OK so you've had a week. Has it changed your life?
Seriously, what works and what doesn't?
--there are several typos in the response below, which I left to provide a more honest representation of the typing experience--
Some background on my situation: I have a home desktop for heavy computing tasks, photo editing, music library, etc. I have a desktop at work (the church) for editing bulletins, using spreadsheets, etc. I've always had a laptop because I'm out of my office quite a bit and need to be able to work on sermons, to read, to keep up with email, and when I'm at home, to surf the web in the family room rather than being antisocial back in my office.
So - here we go.
Since the iPad arrived my laptop has been in a desk drawer and hasn't come out even once. It's now nearly completely unnecessary, which is exactly what I'd hoped. The iPad display is beautiful - showing off pictures of my son and our vacations is a treat. Smugmug looks good, the built in photos app looks good, and there is a good application for brewing my smugmug galleries quickly.
Its great for reading. I've heard that the weight bothers some people, but it hasn't been a problem for me. I read a lot, but not usually more than 30 minutes at a time.
Email is very good, though i wish there was a unified inbox. Still everything works as it should and I have no problem working through large groups of emails when I'm on the road.
Web browsing is phenomenal. This is how the web is meant to be explored, on a big beautiful screen with multitouch. There are lots of good apps for reading news, rss feeds, and its fun to be able to watch video podcasts while I'm eating lunch or waiting for my oil to be changed.
The built-in keyboard isn't bad - probably as good as you can get for on screen. Its fine for web browsing, posting to forums (I'm using it now), email, and other light text entry tasks. Writing a sermon on it is something I'd never try. And I wouldn't have to. Between the wireless keyboard that I can pull out when I need it, and Dragon Naturally Speaking (which works great) my bases are covered.
When I have the keyboard (which, thankfully is very small and quite portable) I can do sereious document editing. I was stuck at the mechanic for several hours the other day and was able to get quite a bit done using the Pages app. Spreadsheet work is not good - the Numbers app isn't cross comparable with my excel stuff, but that's okay. If I really need to edit a spreadsheet I use the logmein app (awesome) to have remote access to one of my desktops.
All in all, I'm really pleased with thr device. I would suggest to someone considering it that, if you don't have a mobile hotspot, wait for the 3G version. The device loses much of ite appeal when it's not connected to the Internet.
Almost everything I could say about the device is positive (streaming MLB and Netflix!). My only criticism at this point is that the lack of multitasking occasionally becomes annoying (probably not as often as I expected) and that this thing will suck every penny out of your wallet. After you've paid for the device itself you really need the Apple case (the third party cases are not even close, unfortunately) which is an astounding $40. The Apple blueooth keyboard (necessary if you're going to do any real work on this thing) is $60. I've spent about $100 on apps (logmein was $30, MLB was $15, Pages was $10, Scrabble was $10) and though I wouldn't return any of them, that's still a lot of money.
Overall, I'm very pleased. For my purposes this is the perfect device. I can justify the cost only because it replaces my laptop entirely. I take it everywhere and so there's always something to read and something to do.
Since the iPad OS is essentially a cell phone OS, I've been comparing it to the OS on my Palm Pre (WebOS). There are certainly a few things the Palm does better. The "card" multi-tasking is awesome. A unified inbox. The ability to choose icons for desktop shortcuts (of webpages). There are probably a dozen little things I prefer about the Pre.
But, the Pre is laggy. The iPad zooms. The Pre crashes and locks up - the iPad may have an app crash but it doesn't restart on me. The Pre has memory leaks and gives memory errors. The iPad (partially because it doesn't multi-task) doesn't.
McAfee Update Glitch Takes Down Windows XP Computers
A bad McAfee update on Wednesday created some problems for users running computers with Windows XP.
The incorrect malware alert, issued today at 9am Eastern, resulted in computers with Windows XP Service Pack 3 to shut down and start on a continuous reboot cycle.
"McAfee is aware that a number of corporate customers may have incurred a false positive error due to incorrect malware alerts," McAfee said in a statement. "McAfee is working to address the problem with continuous customer communication and a new signature update. McAfee apologizes for any inconvenience to our customers."
The update has since been removed from McAfee download servers for corporate users, and issued a fix.
