Steve said today in his keynote:

“…the problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything!”

I tend to disagree with this statement.  I think netbooks are great for bringing to class and taking notes, especially for those who have primary machines 15″ and larger.  However, I don’t see what problem Mr. Jobs’s new device solves. To me, it does a mediocre job of viewing photos and videos. It can not run multiple applications at the same time so it is not comparable to a notebook or even netbook as far as productivity goes. They built a new storefront to purchase e-books from the device but who wants to read a book on a backlit display?

It seems to me that Steve and company have a very advanced technology in their multi-touch hardware and iPhone software and decided to try to apply the tech to a new market.  I just don’t believe this device does an adequate job of solving any problems.  At school today there was a lot of talk about the device. One student told me he was going to get it to take notes at school.  1) the iPad has no pen input because of the capacitive touch screen so it really has no better note taking capabilities past text entry on the virtual keyboard. 2) if the device were sitting on a desk during a lecture, it would be much more ergonomic to look at a vertical laptop screen then looking down at a surface perpendicular to the desk while typing. 3) with the virtual keyboard in landscape mode you lose a ton of screen real estate. 4) it does not support flash, which means it won’t be able to display some of the web’s most dynamic content such as Hulu. 5) it has no multitasking, need I say more? I’m sure they will sell some of these iPads to the hard core mac fans that will buy anything with an Apple logo on it but past the enthusiasts, I really don’t see this device taking off, save a few niche applications of the technology (restaurant menus?).  Me? I’ve still got my eyes focused on Asus and their eee t91 and soon to launch t101 multi-touch tablet netbooks. A much better value for a device with so many more uses.

Create Another Table

Using the same steps as in the previous article, go into the mySQL database management page on goDaddy and create a table called logins with 3 fields in your existing database. Create the fields as follows:

Field ## Type ## Length/Values ## Collation
uid ## int ## 30
username ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci
timestamp## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci


Switch login.php File

Once again, the login.php file is stored on this web site as a .txt file. This file has an additional 7 lines of code (including comments) from the original login.php file, starting with “#update login log”. Go To Modified login.txt

Step 1: Create a new mySQL Database

GoDaddy hosting gives you access to 10 mySQL servers for free with your account. Log into GoDaddy, click on Hosting, then Manage Account. Select Databases and click on MySQL. Then in the nav bar, Create Database. Be sure to save your record your database name, password, etc, as you will be using them later. Once your database is set up, click on Manage via phpMyAdmin. First, create a new table in your database. Then, add 4 fields with the following properties (leave all other properties as they are):


Field ## Type ## Length/Values ## Collation
uid ## int ## 30
username ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci
password ## varchar ## 50 ## utf8_general_ci
creation ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci


Step 2: Create User(s)

Select the table you made and click on the “Insert” tab at the top of the page. It is important that the Uid field is given a unique value. Passwords are case sensitive, Usernames are not, and Creation is for your own use/reference.

Step 3: Implement Code

The 3 code files are stored at .txt files for ease of making them available on the web, but all 3 should be .php files in your implementation.

login.php When users go to a page that implements the password protection, they are redirected here. Keep in mind that All the pages should/can be customized with HTML to match your website’s theme and layout.

Go To login.txt

auth.php The filename of this PHP file can be changed. For example, in our implementation, we call this file index.php so our users do not see the file name in the URL. Simply copy this bit of code to the top of any page you want password-protected and save the file as .php. Through initial testing, the password-protected pages need to be in sub folders of the location of the login.php file (or they could be in the same folder).

Go To auth.txt

logout.php Direct users to this page to end their current session.

Go To logout.txt

Further, tracking logins requires only a small code tweak, discussed here

Enjoy!