “The Crazy Ones” commercial

Ever since Steve Jobs passed away I’ve wanted to say something, though I haven’t known what. So much has already been written and perhaps little more needs to be said. Still I wanted to say something.

As much as I might like otherwise, I don’t have any personal stories of Steve Jobs to share and I don’t have any new insights into how he did what he did. Those things are for others to share.

I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me and yet a connection was still formed between us.

My mom and I were talking the day after he died and we both commented how we felt as sad as we ever had at the loss of someone we never knew and we both wondered why.

It reminded me of another time when I also felt very sad at the loss of someone I never knew.

On December 8th, 1980 I was watching the Miami Dolphins play the New England Patriots on Monday night football. I was enjoying a close game when at the end of the 4th quarter Howard Cosell announced that John Lennon had been shot and killed.

Above: Howard Cosell tells the world John Lennon was shot and killed — 12/08/1980.

I’ve been coming back to that night a lot the last couple of weeks.

Two people I never knew except through their work. Two people taken too young. Two people who greatly influenced me. Two people who’s death filled me with a greater sadness than most.

Lennon was and still remains a hero to me. His words and music helped shape my thoughts and worldview. I am who I am in part because of who John Lennon was.

I wouldn’t describe Steve Jobs as a hero, though he too has certainly shaped my thoughts and worldview. His influence came later in my life at a time when hero worship was long in the past.

I woke up this morning when the alarm on my iPhone went off and moments later flipped up the lid of the Macbook Air I’m now typing on. At some point in the day my iPad will be in use and I may end the night with a movie watched via my Apple TV.

It’s impossible to make it through a day without encountering something of Steve’s that influences my life.

Above: Steve Jobs introducing the original iPhone

I listed to John’s music from the crib. My mom was a big fan. The first movie I ever saw was The Yellow Submarine. I’m told I had memorized the book of the same name (more likely some passages) before learning to read. I knew the lyrics to most of John’s songs by the time I was five.

His death came as a shock and like many I was profoundly sad.

Steve Jobs was always there too. Though I was a bit older when Apple started, I was still pretty young. From the first time I heard the word computer he was there.

The very first computer I touched was an Apple II. Unless you count playing pong on an Atari, though I guess Steve Jobs has influence there as well. The first computer I owned was one of the first Macs off the assembly line. Drexel University, which I was attending at the time, required students to get a Mac.

It was in my dorm room within a few weeks of the famous 1984 commercial.

About a week after John died my father, my brother, and myself were returning from a late brunch. Radio stations in New York were going silent for a few minutes in honor of John and I wanted to honor him too. I made my dad pull into the parking lot of our temple as we were passing by and the 3 of us sat silently in the car.

A very light snow fell. Light enough to not affect traffic, but enough to cover the ground with a thin blanket of white. It looked beautiful and many suggested it was a thank you from John for all the kind thoughts.

When I heard the news of Steve Jobs passing away it shouldn’t have been shocking or surprising, but it was. Steve had brought Apple back from certain death and in doing so had created a mythical aura around himself.

Many thought he could bring himself back from the brink the same way he brought Apple back.

In 1980 I broke out my Beatles albums and played them often. In 2011 I’ve been watching old keynotes and interviews with Steve Jobs.

Above: Steve Jobs Q&A Keynote from Apple’s 1997 Worldwide Developer Conference

I knew John through his songs and I knew Steve through his presentations. In many ways my relationship with both of them hasn’t changed at all.

I wanted to find a way to honor Steve Jobs. much like my father, brother, and I honored John almost 31 years ago. I suppose this post could count, but from what I’ve read about Steve he probably wouldn’t have cared much for all these tributes.

The day before his passing saw the release of the latest iPhone. I had been planning an upgrade and pre-ordered one shortly after they became available. Thinking about John’s snow I ordered the white one.

Normally I’d think honoring someone by buying a product doesn’t feel right, but maybe in this case it makes sense.Perhaps Steve Jobs would consider my using and enjoying one of his products the best thank you of all. It seems strange and yet it also feels right on some level.

One of the videos many people have been watching these last couple of weeks is the commencement speech at Stanford. He urged people not to live another’s life, to live for yourself, and make every day count. Stay hungry and stay foolish.

Above: Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

I think the best way any of us can honor not only Steve Jobs, but ourselves, is to heed those words and to make the most of what we can of our lives. No matter what “most” is or what part of your life you apply it to.

Find your passion. Find what you love and put everything you have into it. For Steve Jobs it was family and Apple and the technology he helped bring to the world.

For you and me it’s…

Like John Lennon, Steve Jobs left this world too soon. It’s hard to shake the feeling that neither of them was quite done. Both had more to contribute and the world is poorer because they weren’t allowed to continue.

