For those who haven’t followed the insanity of the day, Apple announced their newest product, the iPad (trending topic on Twitter, along with a few other fun variants on the name).  The hype was insane.  The iPad looks beautiful and the demos were cool, but reactions on Twitter and the blogosphere are mixed.  Now as the media, techies and consumers digest it, we shall see if it’s another game changer or a yawner.  My guess is a game changer, because I wouldn’t underestimate Apple.
  
What got lost in the sizzle is how the new iPad might take advantage of cloud computing.  iTunes and the App store are cloud applications and Apple does have iWork.com where you can share and store documents.  Most of the useful apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch access services in the cloud.  If this device becomes a replacement for a laptop (debatable), will more people collaborate with it in the cloud? Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week I was catching up on my email when I came across something that surprised me.  I opened an email from a former colleague and attached to it was a spreadsheet titled 3 Year Strategic Plan.  Well you can imagine my surprise.  My first reaction was this must be a mistake.  Since I know the person, I called and asked him if he meant to send this to me.  He was shocked and almost panicked.  He explained that he sent this to a number of internal people and I should never have gotten it.  He concluded that I was in his address book and when he typed R, my name came up.  He had a long list of recipients and didn’t look carefully at who was on the To: line. Read the rest of this entry »

This week I’m in Phoenix on business and wanted to find some good places to eat, so last week I decided to check out the social media channels.  I could have searched Google, but I thought I might get a better response using other tools.

  
I am a vegan and I like interesting food, so not just anyplace would do.  I started by asking if anyone had a vegan or vegetarian restaurant suggestion on Twitter.  I got a few responses.  One was from Whole Foods in Phoenix suggesting I try their vegan Indian entrees.  That sounded great, but I wanted a sit down restaurant.  
  
I did a search on Phoenix and Tempe, AZ on Twitter and came across Green in Tempe.  I hit their website and found they have a Facebook page, so I went there.  I read some great reviews, a few menu items and some daily specials.  A perfect place for lunch, so I went.  The food was awesome and the place was fun.  I posted thanks for the meal on their Facebook wall and tweeted it.   Read the rest of this entry »

Another day, another data breach at a university.  Eastern Washington University discovered this week that more than 130,000 current and former students may have had their personal information stolen by a hacker sometime in the past year.  This is just the latest in a string of universities that were attacked.  The scary thing is that the universities are not sure when the breach happened.  
   
Officials think that people are targeting research universities because there is a lot of sensitive, hence profitable, information available.  Are these related, are they insiders, are they coordinated?  No one knows or would talk if they knew.  If this continues, higher education and students could be severely compromised.   Read the rest of this entry »