There are currently only a handful of books available, all for $15 and with free sample chapters. (Download them from iTunes). There is also a free biology textbook. I downloaded the bio book and the sample physics chapters, and they were impressive, combining text, graphics, audio and video in a polished, multimedia volume. This wasn’t your typical primate’s physics book.

Page from bio textbook (click for larger image)

So far, Pearson and McGraw Hill are the only publishers, but Apple released a free toolkit for the Mac to create textbooks in their format.

The downside to all this is that the books run only on the iPad, which costs roughly $400 to $800. Many parents simply can’t afford to spend that. And don’t look to public school districts, whose teachers often have to spend their own money to buy basic supplies for their classrooms. That means these multimedia textbooks will probably start out in the private schools of the one percent.

The good news is the price of non-Apple tablets are coming way down, and school districts will be able to purchase them in bulk for about $10 each. They’re no iPads, but they’ll work fine for education. Until these are available, schools can still use tablets, but keep them in the classrooms.

Page from bio textbook (click for larger image)

That means electronic textbooks will have to be available in an open format that will run on non-Apple hardware, or Apple will have to make hardware affordable for education. If the textbooks I downloaded become a standard, this will be a real game changer.

We’ve all seen statistics showing how far American schools are behind the rest of the world. But if you remove the stats from American schools in poor districts, the U.S. is way ahead of everyone else. So to fix education in this country, either solve poverty in general – this won’t happen in my lifetime – or at least solve the poverty in education. If good education weren’t considered a luxury, everybody would benefit. If the U.S. spent 1% of the cost of the Iraq war on education, it would be transformational. Could you imagine the uproar if someone in Washington proposed to spend $30 billion on education?

One day, this will all be in someone’s multimedia history textbook.

I’ve included links to the developers’ sites for your convenience when using a desktop. But to download the apps (and see more reviews), it’s best to use the iTunes app on your iPad.

1. Flipboard. $Free. It’s like having a magazine or newspaper written just for you. Flipboad aggregates postings not just from Facebook and Twitter, but also from news sources that you choose. It includes multimedia content in a flip-book format.
2. HootSuite. $Free or $5.99 a month for premium service. The iPad’s built-in Twitter app is adequate at best, and Twitter recently made it worse. HootSuite makes it easier to manage multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, and with more features than I have space for here. The free version is ad-supported and gives you up to 5 profiles, and the paid version has no limit. It also includes analytics and other features.
3. Lynda.com. $Free to download the app; subscription to the service is from $25/month to $375/year, all unlimited service. Yes I get paid for content I created for them, but I spend a lot of time using the service, too. If there is a software application or technique you want to learn, chances are Lynda.com has a lot of expertly-created videos for it.
4. Facebook. $Free. The app makes it easier to use Facebook on your device rather than going to the web site.
5. Pulse. $Free. It’s the best aggregator I’ve found to read blog and Twitter feeds of people you follow. Pulse is easy to configure and you can sync it with the Google news reader, which you can also use for free on your desktop.
6. Skype. $Free. Pay inexpensive Skype charges to call regular phones. Use all the text, audio and video features of Skype on your iPad. Attach a headset (wired or Bluetooth), and your iPad works like a mobile phone, but almost for free, especially when using your iPad in Wi-Fi mode.
7. The Weather Channel. $Free. There are plenty of weather apps, but this one is fast and no-nonsense. When you start it up, an animated screen shows you what the weather looks like right now (wind, sun, clouds, etc.) and quickly transitions to a 5-day forecast.
8. Rhapsody and SiriusXM satellite radio. $Free to download the apps, uses your existing service. OK, so I have 13 favorites, but Rhapsody and SiriusXM both let you stream the same content you would at your desk or in the car, and for no additional fees. Get yourself a pair of Bluetooth speakers, and stream your music wirelessly. Note: these apps work in iPhone mode on your iPad. Press the 2x button in the corner to make them fill the screen.
9. National Public Radio. $Free, relies on donations. It isn’t always easy to find NPR, especially if you aren’t near a major metro area. This app brings you all their shows, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Science Friday and Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. Listen to shows either live or archived.
10. Dropbox. $Free to download app and for basic service. 50 gb and 100 gb throughput for $9.99 and $19.99 a month. Since iPads don’t have USB connections, how do you move files on or off? You can sync photos and videos using iTunes, but it’s a tedious process just for one or two files, and those go only to two pre-determined folders. And what about other files? Dropbox gives you storage space in the cloud, and integrates with many other apps. Note: you’ll want to install the free Dropbox app on your desktop also, but don’t let it run automatically or it will slow your system down. Run it when you need it, then exit.
11. Yelp. $Free. Read and write restaurant reviews. If you allow, Yelp uses the iPad’s geo-locator service automatically to display restaurants and maps near you. How can you tell Yelp is good? When Zagat got spooked, Google bought them and started dissing Yelp. They wouldn’t have cared, otherwise.
12. Star Walk. $4.99. This is the #1 coolest app I’ve seen. Hold the iPad’s camera up to the night sky, and Star Walk will show amazing graphics of constellations, galaxies and stars, over 20,000 objects. Tap something on the screen to get more information about it. Star Walk works best with the iPad 2 and allowing it to use GPS. Its database is self-contained, so you can use it without an Internet connection. One day, I hope to find my home planet with it.

