Links for April 2nd through April 6th

A little something extra…

I’ve been borrowing an iPad courtesy of my friend Charles. It’s pretty fun to use, but I’m not sure if a MacBook Air would be a better fit for me. I’ll have a review up sometime soon.

In the meantime, here are some pictures and (mostly) screenshots:

…in a gloriously ironic Flash slideshow! (Here’s a plain-old, HTML view.)

The Links

• AT&T plans $1 billion investment in enterprise cloud services | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
• John Nack on Adobe: Draw & share with Adobe Ideas for iPad
  Doodling on the iPad via Adobe.
• Rackspace Cloud iPad app (build web infrastructure fast)
  "The application tsunami for the iPad is in full swing with a heavy emphasis on consumer applications but what does the iPad mean for businesses? The Rackspace Cloud believes their new application for the iPad – Rackspace Cloud Pro – creates a new platform for server management that will break barriers to entry for start-ups by lowering infrastructure costs and delivering new flexibility to businesses by allowing them to manage their IT infrastructure from anywhere, at anytime. This is the first cloud server management application available for the iPad and can also change the way IT professionals work by freeing them from their desktops and offices"
• Dion Hinchcliffe: We Are Now Part of the Dachis Group
• Zenoss Releases Service Assurance Monitoring Product for Private & Public Clouds based on Cisco UCS
• Stanza, zoomed on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
  @MatStace here's Stanza on the iPad zoomed: also pic of it not zoomed in there.
• Sunday DIY – Floppy Disk Pen Holder – 4/5 on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
  Amazed it's only Monday. In other news, check this out from Turku:
• Special Report: Tech Analysts in the Media by ITDatabase
  Check out@ITDatabase's special report in tech analysts, rounds up press/bog interactions & such:
• Two peas in a pod @cote #redmonk #ipad on Twitpic
  RT @cowboyd: Two peas in a pod @cote #redmonk #ipad
• Ideas Project
  What do y'all think of things like Nokia's Ideas Project ( – are you interested in that? Like Nokia more?
• Always Split Test
• Reductive Labs, Home of Puppet, Changes Name to Puppet Labs | Puppet Labs
• Outlook good for venture-backed exits and IPOs
• PhoneGap vs Titanium Mobile, et al : Jonathan Stark
• Palmisano Needs Acquisitions to Sustain IBM Growth (Update1) – Bloomberg.com
  Big time investors want IBM to buy more companies to get more growth.
• Enterprise cloud put to the test
  The DIY pricing seems to be half of cloud pricing: "We also attempted to compare the three service providers with a do-it-yourself option – in other words, buying hardware and software and deploying the apps on your own. With the comparison lies strong caveats. If one uses a DIY-type solution, there are hidden expenses involved that we didn't include in our estimate. These include support staffing, and leasehold costs, although we did include a collocation cost for power and space, at $45 per rack one unit per month prorated over the cost of the Dell hardware we chose in our DIY cost simulation. We also didn't include applications or application support, although these aren't covered by our competitors, either. Nor is the cost of negotiations, procurement, shipping, or building the hardware components included." No Amazon, though.
• An Open Letter to the City of Austin | AustinStartup
  Some open government/data hoopla from Jan 2010.
• BarCamp / ProductCampAustinSpring2010
• Texas Linux Fest | About
• UPDATE 1-Dell confident on server momentum
• Jewels from the loft: launch of Delphi, Netscape’s Constellation, HTML to die, Longhorn for developers
  Mid-90's memory lane in the tech world. Nice covers and hair.
• Anders Hejlsberg on functional programming, programming futures
  A programming language explosion.
• The Numbers On The iPad's Debut
• Dropbox + iTunes 9 = Automatically add songs to a remote copy of iTunes
  There is some dropbox/iTunes syncing, but it's tedious:
• Verdict after one day
  Pretty balanced review, actually. The conclusion: "Today's iPad, the one that I just bought, is just a demo of something that could be very nice and useful at some point in the future. Today it's something to play with, not something to use. That's the kind way to say it. The direct way: It's a toy."
• Documents To Go for iPhone and iPod touch
  This looks like it could be useful, esp. if it works with Google Apps.
• Application Platform Strategies Blog: The iPad Will Change the World
  Anne Thomas Manes reviews the iPad. In Twitter, in reply to me wondering if business travelers would take the iPad instead of a laptop she said: "as long as I don't have to write presos/docs when traveling, I will take iPad, not laptop."
• Adobe Labs – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3
• Adobe Adds Speed, Flickr Integration to Lightroom 3
• Stop the Drain on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
  Finally made the big times with a magazine cover:
• Turn off the Pipes The party is Over
  This the cover story that I'm used in a photo for: "There's nothing as inviting as a lush tropical landscaped yard rolled out under swaying palms and a balmy blue sky. That is until you realize that 65 percent of Florida's dwindling water supply is used to keep that lawn lush, those flowers blooming and your neighbors envious. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Florida's aquifer is taking a beating. Is engineering innovation the answer? Or is it much, much simpler?."
• Adobe AIR on iPad
• Data Show Best Corners to Hail a Cab in New York
  Analytics applied to everyday problems, like finding a good place to catch a cab.
• dear clusterflock
  People talk about personal analytics they do.
• Lagos: a city teeming with business flair
  "Lagos is not a kind of backward situation but an announcement of the future," the architect Rem Koolhaas has said. "What is now fascinating is how, with some level of self-organisation, there is a strange combination of extreme underdevelopment and development."
• Silicon Valley Companies Gear Up for Acquisitions Amid Improving Economy
  With lots of cash laying around in large company coffers, seems like a good time for acquisitions.
• Beyond the iPad
  "The first versions of unique hardware designs tend to be imperfect and get old fast. Such was the case with the first iPods and iPhones, and will surely be the case with the first iPads as well. The ones being introduced next week will seem antique one year from now."
• Square Turns Your iPad Into A Cash Register
  They called them "cred sticks" on Shadowrun.

Disclosure: see the RedMonk client list for clients mentioned.