Tag Archives: iPad

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

NDD: Logitech FabricSkin Keyboard Folio

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(NDD is New Doodad Day, btw…)

Another day, another new toy. Today’s is the Logitech FabricSkin Keyboard Folio.

I’ve been thinking more and more about a keyboard for my iPad, and starting to use it more as a mobile communication device, rather than just as an internet consumption device, which has been my primary use for it. Enter the desire for a keyboard. (Note that I didn’t say need!)

Plug it in (to charge it), insert the iPad into the pretty dang secure holder, and it was ready to pair with my iPad. From unviolated box to paired and typing in about 90 seconds. Pretty cool.

I will mention that the keyboard has a funky feel. It’s a covered, slightly membrane-like keyboard, so the keys have a little funkiness to their feel, both from the fabric and from the short throw action. However, it’s definitely better than typing on the glass, and I’m noticing just through typing this up, I’m getting used to the feel a bit.

More to come, I’m sure, as I play with this gadget on a more regular basis!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak, Photography

2010 and My Tech

Braddog has a yearly tradition of reviewing the tech that has shaped his year just passed. I was inspired to do the same!

#1, iPad. I had no idea that it would become so pervasive in my life when I bought it.

#2, DVR. I snuck into the late 90s this year by switching to UVerse, and gaining use of their DVR technology. Again, I had no idea just how much I’d be using it!

#3, AppleTV. A new addition this year, and one that has not only entertained my not-so-techhy wife during her recovery from foot surgery, but has also converged a lot of varied and entertaining content in a room that had none.

#4, iMac i7. This new machine could’ve been ranked higher, as I use it daily for so much of my online life. But the real gain here was real estate. I displaced a eight-core MacPro, gained a bigger screen, and lost almost no processing power.

#5, Lightroom 3. This software jewel has become my electronic shoe box of photos. I keep a personal library of just over 100k photos (yeah, I’m a pack rat), along with an archive of old family photos from both sides of the family. Lightroom makes it just flat easy to maintain all this, and keep some sanity around finding images that I’ve shot, along with history that others in my family have captured.

And yes, you could put guitars on the list, but my guitars are acoustic, and despite having some electronics in them, and occasionally being pumped through my Marshall amp, I didn’t feel like they fit in the list.

It’ll be cool to see what 2011 holds for me. Will there be any fundamental shift as big as the iPad in the cards for this year? Who knows, but I can’t wait to see!

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak, Rants

AT&T Gives Apple Customers the Raspberry

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So I go to Colorado for a week, and AT&T seems to have lost their mind.

OK, so those two events aren’t actually connected, but… I stand by my conclusion.

When the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs proclaimed, to the jaw-dropping gasp of everyone in the room, that the iPad would have a month-to-month all-you-can-eat plan for $30. And the throngs rejoiced.

Scarcely a month into the availability of the iPad 3G, AT&T has now pulled a Darth Vader, and changed the terms of the deal with Apple’s customers. Ya see, after promising the availability of the world for $30/mo atop a bandwidth hungry platform, AT&T now cried “uncle” and soured the deal to 2GB of bandwidth monthly for $25. For a device that folks were praising as the second coming of computing, AT&T has now clipped its wings, and made it harder for the iPad to live up to its hype.

The good news is that I bought my iPad 3G when I did, and will be grandfathered in with my all-you-can-eat plan… supposedly.

Apple Existence, Geek-Speak

An iPad Enters the Fold

I’ve been thinking about the iPad of late. It’s been a real quandary for me. While, I’ve loved what I’ve read about the thing, and seen some really great ponderances about how it could be used as a photography tool, I just hadn’t quite found the killer use for the thing.

I still may not have.

However, yesterday, I found that one of our local Best Buy’s had the 64GB iPad 3G in stock. This, after the same store told me a week ago that they had no idea if they were ever gonna get any, and that when they did, they were always gone before they landed. I left in a bit of a huff, feeling like they were calling me a fool for having asked after one. Well, yesterday, the moons aligned, and one landed in my lap.

I’ve gotta tell ya, I really like the thing. It’s convenient, fun to use, and really beautiful when displaying photos. It does video well, and both the 3G and WiFi (802.11n) seem to work quite well. For me, though, the biggest part I enjoy is the physical size of the screen. It’s ginormous, at 1024×768, and full o’ color.

It’ll be a while for me to figure out how I’ll best use it, but I’ve been putting loads of apps on it, and intend to find its niche in my life!