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smalltalk

Smalltalk as a DLL?

March 21, 2010 10:32:14.662

I look at solutions for deployment of Smalltalk Services over there.

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posted by James Robertson

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Macintosh

Not Such a Small Niche Anymore

March 21, 2010 10:37:02.002

Is the Mac poised to become mainstream?

Apple could account for 25 percent of the 2010 desktop market, researchers suggest.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

A Talk with Bruce Badger: Podcast

March 21, 2010 12:00:05.045

This week Michael and I spoke to Bruce Badger - long time open source contributor to the Smalltalk community. He's the author of the widely used PostgreSQL database driver and of the PDF document library. If you listen to the podcast, you'll also learn what other projects Bruce has up his sleeve.

We spoke a bit about the OpenSkills project, and about open source licensing - what license Bruce uses for his code and why. We also covered Sport - Bruce's cross dialect portability library, and what Bruce would like to see happen in that direction. It was a fun talk, and we'd love to get Bruce back on the podcast again.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Ouch

March 21, 2010 21:18:01.280

Joy Of Tech calls it for Palm

posted by James Robertson

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books

Web 3.0 User Generated Business: Review

March 22, 2010 6:31:35.110

Last week I read a short book by Johannes Bhakdi - "Web 3.0 - User Generated Business". I was skeptical of the book when I first opened it - it's short, and lots of the book is done in Powerpoint stick-man style presentation graphics. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it is a "campaign book" for Johannes' business, it also makes some good points about how you should establish your brand (corporate or personal).

While services like YouTube, Facebook (et. al.) can be critical, you should always point those back to a central "home" for your content. A decade ago that was harder to do - now, with services like Slicehost (the place I host this blog), it's far easier and more affordable. That's related to one of the key points Johannes makes in the book - he believes (and I agree with him) that it's still too hard for the average web user to set up shop and start pushing out content - on two levels:

  • Setting up your own site - one that can manage audio, video, and text, is not only hard, but, in the case of "heavier" content, still expensive
  • Getting paid for content production is next to impossible

The latter topic is one that Johannes spends a fair amount of time on. He's certainly following his own advice; the book is self published, and his outfit (klatcher.com) is in the business of providing the sorts of tools he's advocating. I have no idea how well those tools work; obviously, I'm living in the "roll your own" reality here :) )

There are a few downsides - self publishing doesn't obviate the need for an editor, and this book needs a once over. There are some distracting spelling issues (personally, I hate seeing "loose" when "lose" is called for). I was way more distracted by the construction "The Web 3.0" than I should have been, but I just don't like how that flows.

Those are nits, but they were distracting. It's not a book you'll spen a lot of time reading, but I think it ties some useful ideas about how to proceed with a web-based business together. If Johannes has the book re-edited, I'd recommend it.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Controlling Store File Downloads: Video

March 22, 2010 8:47:01.271

Today's screencast looks at how you can control the downloading of files attached to Store bundles.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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management

Amazon Focuses on the Important Stuff

March 22, 2010 12:03:07.654

Wired reports on a smart move by Amazon:

Amazon announces Kindle Apps for Tablet Computers (including Kindle for iPad), a rather polished e-reader application that both makes the Kindle itself look rather old-fashioned and explains why last week’s Mac version was so unfinished: The Amazon developers have clearly been spending all their time on this instead.

I'd say that the Kindle's rationale worked - it helped create the e-reader market. Now, Amazon can focus on selling into it, without regard to the device. To many businesses get focused on the small stuff, or points of pride. Thus far, it looks like Amazon hasn't fallen into that trap.

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posted by James Robertson

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advertising

That's the New Sony Controller?

March 22, 2010 15:51:37.863

I think the ad promoting the upcoming Sony Move is pretty good, but the controller? Who dreamed up that shape?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk Gets Rich: ESUG Video

March 22, 2010 18:14:50.991

This week's ESUG video is Jorge Silva's "How to be Rich with Smalltalk" (ppt) presentation - a talk on some work to integrate Smalltalk and Adobe Air (separate from the Glare code) that Jorge had been working on. To watch, click on the viewer below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you like this video, why not subscribe to Smalltalk Videos?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Why No Iron Smalltalk?

