Tag Archives: iPad

What are you (Wanting) to play?!

Posted by on October 16, 2012 No comments

It’s been awhile since I have done a good “What are you playing” post so I thought it was about time to bring it back.  Now, you may notice the difference in the title, and with good cause.  If you have been listening to the Retro-Nick podcast that we have been doing, you may have a feel for the types of games that I enjoy.  One of those types of games is the Space-Sim.  I have loved the space sim since space sim’s started to get big.  The concept of flying around in open space, exploring, dogfighting, etc. It’s all awesome.

One of the biggest Space Sim’s out there was a series called Wing Commander.  There is something about the story based saga that led me down the career path of Commander Blair that just made me feel like it was my story.  When the Tigers Claw was destroyed, I was devastated. (if you played, you know).

So when I heard that Chris Roberts, the creator of the WC games, was working on a new game, I got excited.  The best part about it is that it’s the game I have always wanted to play!

Wing Commander Cockpit

Let me explain that last bit.  I love space games in general.  the physics, the concept, everything.  I love Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and nearly every other space adventure show/movie. (still struggling with Babylon 5) The idea that a game could allow me to experience that myself, instead of just watch it, is amazing.  A great example of this was in the early beta of a game called Star Wars Galaxies.  The beta was for the space combat portion of the game where you could pilot ships like the X-wing, and YT-1300 (look it up).  My friends and I were in a YT-1300 and I was piloting.  One friend was navigating, one in the Turret, and one running around the ship repairing damage that was happening in the fight we were in.  The experience was outstanding.

Sadly, the actual game didn’t live up to the initial experience.  Those of you who played SWG, know that Sony Online broke all the best parts of the game while emphasizing all the crap.

Chris Roberts is a gamer.  He knows what we want because that’s what HE wants.  I have faith that this will be the Go-To space sim game.  Go check it out!  http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/

In the meantime, I have been brushing up on my space skills by re-installing Freelancer on the PC, playing Galaxy On Fire on the iPad, and I just picked up Evochron Mercenary, on Steam.  I am waiting for my Saitek X52 Flight Control System to arrive today.

Oh, and a little Borderlands 2 to mix it up.

What are YOU playing?

When it rains.

Posted by on September 28, 2012 No comments

Yesterday was Sarah’s birthday.  She hates when people point it out, especially me, which is probably why I do it so often.  She still lords over me that I am older so I feel justified.  The day started off well enough.  I crawled out of bed as quietly as I could so she could sleep in, and I headed to work.  Around lunchtime I met up with a friend and as I was getting out of the MINI, disaster struck.

You know that cool post I did earlier about how I use my iPad for so many things.… yeah well, it dropped.  It slid off my lap and fell to the pavement.  Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since it had fallen before.  It’s in a leather case that tends to protect it fairly well, and it only fell from about 1 foot high. Well, it landed in just the wrong way that this happened:

Ouch!

Yup, the corner shattered and spider-webbed across the whole screen.  I too, was shattered.  My mind rapidly went through all of the various solutions, from using it as it was (since it still worked fine), to buying a new V.3 iPad ($800!!!!!).  Then it dawned on me that a friend had this same thing happen to his and he was able to get it repaired.  It’s just the front glass that shattered so the repair really isn’t that bad.  I found a place near home to work on it and it was done in 2 1/2 hours.  Total repair: $120. (the place was http://apluscprepair.com/ and they did an great job!)

YAY!

Using that extra few hours I swung by the store and bought Sarah some flowers and Oatmeal Creme Pies. (her favorite).  After the repair was done we headed out to grab dinner at a place in Front Royal, about an hour’s drive.  What we didn’t expect was the Armageddon level rain storm that hit us!  Driving back home was a nightmare as the storm was doing it’s impression of a DubStep Rave, with thrumming waves of the water and the strobe effects of the lightning.  I could barely see the road.  Crazy.

We did make it home safely.  Oh, and of course, when we checked the mail, I got a lovely letter from the District of Columbia informing me that they were super nice and took a picture of my car and me the other day when I was driving home from the ren faire (and was dog sick).  They felt I should have a copy of the photo and it was only going to cost me $125.

Oh, yeah, it was raining too.

You take the good, you take the bad…

Mobile Photography

Posted by on September 25, 2012 1 comment

The Apps

I have been traveling around quite a bit lately.  The thing that always goes with me is my photography bag.  (It’s contents are listed in the sidebar)  What doesn’t always go with me is my laptop.  You see, I have a behemoth of a laptop.  It’s an older ASUS gaming laptop that, while great for gaming, and processing photos, and everything else, is just HUGE!  I love it to death, but it’s just not a feasible option for simple travel.  Sure, if I am going to be someplace for an extended time, or have a lot of luggage I can take, it would make more sense.  So in most cases, I just use my iPad.

When I bought the iPad I have now, I knew I would be using it for photog stuff, so the 64gb size made sense.  I shoot primarily in RAW and that takes up a lot of space.  Of course, storage isn’t the only concern though.  I needed a few good quality applications to round out it’s usage.  I thought that I would post about what I am using and the process in which I use them.

The apps that I tend to use the most (for photography) are:

So, there’s all the tools, but how do you incorporate them into a shoot?  Easy!  Here is a play by play on how I would go about using all of these tools out in the field to Shoot, display, organize, process, and publish.

Release Forms

I have an upcoming project I am working on for a photo essay on Portraits. (subject to be explained at a later date)  I will be on location for the duration of the project and won’t have access to my PC until much later.  So I would go about the shoot, like usual.  Meet with the subject and discuss the plans for the project and their involvement.  If they agree to the project they would then fill out the release form in Easy Release and sign.  Then I would have them fill out the form I created in Numbers that asks them for information specific to the project. (Simple questionnaire)  It’s important to have questions in the survey that would identify them in the pictures.

Using my Nikon camera and lighting gear (supplemented by the SoftBox app) we would take the photos.  The Eye-Fi card would wirelessly transfer the JPG preview to the iPad, which would be standing nearby, to display the picture I just took (within a second or two).  This allows a larger screen to see framing, lighting, exposure.  I like the LCD on my camera, but sometimes it’s just not big enough to judge if I got the shot I wanted, or was just off. The downside to this is the time it takes to transfer.  If you are shooting at an event where speed is a factor, this is not a good solution.  Of course, if you at an event like that, you probably aren’t checking your LCD every few shots either.

Eye-Fi used as quick Preview

Softbox can show different colors or textures

Once the shots are done I import the RAW into the iPad using the camera connector. (it’s an important step to delete the Eye-Fi imported JPG’s to avoid duplicates).  Then I can use Photosmith to organize the shots into groups, flag the ones I want to keep/discard/etc. Now, I can stop here and wait for my PC to process photos, since when I get to it I can sync Photosmith to Lightroom and go from there, but, if I am going to be out for a while and want to get some work done quickly, I can proceed with processing.

Organizing and tagging like a PRO!

Using Photosmith I can identify the shots that I want to focus on.  If I shot in bracketed mode for HDR use, I would find the two shots I want to combine and open them in Pro HDR.  Adjust the levels, and save then move on to Snapseed.  For a typical shoot, I would just open in Snapseed. This allows me to adjust all my levels, colors, and balance.  I can do some selective adjustment as well.  If I need to use more precise editing, or want a more Lightroom type feel, I can use Filterstorm instead of or in conjunction with Snapseed.

HDR Editing on the fly

Quick Professional edits

Precise edits

Once editing is finished I can use the iPad to post to various social networks, email, and even my own website.  Using FlickStackr I can upload to Flickr directly, add all the info I need, tag it with keywords, location, and people.

Uploading and tagging on Flickr

So there you have it.  The whole process described above can be done, on the scene, in a matter of minutes.  (depending on shoot time)

Now, that’s not to say that this process doesn’t have it’s faults. You certainly aren’t going to get as accurate processing as you would with Lightroom on a PC.  As with all electronics, battery life is an issue too.  The Eye-Fi card adds a draw to the camera battery, and having the iPad up and receiving drains it as well.  Barring that, I love being able to set up, shoot, process, and publish all while on the road.

The view from my office window. Taken with the back iPad camera.

Posted by on April 12, 2011 No comments

The view from my office window. Taken with the back iPad camera.

