Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

The big buzz of the day is Apple’s new iPad tablet PC. For $499 you get a 10″ version of the iPod touch, with apps that have been redesigned for the new screen real estate. “With a screen this large, you can just see, more, of the web as you’re surfing.” All the existing iPhone applications are promised to work out of the box. The more expensive versions come with support for 3G (data only) and come unlocked (yay). There’s one new built-in application, called iBook which let you purchase books from the libraries of 5 major american publishers (Penguin, Harper-Collins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Hachette Book Group), in open ePub format. As the kindle DX sells for $489, if the screen brightness doesn’t hurt too much, it could be a potential competitor. The 10-hour battery life is certainly enough to read a book in.

Now, a list of things I don’t like (here is Gizmodo’s):

• 1024×768 screen doesn’t do 1080p, wide-screen video
• No Camera built-in (no video chat!)
• No multitasking
• No 3G voice service (or even T-Mobile 3G)
• No Mac OS apps (you get the iPhone/iTouch OS)
• Wasted space in the bezel
• No Random House books
• iWorks costs $30
• Twice as expensive as an iTouch
• No chat built-in
• No SD card or USB ports
• No GPS
• No Adobe Flash

When you can go buy a svelte 13″ Macbook Pro for just $1200, or 33% more than the top-of-the line iPad, why would buy an iPad? If you already have an iPhone you won’t buy it, because in terms of strict functionality, the iPhone is a superset. If you have an iTouch you may agonize about getting that extra screen real-estate. A commenter on Slashdot summed it up best:

It’s more than just an iPod touch that won’t fit in your pocket…it’s also an underpowered netbook with no keyboard. It’s the worst of both worlds!

Oh wait, someone on Reddit too:

Just yesterday I was looking at my iPhone thinking “Hmmm, I wish this thing didn’t fit in my pocket and couldn’t make phone calls.” Then I looked over to my netbook and couldn’t help but feel it would benefit from losing the keyboard and being made of 50% glass.

Wait for version two. The price will drop. Then maybe it can be a sort of “upgrade my kindle” purchase.

Update: Check out Charlie Brooker’s iPad therefore iWant?.

The ingredients in a B-52 are pretty simple: three liquors of different densities so that they float above each other, and look asthetically different hues and tones. To get started, make sure you have a tall shot glass, and the following (or substitutes) handy:

1. 1/3 shot – Kahlua
2. 1/3 shot – Baileys Cream Liquor
3. 1/3 shot – Grand Marnier

You can substitute Starbux Coffee Liquor for Bailey’s depending on your stock.

Now, the first step is pouring a generous third shot of the Kahlua into the shot glass. As the densest of the three liquors, it will hug nicely to the bottom:

The second step is to pour ontop of this another 1/3 shot of Baileys. The trick here is to pour very slowly and tilt the shot glass sideways at a 45 degree angle, like you do when pouring draft beer to avoid foam. This should let your Baileys layer float on top of the Kahlua:

The third step is to do the same, but with the Grand Marnier. As it’s the lightest layer, pour it even more slowly, and let it gently gloss ontop of the cream liquor. If you want to finish the shot by lighting it on fire with a lighter, it’s best to pour the Grand Marnier all the way to the top leaving no space, otherwise it will be hard to light:

As a finishing touch, flambeé and drink with a straw, or in a single hair-singing gulp:

Over on TechCrunch there’s a flattering review of a new Website SEO Analysis tool called Woorank:

WooRank evaluates Web sites based on 50 criteria in an automated fashion, free of charge, and provides helpful SEO and other tips. [...] I gave the tool a spin and generated a report for techcrunch.com – turns out we’re worthy of a WooRank of 82.4. [...] Frankly, that’s a lot of valuable information available free of charge.

I gave it a spin on my homepage, and it gave up some valuable suggestions (as well as a score of 68.2, which isn’t too bad):

Among its suggestions are the following:

• Add meta-description and meta-keywords to every page
• Put alt-tags on all images
• Make sure the site validates
• Use a 301-redirect on WWW
• Get listed in the DMOZ/Yahoo directories

While the information it offers up is useful, it’s almost exactly the same as WebsiteGrader, and less detailed on load-time, etc, than . But, the way to go, of course, is to plugin your blog URLs into as many of these cookie-cutter analysis sites as you can, do some thinking on your own, and make a few tweaks. Everyone has their favorite tools, so let me know of other free “SEO Analysis” sites in the comments. If I like them, I’ll update this post.