Apple’s favorite adjectives for the iPad are “magical” and “revolutionary.” Those are overstated marketing terms, of course, but I think they have some justification. In many ways, the iPad does feel like a realization of the classic computing device of sci-fi imagination. There is something magical about holding a device that looks and feels an awful lot like the computer pads the crew of the USS Enterprise were always carrying around. While the iPad as a simple piece of hardware isn’t necessarily revolutionary, it at least continues the revolution of “touch computing for the masses” that was largely begun by the iPhone. Here we have a dead-simple user interface on an attractive, portable, and fun-to-use device, with software that enables the vast majority of daily computing tasks to be accomplished without the usual computing hassles. Having used the iPod Touch for a year or so, I can testify that the App Store is what really makes these Apple devices such a joy to use. The built-in software is a good starting point, but the numerous innovative third-party games and programs are where the magic really happens.

So why didn’t I just buy the thing already? Three reasons. The first is the inherent risk of being an early adopter. Owning first-generation products can be exciting in the short term (and I have to admit the hype machine has been pretty effective in this case) but they have a nasty habit of triggering buyer’s remorse a few months later. Apple in particular always seems to hold out a few key features to lure everyone to upgrade to the second generation within a year or so, which is also the point when competitors have launched comparable devices and Apple feels obliged to drop their prices. If the iPad’s price tag at launch had been a benjamin or two less, I might have gone ahead and pulled the trigger, but at $500 and up, there’s just too much room for remorse.

The second reason for holding out is that I’m incredibly curious to see what some of the iPad’s competitors are going to come up with. I’d hate to buy this now and then really wish I had waited for 6 months for the release of the “iPad killer.” A lot of the contenders have a strong whiff of vaporware about them, but I’m sure at least a few will make it to market. In particular I have my eye on the Notion Ink Adam, Microsoft Courier, and the IDG Gemini, any one of which has the potential to meet and exceed the iPad’s technical specs, though it remains to be seen if they can duplicate the effortless user experience and vast catalog of apps.

Lastly, there are a few key niceties still missing from the iPad. Fortunately, multitasking has been promised via the next iPhone OS update, so I’m not looking for a tablet with a full desktop operating system anymore. In fact, I think Apple did the right thing by using the iPhone OS instead of OS X, because it’s clear that a tablet PC really isn’t meant to replace a desktop PC. In fact, I think this is going to be the HP Slate‘s achilles heel. Yes, Windows 7 is touch enabled and HP will probably ship some nice touch-enabled skins and apps, but virtually all Windows software is designed for use with a regular keyboard and mouse. The Windows user experience simply can’t approach the intuitiveness and fun factor of the iPad as long as you have to constantly jab at tiny window controls and scroll bars with your finger. This isn’t such a big deal on a convertible tablet like the HP TM2, where you also have a keyboard, touchpad, and stylus available if the touch interface doesn’t suffice, but I think it will be much less tolerable on a standalone tablet. The long wait times for Windows to boot up, suspend, and power off will also be a huge buzz kill. I’ve never used an Android-based device, but I have a reasonable hope that it will offer a tablet experience similar to Apple’s since it is another operating system designed from the ground up with the touch interface in mind.

However, I do think a tablet could (and should) be a viable replacement for a laptop, and that means it must be, by and large, self sufficient. Apple has imposed some limitations on the iPad that really get in the way of using it as an independent computer. There are numerous instances when you have to connect it to a “real” computer via USB cable to let iTunes do some of the work. This made sense for traditionally “dumb” devices like the iPod and perhaps even the pocketable iPhone, but not for a tablet with a 10″ screen and some real hardware muscle behind it. To name a few specific limitations, you currently can’t print, subscribe to podcasts, import pictures from a camera, plug in a USB thumb drive, organize files and folders, open a single file with different programs, or sync music and video files wirelessly. Not everyone cares about doing things like this, and part of the beauty of the iPad is that less advanced users don’t really have to, but it would be great for power users to have a device that acts more like a full-grown computer as desired. Once again, these are not necessarily technical limitations, but simply Apple’s way of keeping customers tied to iTunes and other Apple products. Some of these issues may go away with iPhone OS 4 and/or the next generation of the iPad, but it’s also virtually guaranteed that other tablet manufacturers won’t build in these sorts of restrictions.