What I am playing

Posted by on April 4, 2011 No comments

Wanted to toss up a quick “What I am playing” Since I haven’t done one in a long while.  My gaming has been a lot sporadic and varied over the last few months.  With the new job I, of course, lost a little bit of free time with the commute and new taskings so I have had to modify the gaming schedule to fit.  Because of this, my iPad has become very valuable to me as a gaming platform.  So I will break it down via platform….

iPad:

  • Angry Birds Seasons – Who doesn’t play this, really.
  • Carcassone – This is a great little board style game that we love playing while waiting for food at a restaurant or wherever.  The scoring being done by the system is a huge plus.
  • Catan HD – Same as above, we recently wanted to try playing Settlers of Catan and I found the iPad version.  It’s a great translation, but could use some updates.
  • Zombie Dice – It’s an iPad Version of Steve Jackson’s dice game about Zombies!  what’s not to like!  If you enjoy dice games, and playing with statistics, you should check it out.
  • Words With Friends – It’s Scrabble.  Sarah loves playing and keeps getting mad at me because I am beating her.
  • Galactic Empires – GE is a iOS port of the classing O-Game which is a Space Based conquest game.  It’s kind of addicting and fun in a weird project management kind of way.  You get a planet and you mine for resources, but the tasks can take hours to complete.  The draw is the investment that you put into it and climbing the ladders to research the best ships and build a great fleet.  The downside is that it’s kind of an MMO.  All of the other planets in the game are other players and they all can either help you…..or attack you.  As with John Gabriel’s “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory”, there are internet assholes everywhere.  If you can get past that, it’s a fun game.


Next up, XBOX 360!

  • Dead Space 2 – This is currently in the Tray and being played.  It’s creepy as heck and I am still just starting.  So far…. Love it!
  • Rock Band 3 – Picked this up at launch (of course) and managed to get teh MIDI adapter for the drum kit with it.  No more swapping of cables, my drum brain is wired into the 360 now for real feel of rocking!
  • Kinect, Your Shape Fitness – So when my schedule got re-arranged, I kind of lost my workout time as well.  I get down to use the Your Shape every now and then, When I do, I feel great, but I need to do it more.


Android Phone

  • CyanogenMod – ok, so it’s not a game so much as ROM replacement on my phone.  I recently upgraded my rooted Droid to the latest CyanogenMod running Android’s Gingerbread.  At first I was having all sorts of sluggish problems, then realized that I had some redundancy with SetCPU running.  It was bogging my phone down a lot.  After un-installing it, the phone runs amazingly now.


Lastly, PC.

  • StarCraft II – Working my way slowly through the campaign.  I love the SC games, but only the Single player side of it.  As a friend proved when we teamed up in a match, I suck at Multiplayer.  
  • Civilization V – I haven’t really played many of the Civ games but I picked this one up as a fun game to start on my new laptop.  I was so sucked into the first match that I think I lost a full weekend.
  • World Of Warcraft – Yeah yeah, I guess a lot of people could have seen this one coming.  I have re-joined the collective and re-activated my WoW account.  A number of my friends went back for Cataclysm and I caved to the peer pressure.  I have been impressed in many of the changes.  I like the phasing that happens on some of the quests too.  It really makes you feel like you are doing something in the game and not just grinding out an area.


So there ya go.  Now….what are you playing?

Iron Man 2

Posted by on May 12, 2010 1 comment

So it’s about time I finally got around to writing up my thoughts on the new Iron Man movie. Seeing as how it was back on Saturday that I went to see it. Honestly there is not a lot to say since I am a big comic book nerd (cue Ogre screaming NERDS!!!) I am a little biased when it comes to comic book based movies. Even the abomination that is Spider-man 3 holds a special place in my heart…a cold dark place in my heart where hopefully no one will ever have to watch it ever again. The thing about the Iron Man movies is that, wait for it,…….. I am not that big of an Iron Man comic fan!. I know I know, but I never really got that into him. If I wanted an eccentric millionaire that net his money on super hero toys I would just read Batman. Of course Tony Stark had a one up on Bruce Wayne in that he actually got drunk and didn’t just fake it. But I digress.

