1st – Go into the system settings, and create a regular user called: postgres and set a password. That is the biggest key – Lion doesn’t like the 1 click installer messing with system users & security, and they have a different, hidden user for their version.

2nd – run the installer, and be sure to set the port postgres runs to something that’s not 5432. I usually just use 5433 when I have the case of multiple instances.

For local access all will be good. For remote / multi-user access, you have to edit your pg_hba.conf files – but be careful – file ownership issues will flag a “non-zero status” error if you forget to set the data directory back.

I did have to set data permissions for the data directory to fix a “world read write” message on start up.

Just :

su postgres   – and navigate to the /Library/PostrgeSQL/8.4 directory, and type:

chmod 700 data

Restart your postgres server.

I’m guessing a lot of you received a shiny new iPad 2 for Christmas / Hanukkah  this year, and have been playing with it for a bit…you’ve probably got email working okay,  maybe you found the Kindle app so books etc. are great…but there should be more to this toy….With a few free – or nearly free tools, you’re going to really get a lot of use out of your iPadI’ve had my iPad 2 for over 6 months…the first few months, it was a nice toy, kept it with me for handling emails, browsing the web when I got bored with TV, read a few books…but it just seemed I was missing something in the “app” store that would make this gadget different, and frankly almost irreplaceable (well, shelling out another $699 would do it too).

A few preliminaries

If you’re going to use your iPad for note taking, it means you’ll have it with you all the time – so get a protective case / sleeve of some type to protect it if it gets dropped. I know from a bad experience – a 64gig / 3g will cost you $419 to fix if you break the glass…

I use a M-Edge Recon Jacket but it’s all personal preference. Get a stylus to write with – I don’t care that Steve Jobs would freak – I can’t write with my finger. I use a Targus Stylus – again, they are anywhere from a few dollars, to folks who do fancy pens adapted to this use. Just get one.

Next – setup 2 cloud services: 

Dropbox account – this will be more useful than you can imagine for lots of things – like when those darn giant contract documents won’t go through email! Mainly it will provide online storage for everything connected – think “magic file server”….

Evernote – this is such a great service, I even bought the premium version. Talk about an organizing tool…I keep all sorts of client notes etc. on file, avail 24 X 7 no matter what device I have…

And don’t forget to get the iPad apps for both – and on your smartphone, and on your desktop!

Step 3 – setup note taking

Now – after spending about $40 on various note taking apps – and actually working with them all for a least a few days each in real world meetings -  I’m now a full fan of the Notability product.

I learned years ago to use student bound lab / theme books for meeting notes, projects – whatever I needed to jot instead of yellow legal pads. Never lost a book – but I’ve lost lots of yellow pads – and keeping things organized and handy…well, I was usually carrying a couple books, and heck file folders of yellow pages…ugh….

My  needs for note taking seemed modest  – the ability to simply write my notes in handwritten form, insert text, pictures, import a pdf or  document file – and also be able to at least mark up the imported files and both save them and email them to somebody. I’ll have some follow up ideas on this in a future article.

I gave up on a few that required typing – I can’t type fast enough / accurately enough on the little keyboard on the iPad, and adding a keyboard etc. seemed like I’d be building a Macbook Air or other “netbook.”

Also – I learned that the handwriting apps like Phatpad and Wordpad didn’t add anything that I needed – I can read my own handwritten notes – but they seriously lacked the PDF import stuff that I really needed.

I really wanted Notetaker HD to work out – but it’s got too odd an interface to learn for the power – I hope they take heed  and work on that.

Just fiddle with the interfaces a bit, and see how to make them consistent. I’m a pretty organized guy – so I have things broken out by Clients->Client->Subject in all my regular stuff, so I’ve emulated that on my Notability, and on Evernote and Dropbox.

When I get back from meetings, I quickly do my exports out to Evernote – it PDF’s the notes, and uses a special email account Evernote includes with your service, and voila’ it’s all available on anything – even a Kindle fire if you like.

