An iPad worthy of Gene Rodenberry

Someday I will have a phaser and a tricorder, but for now my iPad is a real close second. This baby let’s me get stuff done! The third morning that she (my white lovely has to be a girl as she is smooth, helpful, and sexy) came to live with me I hopped on first thing that morning while in my bath robe and with a cup of coffee in my hand.   I got my daily news fix, sent seven e-mails to customers, corrected a drawing on my work machine via remote access, looked to see if my bus was on time, checked that week’s weather forecast, looked at the traffic on the bridge, made a quick Skype call, and for good measure updated a spreadsheet – all before that first cup of coffee was gone.

Below are the apps that I have loaded and that I have found most useful. Before loading anything, I had tried all out on others’ iPads or used the iPhone version. This is not an end all, be all review/recommendation, just a list of what I use and find really helpful. note: I am not a big gamer, but I have a couple that I will resort to on long flights.

Pages: Word processing that I import and export Word files from.
Numbers: I can edit any spread sheet I have in it – home or work.
Currency: Great when I am haggling over prices at the Souks in Morocco, buying a hoodie in Belfast, or for filling out my J-O-B’s crazy over-complicated expense report forms…
Kindle: Knowledge is power. If my Kindle dies, I have a back up and if Stamps-With-Foot is reading the same book that I want to read on my Kindle, then I can access it on the Kindle App and we can both read the same book at the same time.
Word Press: For updating my ego blog during lunch or while flying from here to yonder
Convert Units: How many rods are in a league?
NPR: My day starts with coffee, NPR, and cereal
Photo Studio HD: Nice compact foto editor
Notes Plus: Hand writing recognition that lets me organize all my meeting notes and doodles – I doodle a lot, it helps me organize my ideas into something workable.
Skype: Awesome. I can talk to my wife and see her face from ½ around the globe.
Jump: Remote desktop access. Probably the most powerful App in my arsenal. It helps me get a huge amount of shit done!
One Edit: Batch photo conversion, resizing, and renaming
Ukulele Tabs: For my Bad-ass Koa axe!
Zombie Gunship: Because shooting Zombies and saving civilians from behind a 105 in a C130 is just good clean fun.
Angry Birds: I have no excuse – it is addictive
Hulu+ : I hate to miss an episode of Archer
Netflix: Loved Netflix more two months ago before they screwed with billing, but I will still watch a movie lying in bed
Drop Box: Absolutely the best thing I have found to move and back up files on my iPad.
One Bus Away: Up to date/minute bus information for Seattle
eWallet:  A really handy and secure password safe that I first used in 2002 on my Handspring Palm Pilot.

My Kindle no longer has library cooties.

Finally! Amazon has followed through with their promise and I can now check out books from the library on my Kindle! Oh, the cash I will now save… I have been longing for this to happen since the day I chose the Kindle over the Nook (and spent the next month worrying that i had made the wrong decision) and mostly-patiently waiting since Amazon’s initial announcement that this was in the works back in June. I have a shelf full of books that are in line waiting for my attention, but I am planning to surf over to the SPL site tomorrow at lunch and upload a book just because I can.

On a side note – though still kindle related – I recently turned 103 and for my birthday, my lovely wife presented my with an iPad2, on which I immediately loaded the Kindle app. It doesn’t have the battery life that I am now used to and my head would feel like it were clamped in a vise if I spent an 8 hour flight reading a book on it, as I prefer reading on the eInk of my Kindle2, but it will do in a pinch.

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