iPad: Did you know...

So I have been fighting, FIGHTING with my collegues at work to try and use my iPad as the productivity tool it should be.

First, they kicked me off the mobile sync server. This after a high level executive, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, gave me the information on how to find the server. So no more can I have my outlook calendar and emails on the iPad, arguably a serious benefit. Fine...

Second, they found my illegal (I didn't know it at the time, though to be honest I suspected it highly) wireless router in my office and remotely killed my network port, that was an interesting hour...

Third, They decided they would strip machines of logmein, so that I can no longer remote control my desktop from my bed and work on the weekends...

Forth, they found my wifi sharing function and somehow stopped that, it just doesn't want to work anymore, not sure why or how...

So I've almost given up using the iPad at work, except for taska and evernote, its really not all that useful anymore. I can't get documents onto it, or off of it, and since we don't have public WIFI except in starbucks downstairs, its really just a cool decoration on my desk...

Until I figure out another trick to get content onto it. If you load itunes on your workstation (which thus far has not been blocked, but clearly someone is reading my blog and will probably figure out how to block it) you can actually sync documents to the ipad without syncing the ipad its self. Huh? You say. Right well I have music, movies, apps etc etc on this thing that I don't have (or frankly want) on my work machine. So I don't actually want to sync the apps, I just want to be able to add a document to it. Now with this method I can easily just add a PDF to iAnnotate and go to my meeting.

Still a FAR cry from just opening up your email and clicking on the file you already had, but also a far cry from forwarding it to myself, or using google docs, then running downstairs to SB or piggy backing on our neighbors Wifi to get the information I need. If you don't want me to be productive at work, just tell me, I can play solitaire with the best of them....

Note, I actually can't, bores me to tears...

We finally got the deed to our house

OMG, so relieved to actually have this little piece of paper that says the house that i have been fighting to get for the last 6 months, is actually mine. I haven't been this happy to see a single piece of paper since my first paycheck from Phoenix International...

Now, the hard part starts. I have already had a glimpse of how much fun this will be with trying to get permits and play the he said she said game with my contractor about who should get the permits...:) Will actually publish the blog tomorrow (its over here at She Made me do it), while I have been writting my soul out on the blog, we didn't want to publish anything without it being official. Now I have to go back in time and get some of our initial images up and make the blog look halfway decent before I release the articles.

The new blog is going to be MUCH more interactive than my iPad one, with video, photo's and some give aways so get ready to enjoy...:)

iPad: Stanza app, alternate to iBooks

There is a large amount of free literature out there, some legal, some questionable, but most of it can't be read on the iPad without being converted, and even then... I had a large selection of books that I had converted to read on my iPad, and then an update made the iPad decide it didn't want to read epub format anymore.

Needless to say, since I was done reading most of the files, I didn't bother re-converting and trying to read in PDF in iBook... Then I found the stanza app. Other than just NOT being able to figure out how to change books, its pretty cool. You can zoom in and out by pinching, if you save the zoom level it applies it to the entire book so you can go grandma and read with 30 pt font, or exercise your eyes and read it at 6pt... the illumination level is cute, you swipe up or down to increase or decrease the backlight. It also has a questionable bookmark feature, which I haven't figured out a use for... maybe it was for when the app wouldn't continue running in the background? Bascially you "fold" the top right corner to remember your place, again cute.

Over all, the app is good with the exception of not knowing how to close the book and go to another. I had to settle for learning how to crash the app at will, you zoom, cancel, and change the luminosity while the system is resetting the page and it crashes...>.> don't fix it, I can't close the book without that bug!

Update: The latest release removed the bug that crashed the app! Luckily before that I figured out that if you single tap in the middle third of the screen a plethora of options open to you, allowing you to close the book, jump between chapters etc etc. It has all the features and functions of iBook without any of the annoying limitations.

iPad: Infinity Blade Reviewed

First of all, yes, this is the orgasmic eye candy it looks like in all the screen shots. The graphics are video quality, the fight scenes are at first intense and the game play is interesting.

Then it kind of falls apart. I won't add any spoilers here, but it gets repetitive quickly, the choose your own adventure style of play is limiting in that you are moving from fight scene to fight scene, and while you can make those fights as fast or as slow as you want, really that is all the content in the game.

Relax, you say, its only 6$. True, and for the 6$ its a tremendous start, it truly shows what the iPad COULD achieve if someone spent the R&D budget and came out with a 30$ game to provide content where I could, oh I don't know, MOVE my toon around this amazing world, where I had more than a single castle to investigate. Admittedly, I have only played the game for a couple of hours, and so haven't finished it yet. If it holds my attention long enough for me to get past the first boss I'll let you know if there is more coming, but if the entire game centers around killing this first boss then its not worth buying, except of course to show off your iPad's amazing graphic capabilities to your friends who are on the fence...:)

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm... say no more.

I've been a little pre-occupied with work, and with the game to really be doing much of anything else. Oh and there was jenn throwing out her back to add a little spice to life... But I was thinking over the last couple of days about my iPad and what I should write in the blog, and realized that I no longer think about the pad.. other than my fun of upgrading to 4.2 (bricked twice, long story) it's just a fact of life now, no longer a novelty.

I have seen a sharp increase in the number of iPads showing up at meetings, if only our company had WiFi in our office I think that it would take off even faster... I was thinking over a survey on one of the sites I frequent (www.tuaw.com) where they said what would make you buy an iPad 2.0. To be honest, I'll probably buy one with 3G... lame I know, but I'll use the 2.0 as an excuse to buy a 3G version next time around, even though I am using it almost exclusively for work, its hampered by the fact that we don't have WiFi and therefore its very hard to get documents on to it, and show up to meetings with the presentation in e-hand instead of printed out...

Still loving it, and theres a rumour going around that I am getting that Zagg case that I wrote about before for Christmas, can't wait...:)

What is it about a car that makes people feel so alone?

On the bus on the way home being amazed at how very many people are texting and driving.... When I see something I wish I hadn't..

Don't people realize that in a car, you are surrounded by 360 degrees of glass, and people? If you wouldn't do it in an elevator (don't get me started on things people do in elevators that they shouldn't) then you shouldn't do it in your car...

Zaggmate iPad Keyboard case, best of both worlds?

There have been a lot of clamshell cases that have come out over the lst couple of months that made me wonder, why buy an iPad if you are going to carry it around with a keyboard all the time... Since then however Jenn's been bed ridden, and I've been increasingly frustrated with trying to use my iPad as a complete computing solution. Logmein is good, but annoying without a keyboard, the constant scrolling etc, is irritating so this case actually looks appealing to me.



To be honest, I am still not sure if I want to make fun of it, or buy it... what do you all think? Given that I bought the iPad, and don't have an option to buy the new Mac Book Air (which is thinner than the iPad btw) this might be a good direction to go in...

This comes from my favorite blog out there for all things iPad: http://www.tuaw.com/2010/11/09/zaggmate-ipad-keyboard-case-joins-the-fray/