my ‘new’ iPad stand

Credit where credit is due, check here for the initial build, but my son and I had lots of fun building it ourselves. Old fashioned ingenuity for new tech, who says the two don’t mix?

 

seven days > day 2

stephanie at change agency is talking about lists – use them and make them nice to read. so i here goes…

4 more iPad apps that made the front page – not lots of fan fare with this one but i got some nice response from my last list of 4 apps that i have found invaluable, so why not go for volume two.

Sorted – i’m not sure i would consider myself a list person, but i’m certainly a post-it note person so an app that generates lists for me is key.  i found that will all the features of the other apps on my iPad i was lacking an app that would provide lists.  sure, i could use the notepad, but it’s not the same.  i am able to create notes and sort through them like coverflow in iTunes.  each list allows me to create lists, highlight/tag them, sort them as a list, by priority, by date and by completion.  i have liked this one so much for its simple genius that it has made the dock…high praise.

Whiteboard – exactly how it sounds, you can create on a blank white board, bring in images and mark those up.  a few nice features it has is that there is a vga out so it can plug in to a projector, images can be saved once marked up and as long as devices are on the same wifi network you can create shared whiteboards.  i took a few screenshots of websites i wanted to show just in case i didn’t have wifi at a recent presentation and that is exactly what happened.  with no wifi i had no problem, i plugged in to the projector, pulled up this app and marked it up the way i had planned.

popplet – mind mapping in a way that no other apps/website can do it.  they have a web version in beta and hope to sync the two but they aren’t there yet.  each popplet in a web can be color coded, hold text, be drawn in or house a picture.  i’m visual and this is how i need to see things when i plan.  every so often you find an app this is not necessarily perfect, but it is perfect for you.  this is mine.

Evernote - admission: i really want to use evernote more than i do, but the interface is holding me back.  the idea of having an app on your mobile device, on your desktop, on your laptop, and accessible by internet is great.  the fact that all of they sync is genius but there is something about the look of the notes i take that is holding me back.  i think the notes app for iPad has been a great tool to use and looks great but it doesn’t sync the way evernote does.  i’m hopeful that i will turn the corner on this one because it is so very useful..and the evidence is this app stays on my front page.

so there you have it, installment two and a nice little list too.

 

miPad apps

as more and more of my colleagues and friends get iPads the conversation of ‘what apps do you use’ has become more meaningful. don’t get me wrong, i enjoyed talking apps on the iPhone, but in retrospect it really wasn’t all that important to me. the iPad is a game changer is many ways and the apps are what seems to define the way a person uses it. at the end of the day a phone is a phone, but the iPad seems to have a much more flexible range of possibilities. i was talking to a friend at lunch the other day and she inspired me to write about a few that i’m finding i just can’t live without. before launching in, i should say that my outlook on apps is changing a bit. before i thought apps were something you got and stuck with, now i’m finding that apps can be temporary and useful for a small period of time (vuvuzela app) or they can be tools that make your life better, i’d like the think the ones i’m going to talk about are the latter. the app store can do a much better job of telling/showing you what these do, i’d rather reflect on what they do for me:

goodreader – i need this app to keep email attachments, pdf’s, connect to google docs, dropbox and mobile me. this is essentially my hard drive. i’d like it to have the ability for me to highlight and annotate, but for now this app is something i really can’t do without. i hear instapaper or readitlater might be something i want to look in to, but for now this is a gem.
newsrack – my parents got the paper when i was a kid, but i get my news from blogs and rss feed from web sites, this app allows me to read them the way i like best. i went through 2 or 3 different apps before finding the one that fit me. pulse was an ill fit and some of the more simple text based just won’t get the job done.
app advice – you need this if you want to keep up with what’s new and what’s free. i hit this app once or twice a day to see what’s going on and i have come to rely upon it not just for recommendations and write ups, rather to keep in touch with app news in general. highly recommended if you are always looking.
twitter client (osfoora) – i was using twitterific for a while, but i’m giving this one a try for a bit. both professionally and personally i’m finding that twitter is a great way to keep in touch with others, learn from others, examine different ideas and share. facebook is great, but too involved and not an app for iPad yet.

i think about my apps in a couple of different ways, some are obvious and will work well when we finally get iOS4 and folders, but some not so much. i have apps that my kids play, apps that i use for work, apps that i get my news, apps that have vga connectivity, etc. i think that list of 4 above are solid. i might change the brand app, but those are a few functions that i need.