March 22, 2010 21:36:17.043

This question about an "Iron Smalltalk" (no momentum in a few years) made me consider the oft stated (and never really fulfilled) desire for "Smalltalk on the JVM", or "Smalltalk on .NET" - I came up with the following:

The reason these "Smalltalk for .NET" and "Smalltalk for the JVM" projects never seem to come off is simple - Smalltalk isn't just flat text in an editor. Smalltalk is the entire interactive environment. It would be fairly simple to get a syntax parser, but it wouldn't be Smalltalk. It would be Ruby or Python with Smalltalk syntax. Somewhat useful perhaps, but not really Smalltalk.

If you really built Smalltalk in one of these other systems, you would have to invest a pretty large effort - and then end up with a system that ran slower than any of the currently extant commercial Smalltalk systems. Given that, it's kind of hard to see the point.

posted by James Robertson

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browsers

Browser Ennui

March 23, 2010 7:10:16.993

Look, another stern warning about browser problems - the only shock being that it's Germany complaining about Firefox, not IE:

The German government has issued a stern warning to web surfers telling them not to use Firefox because the browser contains a critical security vulnerability.

I simply can't see most people caring anymore. I switch between Firefox and Chrome (as both annoy me slightly differently). If I stick with one "too long", all my saved logins time out, and it's a royal pain in the neck to switch back. Yes, there are plugins (for Firefox) to manage that, but again, I can't be bothered. I think I understand why so many people have stuck with IE 6. While it certainly stinks, sticking to one tool likely makes their lives simpler.

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Simpler Transcript Reporting: Video

March 23, 2010 8:07:21.470

Today's screencast looks at a small convenience package that simplifies Transcript and stdout reporting.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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books

Towards e-book Portability

March 23, 2010 13:05:31.505

It would be better to simply have no DRM, but if Kindle apps become ubiquitous, then it's at least a step in the right direction.

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posted by James Robertson

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general

One of those days

March 23, 2010 15:42:06.477

It's been one of those days. Slate gray skies, "urgent" emails, and then the nearly forgotten orthodontist appointment my daughter had. Blech.

On the amusing side of things, I was looking up the orthodontist's phone number to make a follow up appointment - we forgot to do that while we were there - and ran across this. Yes, we use that same orthodontist :)

posted by James Robertson

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marketing

Differential Marketing?

March 23, 2010 21:13:23.115

I'm not sure what to make of this, but the trailers for the new Dr. Who season are quite different for the US and UK - check out SciFi wire, where they have both.

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

We Know What Lost is Now

March 23, 2010 22:19:48.142

If you ever saw the movie "The Sentinel", you saw a (much) shorter form version of "Lost". I guess my question is, did the writers have this in mind all along? I really don't think so. Remember how crucial the numbers and the energy source were for the first few seasons? I think they changed their mind and re-centered.

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

A Funny Take on the New Sony Move

March 24, 2010 8:18:33.312

Penny Arcade pretty much nails it :)

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

What to Know When Performance Testing: Video

March 24, 2010 8:43:20.432

Today's screencast looks at a performance testing - when you test Smalltalk code for performance, you need to be aware of how the compiler operates - otherwise, your performance tests might give you results you'll misinterpret.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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general

Blue SmokeMobile Passes Emissions

March 24, 2010 11:00:03.191

I waited right up to the due date for my latest run at Maryland's emissions check for the Mirage (now 21 years old). When I got there, there was a line, so to prevent any blue smoke from having them wave me off, I just turned the car off while I waited. When I got the car up there, I discovered that the treadmill test was gone - new cars just have their onboard computers read (lots of chances for gaming the system there) - my car, being old, had to idle with a reader stuffed in the tailpipe. It doesn't smoke when I give it gas, so that went fine - and then two awesome things happened:

  • Their system was confused, so they didn't charge me for the visit
  • The car passed

Which is cool, because now I don't have to pay the "$450 try to get it fixed" workaround :)

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posted by James Robertson

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tutorial

Using ActiveX Controls with VisualWorks

March 24, 2010 12:08:41.973

I thought a small walkthrough on using the new ActiveX control capabilities of VisualWorks 7.7 might be useful, so here goes - you can download the code I built in the screencaptures below here.