At the same time you’d be hard pressed to find people who contributed more to their industries even if their time was cut short.

Death happens. It’s inevitable. Our time in this world is finite and our legacy is what we make of that time. Regardless of what you think of Steve Jobs and Apple the best way to honor the man and yourself is to make the most of that precious resource, time. Find your passion and give your all to it.

I think the answer to the question my mom and I wondered about is that the reason we miss Steve Jobs is because he made a connection with us. We might not have known him personally, but he still made the connection.

As a public figure we heard him speak and saw him present. His words, his thoughts reached us. So did the products he helped create — products we didn’t have to come to — products that came to us — products that bridged a connection between Steve Jobs and ourselves.

Most of us mourning the loss of Steve Jobs never met him or knew him personally and yet we all knew him through that bridge. He found a way to connect with us and impact our lives. He put a ding in our universe.

Thank you Steve Jobs. You will be missed.

Note: In the last post I used images I found online. This post features images of my MacBook Air and my old MacBook Pro.

My Workflow

In order to put my thoughts into context you should know a little about how I use a laptop, which is mainly as a desktop replacement. My laptop needs to be able to handle everything I do.

Most of the time that means I buy the most laptop I can afford when it’s time for a new one. Prices over $3,000 don’t scare me. My laptop is, after all, the most important piece of equipment I use to run a business.

The last year I’ve started thinking a better approach would be to have 2 computers, a smaller lighter laptop that can handle most everything I do and make travel easy and then a more powerful desktop for when I need more power and/or a bigger screen.

My typical day mainly involves working with text files. I’m usually writing or coding. My next most common tasks relate to working with images and graphics. I’d like to work more with video, but don’t at the moment.

Naturally I surf the web, check email, read my feeds, etc.

The safe choice would have been a new MacBook Pro. It would represent the most laptop I could afford. However I’ve wanted an Air ever since they received a refresh last fall.

I had a few hesitations about the Air in regards to power/speed, size, and glare, but as long as I felt it could deliver enough laptop, it was what I planned on getting. I was hoping the ssd flash memory would make up for the lower RAM.

Specs

Here are some specs of the 2 laptops I was thinking about along with the same specs for my 2008, pre-unibody MacBook Pro.

When you see a (?) listed it’s because I can’t quite remember the spec on the old laptop. The number before the (?) is likely close, but I’m sure it’s not quite correct.

You can click on the new Pro and Air links to see the full specs at Apple’s site.

When I considered the specs above my main concern was the greater RAM I could get on a new MacBook Pro, but given a new Air still had more than my old Pro I figured the Air would work well enough.

With the above in mind let me share my 2 weeks of experience with the MacBook Air.

Hardware, Keyboard, Touchpad

For something so thin and light, the Air feels sturdy. I assume that’s due to the unibody construction.

It’s sturdy enough that the hinge between monitor and keyboard can take more force than the weight of the laptop. If you push too quickly and too hard on the monitor you can easily tip the Air.

When the Air is on my lap it hardly feels like it’s there. I haven’t carried it around with me when I leave home, but it’s not hard to see how it will be a joy to travel with.

Keyboard

I think the keyboard is the same as the new MacBook Pros. It’s a little different than my old Pro. The keys are flatter and there’s no backlighting.

The lack of backlighting isn’t an issue as I usually have a light on when I’m using the laptop. I’ve yet to think I wish I could see the keys better.

It did take me a couple of days to get used to the keys, which are in slightly different positions from what I’m used to. I occasionally reach for something that’s a little further to the left or right than my muscles remember. Typically though for every time I switch to a new computer.

2 weeks later and I like the keyboard better, especially as my old laptop had a few keys not working too well (‘a’, ‘m’, ‘p’).

Touchpad

The touchpad is also a little different than the one I’d been using. My old Pro had a dedicated button. The Air doesn’t. Neither does a new MacBook Pro.

I guess I’ve always dragged my finger across the button when clicking. When I do that now, I sometimes move the cursor prior to the click which then no longer works.

I’ve been getting used to it and getting better about not dragging before clicking, but it’s been my biggest annoyance. Hardly a big deal though.

Moving from 15.4 Inch to 13.3 Inch

I’ve been using 15 inch screens for a decade and worried 13 inches might feel too small and cramped.

That hasn’t been the case.

Maybe it’s because the resolution is the same, or that 13 inch isn’t that much smaller than 15 inch, or that I adjust quickly, but the smaller size hasn’t been an issue at all.

At first I did notice I was working on a smaller monitor, but within a few days I was simply working on a monitor.

Everything looks just as good as it did on the old laptop, only it’s all a little bit smaller. Not a lot smaller, but a little smaller.

If you think it might be to small for you it’s worth going into an Apple store if there’s one near you. Play with the Air for a little while and switch to a 15 inch Pro and then back again. You should get a reasonable idea whether or not you can work on a 13.3 inch monitor.