• Buy a DLP unit, not an older-style LCD.
• Brightness is measured in lumens; the more a projector has, the brighter the image. Minimum you should get is 2100 lumens, and 2500-3000 are increasingly common and can be used with room lights on.
• Like a computer screen, resolution is measured in pixel width x height. Bare minimum size to get is 1024 x 768 (a/k/a XGA resolution), but to if you want to be future-proof (read: more expensive), then get one that supports hi-def, which is 1920 x 1080. A projector that displays 1920 x 1080 and also supports the 1080p format is one you can use for Blu-ray DVDs. That’s what you’d use in a home theater.
• Some projectors are listed as “short throw”, which means they can display a full-size image on the screen from only 1 or 2 yards away. That’s great for doing demos or training or where space is tight, so you don’t wander in front of the screen and block the image.

There are many brands and models to choose from, but here are a few typical examples.

The BenQ W6000 has all the goodies, and will set you back $1400 at Amazon.com. Think that’s a lot? It wasn’t long ago that a device like this would cost thousands:
http://amzn.to/saaghE

For $500, you can get the Acer H5360, which is 2500 lumens and 1280 x 720 resolution:
http://bit.ly/vHboha

In between those two is this one, which goes up to 1280 x 800 resolution, 2500 lumens, supports 1080p and does short throw. Lowest price I found is $850:
http://bit.ly/v5kKgc

If you want to search on your own, a good place is B&H, which is a reputable place in New York. You can choose prices, resolutions, lumens, etc., and they’ll show you what’s available:
http://bhpho.to/d0mrfK

No problem…if your name is Data and you fly on the Starship Enterprise. For everyone else, here are two realistic suggestions you can actually do.

1. Use a password manager. Browser plug-ins like KeePass, LastPass or RoboFormwork in all browsers, and when you need to log in somewhere, they will automatically enter the info. They’ll fill in forms, too, so you don’t have to keep typing your name and address everywhere you go.

   The downside to password managers is that you still need a strong master password for them, and not everyone feels comfortable storing their passwords in the cloud. Earlier this year, LastPass was hacked and a few people had their info stolen, but only those who used a weak master password. Password managers also tend not to work very well on mobile devices.

2. Use a phrase. Instead of trying to remember ridiculous jumbles, use one password for multiple sites, but make your password the initial letters of a phrase that has meaning to you. For example, my phrase might be Flemington is on Highway #202. Taking the first letters and symbols, my password would be FioH#202. (Maybe include the period for good measure.) That’s easy enough for me to remember without writing down, but hard for anyone to guess. And it should satisfy the requirement that some sites have for including uppercase, lowercase, numbers and symbols in a password.

A neutrino walks into a bar.

While this is generally good for us as consumers of search results, it doesn’t bode well for certain sites, like the sports desk at the Reuters news service, which doesn’t show up until page 8 of the results. My point is that if you’re creating a new site or updating an existing one, don’t waste your time or money on SEO services. Most of them seem to be hucksters anyway, but even if they can get your site up in the rankings, there’s little chance you’ll stay there. What should you do, instead? Spend time on your social network connections and — gasp! — interact with your customers.

If you aren’t sure whether you’re running the x64 version of Windows, here’s how you find out: press + Pause. This displays the System Properties screen, where you should see something like this:

A few things to look out for:

The installation page might guess wrong that you’re running 32-bit Windows, and show you this:

If that happens, click the “Do you have…” link and choose 64-bit. You may also need to download two versions of the installer: one for Internet Explorer, and another for all other browsers.

One other gotcha to look for: the screen will display a check box to install the Google toolbar or a trial of McAfee anti-virus. By default, the box is checked, so I had to make sure to un-check it. This is very irritating. Whether you call it “shovelware” or “foistware”, it’s very easy to overlook, and then your computer has stuff you didn’t want, slowing it down. This is especially bad for installing anti-virus software, since it will conflict with the one you already have one running. You do have one running…right?

Amazon will continue selling the regular Kindle, which uses an e-ink screen. The new model isn’t intended as a replacement.