I know there have been millions of articles about the iPad. But you haven’t heard my perspective. So, here goes… As soon as I saw the iPad announcement I was of two minds. On the one hand I thought “Why would I want to pay $500 for a glowing screen version of the Kindle?” On the other hand, it was hard to deny a big touch screen device that gives you immediate access to all your content wherever you are is pretty interesting.

Lucky for me, the release of the iPad was relatively close to my birthday. I circled the wagons and let everyone who might be thinking about giving me a gift to give me some money to go towards an iPad. It worked so well that I don’t think that I received any other gifts besides this iPad.

In the first few days of owning any gadget, it is hard not to love it simply due to the novelty. The real test to any gadget is if you still use it on a daily basis a month or two months or a year later. So far, the iPad seems to have staying power. It is a great toy, but it is much more. It is now a part of my work day as well.

iPad as Toy

Here is the thing. We are officially in the future. Think about this. Go back just ten years. Thin TVs existed, but they were pretty expensive. Most people still had those big tube-type TVs. TiVos were around but not very prevalent. If someone handed you a thin screen that you could hold in your hand that connected to the Internet, played movies, played TV shows, played music, let you purchase and read books, you would have lost your mind. This thing is a game changer.

Now that I am using an iPad on a daily basis, it has completely changed how and why I use my laptop. My MacBook has now been relegated to content creation only. All the content consumption has been off loaded to the iPad for me. It is great. When I want to relax, I get out my iPad and browse around all the different types of content at my finger tips until I find something that seems interesting whether it is a movie, podcast, website, book, or whatever.

iPad as Tool

I don’t go to a meeting without my iPad. I have downloaded a killer app that is simply called Todo. All it does is help you create a todo list. But man, the way it does that simple job is worth the $4.99 I paid for it. I can track all my projects. I can see all the tasks that are relevant to where I am at the time. And, the user interface is beautiful. When was the last time you were passionate about a todo application?

The iPad also gives you a quick and elegant interface to manage you email and calendar. It makes the management of your life clean and simple, which for me is a good thing. It makes me a better manager of my life because it is just more fun now.

The iPad is too big to take everywhere, but because nearly everything syncs back to the cloud, I have access to all my data on my iPhone. When it is inappropriate to carry the iPad, I have the iPhone in my pocket. I hate to sound like such a fanboy, but I love it.

The Negatives

The iPad isn’t the panacea for all problems. It is not a great content creation device. I am typing this blog entry on the iPad right now and nearly all the muscles in the upper half of body are starting to hurt as I lean forward trying to type on this thing. It is not a replacement for your main computer which means it is an expensive accessory. In a world where people go to bed hungry or thirsty, there are probably better places to spend your money.

Final Thoughts

I figured that I was going to like the iPad as a toy but I am continually surprised by how useful this thing is in other areas. If you are wondering whether or not to get an iPad because it seems expensive for a toy, rest assured it is much more…

Here is some video hot off the presses from Andy Ihnatko from the brand new iPhone 3Gs. It looks better than I expected it would…

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and yes you can run Ubuntu on a mac on a virtual machine for free with Sun’s VirtualBox. In fact, you can run just about any operating system you want to all within a window inside OSX.

Running a virtual machine is nothing new on Macs. Ever since Apple moved to Intel processors, virtualization came along for the ride. Virtualization means that you can run computer operating systems that are designed for Windows PC hardware on Macintosh.

There are two main players for creating virtual machines on Macs, Parallels and VMware Fusion. Both of those products are great, but they cost $70 each. If you are like me, and you have no real reason to run alternate operating systems, $70 is a lot to pay just to play around.

Last week, while I was listening to Twit.tv’s MacBreak Weekly, Leo Laporte talked about a program from Sun that allows you to create virtual machines for free. Sun’s VirtualBox is a full-featured machine virtualization solution. Creating a Linux virtual machine was extremely easy.

I downloaded VirtualBox and installed it on my computer. I downloaded the latest ISO file of Ubuntu and saved it on my desktop.