Anything you need to import – if it’s on Evernote or Dropbox, you just “open in” Notability via your iPad app for the services ……and of course save it back and synch up.

My latest bill from the iTunes store shows about $30 spent on these apps in my quest for the paperless office and operations.

I use my bound notebooks – have for several years now – as both a “doodle tablet” and a note taking tablet.  This means I need to use both text – real text – and hand written notes.

A challenge though with hand written notebooks is organization. Not being able to remove pages was good for not misplacing a yellow tablet(s), but not too efficient for searching – but having current stuff handy was a big deal, and had saved me several times.

Whichever tool I took to would have to give me all the benefits of my basic paper based tool – and add some extra features – search, export / output would give me total access, 24X7 on any platform I happened to use.

After using several popular apps,  I learned that I didn’t need handwriting recognition so much (nice to have, but in the way if on all the time), I needed a way to type when I needed real text inserted  – but for the most part I needed a way to capture my meeting notes – exactly the same way I did with my bound theme books -  just write (scribble?) what I need, draw my pictures & diagrams.

So – basic features I decided had to be:

• Easy drawing / handwritten notes with backgrounds
• Easy text entry – amazing how many apps can’t do text but can do handwriting to text…
• Easy to insert an image – directly from the camera, or another picture source
• Easy to import PDF’s for annotation (as in to sign a form and re-send).
• Easy export to common outbound “cloud” services (Evernote, Dropbox, email)
• Voice recording is nice – but remains to see how useful it is

So after a lot of googling, looking, asking my contenders are:

• Noteability by Gingerlabs
• PhatPad by Phat Software
• WritePad for iPad – also by Phat Software
• Upad by Pokeysoft
• Noteshelf  by Fluidtouch
• Awesomentoe by Birdworks
• Notetaker HD by Software Garden
• Notesplus by Notesplusapp.com
• Penultimate  by Cocoa Box
• Sundry Notes by Sundry Notes

I’ve actually paid for all of these apps – so I’m into this project for about $45 or so…I personally really neede this app to make things more productive….

Once I got into the Kindle app for my books – geeks need big thick $50 reference books – I really wanted to next get my note taking onto this device.

I’ve learned some good organization tricks from mentors over the years and one of the best was to use these little theme notebooks that cost about $1.00 instead of yellow legal pads…key thing was all your notes were there in chronological order, and being a bound book you don’t tear pages out, and you definitely wouldn’t misplace it, loan it out etc.

I’ve used a couple of these books each year, and having all your last few months of notes is a real is boon. Over the past couple years I also found Evernote which I decided to pay for it was so good – but old note taking etc. wasn’t quite there…but the availability via web or client app was a major butt saver the past 2 years I’ve used that.

So somehow this new reality needed to incorporate Evernote. Oh, and maybe google docs and my Dropbox accounts. Who’da thunk I’d be sucked into “the cloud”…

My iPad adventure has up until now mostly been handy to replace my MacBook Pro laptop for lightweight stuff like web browsing and email…but it seemed that for $699 I could do more. It’s a solid music machine to replace my old iPod of course, I know lots of folks who watch movies on Netflix…but I want a business tool.

There’s an entire class of apps for note taking I’ve been trying though – so I’ve picked up (purchased) several from he app store and I’m trying them out too see what works best.

First off, get a stylus to write on your tablet. I scribble notes in my project and meeting theme books, and typing long documents with your thumbs (like this article) is not going to be fun. Adding a blue tooth keyboard seems to just make the iPad a netbook – so I don’t see the point of that, I’d just use a MacBook Air if I wanted that.

I use the one from Targus, but there’s other available depending on your preferences….then off to the app store to see what works for me.

Stay tuned.

Washington Reagan Airport, Orange County / John Wayne both had free wifi. Hilton business class hotel the same. All plenty of access.

My powerpoint presentation I prepared on my Mac, but fixed in Keynote.app on the fly – and hooked to the projector in the meeting room no sweat. I did pick up a couple of interface cables from the local Apple store before I left, but that’s pretty standard traveling stuff.

