سال نو مبارک

زکوی یار می آید نسیم باد نوروزی
از این باد از مدد خواهی، چراغ دل بر افروزی
نوروز مبارک

Wishing you all the peace, joy, and love of the season! Season’s Greetings!
Happy New Year….

1. مفاهیم عمومی
۲٫ استفاده از کامپیوتر و مدیریت فایل ها
۳٫ واژه پردازی – Microsoft Office Word
4. صفحات گسترده – Microsoft Office Excel
5. پایگاه داده – Microsoft Office Access
6. عرضه مطالب – Microsoft Office PowerPoint
7. اینترنت – Web – Internet Explorer

لینک دانلود مستقیم با حجم : ۴٫۱ مگابایت
رمز : www.it4iran.com

Microsoft provides sneak peek of next Visual Studio beta

Microsoft has begun sharing information about the beta of VS 11, the next release of its tool suite for Windows 8, that will be released on February 29.

Microsoft provides sneak peek of next Visual Studio beta

Microsoft is providing a handful of us pre-selected press with a sneak peek on Thursday February 23 of the coming beta release of Visual Studio 11.

Visual Studio 11 is the codename for the next version of Visual Studio, expected by many to be named officially Visual Studio 2012. Microsoft released a developer preview of VS 11 in September 2011, alongside the developer preview of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8.

Microsoft is on tap to deliver the beta (known officially as the Consumer Preview) of Windows 8 by February 29. The company also is likely to provide a beta of Windows Server 8 at the same time, I’m hearing. And as of today, we now know that the Softies plan to drop the beta of VS 11 and .Net 4.5 beta on February 29, as well. The VS 11 beta will be available under a go-live license.

Visual Studio 11 adds support to Microsoft Visual Studio tool suite for Windows 8. It includes .Net 4.5; support for asynchronous programming in C# and Visual Basic; support for state machines in Windows Workflow; more tooling for HTML5 and CSS 3 in ASP.Net. The product includes templates to help developers in writing Metro-Style — meaning WinRT-based — applications with JavaScript, C#, VB and/or C++.

Microsoft officials are sharing demos and disclosing new features during the sneak peek today. As part of the Visual Studio 11 beta, Microsoft also will be releasing its Team Foundation Server beta. Included in that beta is a new download of TFS, known as Team Foundation Server Express, which includes new core developer features, including source-code control, work-item tracking, build automation and agile taskboard. That SKU will be free for individual and teams of up to five users.

Microsoft officials have not said when to expect the company to release the final version of Visual Studio 2012. I did notice there are quite a few sessions at this year’s TechEd conference in June around Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and ASP.Net 4.5. But there’s no word in the session line-up as to whether the final version will be out by then. Whenever the final is released, I’d expect it to coincide with the RTM of Windows 8, since Microsoft seems to be trying to keep the two products in lockstep.

Soma Somasegar, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Developer Division and one of the presenters of the sneak peek, said there are “hundreds and hundreds of new features” in VS11. He said as of the beta, Microsoft is “pretty much done with all the features and functionality” for the product. VS11 will be designed for both professional and non-professional developers, and will be designed to enable developers to touch-enable their applications.

The three themes Microsoft is pursuing with the product, Somasegar said, include the following:

Visual Studio 11-Transforming Your Ideas into Reality

Here are a few more slides from the sneak peek presentation.

Microsoft officials on today’s Webcast emphasized that VS 11 will be aimed at a full cross-section of developers, not just those doing Windows 8/Metro-style apps. There will be enhancements for those building Windows desktop apps, Direct X-based apps and games and client Web apps, too. (There will not be support for XNA on Windows 8, however. Microsoft officials didn’t mention this today, but other Microsoft officials and company watchers have said this semi-publicly before.)

Work with Windows

Microsoft officials emphasized that the VS 11 suite will be useful for developing apps beyond Windows client ones. It will also target those developing .Net Framework 4.5 server apps, Windows Azure apps and SharePoint apps.

Work with Cloud and Web

Here’s a quick glimpse of the VS 11 beta screen shown to us today:

Microsoft Visual Studio

In the Q&A session, Microsoft officials noted that the Visual Studio LightSwitch rapid app development tool is now included in VS Professional and higher. However, in the coming beta LightSwitch won’t (yet) support HTML5 output, they said.

download Microsoft® Visual Studio® ۱۱ Developer Preview (Web Installer)

System requirements

Supported Operating Systems:
Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows 7 (x86 and x64)
Windows 8 (x86 and x64)
Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)
Windows Server Developer Preview (x64)
Supported Architectures:
32-bit (x86)
64-bit (x64)
Hardware Requirements:
1.6 GHz or faster processor
1 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if running on a virtual machine)
5.5 GB of available hard disk space
5400 RPM hard drive
DirectX 9-capable video card running at 1024 x 768 or higher display resolution

]]> http://www.php4iran.com/php/?feed=rss2&p=116 0 http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=111 http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=111#comments Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:03:47 +0000 مدیر سایت http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=111 Microsoft’s SQL Server 2012 to launch on March 7

Microsoft's SQL Server 2012 to launch on March 7

On the SQL Server 2012 Launch site, Microsoft is featuring the agenda of the Webcast timed to coincide with launch.

