Checking in from home is actually kind of lame. Congrats on your quest for world domination of Foursquare.

Nothing could be further from the truth for Apple.

Don't forget that Apple is a hardware company, not a software company like Microsoft, who's core business of selling operating systems and office suites are clearly being eroded by cloud computing and web-based applications.

For Apple, not so much. Lets not forget that Apple is pushing the accelerator on this trend by developing WebKit that already has HTML5 features for Safari and other browsers. The iPhone and iPod Touch have essentially been Apple's foray into mobile devices that use web-based applications as well as local apps. Apple has mentioned a couple of times on their quarterly conference call that the iPhone and iPod Touch do what many people buy netbooks for already.

The fact that Apple is building a $1 billion data center in North Carolina should signal that they get where the world is going and plan to be ready when the tipping point comes. And whatever they do will incorporate the best of both worlds on desktop/laptop computing and cloud computing. OS X is already the base operating system for Macs, iPhones and the iPod Touch; no doubt it'll drive future tablet or netbook-like devices that will be part of Apple's future.

Finally, to say that the underlying hardware won't matter almost not at all seems a little naive. If consumers have a choice between a lowest common denominator netbook from some company they've never heard of or a netbook (or tablet or whatever it might be called at that time) from Apple for about the same price, which one do think they'll buy? The user experience still matters and Apple has that down in spades. Just look at the iPhone compared to Android at this point as an example. Android is good for geeks and techies; not so good for "regular" folks.

Heading into this new world, no hardware maker is better positioned than Apple to ride the coming wave.

Great observation that Obama is black by choice.

In a conversation yesterday, I explained that the media keeps saying Obama is the first African-American president when they really mean the first black president—at least in the way that African-American and black are usually used. Although there's always been black people like Obama, his presidency should shed light on the fact that not everyone who's of African descent is the descendant of enslaved Africans. It's the usual confusion of race, ethnicity, culture and nationality.