Cisco's Valet Router is a "no-brainer" for easy setup

Why the iPad Will Change Everything

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"What's the big deal about Apple's iPad, currently arriving in stores on the biggest wave of hype since, well, Apple's iPhone? The easy answer is that the iPad comes from Apple, and we always expect big things from Apple because it is run by Steve Jobs, whose California garage was the birthplace of the personal computer in 1976. Since then, Jobs has transformed computing by making machines people actually like to use. He's changed the movie business, buying Pixar and ushering in the era of computer animation, and he's led a takeover of the music business with the iPod and the iTunes music store. Then came the iPhone, and even now, nearly three years after its introduction, no other phone comes close.

Jobs is a relentless perfectionist whose company creates such beautifully designed products that they have changed our expectations about how everything around us should work. He has an uncanny ability to cook up gadgets that we didn't know we needed, but then suddenly can't live without. The iPad is his personal pet project. It's something he's been working on for years, reportedly even while he was recuperating from a liver transplant. Jobs calls it 'a truly magical and revolutionary device,' and supposedly has told people close to him that the iPad is the most important thing he's ever done.

Which is why so many of us raced to San Francisco in January to get an up-close view of the miraculous tablet. Yet my first thought, as I watched Jobs run through his demo, was that it seemed like no big deal. It's a bigger version of the iPod Touch, right? Then I got a chance to use an iPad, and it hit me: I want one. Like the best Apple products, the user interface is so natural it disappears. The iPad runs on the iPhone operating system, so it's even easier to use than a Mac. Like the iPhone, the iPad is a sleek, slim device. It has a nice 9.7-inch screen, weighs only one and a half pounds, and can play movies for 10 hours on a single battery charge. Right away I could see how I would use it. I'd keep it in the living room to check e-mail and browse the Web. I'd take it to the kitchen and read The New York Times while I eat breakfast. I'd bring it with me on a plane to watch movies and read books.

That may not be life-changing, but is it worth 500 bucks? Yup. Done. Sold. No wonder, then, that by some accounts Apple has received preorders for 240,000 iPads, and some analysts project it could sell up to 5 million units in the product's first 12 months. One early adopter is Steve Wozniak, who cofounded Apple with Jobs. Woz has already ordered three iPads and plans to camp out in front of an Apple store the night before the iPad's debut, just for kicks. 'We all say we want things to be simpler, and now here is this simple thing. I think it will be a huge success,' Wozniak says."

iPhone App to Sidestep AT&T

READ full article on Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance

"For a little $1 iPhone app, Line2 sure has the potential to shake up an entire industry.

It can save you money. It can make calls where AT&T's (T) signal is weak, like indoors. It can turn an iPod Touch into a full-blown cellphone.

And it can ruin the sleep of cellphone executives everywhere.

Line2 gives your iPhone a second phone number -- a second phone line, complete with its own contacts list, voice mail, and so on. The company behind it, Toktumi (get it?), imagines that you'll distribute the Line2 number to business contacts, and your regular iPhone number to friends and family. Your second line can be an 800 number, if you wish, or you can transfer an existing number.

To that end, Toktumi offers, on its Web site, a raft of Google (GOOG) Voice-ish features that are intended to help a small businesses look bigger: call screening, Do Not Disturb hours and voice mail messages sent to you as e-mail. You can create an 'automated attendant' -- 'Press 1 for sales,' 'Press 2 for accounting,' and so on -- that routes incoming calls to other phone numbers. Or, if you're pretending to be a bigger business than you are, route them all to yourself.

The Line2 app is a carbon copy, a visual clone, of the iPhone's own phone software. The dialing pad, your iPhone Contacts list, your recent calls list and visual voice mail all look just like the iPhone's.

(Let's pause for a moment here to blink, dumbfounded, at that point. Apple's (AAPL) rules prohibit App Store programs that look or work too much like the iPhone's own built-in apps. For example, Apple rejected the Google Voice app because, as Apple explained to the Federal Communications Commission, it works 'by replacing the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls.' That is exactly what Line2 does. Oh well -- the Jobs works in mysterious ways.)

So you have a second line on your iPhone. But that's not the best part."