(Launch, as Microsoft historians know, may or may not equate to general availability. RTM, or release to manufacturing, also may precede or follow product launches at Microsoft these days. In the case of SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft’s release to manufacturing (RTM) of the product preceded by about a month the date on which most customers could actually get the bits.)

Microsoft Server and Tools chief Satya Nadella revealed last fall that SQL Server 2012 (codenamed “Denali”) would launch in the early part of 2012. Microsoft delivered the final public test build of SQL Server 2012 in November 2011.

The March 7 launch event topic list includes everything from big data, to StreamInsight complex event processing, to the new data-visualization and analysis tools that are part of the SQL Server 2012 release.

Microsoft already has revealed much of its SQL Server 2012 pricing and licensing plans, including availability of a new business-intelligence (BI) SKU.

Ten skills for developers

Software development had a few years of relative calm. But now the rollercoaster is back on track and it’s picking up speed, as HTML5 gains a foothold and Windows 8 threatens to significantly change the Windows development landscape. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you should consider learning at least a few of these 10 software development skills.

1: Mobile development
If you don’t think it is worth your time to learn mobile development, think again. Global shipments of Android phones in 2011 are almost equal to PC sales. Add in the other big-name mobile devices (iPhones, iPads, and even the “dying” RIM devices), and what you see is that mobile devices now dwarf PCs in sales. What does this mean? If you make your living from software that can run only on a PC (which includes Web sites that don’t work or are hard to use on mobile devices), now is the time to learn mobile development.

2: NoSQL
I appreciate a well-designed relational database schema as much as the next person, but they just are not appropriate for every project. We’ve been using them even when they aren’t the best tool because the alternatives haven’t been great. The last few years have seen the introduction of a wide variety of NoSQL database systems. And now that major service vendors (like Amazon and Microsoft) support NoSQL as well, there is no technical limitation on their use. Are they right for every project? No. Are they going to replace traditional databases? In some projects, and for some developers, definitely. This is the year to learn how to use them, as they will only become more prevalent in the year to follow.

3: Unit testing
We’ve seen unit testing go from being, “Oh, that’s neat” to being a best practice in the industry. And with the increasing use of dynamic languages, unit testing is becoming more and more important. A wide variety of tools and frameworks are available for unit testing. If you do not know how to do it, now is the time to learn. This is the year where it goes from “resume enhancement” to “resume requirement.”

۴: Python or Ruby
Not every project is a good fit for a dynamic language, but a lot of projects are better done in them. PHP has been a winner in the industry for some time, but Python and Ruby are now being taken seriously as well. Strong arguments can be made for Ruby + Rails (or Ruby + Sinatra) or Python + Django as excellent platforms for Web development, and Python has long been a favorite for “utility” work. Learning Python or Ruby in addition to your existing skillset gives you a useful alternative and a better way to get certain projects done.

5: HTML5
HTML5 is quickly pulling away from the station. The impending release of IE 10 is the last piece of the puzzle to make the full power of HTML5 available to most users (those not stuck with IE 6 or IE 8). Learning HTML5 now positions you to be on the forefront of the next generation of applications. Oh, and most mobile devices already have excellent support for it, so it is a great way to get into mobile development too. And don’t forget: HTML5 is also one route for UI definitions in Windows 8!

6: Windows 8
Windows 8 should be released sometime in 2012, unless the schedule slips badly. While Windows 8 may very well get off to a slow start, being the top dog in an app store is often based on being the first dog in the race. The first mover advantage is huge. It is better to be in the Windows 8 app store at launch time than to take a wait-and-see approach. Even if Windows 8 sales disappoint, it’s better to be the only fish in a small pond than a fish of any size in a big pond, as recent app sales numbers have shown.

7: RESTful Web services
While I personally prefer the convenience and ease of working with SOAP in the confines of Visual Studio, REST is booming. Even Microsoft is starting to embrace it with OData. JSON really was the final straw on this matter, relegating SOAP to be for server-to-server work only. Unless your applications can run in isolation, not knowing REST is going to hold you back, as of 2012.

8: JavaScript
Before the Windows 8 Developer Preview, it was easy for non-Web developers to look at JavaScript as a Web-only language. No more! JavaScript is now a first-class citizen for native desktop and tablet development, thanks to the Metro UI and WinRT API in Windows 8. XAML + C# or VB.NET may be a good way for you to get things done, but if you want to maximize what you can get out of your knowledge, HTML5 and JavaScript are the best bet. They give you Web and Metro/WinRT, and you can also use them for some of the cross-platform mobile systems out there, like Appcelerator’s Titanium product.

9: jQuery
If you are going to do any kind of Web development where you are working directly with HTML, jQuery is becoming a must-know skill. While there are plenty of credible alternatives, jQuery is quickly turning into the de facto tool for rich UIs with HTML.

