Dave Caolo

I’ll be at Boston’s flagship Apple Store on Boylston Street this Saturday covering the iPad launch. Come over and say, “Hi.” It’d be great to meet you. I’ll be wearing my gray TUAW T-shirt.

Boy Genius Report has leaked screenshots of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. As John Gruber points out, one of the most ridiculous standouts is that the save icon is a floppy disk, despite the fact that Apple hasn’t sold a computer with a floppy drive for more than a decade. Not to mention the fact that no one under 30 has ever used one.

The folks at Posterous have made it dead-simple to register a domain and set up a blog. In fact, a single click takes care of the entire process. No DNS record, no A-record, nothing.

As if I needed another reason to absolutely love Posterous.

VaultPress is a premium WordPress security and backup service, now in private beta. I’ve submitted an application. In the meantime, here’s the home grown backup solution I’ve been using.

Earlier today, Seton Hill University announced their intention to give an iPad to every full-time student in 2010:

The iPad initiative kicks off the University’s Griffin Technology Advantage Program. This new program provides students with the best in technology and collaborative learning tools, ensuring that Seton Hill students will be uniquely suited to whatever careers they choose – even those that have not yet been created.

And that is the end of the game. As we said on TUAW last year, when the iPad was only a rumor, whoever does textbooks right will win the ebook market. Former TUAW blogger Christian Warren:

Do textbooks, and you win. Even without a subsidy it would be worth the investment for most 4-year students, and a no-brainer for grad school. I know during my extended tenure in college that I spent thousands on textbooks, often getting nothing back at trade-in. I had to deal with professors switching [editions] every semester, making finding used books unreliable, unless I wanted to scour eBay and then wait for delivery.

This arrangement will benefit budget-minded students and booksellers alike. Consider the revenue that publishers lose every year when students re-sell used books to campus bookstores. Also, Apple’s got a distribution solution in place that students, faculty and staff already know how to use in iTunes U.

Get publishers to agree to iPad distribution and you’ve got a device that can follow a student from his/her freshman year in high school to graduate school. Why buy a laptop when every student has a device that can be a textbook, reference tool, Internet appliance and whatever else the limitless imaginations of developers can produce?

[Via TUAW]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is the 1st time a demo video from Apple has featured non-white hands. Good job, Apple.

We posted several iPad app preview videos at TUAW this week, and I’ve noticed that a few have “HD” in their title. Plants vs. Zombies HD and Flight Control HD are two examples. This is a mistake.

I understand that developers want to distinguish iPad apps from their equivalent iPod offerings, but I don’t think “HD” is the best method. It’s got a specific definition — high definition video has one or two million pixels per frame — that the iPad doesn’t meet.

It’s logical to assume that one could tack “iPad” or “For iPad” onto their titles, but Apple only recently ruled on how “iPad” may be used. Developers who have been hard at work for weeks had to make a decision before getting their apps in for review. Do you submit an app called, for example, “Plants vs. Zombies iPad” or “Flight Control for iPad” only to have Apple send it back at the last minute?

Additionally, what if a future iPad model is capable of high definition playback? Is your app then “HD Plus?” I think “XL” or something similar would have been better. I know I’m being nit-picky, but I wish “HD” hadn’t been used.

I’m very happy to have a guest post up at A Better Freelancer today.

Freelancing means that we’re responsible for the aspects of business that an employer would typically handle for us. Among them are what I call the big three. In this post, I’ll look at each and describe how I handle them.

Every freelancer is a technician, an entrepreneur and a manager.

Check it out.

Isolator is a menu bar utility that hides background windows, the dock and dims the desktop picture with the stroke of a hot key. It’s very useful and free. Requires Mac OS 10.5 or 10.6.

[Via Switched]

The folks at Overcommitted have made the official iPhone app for Highrise. It’s simple and effective, as one would expect any 37signals product to be. I like that the app’s main toolbar matches itself to the color scheme you’re using with the browser-based version. They’ve also made the initial synchronization fun, but I won’t give away how.

Highrise lets you manage communications you’ve had with contacts and customers as well as tasks and appointments. I’ve been a happy customer for years. Look for my review at TUAW this week.