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Featured Ignite Video: How to be a Refugee - Episode 46
Subscribe to this video podcast series via iTunes. Ignite your life. Join us for Global Ignite Week.

How dare Apple... - The iPad repeats Jobs' all-in-one vision of the 1984 Macintosh 128K
Back in 1984, when the Macintosh 128K had just arrived, I wandered down to Chemung Electronics to take a look at this supposed upgrade from the Apple ][ world. It was okay until I asked the salesman, "so how do I write programs on this thing?" He laughed and said I'd have to buy that separately. They'd even have to special-order it. Today, I find myself reading pieces from a lot of good people (Tim Bray, Alex Payne) who share the dismay of my 13-year-old self. How could Apple release a product so exclusively oriented to consumption, rather than production?

Obama's Year in Technology
As President Obama prepares to deliver his state of the union, after a year in office, I thought I would take a quick look at what has been going on with the technology agenda. There have been firsts, a few downright scary incidents and some good progress as the government really enters the Digital Age.

The Differences between Usability and User Experience
The rapid growth of RIA technology into the lives of every day people just a few years ago has carried both the usability and user experience industries to a new high in popularity. The success of software (particularly on the web) has driven both of these terms into our vernacular, and yet they are still often confused or thought to be synonymous. This post is meant to help those new to the field or unfamiliar with the intricacies of design to understand the differences between the terms.

Why Mobile Will Win: eReaders are Sustaining, Mobile is Disruptive
In one of the comments to a recent post about The Tablet, Scott Lewis sums up one of the most common objections to the viability of smartphone-based reading: the screen is too small. And Scott is correct that a 3.5" screen offers an inferior reading experience compared with a paperback when measured using the attributes that define a quality print reading experience. But people who are reading on smartphones are choosing to do so based on new and different attributes.

Understanding C#: Why make things private?
This is a really good question that a lot of developers ask themselves -- especially when they get the hang of using classes and objects, and start building bigger programs. It's really easy to think that something's really not right with how the private keyword works. But the reason you want to use private is because sometimes you want your class to hide information from the rest of the program. It's the whole idea behind encapsulation (which is what chapter 5 of Head First C# is all about).

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