I opened VirtualBox and simply followed the instructions on the wizard that started when I first opened VirtualBox. I created a new virtual machine and then installed Ubuntu.

I was a little nervous doing it for the first time, but it didn’t take too much geekiness to get it all working. If you are somewhat good with computers, this should be no problem.

Right now, I am writing this blog post inside Linux on a virtual machine on my MacBook. It works.

I don’t really know what I will do with this other than simply play, but I was afraid that once I moved over to Apple computers full time, I would lose my chance to play with Linux. Now, that is no longer true.

The only problem I am having is I can’t make the screen any bigger than 800 x 600. That is a little confining, but I bet if I up my video RAM, that will be fixed.

Anyway, it is fun to geek it up every once in a while.

So apparently Apple must not take a shine to Amazon stealing its customers because ever since I downloaded the latest version of iTunes, the Amazon MP3 Downloader program doesn’t automatically put downloaded MP3s in my iTunes library. Of course, it is trivial to get them in there, but it is still a little lame. Boo Apple!

Today may be a banner day in finding the perfect todo list option for me and my iPhone. Enter Google Chrome. For those of you who haven’t heard, Google has released a browser called Chrome.  It is clean, fast, and has some very interesting features that are growing more and more compelling to me all the time.

Google Chrome gives you the option of creating virtual applications out of online applications.  In reality, it is pretty simple, Google Chrome will open an online app in its own window that has the forward, back, URL, and other standard browser buttons removed.  It makes online apps feel more like apps that live on your harddrive.

Here is how Chrome and Toodledo have collided to give me a more interesting and integrated todo option. Toodledo has a very clean interface for the iPhone but their standard interface leaves a little to be desired. The great thing about Toodledo’s iPhone interface is that you can access it in a standard browser on your PC or Mac.  Here is where my head exploded…

I opened the iPhone interface of Toodledo in Google Chrome and turned it into a virtual app.  The Chrome virtual apps remember how they were sized and where they were in the window when you last closed them.

Long story short, I now have a todo widget that lives on the far left part of my workspace that stays out of the way that is always synced on my iPhone.  In other words, it is possible to use chrome to create iPhone app widgets that have their own window and live on your computer.

I just found the greatest trick to redeem some space on you iPhone without having to dock your iPhone. I use it to delete video podcasts once I am finished watching. Also, it works when you are perusing your email and you want to delete an email without opening it… I’m looking at you spam. I may have been living my life under a rock for the last year, but I haven’t anyone talk about the delete function that is baked right into your iPhone.

Here is how you do it.

1. As you are looking at the list of your email, find one that you want to delete.
2. Place both thumbs over that message and then spread them apart. Think of a reverse pinch.
3. A red ‘Delete’ button will appear.
4. Hit that button and voila, that email disappears!

That same action works in you podcast library, and I am sure in a lot more places.  Explore and let me know what other places it works.

My contract finally ended with AT&T which means that now can and do have a brand new iPhone. I am very excited. I wasn’t eligible to buy one last year. I have had to sit on the sideline and wish. Well now baby, I am in the game.

I have only had it for a couple of days so I don’t know how I will feel about later, but right now it is super fun.

I am still getting used to the keyboard. My hope is that I will get faster at typing on it.

Gotta run… But more to come.

I am in line in Rogers Arkansas at one of the AT&T stores waiting for the new iPhones. I didn’t spend the night because I am not so crazy about getting one which has put me a long way back in line.

Now that Apple and AT&T have dropped the price and the uber-geeks have had one for a year now, the nature of the line has changed. This new phone with its lower costs marks a change in the nature of the common iPhone owner.

My prediction is that this version of the iPhone will be the next Razr. You know, the phone that you see everywhere. That does take away some of the cachet of owning one, but who cares, I am still excited about getting one, though I may not be able to get one today.