10: User experience
Other than getting that first mover advantage in new app stores, there is little to differentiate many applications on a feature basis; it’s a crowded field. User experience, on the other hand, is a different story. Creating a great user experience is not easy; it starts before anyone even downloads your application and continues through to the uninstall process. In the age of instant $0.99 and free app downloads, and ad-supported Web apps, the barriers to switching to another application are mighty low. If your user experience is poor, do not expect much business.

]]> http://www.php4iran.com/php/?feed=rss2&p=103 0 http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=101 http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=101#comments Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:54:02 +0000 مدیر سایت http://www.php4iran.com/php/?p=101 Everyone wants faster Web browsing. After all, who has time to wait for Web pages to load these days? This is especially true if you’re a tab-junkie like me. When you live with an open browser containing 10 to 15 tabs running at any given time, you know how crucial it is to have as fast a browsing experience as possible. Fortunately, there are some ways to get more speed when your pipe is maxed out already. Let’s see how you can squeeze a bit more speed from your browsing experience.

Five Tips For Faster Web Browsing

1: Use a fast browser
Not all browsers are created equal. Some are simply faster than others. The top speed you will find, in the current crop of browsers, belongs to Google Chrome. If you’ve grown accustomed to Internet Explorer or Firefox, you’ll notice a dramatic increase in rendering time using Google Chrome. Of all the ways you can speed up your browsing experience, this is by far the best. Google Chrome also helps speed things up by allowing you to enter search strings in the URL address bar. With this feature, you don’t have to add yet another toolbar, thereby slowing down the browser even further.

2: Disable Flash
Flash pretty much saturates Web sites now. It’s almost impossible to get away from this technology. Problem is, Flash can be slow, so it directly affects the speed of your browsing experience. You can have Flash turned off by default and then re-enable it to view what you need to view. The biggest problem with this is that some browsers require an add-on to block Flash. For Chrome, you need the extension Flashblock. There’s also a Flashblock extension for Firefox. Internet Explorer has a built-in tool you can access by clicking Tools | Manage Add-ons. In the Manage Add-ons dialog box, double-click Shockwave Flash Object. Then, click the Remove All Sites button. This will disable Flash for all sites.

3: Save your temporary Web files on a RAM disk
I wrote an article awhile back on using a RAM disk to help speed up disk-intensive applications. Since the RAM disk will be much faster than your standard hard drive, using it to save all your browsers temporary files will create a faster environment for your browser. However, this solution is not for the newbie, and you will need to use a third-party to better achieve this task.

4: Get rid of all those toolbars
You’ve seen them in the wild: browsers so filled with toolbars they take up the majority of real estate in the browser window. Most users don’t realize those toolbars tend to slow down the browser in many ways. Some toolbars simply take up precious computer memory, while others eat away at bandwidth by sending and receiving data in the background. The math here is quite simple: The more toolbars you have, the slower your browser will run. Some of those toolbars might seem essential. But if speed is really your top priority, you will want to jettison that extra baggage for the speed you will gain.

5: Use tabs, not windows
Too many tabs can cause problems, but they’re still your best bet for browsing efficiency. How do tabs speed up your experience? A couple of ways. The first is all about organization. With multiple tabs in a single window, it becomes quite a bit faster to locate the page you need to work on. You don’t have to maximize a window, discover that it’s not the right one, minimize it, maximize a new window… until you find the correct one. A single window open with multiple tabs is far easier to search. This is not the only way tabs can help you. Browsers like Chrome treat each tab as an individual process (instead of a child process of a parent). So when a Web site causes a tab to crash, you can close that one tab and not lose all the other tabs. This behavior is not a standard at the moment, so you’ll need to switch over to the Chrome browser to take advantage of it.

By Jack Wallen

The 20 best and most useful iPhone apps

1. Camera+

The iPhone has developed into a strong platform for photography. The iPhone camera sensors keep getting better and better and the software is solid. But, one of the things that really makes the iPhone great as a camera is the wealth of excellent photography apps. There are a slew of great apps to replace the native Apple camera app and there are also a ton of excellent photo editing apps so that you can do all of your editing right on the iPhone. Camera+ combines both into an app that combines pro-level powers with excellent ease of use. I’ve written about why I prefer iPhone to Android for photography and the reasons I use Camera+ to replace the native iPhone app.

2. Things

I’ve tried a lot of different to-do lists and task organizers on the iPhone, but the one I grudgingly prefer is Things. I say grudgingly because it’s the most expensive ($9.99) and it doesn’t sync well with the web or other machines. Still, it’s the best app I’ve found for managing and tracking tasks and I eventually came to the conclusion that I didn’t need to sync my tasks to every device since my phone is the one device that’s always with me. If you want to sync, then I’d recommend ۲Do.

3. BeejiveIM

This is another app that I grudgingly put on the list even though it is the most expensive app in its category, but it can get away with it because it’s the best. BeejiveIM is an instant messaging client that can sign you into all of the leading IM clients, including AOL, Yahoo, Facebook, MSN, Jabber, and GoogleTalk. The UI is good and the app works well, but the killer feature is integration with iOS push notifications, so that you get pinged on your phone when someone is sending you an IM. This works well and surprisingly it isn’t a battery life killer.