Sarah and I met up with some friends to catch a 5pm show in Fairfax. It was originally going to be the 4:30 show but the directors hall (fancy theater where you get to pick your seats) was nearly sold out. This caused a minor panic and had me getting to the theater for the 5pm show at like 3:30 to be in the non-existent line. Go me. Needless to say there was a lot of sitting and waiting. During this time Sarah discovered Plants Vs Zombies on the iPad and came to the realization that this new gadget of mine can stay…. Of course she renamed it the iPvZ device. Anyways, movie time rolled around and we took our seats. I used the best possible time to escape for a pre-movie bio run during the new twilight trailer, oh noes, did I miss anything important?. Yeah I didn’t think so.

——–Spoilers!!!  Skip Ahead if you don’t want to be spoiled————

For this movie it’s established that Mr. Stark is the Iron Man and now big brother wants to get his hands on the tech, but Tony isn’t selling. While the Govt. is claiming that others are creating suits to match Tony proves otherwise with his super transparent phone and everyone is happy. Well, except this Russian guy who is really into whips and has the stalker wall of Tony. Oh by the way turns out that the gizmo in Tony’s chest that’s keeping him alive is also killing him, so he goes a little bananas. Whip dude invents a suit and comes after Tony and bam the Govt. says “I told you so”.

So Tony works on getting hammered to finish himself off and Tony’s competitor enlists the help of whip dude to build some new suits, like we don’t see that backfiring in the future. Now Tony’s friend Rhody comes in to snag a suit and tell Tony off and Shield. Swoops in to clean up the mess that is left over, mostly Tony. They tell Tony that he doesn’t have to die, he just needs a good hardware based montage to find the answer. Bam just like that Tony invents a new element and he is healed!! (although the healing tastes like coconut).

Now Tony feels better, Rhody has a new and improved suit thanks to some new guns strapped to it, and whip dude has created an army of robot drones that are controlled from an orbiting space station that gets taken out by a kid and a droid….wait wrong movie. But the robot army is real. Tony receives a plot device, er, I mean phone call from whip dude boasting that he is going to blow up some of Tony’s stuff, Tony swoops in and saves the day and realizes that even he needs friends. Then everyone hugs and they fly off into the night.

———End Spoilers————–

Ok so maybe there was a little more to it than that, but you get the picture. Now, things I loved about the movie were:

Playful banter, somehow Robert Downy Jr just knows how to do the banter shtick. It worked great in IM1 and in Sherlock Holmes, and it works great here. The playful banter between him and Pepper Potts was great.

Simple plot, there was not a lot to the story here and that’s a good thing. A lot of time the superhero movies get mired down in story after story all piled on top of each other, and it just gets messy. One villain (unless you count Tony’s demise as a villain) and one main plot. Simple and great.

Great action, all of the action sequences where very comic book. Nothing overly Hollywood about them.

As for the things I didn’t like….there were very few. They could have explained a little more about the random cameos, the cap shield, Black Widow, etc. But it wasn’t that bad without it. Really I just liked the movie. If Marvel keeps with this recipe then they will do well with the rest of the Avenger cast movies!!

Wow, I thought when I started this that I wouldn’t have that much to say, I guess I was wrong. I am giving Iron Man 2 a good 8 arc reactors out of 10.

Quick Aside, this post written entirely on the iPad, and my hand kind of hurts now.

iPad Apps

Posted by on May 7, 2010 1 comment

So here is a list of what I have installed on the iPad so far.  Aside from this I have ported over my three essential albums of music, some episodes of Deep Space 9, the movie Sherlock Holmes, A bunch of pictures, and the D&D Reference books in PDF format.  As of right now, I still have 9.17gb free.  This list does not include the default apps that come on the device.

