Steve Jobs says, “We are living in the post PC era.”

• What does that mean?
• Is he correct? (Yes.)
• Do you need to do anything?

I will present Apple’s Post PC Era (redux) for the Friends of the Weston Library Lunch and Learn Program .

The talk will be about:

• Evolving cloud computing initiatives — Apple, Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
• Lion – Mac OS X version 10.7
• iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch and 2nd generation Apple TV
• iCloud services, including Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud and iTunes Match.
• How do Apple’s new products and services work with Windows computers and Android devices?

The presentation is Wednesday, September 14, 2011, 12pm (noon) — 1:30pm.

It is at the Weston Public Library Meeting Room, 56 Norfield Road, Weston, CT. Google directions – http://g.co/maps/zjx5

The meeting begins at noon. Bring your lunch and a beverage.

I hope to see you there.

Steve Jobs says, “We are living in the post PC era.”

• What does that mean?
• Is he correct? (Yes.)
• Do you need to do anything?

I will present Apple’s Post PC Era at the next meeting of the Connecticut PC Users Group (CTPC).

My talk will be about:

• Lion – Mac OS X version 10.7
• iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch and 2nd generation Apple TV
• iCloud services, including iTunes Match.
• How do Apple’s new products and services work with Windows computers and Android devices?

The meeting is the evening of Tuesday, June 28, 2011.

It is at the Silver Star Diner, East Room, 210 Connecticut Avenue (Route 1 – Post Road), Norwalk, CT. Google directions – http://goo.gl/maps/7ft5

The meeting begins at 6:30pm. My presentation will begin about 7:30pm and end at 8:30pm. The meeting is open to the public and you are welcome to stay for salad, pizza, and beverages after the meeting.

Walt Graham, CTPC’s president will host the first part of the program, starting at 6:30pm. This consists of Random Access and then a look at tools for managing Windows files.

I hope to see you there.

No thank you Google. I could buy an iPad 2 for that price (without the free sleeve) or an Asus Eee Pad Transformer for $50 less!

[Update 2011-03-20: Using Windows Update on 9 W7 machines: 2 succeeded, 7 have failed.]

I wasted over 10 hours trying to get Windows Update to install SP1 on my main machine, troubleshooting the failed update, downloading the DVD file, installing SP1 from the DVD, troubleshooting hibernate issues and unsuccessfully attempting to restore the machine to just before SP1 was installed.

Though Microsoft has improved over the years, this is still not an atypical experience. Issues like this also occur with Apple and Google. However, I have lost tolerance for Microsoft-induced problems. After three decades of these issues. Microsoft should know better. They do. They just don’t seem to care enough about their end-users.

In the past this would have been more than simply frustrating. It might even have been catastrophic. Today it doesn’t much matter.

I am slowly moving away from Microsoft platforms. As recently as five years ago, I spent 100% of my computing time on Microsoft Windows. Today is different. I spend about 50% of my time on Windows (mostly Windows 7), 30% on Mac OS X (mostly Snow Leopard), 15% on Apple iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV) and 5% on Google Android devices. I expect Android and iOS to grow within the next 2 years to more than half of my computing time. Truthfully, I am agnostic when it comes to operating systems or platforms. There are features to like and dislike about all of them.

Today we want and expect to do whatever we want, where we want, and when we want, without regard to OS or hardware. It should just work. And it often does because we are no longer dependent upon a single provider to satisfy our computing needs. Choice means we can use Microsoft if they fit our needs, Apple if they are best, Google when they dominate, or some other company.

I depend upon cloud computing more and more. Dropbox and Google services form the basis of much of my computing today. I use Microsoft Live services to a lesser degree. (This article was created and edited in the Microsoft Word Web App, part of the free Microsoft Live cloud-services. I wrote and edited it on both Windows and OS X machines. Since the file and the application are on Microsoft servers that I access via the Internet I am indifferent to the platform.)

I also maintain an Apple MobileMe account so that I can support customers foolish enough to want to use Apple cloud services. Apple has a long way to go before I will trust their cloud-based services.

Although this document was created on Microsoft Live SkyDrive using the Word Web App, I primarily depend upon Dropbox to make my active files available on whatever device I need them on. I depend upon Google email, contacts, calendar, documents and spreadsheets to augment that experience. I still use Microsoft Office on both Windows and OS X. But the times have changed. I could give up Microsoft Outlook but not Google calendar. In fact, the main reason I continue to use Outlook is to help me support my clients that depend upon it.

Your experience will vary from mine. But the handwriting is on the wall. Microsoft’s dominance is waning and no single company is ever likely to dominate computing like they once did.