You wake up in the morning and notice your digital photo frame. You sit down to eat, check your email and read the news. You commute into work and read a book on the bus or carpool in. You head to a meeting at work and take some notes, then email them out after. Over lunch you take a break and watch a video, then check your schedule. On the evening commute, you decide to listen to some tunes and play a video game. As you go to bed, you lay down to read a novel.

That could be a pretty typical day that has all sorts of things involved. Your laptop, book, video game system, folio, etc. Now imagine if you could have one device to do that all. That could be the iPad. That is why I think it is going to be a huge deal. The biggest thing for me, is that it doesn't have to do all of the things I described well, it could do three of the things, like playing games, checking your email and reading a book, and it would still be worth it.

When the iPhone came out, it was a big deal because it condensed my phone, iPod and digital camera into one device. The iPad has a chance to do that again, but with more things around the house and office. And again, it doesn't have to do all of those things well to be valuable. But the awesome part is, it very well might do all of those things well!

Changes the Web

I see the potential for all of the things the iPad can change, but from my web tech perspective I am even more excited. The iPad puts the web on the same playing field as print media finally. If you want to argue that the laptop was fine for viewing the web, go ahead. But in my experience, reading a magazine to read an article was nicer than trying to read a lengthy article on the laptop or smartphone. With the iPad, the web is now on equal footing with size and ease of reading.

The other huge thing is the fact that Webkit continues to support leading edge web standards that web designers and developers want to use. This means designers have the ability to mimic magazine article layouts and now have a platform to present them in a similar fashion. Imagine seeing an elaborate design, now in the ease of reading like a magazine.

Oh, and no Flash is no problem for me. For me, 90% of the things you see in Flash on a website can now be done with Javascript and HTML5. I want the open standards supported, and if the iPad gives the web standards more of a nudge forward, that is fantastic!

My Apps Just Work on it?

As much as I hate the whole App Store approval stuff, I will give Apple credit on keeping a tight lock on how apps get developed. By using the tools Apple provides, almost all apps will work on the iPad without any changes. The biggest reason for this is the common set of UI elements that developers have in creating their app. Now, when the apps get doubled in size on the iPad, all of the UI elements that Apple provides will increase in an elegant way. This isn't to say that you would design an app for the iPad to look like a doubled in size iPhone app, but the fact that day one apps will work, that is impressive and throws a bit of a bone to App Store developers. And for the end user, the apps you have will work with no extra cost.

I realize that I am labeled as a Mac fanboy, so you might just throw all of this away as Mac hope. Sure I want to see the iPad succeed, but I also think this is going to honestly be a gamechanger with how some folks interact with technology. The ease of use with, that size screen and a decent weight means people will be able to do things more efficiently and with a pleasant experience. Will it be perfect? No, but I think it will be well worth the $500 entry price.

• Exercise more - Other than snow shoveling last year, I didn't get much done.  Not sure how it will work out with a kid coming soon, but it is still a good goal. - Failed, no excuses here just didn't do it. The only "exercise" I did regularly was walking across campus twice a day.
• Be a parent - Not just being a Dad, but baring extra responsibility to help Rebekah stay sane and have quality time with Will. - Success, Will was born March 16th and we have stayed relatively sane.
• See 3 movies in the theater - Success (Watchmen, The Invention of Lying and Avatar)
• Finish one novel a month (First I have to find a novel each month, but we shall see) - Failed, I did read about 8 but not one per month
• Keep up my blog at a reasonable pace - Leaving out the end of the year lists, I had almost 100 posts through the year.  I would like to keep up about that pace.  Something that should help is: Failed, just not the time I used to have for writing
• Album of the Week - Replacing the Pick of the Week will be an Album of the Week.  Current or from the past, I will pick an album each week to recommend. Failed, I gave up about halfway though the year due to the annoyance of getting album covers for each post.
• Write more about music - If the Top 10 Lists showed anything, my traffic goes up when I write about music, so I will work on writing more about music. Success, what I did write, it was mostly about music.

For 2010, I have had some difficulty in thinking of resolutions. The first reason is that I have learned over the last 9 months that you cannot anticipate what your kid is going to do next. I hate to think of a resolution that seems reasonable now, but in a month is totally unreasonable do to a change in Will's routine or behaviors. That being said, here is what I have:

• Better manage my personal budget - I am not terrible at it, but it is a place I can improve
• Decide on a technology for my web site - I am close, I think
• Create my new web site - I have to decide what content I want, how I want to present it and then actually implement it.
• Write 4 posts on my site each month - Some weeks are tougher than others for posts, so monthly might be more attainable
• Engage a new music genre - After getting crap about my top 25 list of the decade being too similar, I figured it was a good excuse to investigate a new genre to keep expanding my music tastes. I had some success with jazz last year, so I am open to suggestions.
• Beat the Metroid Prime trilogy - This one is pretty iffy I think, but if it is the only game I play I might be able to do it.
• Most Important: Be the best husband and dad I can be - Nothing specific here, just want to feel like I did the best I could for the year.