McAfee did not provide specific information on how many people were affected, though a reader from the University of New Hampshire said that the update has affected the campus' whole IT infrastructure. Twitter is also awash in updates from users twiddling their thumbs until the issue is fixed.
"Sittin at work ALL day while #mcAfee screws our computers," wrote one Colorado-based artist.
"Computers in the FLC lab were also frozen due to #McAfee #Antivirus acting up," wrote an Ohio teacher. "Had to cancel class or move rooms."
I was always rebooting my wife's Windows POS. I didn't realize I could get McAfee to do it for me automagically.
This one was unforgivable--their brilliant heuristics identified svchost.exe as a virus. If you know anything about Windows internals you will understand immediately how much mischief this causes. Jeeze...
I need some Mac software advice. My wife's ancient, comatose iPod mysteriously came back to life, three years after we had given it up for dead. In the meantime, she has become a YouTube addict. What I am looking for is a simple to use program that can rip the audio of any YouTube clip and save it as an MP3 file so that it can be transferred to the iPod. Mostly, she will be using it to practice foreign languages, so we don't need very high quality sound. Freeware is definitely preferred. I have been able to find a number of candidates, but I thought I might save myself some time and grief by asking about personal experience first.
What I am looking for is a simple to use program that can rip the audio of any YouTube clip and save it as an MP3 file so that it can be transferred to the iPod.
i ran that speed test again and my results were 19 seconds. down from i think 119 on my 2yr old sony single processer 2.4ghz with 1.5gb of ram
Hi Andy, I ran across that speed test and ran it on my new PC. First time was 5 seconds. Having now learned what to watch for (a spinning circle instead of a progress bar) I tried to be more accurate with my stopwatch timing. Second time was 4.81 secs. (Open programs: a few browser tabs open in Chrome, Outlook 2007, real-time antivirus, etc.)
I think the current combo of ATT and the iPhone can cause problems in certain cities, I don't doubt that people in SF are frustrated, for example. But I'm not seeing any difference between my iPhone and any other phone I've had with numerous carriers as far as dropped calls.
The spousal-unit sent me that link yesterday but I hadn't had the chance to look at it. Thanks for the reminder Richard! We will have to look at our data rates and see how we stack up.
I also installed the TextFree app which is actually free now (shows some ads, but they are ignored). I will be getting the wife's phone set-up tonight and then we will drop our text messaging plans from AT&T and save that $/month/phone.
Anyone who uses 2GB or less of data a month will save money with the new AT&T plans. It's clear that with iPhone 4 coming next week - AT&T is very concerned about the strain that tethering will put on their network.
For those of us who already have the unlimited $30/month plan - we can keep it. If you had the 250MB/month $15 plan - you can keep it. For the people who want a new plan, they can have 2GB/month for $25. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not that would work for me, but overall I don't think this is a bad change.
Comments
--there are several typos in the response below, which I left to provide a more honest representation of the typing experience--
Some background on my situation: I have a home desktop for heavy computing tasks, photo editing, music library, etc. I have a desktop at work (the church) for editing bulletins, using spreadsheets, etc. I've always had a laptop because I'm out of my office quite a bit and need to be able to work on sermons, to read, to keep up with email, and when I'm at home, to surf the web in the family room rather than being antisocial back in my office.
So - here we go.
Since the iPad arrived my laptop has been in a desk drawer and hasn't come out even once. It's now nearly completely unnecessary, which is exactly what I'd hoped. The iPad display is beautiful - showing off pictures of my son and our vacations is a treat. Smugmug looks good, the built in photos app looks good, and there is a good application for brewing my smugmug galleries quickly.
Its great for reading. I've heard that the weight bothers some people, but it hasn't been a problem for me. I read a lot, but not usually more than 30 minutes at a time.
Email is very good, though i wish there was a unified inbox. Still everything works as it should and I have no problem working through large groups of emails when I'm on the road.
Web browsing is phenomenal. This is how the web is meant to be explored, on a big beautiful screen with multitouch. There are lots of good apps for reading news, rss feeds, and its fun to be able to watch video podcasts while I'm eating lunch or waiting for my oil to be changed.
