Now that Gmail has bested the Outlooks of the world, it's a good time to assess the state of desktop software. There are some things that work better on your computer (your music app, your photo editor, your spreadsheets), and there are some that work better online (everything else). Over the last few years, we've seen many programs shifting from the first category to the second—now you can get spreadsheets and photo editors online, though they're still not as good as programs hosted on your computer. But e-mail has crossed the line completely.

You've certainly read Jason Toon's work: he's head writer for Woot.com. But you might not have thought about the staggering amount of copy he has to write. And the first time he did a Woot-Off, neither did he.

iBooks uses an ebook format called ePub. Using a free converter application (and ebook manager
) called calibre you can quickly convert PDF (and other file formats) to .epub files, which you can then transfer to your iPad for reading in iBooks. This tutorial will take you step by step through the entire process.

In red America, families form adults; in blue America, adults form families.