Antiglare to Glare

I’ve been using antiglare monitors since they were first available. I really don’t like glare and I was nervous about how it would be to not have an antiglare screen, especially as I work with a light right behind me.

Fortunately this also hasn’t been an issue for me, though I can easily see how it could be an issue for others.

How much glare you see depends a lot on the angle you’re viewing the monitor. Glare is worse when you

• Look at the screen from the side
• Look at the screen from below

I tried to show this in the images above and below this section. In the image above I knelt down and looked at the screen from below to capture the image and you can clearly see the reflection of the window behind me.

In the image below I simply stood up and took a picture from above. The Air itself never moved and I assure you the window didn’t either.

In both images the glare is magnified from what I usually see. My live view looks better than what was captured in either image.

When the monitor is sitting near 90 degrees from the keyboard and I look at it straight on, I don’t see any glare. Under those conditions I feel as though I’m looking at an anti-glare screen.

Since those are the normal conditions under which I work, everything has been fine for me.

If you like to have the screen tilted further away from you, then you probably will see some glare. Again if you can visit an Apple store and tilt the monitor back like you normally would, you should be able to quickly tell if glare will be an issue for you.

I’m not sure if the lighting I use is helping. Recently I switched to using energy efficient light bulbs, which throw off a cooler light than the soft yellow bulbs I had been using. I thought I’d mention it in case it does make a difference and you want to give it a try.

Power and Speed

This was the big issue for me and probably is for you as well. On the bright side I knew the Air was more powerful than the Pro I was replacing.

I also suspected that speed bottlenecks with the old laptop had more to do with reading and writing data from and to the drive than any lack of processing power.

The majority of work and play I do on the computer isn’t all that processor intensive as I mentioned above. More processing power would be nice, but realistically I probably don’t need more.

The first night with the Air it got very slow. So slow that my initial thought was I’d be exchanging it for a Pro almost immediately. Firefox wouldn’t open, programs kept freezing, and I had to restart by turning the power off and on.

Then I got the bright idea to actually restart once through the operating system and everything changed for the better. I introduced human error into the process of migrating data, which I think caused the initial slowness.

Since the restart everything has been noticeably faster than the old MacBook.

Programs open much quicker (1 or 2 bounces as compared to 10). I can also have more applications open for longer periods of time.

On the old laptop and even on every Windows computer I’ve ever owned I would never leave Photoshop open when I wasn’t using it. It’s not a problem on the Air. I can leave Photoshop open all day or week without anything else slowing down.

I still get an occasional beach ball and Firefox still slows down some after watching too many videos. The Air isn’t perfect, but overall everything is noticeably faster than the old MacBook Pro.

Unfortunately I have no way to compare and contrast with a new Macbook Pro. All I can tell you is everything is fast enough for me. The flash drive does make a huge difference and I can’t see myself ever again buying a laptop without flash memory.

Additional Reviews

I thought I’d collect a few other reviews of the MacBook Air for you.

• MacBook Air review (late 2010)
• 13-Inch MacBook Air Review: So Long, Fatty
• Review: Macbook Air 13-inch
• MacBook Air Review Part 1: The Best Laptop I’ve Ever Used
• Apple’s 2010 MacBook Air (11 & 13 inch) Thoroughly Reviewed
• Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (2010)

There’s no rhyme or reason to the links above. Just me doing a search or two and grabbing a few random reviews from the results. I tried to grab reviews featuring the 13 inch Air.

Summary

You should be able to tell I’m happy with my purchase and plan on keeping the Air.

There will always be part of me that wonders how it compares with the new Pros and I’ll likely be jealous of whatever upgrade the Air gets later in the year, should it get one.

Still I’m very happy with the MacBook Air I purchased.

The potential issues I thought I might have turned out to be non-issues for me. I can see how they might be issues for others, but I’m good.

If you are thinking of getting an Air hopefully something in this post has helped in your decision. Feel free to ask specific questions in the comments or shoot me an email if there’s something I didn’t mention here that you’d like to know.

My best advice is to go into an Apple store if one is nearby and play with both the Air and the Pro and see what you think.

Keep in mind Apple won’t charge anything if you come back within 2 weeks and want to return your purchase. That way you can test out the Air and see if suits you.

The Need for a New Laptop

After a call to tech support it was obvious I’d need to take the MacBook Pro into the local Apple store. Best case scenario was they could fix it in store and have it back to me in a day or two. Worst case was it would need to be sent elsewhere for repair and possibly not be back to me for 10 days.

Had it been the former I might have tried to see if I could work exclusively from my iPad for a few days. I had already responded to email, administered my forum, and read the day’s feeds All normal morning activities for me.