4. Analytics App

Inexplicably, Google doesn’t have an official app (for either iPhone or Android) for Google Analytics. The best one I’ve found to go deep into all of the data is Analytics App.

5. Ego

Even better than Analytics App for a quick-glance dashboard is Ego. It shows basic data from Google Analytics as well as a bunch of other sources, including Squarespace, Twitter, and Feedburner.

6. Instagram

As mentioned above, the camera and photo apps on the iPhone are now good enough to replace a point-and-shoot camera. You can even take pictures that are worthy of saving in your family albums. For those, I upload them to Flickr using the iPhone app. For the everyday photos that I just want to quickly post on social media, I use Instagram. It is very quick, dead simple to use, and very social media friendly. But, do me a favor and go easy on the filters. They are badly overused by most Instagram users. Plenty of good photos need no filter at all.

7. Dropbox

Dropbox is a great cloud service that automatically syncs a folder of files between multiple computers (Windows, Mac, or Linux). This app extends Dropbox to the iPhone and includes a built-in reader within the app for PDFs, image files, and Microsoft Office files.

8. Evernote

Once you get used to typing on a virtual keyboard (and it honestly took me over a year to do it), then these devices are great for note taking, and Evernote is a great note taking app. It is similar to Dropbox in that it saves data locally but syncs it across all your machines and devices.

9. Tripit

I love Tripit. It is by far the best app I’ve found for keeping track of all my travel itineraries. It is powered by some excellent backend systems. You simply forward your confirmation emails (or use the Gmail plugin to do it automatically) for your flights, hotels, rental cars, and more to Tripit and it automatically organizes them into trips with all your details and confirmation numbers.

15. Pano

Pano makes it easy to take excellent panoramas with the iPhone. It helps you line up your shots and it automatically corrects many of the imperfections. My wife is a photographer with a big, expensive Nikon camera and she’s regularly jealous of some of the shots I can get with the iPhone and Pano. (By the way, Android is looking to take panoramas to the next level with the new continuous panorama mode in Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.”)

۱۶٫ Twitter

The official Twitter app is still the best Twitter client on iPhone (although Osfoora is catching up). Twitter itself is an amazing instant-intelligence engine. Two other great social media apps for iPhone are Google+ and Foursquare.

17. Navigon Mobile Navigator

I used to carry a separate Garmin GPS unit for turn-by-turn directions but I eventually got rid of it and decided to just use the iPhone instead. In researching the various apps, I eventually decided on NAVIGON, which is a company that makes a lot of the built-in navigation systems for many cars. Tip: Make sure your iPhone is plugged in to power when you run a GPS navigation program like this because otherwise it will quickly drain your battery.

18. Where To?

A great companion to a GPS system is the app “Where To?” which lets you quickly look up various types of shops and services, from Cuban restaurants to medical specialists to animal hospitals to local museums and much more. Two other great resources are Google’s Places app and iExit, which shows you the restaurants, gas stations, and stores at upcoming exits when you’re driving on an interstate highway (in the U.S.).

19. GroceryGadget

This is an app plus a website and you can quickly sync between the two. The way it usually works for me is that my wife makes a grocery list, enters it into grocerygadgets.com, and then it syncs to my iPhone so that I can swing by the grocery store and pick up the stuff.

20. RedLaser

This is a great app for shoppers. It turns the iPhone camera into a barcode scanner and it’s pretty accurate. You simply scan a product’s UPC code and let the app go to work to find it in Google Product Search and TheFind. For food it will even look up allergen information and for books it will scan to see if you can get it in a local library. You’ll be amazed at how fast it works. A similar product is SnapTell, which not only scans barcordes but you can also take a picture of the cover of a book or DVD and it can look them up that way. These apps are great when you’re shopping at a retail store and want to check the prices of products online before buying. It also reads QR codes.

The 20 most useful Android smartphone apps of 2011

1. Google Voice

Google Voice is a service that is so useful I consider it one of the top benefits of Android itself. The service gives you a phone number that can ring to multiple places or devices and it allows you to access all of your voicemail and text messages from the Web. The Android app integrates even deeper. It can make outgoing calls look like they’re coming from your Google Voice number so that you can keep your real mobile number private.

2. Advanced Task Killer

One of the realities of having a multitasking mobile OS is that you have to manage your apps so that they don’t hurt performance or battery life. Advanced Task Killer (ATK) is my favorite on Android. It even comes with a widget that you can tap once to kill all open apps and you can also set up ATK to kill all apps at periodic intervals. Some people will argue that task managers are irrelevant and unneeded in Android, but I still prefer to use ATK.

3. Dropbox

Dropbox is a great cloud service that automatically syncs a folder of files between multiple computers (Windows, Mac, or Linux). This app extends Dropbox to Android and interacts with other apps (such as Documents To Go) to open the files. It allows you to access PDFs, image files, and business documents by simply dragging them to a folder on your computer and then you immediately have access to them from your mobile phone, once you have this app installed.

