Prepping My iPad
My initial reactions to the iPad are almost all positive; I see areas for improvement but using the iPad is just a pleasurable experience. I’ve been taking it to meetings and drew quite a crowd when I was down at the State House today for some meetings.
In preparation for my trip abroad, I have set up some applications that you might find useful. The first was IM+ ($9.99; link opens iTunes) which is an integrated instant messaging application. It has some awesome features, including an integrated web browser and will handle just about all of the instant messaging accounts. It has one bug that is pretty annoying, though—it will not work with Apple’s Jabber server and legacy SSL. I am hoping they fix that soon, but I have a work around with BeeJive ($9.99; link opens iTunes).
Setting up VPN to get into the Small Dog internal network was very simple and is quite stable. I used another application called Desktop Connect ($11.99; link opens iTunes) to activate VNC so I can log into my main computer which I will leave at the office. This means I can grab a file or look at my keychain.
Mail is faster than the mail client on the Mac for some things like filing mail, however, the lack of a junk filter and support for rules makes maintenance more difficult. The unified mail client that is coming in the fall with iPhone OS 4.0 will also be useful.
There is so much I love about the iPad that I do not have time to talk about it all, but I will be updating this adventure in computing from China and when I return. I believe that having the iPad on the 18-hour flight will make it shorter and I am confident that for email, web and of course, the China train schedule application I downloaded, it is going to be a perfect traveling tool.