I'm fully aware that there are tech pundits waxing eloquently for and against Apple's newest creation now known as the iPad. I've read quite a few opinions and now feel it is my duty to tap these keys and place my own thoughts out into the wild.

For those that don't know (and I assume some of the people that read this don't), last week Apple unveiled a new computer product called the iPad. It's a slim and lightweight tablet style computer. It sports a touch screen a little under 10 inches and runs on the iPhone OS so out of the box it can run almost all of the applications found in the Apple App Store. The comparison I've run across the most is that it looks like a big iPod Touch. That also seems to be the greatest complaint; that it is nothing more than a large Touch.

When it was revealed last week, I was at work but I had my browser open to various blogs that were doing live updates. After seeing the features, tech specs, and some photos, I realized that there was never a moment where I thought to myself, "I have to get that". After all the rumors and hype building up before the event it was almost impossible not to be let down. The device looks amazing and from a design point of view it is beautiful, but what would it be really good for? That summed up my attitude.

Now that I've had a few days, my thoughts have slowly began to change. It started when I downloaded the podcast of the event and watched it. Just seeing the iPad being held makes a major impact. Photos, even the one I included, don't give you a size perspective. Once you see a picture of someone holding it you appreciate the size. It's like holding a thin book. This is where I think the iPad shines.

I enjoy books, but I appreciate having digital copies of my reading material. Digital copies are searchable, always with you, and compact (obviously computer code doesn't take up much physical space). I already see this with my iPhone. Most of my devotional time in the Bible is done on my iPhone. I have the complete Bible on my phone compliments of LifeChurch.tv. I have a vast number of modern translations to choose from and even the convenience of my reading plan being right there. Added bonus, my Bible is always with me. However, the screen is small. I'm comfortable with it, but it is small. While the iPad isn't going to slide into my pocket, it presents to me a nice option. I could hold a device that is more book like, while still giving the power of having the multiple translations and so on. While they haven't officially said yes, I would love for the Bible software I use (Accordance) to make an app for the iPad. I could read a passage, pop open a commentary, maybe even do a little Greek or Hebrew background, and then write some notes on the passage all in the application. I think this will happen.

Further, I would love to see the magazines that I subscribe to come to me in a digital format on the iPad. I know there are digital options out there already, but they don't look right on the widescreen of a laptop. I think the iPad could show the page more as it was intended to be. While this hasn't happened yet, I think we are moving that route. I love the idea of having old issues of my magazines saved for reference without taking up tons of space on my bookshelves.

The more I've thought about it, the more I've even come to believe that this is the device for my mom. My mom is dabbling in email and does some basic web surfing. She does it on my dad's old HP laptop which sometimes presents more problems than it solves. A simple portable device like this would be perfect in my opinion. If I had a thousand dollars to blow I'd get her one. That amount obviously takes into account my need to have one at the same time. Mainly so I can familiarize myself with the device so I can help her if she has any questions. Yeah, that's the reason I'd need one too. The things my mom needs from the Internet and a computer in general could all be taken care of in this one simple device.

One final thought. The lack of a camera doesn't bother me. I doubt I'd be taking a lot of photos with an outward facing camera. Second, I already don't enjoy talking on the phone. Why would I want to turn that phone call into a video call with an inward facing camera?

I don't have the resources just to buy one when they hit the market and there are a few apps I'd like to wait and see if they arrive, but I could see myself enjoying this some day. That day is probably years away, but I can see it.

That's my thoughts. If you have any feel free to leave them in the comments.

On Facebook? The original post resides at www.focusedjourney.com.

Perhaps a better title for this post would be "$200 of Prevention." I'm not a big fan of buying extended warranties. They are for the most part worthless. However, there is one extended warranty that I'm a big believer in, namely, Apple Care. New Macs come with a year of warranty coverage, but you can extend it to three years by purchasing Apple Care. For my laptop, the price was somewhere over $200. It's expensive and if you never use it you feel stupid for buying it, but when you need it it's priceless.