The built-in keyboard isn't bad - probably as good as you can get for on screen. Its fine for web browsing, posting to forums (I'm using it now), email, and other light text entry tasks. Writing a sermon on it is something I'd never try. And I wouldn't have to. Between the wireless keyboard that I can pull out when I need it, and Dragon Naturally Speaking (which works great) my bases are covered.
When I have the keyboard (which, thankfully is very small and quite portable) I can do sereious document editing. I was stuck at the mechanic for several hours the other day and was able to get quite a bit done using the Pages app. Spreadsheet work is not good - the Numbers app isn't cross comparable with my excel stuff, but that's okay. If I really need to edit a spreadsheet I use the logmein app (awesome) to have remote access to one of my desktops.
All in all, I'm really pleased with thr device. I would suggest to someone considering it that, if you don't have a mobile hotspot, wait for the 3G version. The device loses much of ite appeal when it's not connected to the Internet.
Almost everything I could say about the device is positive (streaming MLB and Netflix!). My only criticism at this point is that the lack of multitasking occasionally becomes annoying (probably not as often as I expected) and that this thing will suck every penny out of your wallet. After you've paid for the device itself you really need the Apple case (the third party cases are not even close, unfortunately) which is an astounding $40. The Apple blueooth keyboard (necessary if you're going to do any real work on this thing) is $60. I've spent about $100 on apps (logmein was $30, MLB was $15, Pages was $10, Scrabble was $10) and though I wouldn't return any of them, that's still a lot of money.
Overall, I'm very pleased. For my purposes this is the perfect device. I can justify the cost only because it replaces my laptop entirely. I take it everywhere and so there's always something to read and something to do.
In iPhone OS4, not yet released.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Don't want to start a flame war, but I just couldn't resist.
There's always a trade off, eh?
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Since the iPad OS is essentially a cell phone OS, I've been comparing it to the OS on my Palm Pre (WebOS). There are certainly a few things the Palm does better. The "card" multi-tasking is awesome. A unified inbox. The ability to choose icons for desktop shortcuts (of webpages). There are probably a dozen little things I prefer about the Pre.
But, the Pre is laggy. The iPad zooms. The Pre crashes and locks up - the iPad may have an app crash but it doesn't restart on me. The Pre has memory leaks and gives memory errors. The iPad (partially because it doesn't multi-task) doesn't.
So yeah, there are trade offs
Our house will be fully Mac-compatible (except for the work-provided/required Dell laptops) by the beginning of May.
Just ordered the wife a MacPro 15" i7 to replace her Gateway Vista POS.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
Those won't be trade-offs anymore when iPhone OS 4.0 comes out this summer!
Eh. Don't get me wrong, I'll be glad for the update, but the kind of multitasking apple is adding isn't quite ad nice as the card system on webos.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
This one was unforgivable--their brilliant heuristics identified svchost.exe as a virus. If you know anything about Windows internals you will understand immediately how much mischief this causes. Jeeze...
My wife has been using TubeSock to do this and it works well. http://stinkbot.com/Tubesock/
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
Thanks, Brad. I'll give it a try over the weekend.
Hi Andy, I ran across that speed test and ran it on my new PC. First time was 5 seconds. Having now learned what to watch for (a spinning circle instead of a progress bar) I tried to be more accurate with my stopwatch timing. Second time was 4.81 secs. (Open programs: a few browser tabs open in Chrome, Outlook 2007, real-time antivirus, etc.)
CPU: i7-920 (not over-clocked), OS: Win 7 x64, RAM: 6 GB DDR3 RAM, GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X HD5750 1GB GDDR5 PCIe, HD: 80 GB Solid State Drive, DATA: 1 TB RAID-I Data drive...
It takes PS3 less than 2 seconds to fully open.
Finally, a computer that waits for me instead of the other way around!
In case you all missed this:
Worst Phone Ever
Reported on various news sources such as Consumer Affairs.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
No matter- just FYI that's all.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37460012
Just sharing....
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
I also installed the TextFree app which is actually free now (shows some ads, but they are ignored). I will be getting the wife's phone set-up tonight and then we will drop our text messaging plans from AT&T and save that $/month/phone.
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
For those of us who already have the unlimited $30/month plan - we can keep it. If you had the 250MB/month $15 plan - you can keep it. For the people who want a new plan, they can have 2GB/month for $25. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not that would work for me, but overall I don't think this is a bad change.