The latter part of this week is going to be light as far as the different type of work I needed to do. The tools I needed were all available on the iPad. It might have made for an interesting experiment.

The thought of being without a computer for 10 days and the likelihood it was going to be the case, meant I was probably walking out of the store with a new laptop.

As it turned out that’s exactly what happened.

MacBook Pro or MacBook Air

Had you asked me a year ago what my next laptop would be, I undoubtedly would have replied a 15 inch MacBook Pro. It’s what I’d been happily using and I would simply give it an upgrade of a few years.

However when the new MacBook Airs appeared last fall I knew I wanted one. The design of the case was beautiful and while case design isn’t necessarily the best reason to choose a computer, I knew I would enjoy working on a laptop with that design more than one not of that design.

Beyond aesthetics I like the idea of removing the optical drive and selling it separate makes sense. I also found Flash memory appealing. Both are likely to be more common in the near future.

You can tell from the title of this post what I decided, but as I walked in the decision was anything, but made.

I did have a few minor reservations about getting the air and one major reservation with the Air.

• Size—How would I feel moving from a 15 inch to a 13 inch monitor
• Glare—I prefer antiglare screens.
• Power—Would the Air be powerful enough for my daily workflow?

The glare turned out to be a non-issue. There’s a little glare when viewing the screen at and angle, but when looking directly at there’s little to no glare at all.

Size doesn’t appear to be an issue either, though I still need to get used to it. Keys are in slightly different positions for example and I find myself hitting the wrong one here and there. A few days of use should render it another non-issue.

This MacBook Air, while not as powerful as the new MacBook Pro is still more powerful than the MacBook Pro I was working on. If that machine could handle my workflow this Air should be able to as well.

The truth is I won’t really know what I think until I’ve had a chance to use it. What ultimately led me to walk out with the Air is that I can return it within 2 weeks and buy the Pro instead. 1 week should be enough time to know if that’s necessary.

Getting the Air Ready for Production

I didn’t have much chance to use the Air yesterday. First I needed to get it as production ready as possible as soon as possible and that meant loading all my data and applications.

In the past I haven’t always been good about backing up, but I learned my lesson and the entire contents of my old laptop were awaiting transfer. I had wanted to pick and choose to bring over to the new Air, but it turned out I had to do a full migration.

Migrating everything took the entire afternoon and evening, which accounts for the lack of use yesterday. On the positive side this laptop is now setup near exactly how the old one was. I’m already productive.

There are a few things that need some tweaking like my bookmarks not coming through to Safari. An easy fix that’s been done, but I know I’ll discover a few more like it over the next several days.

Today is really the first day using the Air.

So far so good. Outside of something unforeseen, I expect it will be my primary laptop for the next few years. However it’s always possible I’ll have a post a couple of weeks letting you know why I swapped the Air for a Pro.

Summary

That was my day yesterday. Not a productive one at all as I was without a working computer for most of it. I’m back to work today and will be testing my new Air for the next week.

If anyone is interested in what I think of the Air after having had a week or so time’s using it let me know in the comments. If there’s enough interest I’ll write up a post with my thoughts.

I thought I’d share a few as my way of saying thanks to all of you who read here and to share something of me and my last few days.

Apple Stores

Most of my family owns Macs and we have a tendency to visit some of the Apple stores when we’re near one. There really is something beautiful in the simplicity of the architecture of these stores and I’m always struck by the solid glass storefronts.

The store above is in Great Neck on Long Island and the store below is newest one in Manhattan near Lincoln Center. The Lincoln Center store is huge, filled with 2 stories of just about everything Apple carries with a glassed spiral staircase leading from upper to lower levels..

Sands Point Preserve

You generally don’t associate medieval castles with Long Island, but it’s what you’re met with at Sands Point Preserves in Port Washington. The castle isn’t exactly medieval having been built in the early 20th century, but it’s still not something you expect to see.

My dad, my brother, and myself spent a couple hours earlier this week walking the grounds.

It was a very overcast day, which is why the sky is all washed out, though maybe that washed out sky is fitting given the subject.

Even though I know this wasn’t built for defense, it’s easy to see how it might have worked to protect the main house on the other side of the grounds seen below.

Hempstead House sits a few hundred yards off the water, with the castle on the opposite side.

There are trails through the preserves, making for a nice walk through some woodland.

The structure below is an interesting find in the woods. I’m not entirely sure what it may have been used for.

The trails end on the water. The stone wall is the edge of the yard of the Hempstead House and the water is Long Island Sound.

Years ago there were piers on the water, but a hurricane wiped out much of the what had been there.

Below is an old fence that caught my attention. In the distance is Glen Cove and a similar preserve to this one.

The stone that used to serve as part of the concrete sea wall is now all in ruin and overgrown with moss.

If you’ve ever read the Great Gatsby the images above would be part of East Egg as described in the novel.