The other reason I haven't done anything is because I want to have it be really really really easy to post to. Lots of times during the day, I want to take a link and post it with a sentence comment, or toss an image up there because our son is just too darn cute. The problem is the barrier to entry. I have to copy the link, make up a title, add some tags, edit an excerpt so all 3 people who go to my site directly get a witty comment and then post it. This is not a difficult process, just time consuming. This gets even more frustrating because I see how easy it is on Facebook to post something, and I want that. Just not in Facebook because then my stuff is trapped behind the 21st century "Great Blue Wall".

This led me to look at Tumblr. Looks pretty close to what I want, but the problem is that not many folks I know use Tumblr. That makes many of the features on there useless to me, and therefore makes me less interested in it. What I really want is a self hosted Tumblr with Disqus support (and have Disqus be able to get comments from Facebook as well). All that just so I MIGHT blog more often.

All of the things above are just about my blog. I have other ideas for my site as well, all taking much more time and effort. The big theory I have is treating my web site as a place that I can organize my digital content. To contrast, Rebekah is fantastically organized in real life. Without her, I am pretty sure the house would be falling apart around me. I can be organized too, but I have to do it in a rigid manner that allows flexibility in how I view my data. Yeah, I know it is impossible to have both of those, but bare with me.

Let's say I have some comics. These comics have all sorts of data with them, things like writers, characters, publish dates, series, etc. They also have things like story arcs which span series, have read orders and their own plots. Today, if I want to read a story arc, I first have to find all of the titles, see if I have them all, then grab them and start reading. I think it would be fantastic if I could go to my site, grab a story arc and it tells me where I need to look to find all of the books for it. I don't have that today, and the frustrating thing is there are data sources out there for much of this, but getting it all put together is time consuming AND I don't have a framework to stick this data in without writing it myself. Oh, I also want there to be some consistency between my blog design and these comics.

So that is the deal, I am too ambitious with my site to get started at any sort of revision. So it suffers, and I tweet and star things in Google Reader until it becomes easier. I really think the next big thing on the web is making data that exists all over usable. The problem is I can see it coming, but I want it now. And while I wait, this site sits, bright blue and waiting.

1. My Girls - Animal Collective (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
2. 1901 - Phoenix (Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix)
3. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear (Veckatimest)
4. Little Secrets - Passion Pit (Manners)
5. From Africa To Malaga - JJ (JJ N° 2)
6. French Navy - Camera Obscura (My Maudlin Career)
7. Pusuit of Happiness (Feat. MGMT And Ratatat) - KiD CuDi (Man On The Moon: The End Of Day)
8. VCR - The xx (xx)
9. The Walls Are Coming Down - Fanfarlo (Reservoir)
10. Wavin' Flag - k'naan (Troubadour)

Honorable Mention

• Help I'm Alive - Metric (Fantasies)
• Can You Discover? - Discovery (LP)
• Animal - Miike Snow (Miike Snow)
• The Reeling - Passion Pit (Manners)
• I Want You To Know - Dinosaur Jr (Farm)
• My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille - Beirut (March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland)

I know this is a little early, but I know there is a best of the 2000's list to work on as well, and history has shown me that good albums do not come out in Novembers and Decembers. This year was a pretty fantastic for music, so the choices were much tougher than last year. So here is the quick and dirty list for 2009.

1. Merriweather Post Pavillian - Animal Collective
   A fantastic album through and through, they make repetition creative and My Girls is amazing
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
   I beg you to find a more fun, creative and solid album
3. JJ N° 2 - JJ
   This one came out of left field but I cannot stop listening to the smooth vocals and island beats
4. Manners - Passion Pit
   Just one step behind Phoenix in fun, creative and solidness
5. Veckatimest - Grizzly Bear
   Two Weeks is a great song and the rest is weird enough to keep you interested but not too weird to turn away
6. xx - The XX
   You want moody music, this is moody music. It also happens to be great and touching at the same time
7. Immolate Yourself - Telefon Tel Aviv
   Really good electronic work here, this year's Cut Copy
8. Reservoir - Fanfarlo
   A really good indie album out of England that I can listen to the whole way through with no problem
9. Song of Songs - Stile Antico
   Early classical pick from Amazon has me amazed every time I listen to it
10. Farm - Dinosaur Jr.
    Fantastic grunge album 15 years after it's time.

Honorable Mention (in Alphabetical Order)

• There is No Enemy- Built to Spill
• My Maudlin Career - Camera Obscura
• This is for the White... - Choir of Young Believers
• LP - Discovery
• Here We Go Magic - Here We Go Magic
• Fantasies - Metric
• 5: Five Years of Hyperdub - Various Artists

Six Degrees Free - As collection of Indian music, it would be easy to say that this is just riding the momentum of Slumdog Millionaire, but the songs on the sampler show a greater range of Indian music. Journey by Bombay Dub Orchestra would be my recommendation if you only want to listen to one song.

Luaka Bop - World artists from all over here, so there is a decent chance you will find something you like. As a bonus, there is a remix of Wherever You Are by Geggy Tah. My one song on this one is Valentin by Susana Baca.

Rotana - With music from the Middle East, I realize this might be a stretch for some, but I really enjoyed it. My pick on this one is Kalamak Ya Habibi by George Wassouf

Let me know if you checked out any others and if you have anything you would recommend as well.

PS: It is things like this that make the Amazon MP3 store better than iTunes at this point.