All my music is on my iPad – so just needed headphones. I always keep my phone so haven’t yet tried to get my messaging / texting outside of that….but on the 5 1/2 hour flight, no issues with battery life, anything….I even played some Angry Birds out of spite when I got really bored.

Note taking, synched to my drop box account – all worked just fine.

I never even borrowed a laptop.

Of course in a pinch I could borrow a laptop if something really needed it – but as I thought about it, why bring the extra bag and gear? All I’m doing is email, web stuff…even my PowerPoint presentation onto a projector are all iPad capable – maybe even iPhone possible!

So far, it was travel day. My only carryons were the iPad, some nice Bose over ear headphones and my iPhone in my pocket.

Listened to music for the 5 1/2 hour flight. Finished my latest kindle book. Read the paper and news in the airport while waiting. John Wayne airport has excellent and free wifi in the terminal.

I’m wrapping up vey updating this article – and I’m still on 70% battery life…and Led Zepplin is playing in my ears.

Day one score 5 stars!

It’s my favorite holiday, so make it yours too. Hang out with friends and family, and be grateful for the bounty we have been blessed with.

Drag em off, charge them with trespassing. Cool. I felt almost like I did as a kid watching the Kent State shootings! I am a parent, I am conservative, and I am outraged. That was an open physical attack on kids, expressing their free speech rights.

If that was my kid, I’d already have filed multiple lawsuits against everybody, and I’d probably get myself on the no fly list somehow. The UC Davis Chancellor and the campus police chief need to be fired, and blackballed from academia forever. The cop on film – he needs to go to jail – he’s the sort that will end up killing a homeless person one day.

WTF.

When a retail store wants more business they have a “sale” or “event” – but basically, business people learned over a hundred years ago something simple:

If you reduce your prices, you’ll sell more stuff

So, it’s human nature – get a better deal, you want to buy more stuff. Big picture – what everybody wants is called “demand”….

On the selling side, when business people see folks buying stuff, they want to sell stuff….so they do their best to get more stuff for sale, and then when they have to compete …it’s a cycle.

Works the other way too – when you’ve got something everybody wants, and there’s a limited amount available – gasoline comes to mind – so if everybody wants stuff, the business person can raise up the prices until their customers simply stop buying.

When supply and demand are totally in tune, it’s called equilibrium. When there’s not enough stuff around for a given price, it’s called a shortage.

I’ve been struggling for a while now to add a 3rd monitor to my work space – the new MacBook’s have all sorts of new coolness for this type of set up via their Thunderbolt interface…but that’s not here for my needs…but I found the solution!

After spending a bunch of money on various adapters – I finally returned all of the other stuff, and am using the Triton SEE2 Xtreme UV200 – it’s recently been rebranded but this product simply kicks butt – and it’s downright cheap – $79.95 at my local Fry’s….

These 2nd generation MacBooks don’t have the newer mini-divi or a Thunderbolt connector – they are only set up with the older full size DVI connector and USB connectors.

I gave it a go trying to use various adapters to get the set up running. At one point I needed to setup a DVI-Mini DVI adapter by Altona ($114.99), and ran that into a Cirago ($139.99) device that would take that output and give you up to 3 monitors – at least on a newer system…so back to the research.

Unfortunately, OS X wouldn’t support the 3rd monitor as provided. Their instructions were all about loading new drivers…which wasn’t going to work on my MacBook…back to the drawing board.

Installation of the SEE2 was a breeze – plug the USB cable into the machine, load the driver disk – they offer Mac drivers, and all the common Windows drivers too….restart the machine with all your monitors plugged in…voila!

In about 10 minutes – mostly fiddling with my newly borrowed monitor (my son upgraded his gaming rig) – and I’ve got it running…even did a gotomeeting session and chose which screen use…slick slick slick,,,

Excellent product! 5 thumbs up!