Manhattan

Each year on the day before Thanksgiving, my mom, my brother, and myself spend the day in Manhattan. We start with a visit to a museum or two on the upper east side and make our way across the city to the west side. This year we only took in one exhibit, featuring the work of Edward Hopper.

The exhibit was at the Whitney Museum and the image of the museum below was taken waiting in line

We make our way to the west side via Central Park, which seems beautiful no matter when you walk through it.

There’s always an interesting juxtaposition between the park and the surrounding buildings.

And we always manage to find some interesting things to stop and look at like the rock below.

We take different paths through the park each year, but always make our toward the building below. I’m not sure what the building is, though it’s near the Dakota where John Lennon used to live and where I think Yoko Ono still lives. Often we end up existing the park at Strawberry Fields which is the memorial to John Lennon.

We head for the building above, because it takes us just to where the floats are blown up each year for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. We were a little earlier than usual this year so not many of the floats were inflated though we did catch a few like Shrek

and Snoopy

and a new float for the Kool-Aid man.

A few years ago (2007) I shared more images of the floats being inflated before the parade, which should give you a better idea of the scene.

The floats are inflated on both sides of the Museum of Natural History. Though we didn’t take in the museum this year, a previous visit is when we first realized we could see the floats pre-parade.

After a quick tour of the floats we head south down Columbus a few blocks to 74th street to enjoy lunch at Patsy’s Pizza. If you’re ever in the city I highly recommend the pizza at any of the Patsy’s locations. Expensive, but delicious.

Top of the Rock

This year we closed our day with a trip to the observation deck at Rockefeller Center, known as Top of the Rock. I’d been to the top of the Empire State Building before, but never Top of the Rock.

The views of the city are breathtaking like the one looking north over Central Park.

or looking south toward the Empire State Building. The image at the start of this post is the same view, focused on the one building.

This is the view looking north west toward the Hudson River.

This is the south west view. In the center of the image below you can see the ball that drops on New Years. That’s the 2010 ball in the image to be replaced soon by the 2011 ball that will start at the top of the pole before dropping as 2010 turns to 2011.

Another view looking to the north west. You can see the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson connecting Manhattan and Fort Lee New Jersey.

Back again looking south.

And a closeup testing the limits of both the physical and digital zoom of my camera to capture the Statue of Liberty.

I hope you enjoyed a few of the images I’ve taken the last few days as well as a little bit about how I spend the time around Thanksgiving. Again my apologies for the washed out images. Blame it on the weather and a lack of time to improve them in Photoshop. Hopefully you at least got to see a few things you might not otherwise have been able to see.

In a couple of hours our guests will be arriving and we’ll be enjoying a turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a side order of football like most households in the United States today.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today. Happy Thursday to everyone else. Either way I hope you enjoy the day.

On Tuesday, November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. The next day a Pony Express rider departed from Fort Kearny, Nebraska with the election results and headed for Fort Churchill, Nevada. The two forts marked endpoints on different telegraph lines.

Several Pony Express riders traveled across snow covered trails before one rider arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah 3 days and 4 hours later with those same election results. The journey continued. The mail was handed from rider to rider, until on November 7 it found it’s way to Fort Churchill in time for news of the election to be wired to California papers on November 14th.

7 days and 17 hours after East Coast newspapers received news of the new U.S. President, West Coast papers learned that Lincoln won the election. It was an unrivaled feat for the time in how quickly the news traveled.

Information Overload

In 1860 the problem of information was one of scarcity. If it took over a week to get election results from East Coast to West, how long would it take less important information to travel?

The reality was information didn’t travel quickly and consequently there wasn’t a lot of information being passed around. Many people might never learn of the goings on in neighboring towns, let alone cities across the country.

Information was scarce.

Fast forward to today and we mostly have the opposite problem, though in areas without reliable internet connections information is still scarce.

Early last year a plane crash-landed in the Hudson River. Within minutes anyone with a Twitter account had pictures.

Last summer when Michael Jackson passed away, the news traveled so quickly that Google initially believed it was under a denial of service attack. Both Twitter and Wikipedia reported crashing. This all happened within 45 minutes of the initial story being published on TMZ.

Today information travels at the speed of wired and wireless connections. The problem isn’t one of scarcity anymore. It’s one of information overload. Within a very short period of time any number of sources will have reported on the same information. The issue for us isn’t how to find information, but rather which information to trust.

Information is plentiful. Trusted information is scarce.

The Truth is Out There

Last month Robert Capps interviewed Simon Singh for Wired Magazine, in a short article entitled The Truth is Out There. The interview is mainly about truth in the scientific process, but one quote by Singh stuck with me the moment I read it.

Don’t come up with a view, find everyone who agrees with it and then say, “Look at this, I must be right.” Start off by saying, “Who do I trust?”