As for the missing Flash plugin, I’ve decided it isn’t really a deal breaker for me now that NetFlix and others have released iPad-specific video apps. Hulu is still missing in action but will inevitably join the party, and that is pretty much the only site I can think of that would make me truly miss Flash. The lack of a webcam is still a head-scratcher, since video chat could become a true killer app for the tablet platform. I can only guess it was designated as one of the key features that will make the upgrade to iPad 2.0 worthwhile. I’ll be amazed if anyone else dares to release a tablet without a webcam.

Despite all the coolness that the iPad currently offers, I suppose my head is winning over my heart, once again. I can wait another six months to a year to see what happens in the market. If Apple offers an iPad that can operate more independently from iTunes with a webcam and a reduced price, what’s left of my resolve will likely crumble. If someone else can get a better tablet out the door before then, all the better. But I think one thing is for sure — sooner or later, I’m gonna have to get my hands on one of these lovely slabs of aluminum, silicon, and glass.

They have come forth from the great womb of the earth.
They have come forth to stand with star dust in their hair,
with the rush of planets in their blood,
their hearts beating out the seasons of eternity,
with a shining in their eyes like the sunlight,
with the hands to shape with that same force that shaped them out of the raw stuff of the universe.

When a child is born it is the symbol of all birth and life,
and therefore all must rejoice and smile,
and all must lose their hearts to a child.

– excerpt of a Unitarian Universalist child welcoming ceremony

Amanda had been struggling for quite some time to squeeze the last ounces of life from our two aging laptops; namely, a 5-year ASUS and a 3-year old Averatec. Amazingly, the ASUS is probably in better shape (though I suppose it should be, since it cost twice as much when I bought it) but both of these computers have been though a lot of use and abuse, especially during our college days. There comes a time in every computer’s life when it’s time to sign off for the last time and rest easy after a job well done.

With all the hubbub in the press about tablet computers, I had been giving a lot of thought as to whether the Apple iPad (or something similar) would fit the bill, as opposed to buying another full-fledged laptop. I always love a good excuse to go hunting through tech reviews to find the absolute best fit for someone’s needs. What Amanda really needs is a computer that works great on a couch or bed, something light-weight and responsive, to be used primarily for keeping up with blogs and email, watching Hulu and Netflix, and the occasional editing and organizing of digital photos and video. I really wanted the iPad to fit the bill since I’ve been so happy with my iPod Touch. At first glance, it made sense — the iPad will be dead simple to use, it comes with a lot of cool apps, isn’t terribly expensive, and has the polish and wow-factor that Apple always seems to deliver. Alas, upon closer inspection, the iPad falls flat in several key areas:

1) No Flash plugin for the web browser means no Hulu (not to mention countless other video sites that rely on Flash). I’d wager there will eventually be a Hulu app for the iPad, but that wouldn’t address the general lack of Flash support.

2) No Silverlight plugin means no NetFlix Instant Viewer — that’s a dealbreaker right there. It’s also possible, perhaps inevitable, that there will be a Netflix app in the future, but there are nothing more than rumors to go on at this point.

3) No DVD drive, so she wouldn’t be able to watch rented movies or create her own DVDs. Is it too much to ask for a slot-loading DVD drive? It would add too much thickness and weight, I suppose. I know streaming HD video is the way of the future and all that, but here and now, most of us are still watching good old DVDs. It’s also strange that Apple went with the old-school 4:3 ratio on the screen rather than the standard 16:9 ratio of HD video.

4) No USB port. Apparently Apple will offer an optional USB adapter (costs extra, of course), but once you start adding on dongles and adapters to a tablet device, you’re losing too much of the sleekness and convenience that makes the device appealing in the first place. With the standard configuration, you can’t just plug in a digital camera or camcorder and get going.

5) No multitasking. It’s true that the iPod and iPhone can appear to multitask from the user’s point of view, though I suppose you might more accurately call it something like stateful task switching. Every app takes up the full screen while running, but you can always go back to the main page and launch another app. Meanwhile, most programs do a good job of saving the exact contents of what you were doing when you quit, so it’s all there when you return, but it’s not the same as the true multitasking environment we’re accustomed to in Windows and OS X. This isn’t necessarily a problem on a pocket-sized device, but I think it will become a serious hindrance to the workflow of a larger device capable of more full-featured applications.

6) Limited storage. The iPad offers storage from 16 GB to 64 GB. That’s decent for something like an iPod Touch that’s primarily for music and apps, but even the maximum 64 GB won’t go far when you start adding tons of movies, photos, music, and larger apps. Worst of all, there’s no way to add additional storage via SD card or other flash-based memory stick.

This all just goes to show that the iPad isn’t a full-fledged computer; though, to be fair, Apple never claimed it would be. There will be a lot of Windows-based iPad imitators coming down the pike this year that will offer many of the features the iPad lacks, but we didn’t feel like waiting. Happily, after surveying the techscape, it turns out the HP Tm2 fits the bill and is already on the market today. It has just about everything the iPad lacks (Flash, Silverlight, multitasking, USB, SD card slot, install any program you want,  ample storage space, etc.) because it’s a “real computer” running Windows 7. It can be used as a traditional laptop with a nice full-size keyboard and touchpad, but the fun factor kicks in when you rotate the screen around and use it as a multitouch tablet. Like the iPad, you can use your finger(s) for input, but wait, there’s more! The screen also includes a Wacom digitizer for use with a digital pen. Windows 7 is quite touch friendly out of the box, and HP has included several touch-enabled applications as well. It’s not quite as responsive as the iPod Touch/iPhone, but it’s getting close. The one thing I would have liked to see in this computer was a built-in DVD drive, but an external USB drive gets the job done — no special adapter needed.

Now I’ll admit, this thing costs a lot more than the cheapest iPad, but then again, but it offers far more bang for the buck if you want a computer you can work as well as play on. A very well-equipped Tm2 (which includes 6 GB RAM, discrete ATI graphics, and a 500 GB hard drive) ships for $899. While I have no doubt the iPad will be perfect for a few key applications and “good enough” for many others, I wouldn’t want to be constantly running up against its limitations — some of which are inherent to the form factor, but some are imposed by Apple. As always, your mileage may vary, but so far Amanda has found the HP to be an ideal computer for her needs.

There’s no doubt a lot of my reading time is spent online these days. It’s a rare day that I don’t consume numerous blog posts as well as articles from NY Times, Slate.com, Ars Technica, and wherever Slashdot and Google News point me. Still, I feel like I should pick up the pace a bit in 2010. There’s nothing quite like a good book; plus, how can I be a proper elitist liberal if I’m only reading half as much as George W. Bush?

(+ is decent, ++ is good, +++ is great. Any book that turns out to be less than ‘decent’ I didn’t bother to finish or include on this list.)

++ Ender in Exile

+ Be the Dog

+++ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

++ The Last Lecture

++ Trick or Treatment?