With that out of the way, here's how to build it yourself. First, load the ActiveX support - to do that, you need to open the parcel manager, and switch to the directories tab - then select "com":

Once that's in, open the GUI builder, and you should notice a new widget: the ActiveX widget. This functions (from a Smalltalk perspective) a lot like the subcanvas:

Once that's selected, add it to the canvas. In the properties tool, give it an aspect, and then pick (from the collection of items in the lower menu) the control you want. Your list will vary, based on what happens to be installed on Windows:

Now, add an input field (for the url you'll be loading) and a button (to do the load). It should look like this:

Install that to a class, and then use the "define" menu option to set up the method stubs. Now, go to a browser, and change the #load method (the one being used by the button) to look like this:

That's it for the hard stuff - now open the UI, and enter an URL for something that Quicktime can play:

You may have to wait a bit for it to buffer, depending on how fast your internet connection is (use a file url if you have a very slow one). If you use the link above, a short video from ESUG, of Gabriel Honore demonstrating his RetrObjects project, will play. That's it!

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

iPad e-Books Match Kindle Pricing

March 24, 2010 16:20:36.985

This isn't a huge surprise; with the kindle app on the iPhone and iPad, how could they not? It would be pretty simple to just use the Amazon store instead of iTunes. Anyway, the scoop comes from AppAdvice:

This deal, despite Steve Jobs clearly stating the opposite, is believed to result with iPad eBooks being more expensive than their Kindle equivalent; well folks, we found out that’s not the case. I had the chance this week to be presented a not-so-NDA-complying preview of it and it looks like Steve is not to be doubted.

Follow the link for a screen shot of the pricing.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Summer of Smalltalk

March 24, 2010 16:32:45.335

The Smalltalk piece of Google's Summer of Code is starting to warm up, with some notable mentors and some interesting looking projects.

posted by James Robertson

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tv

There are Still Many Questions

March 25, 2010 7:08:44.441

SciFi Wire lists a whole bunch of questions (most without answers yet) about Lost.

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posted by James Robertson

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Macintosh

Strange Windows Under Parallels Behavior

March 25, 2010 7:21:11.751

After the last update of Parallels (Version 5.0.9344.558741), I noticed a really weird thing happening with file system access - quite often, I wasn't able to write to the working directory. This is a Windows 7 VM, with shared directories -meaning, "Documents and Settings" is actually "Documents" on the Mac. A reboot of the VM seemed to mostly deal with that, but VisualWorks still has problems. If I try to run an image from the shared area, I get really bizarre results - the UI Painter acts like it generates multiple methods, for instance, but they end up looking like one method - and attempting to edit code fails badly.

I'm thinking that the file system isn't responding to VW as VW thinks it should. If I use a non-shared area - I created a new folder under the virtual "C" drive - it all works fine. I wonder if anyone else has seen anything like this, and has an answer...

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Let me have Opera for the iPhone

March 25, 2010 7:27:55.581

Apple is supposed to be all about the end user experience - if this promo is any indication, they should allow Opera into the app store. It looks way, way better than Safari on the device....

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posted by James Robertson

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web

YouTube Down?

March 25, 2010 8:20:32.585

I upload the Smalltalk Daily video to YouTube (amongst other places) every morning - but today, here's what I'm seeing for YouTube:

I've never seen that before. The funny thing is, embedded videos on my sight still work - so they aren't completely down.

Update: Whatever it was, it's over. YouTube is back up. I noticed this when the outage was nearly over - TechCrunch also reported on it.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Redefining = and #hash - Video

March 25, 2010 9:35:14.939

Today's screencast looks at the intertwining of the #hash and #= methods.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

A WebVelocity Application on the iPhone

March 25, 2010 15:54:07.826

Here's a short video showing a WebVelocity app - the Media Search one we have on our site - running on a iPhone. To watch, click on the viewer below:

You can also watch it on YouTube:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly.

