The new computer...

A few weeks ago my 10 year old, made from spare parts desktop system, running Windows 2000 finally bit the dust. As you can tell from the state of my last machine, I'm not much of a "latest and greatest PC" kind of guy. Which is actually strange because I am a bit of a gadget guy with GPS, iTouch, HAM radio and such. I've been using an old emachines laptop with a thermal shutdown problem (watch a youtube video and the fan goes turbo before the entire system just drops dead). After some consideration of what I actually do on a computer at home (most of the time) if figured all I need is a system that does email, browse the web, edit/create word documents, spreadsheets, and maybe a drawing or two (with Visio if possible). I didn't think of the iPad until I talked to a guy with one at the Austin airport flying back last week. I asked a few questions and decided that it may do most of what I want. This weekend I took the plunge and purchased an iPad with 3G and 64G of memory. Signed up for AT&T's unlimited data plan and mobileMe (cloud computing stuff).

I've downloaded a few apps to let me access the files on my NAS storage disks (Filebrowser), use the device as a car GPS (motionX), and an office document suite (Office2 HD). I must say the email in the iPad isn't the greatest. I tried sending an email with an attachment but wasn't successful. Apparently since the iPad doesn't have the concept of a local file system, there's no "attach file" option. I was able to go into the file browser, copy a file from my NAS disk to the iPad and then "send as an email attachment". That didn't work to well with a .pdf; I couldn't read the attachment on the copy I sent to myself as a test. A quick search didn't reveal any alternatives to the built in email on the iPad....

I tried to edit a word document with Office2 HD but strangely, the application doesn't work with the blue tooth keyboard I picked up for the iPad (to make typing easier). Using the BlogPress app (free) I can create blog posts like this one (I'm typing it now with the keyboard) and it seems to work pretty well. I sent an email to Office2 HD to tell them about the issue and hopefully they will fix it soon and I'll see an "update" when I hit the app store soon.

The Apple/Mac style keyboard takes a little getting use to. I can't figure out how to page up/down/home/end. I have no idea how the option and command keys work (if at all) but for basic typing with some tactile feedback, it's pretty nice.

Now for wireless: It is awesome to be able to browse the web from anywhere (almost). I have yet to find a place I can't get a 3G signal. After getting home from Best Buy (where I purchased the iPad) I hooked it to my laptop and started a sync in iTunes. I took quite a while, mainly because I chose to restore my iTouch stuff to the iPad (which worked fine). As soon as the sync was done we jumped in the car and headed to the beach. I played with the iPad, setting up the 3G account with AT&T as my wife drove us to the coast. Setup was quick and I was online browsing, setting up email accounts and downloading apps basically in the middle of nowhere. It was sooooooo cooool (still is).

Right now I have the iPad in a docking cradle on my desk with the keyboard right in front. A nice little setup for typing emails, blogs and other stuff. And portable: no wires at all!

I'm hoping I find the right combination of apps to let me edit and create MS documents, spreadsheets and such. I also need to find a good app to enable printing to my wireless printer. All-in-all it seems to be working out. There are a few kinks (when using Goodreader for PDF's, the unit forgets my wi-fi network security key!) Apple claims the "closed" OS and all is robust but so far I can't see it being much better than a PC with some of the bugs in apps I've seen.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad