Apple Tablet - whats the fuss?

OK, so I didn't like the tablet when I first met it, way back in (probably 2005). RM, our school network supplier had showcased their amazing tablet and we even bought a couple - one pretty basic Tatung version and another top of the current range with larger hard drive and separate keyboard etc.

I wasn't convinced until I saw an inspirational display of the tablet platform at one of the RM seminars. We were guided through a topic by the RM guy who used his tablet as a floating A4 notebook and took us through a presentation. "Here is  a technology I can use", I thought and started to use my "mini" version with my class. It was great to stand behind a busty year 11 student and not to have to invade her personal space when I suggested feedback. Using the RM tutor application was a delight when I could freeze their displays from anywhere in the room.

When I wanted to move to a new platform at home a couple of years ago, I naturally went for a tablet, picking (against my natural  instinct) an Athlon HP tablet. It struggled on most of the basic functions but the most annoying features was that it ran at boiling water pace and insisted on venting its excess energy on your legs.

Last November during a very regretful upgrade session, I managed to upgrade the HP tablet to windows 7 by leaving it on the floor and stepping on it the next day when I returned in the dark and forgot it was left doing its stuff on the living room floor. Amazingly, the household insurance covered it but would only upgrade to a 4gb 350gb HD Athlon 64 bit jobbie. It wasnt massively over the original spec but the difference was amazing!

I take the tablet down to the local pub and use their free wi-fi to browse my Google reader feeds, checkout the newspaper feeds (very sadly lacking, they have a long way to go!), then generally surf more the more insignificant links until the beer levels gets to a level where its well worth logging off and packing away.

So, the Apple Tablet is old news but the social change its going to drive is very significant. We will have wireless enabled browsers for our social networks, email readers, and much more - significantly, the Apple tablet will connect more people in a non synchronous and therefore cheap way than any platform before!

Being able to spin the screen around, use my finger to point to links, write on the screen with a pen and even use limited speech recognition is the way forward and Apple have jumped on the band wagon with their flash disabled, non multi functional, camera disabled tablet.

They WILL sell in volumes, but much more importantly they will let thousands of new users access Apple and mobile internet devices. This will lead to a catalytic conversion of the way we access out communication devices and I predict this is the most important change since the Wright brothers!

Christmas Spirit

Well, Im making a determined effort this year to actually join in with the "Christmas Spirit" thingie.

I suppose an early career in retail followed by ten years running a dairy business has opened my eyes to some of the less generous aspects of human nature that the "season of goodwill" is supposed to liberate.

Working in a supermarket in the eighties was certainly an experience! There was no such thing as 24 hour shoipping, online retail or Sunday trading which put even greater pressure on the normal opening hours. I clearly remember having to take pallets of 2L PET bottles of lemonade out of the back door of Hillards, through the customer carpark and into the main aisle, only to arrive in situ with an empty pallet as it had been stripped bare by the shopping vultures. On a store that used to take eighty thousand pounds a week, we could easily take that amount on one morning in the pre Christmas rush. It wasnt pleasant and didnt leave you thinking very highly of Christmas.

As a milkman, it was even worse. My Christmas delivery often involved loading the float up six or seven times and I usually had only a few minutes sleep in the three days building up to Christmas. Despite my best efforts to deliver not only the very best Christmas produce but also a handsome chunk of goodwill, I would usually have my Christmas dinner spolit by some (very irate and often the worse for drink) customer asking me if I was going to take their cream round!

One good think about being a local business man was that I was asked to be a school Governor at two local schools. Walking round Lee Brigg Infant School at Christmas was a magical experience! The displays, the wonderful children, superb staff and just a truly magical quality of the school is exactly what Christmas is about.

So, many years later and now as a teacher myself, Im ready to put my best foot forward!

Do you think it will go well?

Training

551 cal
5.34 km
34:47

Back from hols ran about 4k every day, used gpstracker on iPhone,
really good and enjoyed it.

Will post training schedule later.

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Training

531 calories
5.29 km
36:48

Sent from my iPhone

Training

553 calories
5.35 km
38:22

Calibrated Nike+ so ran at 9km hour for 5k. Had two phone calls, so
had to pause but think I've allowed for it.

443 calories
4.41
32:43 ( without 5 min cooldown)
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Training

277 calories
2.76 I'm
22:32

Nike+
249 calories
2.53km
22:27

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Training Wednesday

433 calories
4.78 I'm
35:00

Had a few days off, need to build this up again! Going to have an abbs
rip now!

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