I think far too many of us don’t start by asking “Who do I trust?” I think many of us seek information that reinforces what we already believe. It’s why more and more we’ve become a polarized world. It’s why most people vote strictly on party lines.

By no means does everyone do that, but the truth is most of us do whether we want to admit it or not.

The last week or so I’ve been going back and forth with someone on a forum about the issue of political correctness. We’re both coming to the debate with our own view and neither of us is ever going to change the other’s mind.

As long as we continue both of us will find facts that back up our view and prove our case. We’re both doing exactly what Simon Singh would tell us not to do.

Your Research is Tainted

As a kid I learned that Columbus discovered America. Not long after I learned that Leif Ericson discovered it first. Not long after that I learned that long before either of them discovered America people had crossed Beiringia and settled the continent. The truth changes.

On Monday CopyBlogger published a post by Sean D’Souza, entitled Why Being Too Diligent About Your Facts Can Hurt Your Content.

Sean makes several arguments to show how much of the information we receive is unreliable. How it often can’t be trusted. He says:

• Information may not be objective and instead is often biased
• Facts passed on from one person to the next lose information
• The truth evolves as we learn new information and our understanding of things changes

Sean is exactly right in everything he says. Information is biased sometimes purposely and sometimes accidentally.Facts change. Nowhere is he suggesting you shouldn’t seek out information and research what you write. His advice is mainly to put a cap on how much time you spend researching, because after a point you really aren’t uncovering the truth anymore.

It’s not bad advice, but it left me with a bad taste. I think in many ways Sean is saying the same thing I’m saying about trusting information. There’s so much information available to us now that we can find something that will back up any point of view we want.

Unfortunately I’m afraid the advice in the article will ultimately be interpreted as not to bother researching at all or never look past the first source of information you find or want to find. I’m afraid it will unfortunately further add to the problem of more information without knowing which to trust.

Again not because of anything Sean actually said, but because of how some may interpret what he said.

Who Should You Trust?

I wish I could give you a nice simple answer about who to trust, but I can’t. In the end only you can decide who and consequently which information you believe to be truthful and accurate. Sometimes that’s not too difficult.

If I tell you that adding the following css to your website

body {background: #0f0}

will turn the background of the entire page green, it’s easy enough to try it and see for yourself.

If I tell you that green symbolizes hope and fertility and tell you that your audience will associate your mostly green website with feelings of safety and well-being, it’s not quite as easy to test.

You should be questioning every bit of information you take in, whether it’s the latest news or some advice meant to make you a better designer. Only you can decide what sources of information to trust and which facts to mix together with your experience. That’s how you develop a blogging voice or develop a filter that leads to your creative style as a designer.

Always be open to different points of view and take in information from a variety of sources. Odds are none will give you the whole truth, but each will give you parts of the truth. In the end the responsibility to cut through the overload of information and discover the truth is yours and yours alone.

Trust is an essential part of business. It’s an essential part of life. Trusting the best sources, the best people, the best information isn’t something that necessarily comes easy.

Like many things discovering which information is the best to trust is a skill that can be developed and improved as long as you look to information with an open mind and a willingness test that information and compare it to your own experience.

Initial Impressions

I’d played with the iPad in the Apple store a few times so it wasn’t a completely new experience to own one. I also have an iPhone 3gs so the interface and most everything else is familiar. As I’m writing this I’m mainly using the iPad as an oversized iPhone without the phone. Most of my apps are those I downloaded for the phone, though I’ve begun to replace many free ones with their iPad equivalents.

As you probably know the design of the iPad and the display are beautiful. It’s easy to jump in and start using, especially if you already own an iPhone. It’s much easier to carry around than I thought. When I picked one up for the first time in the Apple store it felt heavier than I expected, but it really isn’t anything that will tire you out carrying around. It’s like carrying around a small notebook or a trade paperback.

You’ll want to use it more in your lap or on a stand than holding it with one or two hands for any length of time though. Not heavy, but heavy enough.

Battery life is indeed better than advertised. I can use the iPad on and off all day without even thinking about having to charge it. I plug it in overnight and don’t think about it again till the next night.

The keyboard is better than I expected. Smart phone keyboards whether software or hardware are too small for my fingers and I rarely type on them. With the iPad I’d have no problems replying to an email, participating in social networks, typing URLs, etc. That said I won’t be writing anything long form. For that a wireless keyboard will be necessary.

There are some advantages to having a software keyboard that I had never considered until reading this post by Jesse James Garret of Adaptive Path. I’ve been noticing more and more how the keyboard on both the iPad and iPhone adapts to what you’re doing and I can see a lot of potential in this approach.