After youth service this past Tuesday, my laptop was shut. A few minutes later I tried to open it up. Nothing. I figured it was incorrectly thinking that it was still attached to the projector that we had used. I forced it to power down and tried restarting it. It tried to start, and then nothing. Over the next few hours I restarted it multiple times, took the battery out and then restarted it, and even zapped the pram. Nothing worked. It wasn't a good feeling. Thankfully, there's an Apple store in Cleveland and after calling and talking with Apple Care, I made an appointment.

I drove there this morning as the snows approached. They took my computer, examined it, and declared it to be a bad logic board. Logic boards are expensive. I priced a repair online and it came in at $800. For that amount you might as well buy a new computer. I would have been in dire straights, but Apple Care jumped in to my rescue. I was informed that it would take about a week for them to get a logic board in and installed. The cost to me? Absolutely zero. That zero is a really beautiful word. Thanks to Apple Care, an expensive repair that I wouldn't have been able to cover is going to be taken care of.

So, my advice to anyone that is considering buying an Apple computer is simple. Buy Apple Care. It may seem pointless at the time, but amazingly wonderful if you need it.

And yes, I've drank the Kool-Aid and it was delicious.

I use iPhoto on my Mac to manage all my photos. With family, church, and especially youth, the number of photos I have is constantly climbing. Having the ability to sort, tag, and lightly edit has been great. The new features in iPhoto ’09 are making it better. I still think there should be an upgrade price, but I’ll be forking over the money anyway.

The main feature that has me waiting is face recognition. Currently, I go through all my photos that I take and tag the name of each person in the photo. It’s time consuming, but worth it when I need a shot of a certain person. With face recognition, the software isolates the faces in each photo. Once this is done, you tag one of those areas with a name. Then, it searches all the photos to find that person and automatically tags their name. That alone is worth the price of admission to me.

I know other apps out there can do this and I’m hoping Apple’s implementation of it works extremely well. I guess we’ll see in about a month when it actually hits the market.

It’s been a little while since I’ve done a review, so here we go. I’m a big fan of going paperless as much as possible. Papers take up space, need a place to be stored, and always seems to be at the wrong place when you need them. Small headaches but still a headache. However, paperless pdf files pose their own set of challenges. You have to work from scratch creating folders to hold these files, you have to remember to place the pdf files into the proper location, and the worst, sometimes you wind up with pdf’s scattered all over you hard drive.

Enter Yep. Yep is great little piece of software designed to store pdf’s. Basically, it’s a one stop location all the pdf files on your computer. You can place the files directly into Yep, or, allow Yep to scan your entire drive for files. Yep will leave them in their location, but still show it in the browser.

The browser is where all the magic happens. Pdf files are shown in the middle window. A list of tags is in the left window. The window on the right changes with whatever happens to be clicked. When you work with a file, you have the ability to tag it. This is extremely powerful way to organize. Let me illustrate it.

I currently receive all my bank and credit card statements electronically as pdf’s. I drop them into Yep, tag them with a few keyword tags. Words like “Statements” and “Chase.” Previously, I set up some smart folders. Smart folders update themselves on the fly by looking for certain characteristics that you set up. I have a smart folder designed to look for any file that has the tags “Chase”, Statements”, “Checking”, and “2008.” So when I tag my bank statement with these keywords, it is automatically filed into that smart folder. I can either go to the folder to look at my statements or just start clicking on tags in the left column. Both ways get me very quickly to my statements. I have smart folders that search for such tags as “Manuals” and “Bills.”

I was a little dubious when I first got this software, but it has proven itself again and again. It’s the one thing that has made me a lot more comfortable moving more and more towards having completely paperless statements for all my bills.

Check it out at Ironic Software. Yeah, it’s only for Macs.

I realized yesterday that I had an addiction. I was working on my laptop with the television on. A commercial came on for a school of trades. I was typing and not really paying attention. I glanced over, and I stopped in my tracks. They were offering some sort of course of study for a Mac Hinist. What on earth is a Mac Hiinist? I know computers, especially my beloved Mac, extremely well. For a split second my mind raced and I tried to solve this cryptic computer related occupation.

Thankfully, the pitchman explained that anyone could become a qualified MacHinist. That's a machinist. Yes, my computer has even changed the way I read.

Help me!