Finally, I got my 13 inch MacBook Air as my new workhorse.

This is just brilliant. Removing the clutter page and focusing on the article. This is what any application should do.

zenPad is rising against the famous iPad. Price tag? $155 against $499. zenPad option: include GPS for $25, include 3G micro USB dongle for $35. In total: $215.

Simply because I have to run Word of Microsoft Office 2007 to maintain consistent text/page/other document format which I can't get in OpenOffice.org.

Don't tell me to buy license for Microsoft Office for Mac. I'd rather insist my staff to use OpenOffice.org instead or let it become inconsistent.

it’s hard to grasp the breathtaking scale of the epic war between Microsoft, Google and Apple. Billions upon billions of dollars. Entire industries at stake. This is the board. These are the pieces

Excerpt from Wired.com.

I like this: "And for Google, all roads lead to the internet, and the internet is synonymous with Google".

The iPad was supposed to change the face of computing, to be a completely new form of digital experience. But what Steve Jobs showed us yesterday was in fact little more than a giant iPhone. A giant iPhone that doesn’t even make calls.

Excerpt from Wired.

My biggest concern is the lack of USB connector. With this I can use a 3G modem on WiFi model.

Computerworld reports on data from research firm Net Applications showing that Google's Chrome browser has slipped past Apple's Safari to snag third place in worldwide Internet browser market share behind Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Excerpt from MacRumors.

How about bring the Chrome browser to mobile user? Now, I have only Opera. Oh, and Bolt.

In just a few steps, you too can simplify and de-clutter Mail.app.

Excerpt from Unclutterer.com.

This is just fantastic! I love the Mail.app in my Mac but never crossed my mind that I can actually simplify the looks of this application.

According to tests run by Computerworld, the Chrome beta, which Google launched yesterday, is the second fastest of four Mac browsers tested. Chrome renders JavaScript 10 times faster than Opera 10.10 and almost twice as fast as Firefox 3.6 Beta 4, the most recently-released Mac version of Mozilla's open-source browser.

But Chrome can't match Safari 4.0.4's speed: Apple's browser is approximately 12% faster than Google's beta.

Excerpt from MacRumors.com.

Every little thing about Chrome Beta for Mac is starting to go viral, including how fast it is compare to its closest rival, Safari. Both are in my Mac and I like both. Nevertheless the idea of using the address bar as a search bar is amazing. This is why I loved Chrome in the first place.

I'm lucky enough to be able to play with those three applications on my Mac. Pages and OpenOffice are both native application for Mac while Microsoft Word is a Windows application that I have to run under Parallels Desktop. It's been two years since the first time I used them and I think it's the time to say that cross platform compatibility is my biggest issue. It doesn't matter what application you use to create the document, if you want your receivers to get the same feels, looks, and even effects you have to make sure that they use the same application. Or, the other way around.

The hardest part of all is to make sure that numbering format, indentation, and graph and data format is all same within those three applications. Somehow, there will always be formatting loss if you export them i.e. Pages and OpenOffice) to doc format (I'm afraid that most of my clients and customers are using Word, so let's assume that doc is a standard format on this matter).

Personally I prefer Pages for its user friendly interface and easy usage that let you focus on the work to complete. But there is no use of a complete work when at the end you realize that your client can't get the report as you want it to be. Again, that's the main problem. And you absolutely can't tell your clients that they use a "different" application. That won't work.

In an effort to overcome this problem, I always (at least for the last one year) use minimum formatting option. A plain text with standard format is always welcome in every application in every platform. That means standard fonts, standard numbering (though it still has big issue on Word and OpenOffice), justified alignment, and manual heading. For graph and data insertion, I always use picture instead of graph or data itself. In this case, those abundant features are useless. And it's not just in Pages. The abundant features lie within OpenOffice is also useless.

Having this applied for almost a year, I'm beginning to think what use of those other highly-sophisticated-features lies within each application. How many of you really use other than simple standard feature to complete your work? Why can't they focus on compatibility and inter-operability to mitigate this effect?

I believe that this is going to be a major issue for the following years, especially when online collaboration replaces the way we work. Compatibility is my highest consideration point. Google, which I consider as competitor in office productivity application with their Google Docs, has an advantages on this matter. However, Indonesia won't be ready for full online collaboration. Offline is still an option for Indonesia user. So I think Google should also consider this compatibility point, especially during conversion to another format.