4. Evernote

Once you get used to typing on a virtual keyboard (and it honestly took me over a year to do it), then these devices are great for note-taking, and Evernote is a great note-taking app. It is similar to Dropbox in that it saves data locally but syncs it across all your machines and devices.

5. Taskos

There are plenty of to-do apps to choose from on Android but I now prefer Taskos because of the clean, easy, Android-friendly user experience. It also has a few extras that give it an advantage over apps. The biggest one is voice recognition, which lets you speak a task that the app turns into a to-do item (you might have to correct a word or two).

6. DroidAnalytics

For some reason Google doesn’t have an official app for Google Analytics (for either Android or iPhone). The best one I’ve found on Android is DroidAnalytics. Another good one is mAnalytics.

7. Documents To Go

The free version of Documents To Go offers a great little reader for Microsof Word and Excel files. You can upgrade to the full version (for $15) if you want to be able to create and edit files and add PowerPoint files to the mix. If you do want editing capability, I’d also recommend taking a look at QuickOffice.

8. Google Docs

If you mostly work with Google Docs (including uploading Microsoft Office files to your Google Docs repository) then the only app you’ll really need is the Google Docs app. It’s a nice mobile implementation of document management, although the one annoyance is that always open up files in a web browser rather than within the app itself, which would be a little smoother.

9. Tripit

I dig Tripit. It is by far the best app I’ve found for keeping track of all my travel itineraries. It runs on some great backend systems. You simply forward your confirmation emails for your flights, hotels, rental cars, and more to Tripit and it automatically organizes them into trips with all your details and confirmation numbers. Or, if you use Gmail, you can even use a plugin to automatically catch confirmation emails and turn them into Tripit trips.

10. Google Places

This is an awesome app for finding shops and services near your current location. From restaurants to medical facilities to taxis, this app is very accurate and takes advantage of the business information from Google Local. This app is better than the info you get from a GPS unit (or app) and better than any of the similar apps available on the iPhone. It’s also integrated into Google Maps.

11. Astro File Manager

Another one of the great things about Android (if you’re a geek or a tinkerer) is that you have lower-level access to the system itself. Astro is an app that lets you navigate the Android file system, which is mostly just interesting, but can be handy once in a while.

12. Speed Test

I’m obsessed with running speed tests to check my bandwidth in various places, both to see 3G/4G fluctuations and to check the quality of Wi-Fi. There are a number of really good speed test apps, but my favorite is the Speedtest.net app. It’s generally consistent and it has some of the best graphics and options.

13. Amazon Kindle

I’ve never completely warmed up to the Amazon Kindle e-reader, but I’m a big fan of the Kindle mobile app. Since it was released I’ve read a lot more books simply because my smartphone is always with me and I can pull it out and read a few pages anytime I’ve got a couple minutes free.

14. Google+

I’ve written a lot about Google+ since it launched in July and I’m pretty active over there (+Jason Hiner). One of the great things that Google did was to release a Google+ Android app at the same time it launched the service as a beta. And, surprisingly, the app was actually pretty good and has been improved since. It immediately became one of my most used mobile apps and definitely stole some of my time away from Android’s Twitter app, mostly because Google+ is a little more interactive.

15. TED Air

The TED conference features a meeting of the minds of some of society’s most influential thinkers. You’ll disagree with some of them since there’s a large diversity of viewpoints, but many talks are worth listening to in order to catch the latest creative thinking on society’s biggest challenges. The cool thing is that they’ve taken the videos from the conference and made them freely available on the Web. The TED Air app provides a great way to access the videos on a mobile device. I hope more conferences follow TED’s lead on this.

16. Google Goggles

This is a fun app that is a little bit ahead of its time. It does visual searches. You can take pictures of things and then the app tries to tell you what they are. It’s limited in its scope but it is pretty cool, and it’s definitely a peek into the future. One of the coolest features is the ability to take pictures of text in a foreign language and let the app translate it for you. In a foreign country, this can help you read street signs and avoid going into the wrong bathroom. On a more practical level, Goggles is a QR code reader and you can also use it to scan bar codes on products to look them up online.

17. Photoshop Express

Photoshop is, of course, the best known photo editor in the world and its mobile app doesn’t do anything to hurt that reputation. But while the desktop version is known for having a zillion features, the mobile app is distinguished by its simplicity. It’s the best Android (and iPhone) photo editing app for simple crops, brightness adjustments, and sharpens, for example.

18. Audible

As much as I like the Kindle ebooks, I actually consume more books as audiobooks via Audible. With the Audible app you can connect to your Audible library and download over the air. The app also gives you a self-contained player optimized for audiobooks, with a skip-back-30-seconds button and the opportunity to make notes and bookmarks (although I wish the app would store these online so that they could be accessed from the Audible site).

19. Shazam

If you want to impress your friends with a mobile app, show them Shazam. Ever hear a song being played at a store or on the radio and ask yourself, “Oh, what song is that?” That’s where Shazam comes in. Just hit the button and let it listen for 15 seconds, query its database, and then return the name of artist and the song. It has about an 80% success rate. This one isn’t particularly productive, but it is really cool. (You have to live a little, every once in a while.)