+ Go Ask Alice

+++ Little Common Sense Book of Investing

++ Into Thin Air

+ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

++ Looking for Calvin and Hobbes

+++ Manifold Space (re-read)

+ A friendly letter to skeptics and atheists: Why God is good and faith isn’t evil

+ Enough: True measures of money, business, and life

++ Only Begotten Daughter

+ The Tyranny of Dead Ideas: Letting go of the old ways of thinking to unleash a new prosperity

+ The Total Money Makeover

+++ The Intelligent Investor

+ The Smartest 401K Book You’ll Ever Read

++ The Boglehead’s Guide to Investing

+++ The Sparrow (re-read)

+ A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing

+ Gotcha Capitalism: How hidden fees rip you off every day, and what you can do about it

++ Children of God

++ Elantris

+++ Slaughterhouse Five

+ Light and Optics

+ The Last Colony

+ God’s Problem: How the Bible fails to answer our most important question — why we suffer

+++ When You Are Engulfed in Flames

+ Your Pregnancy for the Father-to-be

++ Buddhism without Beliefs

+ Agent to the Stars

+ Second Coming of Steve Jobs

+ Star Wars Outbound Flight

++ How We Believe (re-read)

+++ Raising Freethinkers

+++ Parenting Beyond Belief

++ How to Live on Mars

++ The Three Trillion Dollar War

+ On Being Certain: Believing you are right even when you’re not

++ The Currents of Space

+++ I, Robot

++ The Conservative Soul: How we lost it, how to get it back

+++ The Birth Partner

However, almost no one actually follows sound password security practices (even most IT staff, but shh… don’t tell) because they just don’t jibe with our limited human memory and need for simplicity. We have too many accounts and use too many different computers to access them, and while computers are great at storing and retrieving semi-random combinations of symbols, human brains are not. That’s why most people use the same, too-simple, never-changed, and written-down passwords for virtually everything online, be it online banking, shopping, or that throwaway account you created just so you could read one article. The trouble is that over time your password becomes only as secure as the least secure web site that stores it, and you can’t depend on everyone taking your privacy as seriously as you do.

Security breaches are always a concern, but I’m far more worried about the flunkie who works at one of those web sites looking up my password in the database and selling it to someone who has nothing better to do than try out my username and password combination on a several major banks, PayPal, Amazon.com, Gmail, eBay… you get the idea. Just imagine what kind of identity theft would be possible if someone gained access to many or all of your online accounts: insurance, banking, work, shopping, social networks — not to mention email, which can often be used as a means of gaining access to all of the above.

So what’s the solution? The best method I’ve found is to (1) Stop relying on our puny human brains and let the computer do what it does well, and (2) Bend the rule about “not written down.”

On the first point, there are several very good (and free) programs such as Password Safe or LastPass that will generate all the passwords you need (with proper length and complexity) and store them in an encrypted database. As to the second point, I agree with security expert Bruce Schneier:

“We already know how to secure small bits of paper. Write your passwords down on a small bit of paper, and put it with all of your other valuable small bits of paper: in your wallet.“

It’s far more important to use strong, unique passwords than worry unduly about writing them down. And in fact, you only need to have one password written down: the master password to your password safe. Of course, storing all of your passwords in a single location poses risks of its own — the biggest probably being that the database could be lost in a hard drive failure. That’s why it’s a great idea to backup the password safe frequently to a secondary device like a USB drive and store it in a fire- and water-proof box.

But what if you need to access your password safe from multiple computers? One method is to install the password management software on each computer and keep the safe on a USB drive that you carry on your keychain. Even if your keys were lost, no one could open the database without knowing your master password. Another way of eliminating the hassle of synchronizing passwords on multiple computers is to use LastPass. It can be installed in virtually any web browser and also allows you to access your password safe from any internet-connected computer via lastpass.com.

Six Steps for a Happier, More Secure You

1) Recognize that you have a password problem.

2) Download and install a password manager on all your computers. I prefer LastPass.

3) Come up with a strong master password for your password safe and memorize it. This is the one password you should write down and keep somewhere safe.

4) Log in to all of your online accounts and change the passwords using complex, unique passwords generated by the password manager.

5) Back up the password safe to an external device whenever you add or change passwords.