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posted by James Robertson

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tv

Why Flash Forward Moves Slowly

March 25, 2010 22:16:35.601

The same guy who ensured that all the drama was peeled out of Star Trek in favor of endless "character development" is doing Flash Forward - Brannon Braga. I think we can look forward to lots of slow movement, and a focus on soft stuff. Blah.

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Smalltalk in Switzerland

March 26, 2010 6:32:56.689

Theres a new Swiss Smalltalk user group - and they are advertising an event with Claus Gittinger (Smalltalk/X) on April 28.

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posted by James Robertson

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humor

Techno Bill Spotted

March 26, 2010 6:40:51.189

A real life Techno Bill has been spotted - apparently traveling from around 1985 :)

posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

PDF From Smalltalk: Video

March 26, 2010 8:18:10.599

Today's screencast looks at the SPDF library - which enables PDF creation from Smalltalk.

You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

USB Flash for the XBox

March 27, 2010 0:21:16.239

This is good news, but what I really want to see - for things like downloadable video - is the ability to attach arbitrary sized drives:

Xbox spokesman Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb confirmed earlier today what many have suspected for weeks -- that the Xbox 360 will soon allow USB memory compatibility.

posted by James Robertson

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podcasting

Podcast Update

March 27, 2010 12:52:14.588

This week's podcast will be Hernan Wilkinson's talk on Mutation Testing from ESUG 2009 - we'll be back with a "live" podcast next week.

posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

iPad to Best Buy

March 27, 2010 13:43:11.912

Spotted in Engadget

We'd heard buzzing for some time now around the internet that Apple planned to sell its iPad in more than just it's own stores, and usually the name Best Buy was mentioned in the same breath... but now we've got some photographic evidence. The above shot comes from what looks to be an internal memo from the big box retailer, not only stating that the stores will be getting the iPad, but that they'll be getting the iPad on launch day.

I'm not surprised - Best Buy has been a retailer for Apple products for awhile, and this makes all kinds of sense - Apple stores aren't everywhere, but Best Buy is - and for a lot of people, Best Buy is the default place to go look for electronics (me, I look to Amazon - but I'm an outlier)

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posted by James Robertson

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copyright

Think and Doublethink

March 28, 2010 10:20:21.480

Ahh, the perverse world of "intellectual property - Sony just shutdown Beyonce's YouTube site for "piracy". How an artist could be pirating their own music is an exercise left to the insane. INtellectual Property law has moved from farce to utterly absurd...

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posted by James Robertson

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smalltalk

Mutation Testing (Audio)

March 28, 2010 11:06:17.465

This week's podcast is Hernan Wilkinson's ESUG 2009 talk - "Mutation Testing". You can download his slides here.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

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posted by James Robertson

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development

You Aren't Google

March 28, 2010 20:54:03.683

I like this post, because it makes a point that a lot of web developers really need to understand: you aren't going to have massive scaling issues:

The sooner your company admits this, the sooner you can get down to some real work. Developing the app for Google-sized scale is a waste of your time, plus, there is no way you will get it right. Absolutely none. It's not that you're not smart enough, it's that you do not have the experience to know what problems you will see at scale.

He's making that point in the context of NoSQL databases (vsersus SQL), but it holds for a lot more. I'm reminded of an anecdote a friend related to me years ago when he just started a new job. He was being shown a web project with a 3 tier architecture, failover capabilities, expensive software all around. When he asked how many users of the system there were going to be, the answer was "3 or so now, maybe 10-20 later". When he suggested that they just use something like Access, they treated him like some kind of heretic, and hustled him along to a different project.

That's the kind of thinking that powers a lot of fake work in this industry...

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posted by James Robertson

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gadgets

Apple Wins Again

March 28, 2010 21:56:51.027

Looks like the iPad is going to be a successful device - 9 to 5 Mac has the scoop:

If you haven't already ordered your iPad, you'll now have to wait to April 12th to get your hands on one, according to Apple's Website. The Wifi models have moved from an April 3rd delivery date to April 12th, signaling that Apple has run out of its first week's worth of Wifi iPads. We already knew that demand is pretty strong, and this is another indication that sales will be brisk.

Guess it's a good thing I ordered on early :)

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posted by James Robertson

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