20. Google Finance

This is a great little app that regularly gets overlooked. It connects to your Google Finance account, where you can set up a list of stocks and companies to follow and sort them into groups (portfolios). The app provides three simple tabs — a look at the market, a look at your portfolios, and the latest market news. It even does real-time updates when you have the app open.

The 20 best apps for the iPad

1. Flipboard

This is a 21st century newsreader based on your social graph. It displays news stories based on what’s being shared by your friends in Twitter or Facebook and auto-formats them in a newspaper-like column format. You can scan the headlines and first couple paragraphs and then click through to the site to the open the full story right in the built-in web browser in the app. (Tip: search for TechRepublic or Jason Hiner and you can set us up as one of your sections in Flipboard.)

2. Kindle

The best way to read books on the iPad is the Amazon Kindle app, mostly because it has a large selection of titles available and it does the best job of syncing between multiple devices — iPad, iPhone, Android phone, PC, Mac, and more. Of course, there are also strong alternatives such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook app and Apple’s iBooks app.

3. Documents to Go

The best way to collect, manage, and read business documents on the iPad is with Dataviz Documents to Go, which not only allows you to sync local files from your computer but also connect to cloud services such as Google Docs, Dropbox, Box.net, SugarSync, and iDisk.

4. Things

Tablets are great for people who spend most of their days in meetings. For that crowd and everyone else who needs a task list and project planner, the best app I’ve found is Things. It’s a little expensive ($19.99 at the time I’m writing this), but I’ve tried cheaper solutions and none of them are as easy to figure out and as powerful to use as Things. It has a few limitations (syncing between multiple devices), but it does a great job of getting the process out of the way and helping you effectively track and organize your to-do items.

5. Analytics HD

One of the great ways to take advantage of the iPad as a viewer is to use it for quick glances at business dashboard metrics. This even translates to the simple task of checking traffic metrics and user info for your website. If you use Google Analytics, the Analytics HD app is a great way to view site data from the iPad. (Also see QlikView, SAP Business Objects Explorer, and Roambi.)

6. Evernote

The iPad is a surprisingly good note taker. The keyboard is about 80% as good as a laptop keyboard but the convenience of a more portable device is valuable. Evernote is a great note taking companion for the iPad, since it can auto-sync your meeting notes back to your PC and smartphone. Just keep in mind that it’s an online service and so be careful that you don’t use it for any business-sensitive data. For that stuff, you can use locally-controlled files with Apple’s built-in Notes app, for example.

7. Penultimate

Now that we’ve talked about the value of using the iPad for note taking, there are ways to do it that go beyond just typing things out. You can use an app like Penultimate to jot down handwritten notes and sketch out pictures and diagrams. There are several apps that can do this (such as Adobe Ideas, Ideate, and Idea Boards) but I think Penultimate is the most effective. If you get tired of using your finger as the writing device, you can get an iPad stylus like the Bamboo Stylus or the Griffin Stylus. In addition to using it for notes, I’ve even used Penultimate to sketch out an idea for a colleague in a meeting. It works great as a mini whiteboard in a coffee shop or a taxi cab.

8. Twitter

Twitter’s official iPad app is the best way to access Twitter and is an example of the kind of imaginative new UIs that good developers will attempt once they get grounded in touch-based tablets like the iPad. Check out the way the Twitter app exposes more or less info by sliding left and right. (Other useful Twitter apps include Osfoora and Twitterific.) The bottom line is that Twitter is an amazing real time news aggregator, as long as you follow the right people.

9. TED Talks

By far, the most inspiring app on the iPad is the TED Talks app. TED is a series of events featuring some of society’s most fascinating and innovative ideas and most influential thinkers. You’ll definitely disagree with some of them, because there’s a large diversity of opinions. But, there are a lot of talks worth listening to and they’re all free. Many of the talks are short and succinct, somewhere between 5-20 minutes.

10. Pulse

Pulse is another iPad news aggregator like Flipboard, only instead of building its sections based on social feeds it uses RSS feeds. Like Flipboard, it presents the info in a visually-compelling format using images from the articles that it is linking to. You can use the RSS feeds for TechRepublic and/or Tech Sanity Check if you’d like to use Pulse to keep up with our latest posts.

11. SkyGrid

Yet another great news aggregator for the iPad is SkyGrid, but its specialty is pulling together news on hot trends in real time. It’s not nearly as visual as Flipboard or Pulse, but SkyGrid helps fill in the gaps by surfacing hot news and articles that might have been missed by your favorite RSS sources and your social network.

12. ProPublica

ProPublica, a non-profit publication of investigative reporters, is doing some of the most important work in journalism today — the work that has increasingly been cut out of the profit-driven newsrooms. Plus, they have an excellent iPad app. The three column layout gives you the latest stories from ProPublica (most of which don’t make the mainstream news), the middle column links to good investigative news pieces from the mainstream media (many of the stories are buried), and the third column has ProPublica’s “Projects” or groups of stories where you can stay up to date on on-going issues. Keep in mind that ProPublica is non-profit and funded completely by donations.