For the most part, if I want something that both the iPhone or the iPad have, I’m reaching for the iPad every time. The extra screen real estate makes a huge difference. Bigger is better in this case. What I’m seeing is both the phone and the laptop do things better than the iPad. However the iPad also does some things better than either phone or laptop. It is a device that finds a sweet spot between the two.

I don’t necessarily plan on carrying my iPad with me everywhere I go as I do with my iPhone, but it’ll find itself traveling with me a lot more than my laptop ever will. Carrying a laptop around feels more like lugging it around. Carrying an iPad around is hardly noticeable.

Thoughts on Future Productivity

The iPad definitely has a coolness factor, but I didn’t spend money on it so I could pretend I’m cool. I expect the iPad to becoming a functioning part of my daily workflow and I expect it to boost my productivity.

Again the first thing here is the increased screen size. I’ve never quite understood how people think they can work on a smart phone. Sure you can check and reply to email and tweet to your heart’s content. You can login to any number of sites and track and make small changes, but to honestly write a post or make anything but the most minor modification to a web page isn’t anything I think can be realistically done on a phone.

At least it isn’t realistic for me. You can do those things in a pinch on a phone, but can you really be productive in any way? The bigger screen size of the iPad makes so much more possible.

Next are the apps I’m seeing under development. I’ve been searching the App store a lot. One app I had read about is the reason I decided to buy the iPad now instead of waiting. The app, Air Display, allows you to use your iPad (or iPhone for that matter) as a second monitor. Maybe not the biggest monitor, but a second monitor nonetheless.

The iPad functions well as a media consumption device. I consume a lot of media and once I’ve chosen a feed reader I expect the iPad will be the main way I keep up with all the blogs I’m subscribed to. There’s really something to be said for holding it in your lap and touching the screen to navigate. Not quite the same as curling up with a good book, but not that far off. It’s easy to see the iPad being my go to device for consuming media.

When smart phones first came out I dreamed of being able to edit web pages on the go. Like I said this isn’t realistic for me due to the small screen size of a phone. I’ve noticed several code editors/FTP apps for the iPad. They don’t compare to what I have on my Macbook, but they already look like they’ll do the job and I expect they’ll get better over time.

A couple that look promising are Gusto and Markup, though there are several others worth trying.

The main things I do daily are write and code, followed by working with images and moving files around the web. Each look like they’ll be easy to do on an iPad as long as I add a wireless keyboard. Image work might still be better on the MacBook. It’ll be easy to see myself sitting in a coffee shop in a couple of months writing a blog post with fewer distractions than I have at home. I can also see myself responding to client requests for changes while I’m out.

One of the main reasons the iPad excited me was it’s use as a sketchpad. I like starting new designs with a few written thoughts and sketches. Easy enough with paper and pen, but a sketch drawn in pen and paper isn’t the easiest to change. A new idea usually means a new sketch. On the iPad I think it’ll be easier to experiment with different designs and then export those sketches directly into Photoshop on my Mac.

Similar is the iPad’s use for creating wireframes. Two such apps offering that ability are Omnigraffle and iMockups.

The touch interface (with fingers and/or stylus) in combination with a wireless keyboard means two productive ways to input and create on the iPad. I think many have underestimated its potential for creating media as opposed to only consuming it.

There are so many available apps for sketching and note taking that I’ve only scratched the surface in deciding which to try and use.

Resources

I’ve linked to a few apps throughout this post (Click some of the images) and embedded some video demonstrations. Here are a few posts with collections of iPad apps, mainly for designers and developers. Keep in mind not all are fully mature apps yet, but you can see where things are going.

• 20 Creative iPad Apps For Web Developers And Designers
• 10 Best iPad Apps for Web Designers
• 30 Useful iPad Apps for Business & Presentation
• 25 Insanely Useful iPad Apps Available Now

Potential Issues

I don’t want to paint the picture that all is perfect. The iPad is far from a perfect device. For one I understand getting files on and off isn’t the easiest thing. It should be a no-brainer to have it connect wirelessly to a laptop or desktop and appear as a new drive to make it easy to move files around.

Of course the iPad doesn’t really have a file system. I understand the reasoning behind that, but I kind of like having a file system. I already know there are workaround such as using Dropbox or similar to move files about. To me that isn’t an ideal solution, but it’ll probably be a workable one.

At the moment the iPad doesn’t have iOS4 installed so no multi-tasking, limited or otherwise. That’s coming though in a couple of months. Whether or not the limited multi-tasking becomes an issue is something I won’t really know without seeing it in practice. It’s a non-issue on my iPhone, but then again so was no multi-tasking at all. Being able to switch between programs quickly is important I think.

As I’ve said a few times a wireless keyboard is necessary to do any serious work. That creates the issue of the iPad not actually being in your hands. trying to type and use the touch interface at the same time probably won’t work as easily as you’d think. It’ll mean either leaning forward and back or picking up the iPad and putting it back down. How necessary this is will depend on how much can be controlled from the keyboard and this will depend mostly on the app developers.