6) Never worry about forgetting another password or repeatedly using weak passwords that put you at risk. Password problem solved.

For extra credit and a gold star on your report card, set up a calendar reminder to change your passwords every 90 days or so. If you can’t be bothered to do this for all of your accounts, just change the most sensitive ones (bank, insurance, etc.).

I admit it takes a decent time investment to get this all set up, especially if you manage 50+ passwords like I do, but once you’re using the system you’ll wonder how you ever survived without it.

Sullivan is British, Catholic, married to another man, and endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, so he’s clearly not espousing the sort of WASP-y conservatism I would have expected from a book with this title. I can tell that this treatment of right-wing politics will appeal to me far more than, say, Sarah Palin’s. To that end, I’m glad I picked up this book, because I am trying to find sympathetic expositions of any given political ideology. There’s no shortage of books with titles like “LIBERAL FASCIST NAZI MURDERERS: WHY THE LEFT WANTS TO BLIGHT AMERICA’S SOUL AND TEACH YOUR CAT TO BE GAY” — which certainly have their place — but I’d like to at least start with people who can thoughtfully express their own deeply held beliefs and explain why (and how) I should share them.

More thoughts on this book to follow.

Unfortunately, the movie didn’t cover the issues he stands for in much depth, other than his well-known consumer advocacy and belief that Democrats and Republicans are equally beholden to corporate special interests. It’s hard to find fault with his views, at least in the general way expressed by the film, but I retained my impression that he wouldn’t make a great POTUS (though it seems clear he never expected to actually hold the office, anyway). I certainly came away from the movie with a desire to learn more about the Green party and the numerous issues Nader has championed over the years.

I actually got the same answer during the campaign season but ignored it since Nader has never seemed like a credible candidate to me. He seems to have a useful role as a gadfly to the political establishment, but I can’t imagine him as the actual leader of our nation. Still, now that I’m considering political ideology rather than specific candidates, it’s probably worthwhile to look into his views, even if his personality isn’t one I’d want to have in the White House. Next movie in my Netflix queue: An Unreasonable Man.

This isn’t necessarily about picking a political party, which so often boils down to “you will suffer humiliation when the sports team from my area defeats the sports team from your area.” (You can skip this if you’re in a hurry, but can I just say that it drives me berserk when the POTUS is giving a State of the Union address and the response to a statement like “We’ve reduced crime by 95% percent, eliminated the national debt, and established world peace!” is a standing ovation and tears of joy from one side, and stubbornly folded arms and pouting glares from the other side. Seriously, what is wrong with these people?)

I’ve never been very involved in politics, nor do I consider myself well-informed enough to take a strong position on most issues. However, last year I had something of a political awakening as I become increasingly fascinated by the presidential campaign. I followed the primaries and election fairly closely. I read Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, in which he shares his views on “how we got here” in contemporary American politics and how he’d like to see the political atmosphere change. I found myself agreeing with pretty much everything he wrote and greatly appreciated his clarity, intellect, and optimism. I read up on a few of the other candidates, but none of them interested me much. I was happy to see Obama elected, and I haven’t regretted voting for him since, but I also haven’t been able to decide what comes next for me, politically speaking.

I tend to support liberal causes — does that mean I’m a Democrat? But wait, wouldn’t I also prefer to have smaller government and much lower national debt? Should I take the ever-popular “fiscally conservative, socially progressive” position? What about those tantalizing libertarian ideals? Perhaps the trouble is that I’ve been focusing on questions like “which candidate do I like” or “what position should I take” on a particular issue, when those answers should ideally flow from a few bedrock principles.

Some days I wish I could forget everything I’ve heard about what it means to be conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, and just build my own political home, brick by brick. To that end, I’m looking for a few good books (or web sites, documentaries, magazines, etc. — I’m not picky) that can provide a straightforward rationale for why a person ought to support a certain political philosophy — not just a candidate, party, or specific issue.

Feel free to make some recommendations!