13. NPR

Another one of the best iPad news apps from a media organization is the NPR app. It lets you quickly skim top stories, read related text articles, and quickly add radio/audio stories to a playlist that you can then listen to all at once.

14. The Guardian Eyewitness

A real diamond in the rough among iPad apps is The Guardian Eyewitness, which features amazing photojournalism from around the world from the popular UK news publication. The photos look fantastic on the iPad screen and provide a great way to scan through some of the most important current events on the planet.

15. Big Picture

Another great world news photo app is the Big Picture from Boston.com, a site that has had some of the web’s best news photographs and slideshows for a long time. While The Guardian Eyewitness app lets you scan world events, the Big Picture app lets you dive into them as there are full sets of photos from each event. The two apps compliment each other well and are great for visual storytelling of important news stories.

16. Rosetta Stone

The popular language software Rosetta Stone has an excellent iPad app called TOTALe HD. Unlike the Rosetta Stone iPhone app, which simply serves as a review for your full lessons on a PC or a Mac, the iPad app has basically all of the same content from the PC/Mac and delivers it in a multitouch experience. It also syncs back to the Rosetta Stone servers (for Version 4 of the software) so you can pick up right where you left off when you get back to your computer. You have to have a full license of a Rosetta Stone language pack and an online account set up in order to use the iPad app. You can’t just buy language modules directly for the iPad app.

17. iA Writer

If you want to use the iPad for note taking, journaling, or writing, then iA Writer offers a very simple solution for writing and managing your files. It is a completely bare bones word processor that can save your stuff directly to your Dropbox. Another similar program is WriteRoom ($4.99) and there’s always Apple’s own Pages ($9.99), but at $0.99 you can’t beat the price and basic capabilities of iA Writer.

18. The Weather Channel

Unlike the iPhone, the iPad does not come with a built-in weather app. However, The Weather Channel has filled the void with an excellent app that takes advantage of the tablet interface. I’ve never been a big fan of The Weather Channel’s desktop PC widgets, but they’ve done a great job with the iPad app.

19. NASA

Let’s face it, most of us geeks love space. The iPad itself was, in part, inspired by science fiction such as Star Trek. NASA has a strong tradition of sharing its space exploration advances and research and they’ve continued that tradition in multi-touch style with an excellent iPad app that lets you explore photography from satellites, see NASA’s launch schedules, research historical information about missions, and watch NASA TV live.

20. Scrabble

I’ve been a Scrabble fan for a long time but hadn’t pulled out a board in a while when the game suddenly saw a revival in recent years in digital form, including several knock-offs such as Words with Friends. My favorite way to play digital Scrabble is the Pass’n Play mode on iPad. But the iPad also has an individual learning mode, a local network mode, Party Play (where you can use an iPhone or iPod Touch as a tile rack), and a mode where you can play against a Facebook friend. So, you can have a little fun and expand your vocabulary at the same time.

Samsung Galaxy S II

Number 1: Samsung Galaxy S II

The Samsung Galaxy S line of smartphones had variants on all four major US wireless carriers, and on several regional carriers, and is an extremely successful line. The Samsung Galaxy S II takes the best of the Galaxy S line and improves it with an amazing 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Plus display, dual-core 1 GHz processor, 8.49mm form factor, 21 Mbps HSPA+ support, Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS, 8 megapixel camera, integrated memory and microSD card, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, and more.

The amazing Samsung display itself might be a reason to buy this device and if it comes to T-Mobile then I will likely be buying one for myself. You won’t have to worry about an OS upgrade since the Galaxy S II launches with Gingerbread already loaded too.

Motorola Droid Bionic on Verizon

Number 2: Motorola Droid Bionic on Verizon

Verizon’s LTE network is the only network in the US that can seriously be considered a 4G network and the upcoming Droid Bionic may just be the best smartphone on the nation’s fastest network. The Droid Bionic sports a high resolution (540×۹۶۰ pixels) 4.3 inch display, dual-core 1GHz processor, 8 megapixel camera, large capacity 1930 mAh battery, integrated 16GB of memory and microSD card slot, and support for the LTE network.

The device is scheduled to launch this quarter for an undisclosed price. It will likely launch with Android 2.2, but hopefully gets an update to 2.3 (Gingerbread) soon after release.

Number 3: T-Mobile LG G2X

LG really hasn’t focused on the high end Android smartphone market, but this year they will be offering several compelling candidates. One of the first ones that we should see will launch on T-Mobile as the LG G2x.

T-Mobile LG G2X

This is the US model of the LG Optimus 2X and is a dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor smartphone running Android 2.2 with support for T-Mobile’s fast HSPA+ network. It will include an 8 megapixel camera, 4 inch display, enhanced audio technologies, front facing 1.3 megapixel camera, and 1080p recording capability.

T-Mobile has a high powered lineup of Android devices and the G2X looks to be at the top of the heap.

Number 4: Apple iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 is now available on both AT&T and Verizon. The iPhone 4 is one of the only smartphones available that you can trust will get you through the day on a single charge and this may be vitally important to some people while others are fine with carrying a second battery to pop in their Android device. Apple does a great job with industrial design and the iPhone 4 feels great in your hand.