The screen is bigger than the iPhone, yet it’s still smaller than the screen on my MacBook. If both are in front of me I assume I’ll reach first for the MacBook when working. The MacBook doesn’t travel as much so the iPad will serve as my main device when I’m away from home.

Speaking of the screen, I really wish it was anti-glare. It can be hard to read anything on it while outside in sunlight. You can turn it away from the sun to use it, but it works better when there’s no light source behind you. I’m particularly sensitive to glare so this probably bugs me more than most people, but still the reading experience isn’t best outside.

I’ve seen a few anti-glare covers on the market, but they all have mixed reviews.

One other thing I’ve noticed or at least read about is the difficulty moving files from one app to another. It’s typical for me to work on one file across several programs. Maybe Dropbox or similar is the answer here too. Maybe app developers will offer more options for exporting and importing. Maybe it’s actually easier than I think to move files about. It’s something that’s going to become important at some point.

Pricing on the iPad is another issue, albeit a minor one. For the most part the pricing seems more than fair. A few apps seem overpriced to me, but most fall into the $5 – $10 price range. Hardly expensive, yet when compared to 99 cents or $1.99 for many iPhone apps they seem expensive. It’s very easy to spend 99 cents for an app you’re not sure you really want or not. It’s another to spend $10.

Some apps do or will offer lite versions so you can try before buying. At the moment I’m not seeing a lot of that on the iPad. Hopefully developers will begin to offer more lite versions. Fair or not the iPhone set certain expectations about the price of an app and it’s less than most iPad apps are priced at.

Summary

Those are some initial thoughts on the iPad in general, as well as how I think I’ll be able to use it as a productivity device in the future and some issues I may encounter. Again let me point out I haven’t set the iPad up yet in any way and for the last few days it’s still been mostly an expensive toy, a very cool one, but a toy nonetheless. While I’m enjoying using it, the iPad has hardly been anything I’d call an indispensable part of my life yet.

I expect that to change once I have to time to grab a wireless keyboard and as more and more apps find their way onto it. It’s very easy to see how I will be using it and how It’ll help me be more productive in time.

In a couple or three months I’ll revisit this topic and see if I’ve managed to take the iPad from toy to part of my workflow. I think I will, but won’t really know until I’ve had it around for awhile.

I’m pretty sure I won’t regret the purchase no matter how well I can or can’t integrate the iPad with my daily life. As a media consumption device it truly shines and I do consume a lot of media. I’ve always been one of those people that carries around a book with me wherever I go. Now I’ll be carrying around an iPad most of the time.

Have you bought an iPad or considering buying one? If you do have one what apps are you finding most helpful to when it comes to productivity? if there are specific questions you have feel free to ask and I’ll be happy to answer if I can.

I’ll leave you with a video demo of Mellotron. Not exactly an app specifically useful for designers and developers, but impressive nonetheless. It doesn’t always need to be about work.

If any of the above fits you then I have good news. Prova.fm is offering a free custom design to two lucky Van SEO Design readers.

How it Works

Prova.fm is a new site with two goals. If you’re a small business they want to present you with a chance to get a custom design within your budget. If you’re a designer they want to offer you an opportunity to show off your skills and build a portfolio and client list.

They’re accomplishing both by providing the system for you to start or enter a design contest. Business owners post their project and price. Designers submit their entries. The winning entry collects.

What You Get

As part of their launch Prova wants to reward two Van SEO Design readers with a free contest. You post your project details and Prova.fm will foot the bill. They’ll guarantee a $250 prize for your contest. If you’d like to offer a larger prize you can add your own funds on top of the $250. Prova.fm is also waving the usual fee to submit your contest making this giveaway a $289 value.

How to Get It

Since I only have 2 packages to giveaway I thought I’d run a contest. A contest to win a free contest. You need to do two simple things to enter.

1. Tweet this post
2. Leave a comment with your Twitter username.

Pretty simple, don’t you think?

I’ll select two winners randomly and post the results next Monday, August 31st. You can enter the contest up until Monday, August, 31st at noon Eastern Time and I’ll post the results later in the day.

What Prova.fm Requires of You

In exchange for your free custom ad Prova.fm is asking a few things of you. They’d like you to:

• Allow your company info to be used in press releases and marketing materials
• Provide a comment to their staff writer
• Provide a testimonial at the end of your contest
• Have offices in USA

Additionally no adult business are allowed in the contest. PG only folks.

Prova will run contests for anything from business cards to websites to banner ads and most anything in between. If you’ve been looking for a custom design, but haven’t had the budget this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

Leave a comment and tweet this post and you could have yourself a free design.