Stay tuned, and you can see a picture of the line on flickr. My flickr username is murdog. Sorry I don’t have the address to the pic itself, but I am uploading this post using my Blackjack…ironic

UPDATE:———
Well, if you were following me on Twitter then you no doubt know that I didn’t end up getting an iPhone. Some people on the Internet are speculating that AT&T is rationing its supply of iPhones so that they will have stock throughout the weekend. From what I heard from the people at the AT&T store I was at, I can’t find any proof that they are wrong.

There was something fishy in how cagey the managers were at AT&T. They were pretty “sure” that there would be more iPhones available in the morning. If this is true and they are rationing the phones and thus screwing the people who took the time to line up on the first day that the phone came out just so they could have some to sell on Saturday…that is not ok.

Obviously there is no proof unless someone from AT&T spills the beans on this, but there were striking similarities in experiences across the nation today as I scanned the blogs.

Apple stores had around a thousand iPhones on hand while AT&T stores had from 50 to 75. That is a big difference in numbers. The closest Apple store is two hours away. It would be ridiculous to drive that far for a phone that will miraculously appear on the shelves of our local AT&T store tomorrow morning.

I don’t know. I don’t know why this has made me so mad, but it has. Come on AT&T this looks terrible for your customer service. Quit assuming that customers will put up with your shenanigans forever. We won’t. Stop being ridiculous…

Well, I finally did it.  I made the jump the Mac.  I went to Best Buy today and got a 20″ iMac for our new home computer.  I just got tired of trying to keep my old Windows box running.  It was time for a new computer at the house.  And, when faced with all the Vista computers out there and having two kiddos in the house it became very apparent that it was time to make the change.

Right now, I am going through the arduous process of getting a new computer set up.  You know, the initial search through all the mp3s and pictures.  It is pretty exciting and I can’t wait to learn everything there is to know about Mac software options.

It has been so long since we have had a decent computer here at the house that I havn’t looked at my photo collection in a LONG time.  As iPhoto went through all our old photos it was neat to see all the pictures of Wyatt and Mary Hadley as they grew up.  If nothing else, this new computer is going to breathe some new life into our old content.

Goodbye Windows, I can’t say that I will be missing you.  I already have started to reconnect to my love of computers.  Finally, I can watch videos again here at the house.

The computer was so bad that I stopped using it to sync my iPod.  Now I have to make the decision of whether or not I am going to make this my main music computer.  It is handy to have all my music and media on my work computer, but it seems to make more sense to have it here at the house.  I may have to take my external HDD to the office and copy all the new music that isn’t on this computer and bring it home.

Megan has long since given up on syncing her iPod.  I hope this new computer will breath some new life into that situation.

I am still getting used to this new microscopically thin keyboard.  It is super cool looking, but typing on it is a little daunting.  There is a lip on the little keyboard shelf it is sittin on and it makes typing a little clumsy.  My old keyboard was a lot taller, and I had gotten pretty used to it.  And, don’t even get me started on this Mighty Mouse.  It may be a mouse, but it is hardly mighty.  I forsee the purchase of a good ole Microsoft mouse and sending this little beauty on its way.

Next, I am going to download Adobe Air and Twhirl so that I can keep up with my Twitter.  I may do that tonight, or I might just go to bed.  I don’t feel like twittering tonight anyway.  The real trick is going to be getting Hamachi working on this computer.  On the Windows side, there is an installer and a graphical user interface which make it exceedingly easy to install.  On the Mac side, it involves Unix commands and liberal use of the Terminal.  I have tried twice to get it running on the Mac at the office and have failed twice.  Now that I have this here at the house, I might get it working.

It is important to get Hamachi working on this computer so that I can access it from the office or whatever computer I am on.  I have already gotten TightVNC to work which allows me to remote in from my other Windows computers.  Using Mac on a Windows box is rather intoxicating.

I also have to make the decision of whether I am going to purchase iWork or just use NeoOffice.  NeoOffice isn’t that big a deal to me, but the interface may be a little arcane for Megan.  And, it is important to me to get her using this computer.  It is a much better computer than our ailing laptop which is failing to see one of the two expensive RAM simms I intalled earlier.

Blogging on this computer is rather fun.