Apple iPhone 4

The display has amazing clarity with the 3.5 inch 960×640 pixel resolution. If apps are important to you then the iPhone 4 also rules in that department.

The iPhone 4 is a 3G device with no capability for the faster AT&T or Verizon networks. The display is a bit small for my tastes at 3.5 inches while I do love the look and feel of it. I want Apple to update iOS since it is getting a bit long in the tooth and needs better notification and home screen widget support. You can buy the iPhone 4 for $199 (16GB) or $299 (32GB) from AT&T or Verizon with a two-year contract.

HTC EVO 3D

Number 5: HTC EVO 3D

I selected the HTC EVO 4G as my top smartphone two times last year and still think it is a fantastic device. The upcoming HTC EVO 3D takes the familiar EVO 4G form factor and improves several aspects with things such as a 4.3 inch 540×۹۶۰ ۳D touch screen display, 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, a 1730 mAh battery, Bluetooth 3.0, dual 5 megapixel cameras for 3D photo and video capture, and a 1.3 megapixel front facing camera.

It will launch with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and HTC Sense. It will support Sprint’s WiMAX data network too. I honestly almost put this into my top three and it arguably could be placed there. This is one device that is causing me to evaluate my HTC Thunderbolt purchase decision.

HTC ThunderBolt

Number 6: HTC ThunderBolt

You may have read that I purchased the HTC ThunderBolt on launch day last week. Again, this is a device that is similar to the HTC EVO 4G that I loved with some key improvements. It has a second generation Snapdragon single core processor, more included RAM and integrated flash memory and Bluetooth 3.0 support (via a coming update).

The MAJOR reason I purchased the ThunderBolt was the blazing LTE wireless data network support where I am seeing regular downloads from 13 to 20 Mbps and that is easily at least double any other carrier data network in the U.S. If speed is your need, the the ThunderBolt is the only current answer.

Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

Number 7: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play

If gaming is your thing, then the SE Xperia Play may just be the smartphone you are looking for. It is fully optimized for gaming with a display that slides up to reveal full gaming controls. Sony Ericsson makes some high quality products and it will be very interesting to see what they do with the Play and PlayStation Android functionality.

The Xperia Play will launch as the first PlayStation certified Android smartphone with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), 854×۴۸۰ pixel display, 5 megapixel camera and VGA front facing camera, 3G wireless radio, stereo speakers, and more. I would like to try one out, but I am not a heavy gamer so having controls dedicated to gaming is not for me.

Google Nexus S and 4G

Number 8: Google Nexus S and 4G

Samsung was the maker of the second official Google development phone, known as the Nexus S. Google and Sprint recently announced the Nexus S 4G that has the same specs as the Nexus S with support for Sprint’s WiMAX data network. The Nexus S/4G is a pure Google phone and is generally the first to receive any OS updates.

The internals of the Nexus S are what you could find in the Galaxy S line from last year with the addition of NFC. It is a solid smartphone, but the lack of 4G, lack of expandable storage memory, and last year’s processor only make it a device to consider if you want a device that is easily upgradeable.

You can buy the Nexus S for $529.99 from Best Buy and if it had T-Mobile HSPA+ support I would seriously consider one. The Nexus S 4G is not yet available.

HP Pre 3

Number 9: HP Pre 3

HP purchased Palm last year and at a February event HP announced the HP Pre3 coming sometime this summer. While I think webOS is one of the slickest and most fun mobile operating systems to use, after two years they still have one of the lowest market share numbers of any smartphone maker and not having their new phones available for several months after announcing them does not instill much confidence in fans.

The Pre3 isn’t a revolutionary device compared to the Pre Plus or Pre2 with the major differences being a larger 3.58 inch display, faster 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, and 5 megapixel camera. It has the same slide up display revealing a portrait QWERTY keyboard and the skipping stone look and feel.

There looks to be some cool integration with their upcoming webOS tablets, which may end up being a major bonus for those looking for a 2 device solution. Unfortunately, we have no pricing or availability information.

Dell Venue Pro

Number 10: Dell Venue Pro

I know that some readers will slam me for including a Windows Phone 7 device in my top 10 list, but I personally have had my T-Mobile SIM in a WP7 device since last July and honestly love using the slick operating system. My favorite WP7 device is the Dell Venue Pro as I clearly stated in my review. The Dell Venue Pro hardware is fantastic and the device has been rock solid for me since I purchased it and inserted my own 32GB microSD card.

I put it down at number 10 since the specifications are 2010-era like all of the other WP7 devices. However, the OS is fun to use and a breath of fresh air in the mobile space. I honestly almost put the Dell Venue Pro at number 5 in my list and maybe I should have because the OS really is THAT good.

You can buy the Dell Venue Pro for $449.99 (8GB) or $499.99 (16GB) as an unsubsidized device or just $99.99 or $149.99 with a 2-year T-Mobile contract. Here is a tip for you, you can buy it with a contract and cancel by paying just a $200 ETF to T-Mobile and still come out cheaper than an unsubsidized device.