ABC Player – This one is for some of the full ABC shows that stream to the iPad.
AIM for iPad – Full AIM client with Lifestream
Air Hockey Gold – Air Hockey game.  Very cool, Works with 2 players too!
Beat the Traffic HD – Traffic App to show alternate routes
Captain’s Blog – Nifty LCARS style interface for a status updater.  Plugs into Twitter and Facebook for Updates only
Comics – Comics app that pulls from lots of publishers (no DC)
Dictionary.com – Dictionary and thesarus
DigiDrummer HD Lite – Drum Pad
Doodle Buddy for iPad – Drawing app for fun
Dragon Dictation – Speech to text dictation (uses online for conversion)
Draw for iPad – Another drawing app
Dropbox – Cloud based file repository
Epicurious Recipes – Cookbook
Facebook (iPhone) – Facebook app for notifications and such
Filterstorm – Photo Editor
Foursquare (iPhone) – Social checkin App
Game Table – Chess Checkers and Cards.  No AI, no rules.  Just the board and the pieces.
Godfinger for iPad – Cute game for playing God (Kind of like Black and White)
Goodreader for iPad – PDF Reader and file manager (kinda)
Google Mobile for iPad – Google Front End for all it’s services
Harbor Master HD – Neat game for guiding boats in and out of a harbor
Heads up: Hold’em HD – Head to Head Hold’Em game
iBooks – Apple’s e-book reader
iCARS Interface – Just a visualization to make the iPadd look like a PADD from Star Trek. Doesn’t really do anything
iMahjong HD – Mahjong game
IMDB Movies &TV – IMDB Front end for lookups to their database
Kindle for iPad – Kindle reader tied to our Kindle account
Marvel Comics – Marvel specific Comic book app
Netflix – Netflix front end for watching streaming movies and managing the queue
Now Playing – Movie app for seeing what’s in theaters and buying tickets online
Pandora – Music streaming app
PaperDesk LITE for iPad – Notepad app
Plants vs Zombies HD – Tower Defense game with Zombies
Pocket Legends for iPad – MMO kind of WoW-ish
Pocket Pond HD – Koi pond.  Top down view.
Real Racing HD – Racing game
Skype (iPhone) – Skype app for Voice calls
The Solitare – Solitare game
Tap Tap Radiation – Music Game
ThumDrum – Drum Emulator
Twitterrific for iPad – Twitter App
Virtuoso Piano Free 2 HD – Piano Emulator
WarChess – Chess game with AI and battle Animations
Warpgate HD Free – Space based adventure game
The Weather Channel iPad – Weather app
Wikipanion for iPad – Front end for Wikipedia
WordPress – Blog editor for my site
Yahoo! Entertainment – Entertainment news/Videos, and a TV Guide type interface

iPad Day one

Posted by on May 6, 2010 No comments

My soul is now sitting in a neat little jar on Steve Jobs shelf.  For my birthday Sarah gave me permission to get an iPad.  I picked it up on Tuesday night on my way home from work.  (yeah, I know my birthday isn’t until NEXT Friday but my inner Verruca took over.  I was orginally thinking of getting the low end 3G model just to have the capability to do OTA internet when I needed it, but after a long dialogue with myself I realized that, I have a 3G phone for things like that and that extra $130 could be used for better things! (Like buying my wife flowers for being nice enough to tolerate my gadget addictions.)  So I ended up buying the 16gb WiFi only model.  They way I figure it, I do a lot of cloud computing so space on the device isn’t really important to me since most of my files are already out there.

So, when I got home I connected up to iTunes and, after the long install of the updated iTunes (I guess I should have used it more) I managed to get my first batch of apps loaded and started the casual using!  So I want to break this down into a few catagories for what I would be using the device for:  Reading/Browsing, Media (Videos/Music/Photos), Games, Apps.

Reading/Browsing:
This is probably the main reason for getting the iPad.  While I have a smallish laptop, it’s still a pain to sit on the couch with it and read, not to mention being more upwardly mobile.  So with Sarah’s Kindle account and the Kindle app now allow me to access all the books she has been buying.  So now I can finish Lost Symbol while she can still keep the kindle.  So far the reading seems ok.  It’s not as easy on the eyes as the e-ink screen but not as harsh as a computer monitor.  The web browsing is awesome on the device.  Most of the news sites I read came through just fine, even with the lack of flash.  Many of the site that use embeds have been using you-tube, and since you-tube has started using HTML5, you don’t miss much.  As a side note on the browsing, I downloaded the app Goodreader for use with PDF’s and ported the PDF’s I have for D&D.  They look amazing!  Very easy to use and search through and easy to read!

Media:
I didn’t plan on using the media all that much on the device but it looks pretty good for what it can do.  The Netflix app streams perfectly, though I haven’t had enough time to sit and watch a movie.  Not to mention,  could just watch on the Xbox.  I loaded a few episodes of DS9 on it that I had ripped in for my droid, so the resolution is still 320×240, but they still look good.  For music I copied over the mandatory albums of Journey, The Cure, and Depeche Mode, but again, I have streaming audio on my Droid (and the Pandora app on the iPad is cool).  So honestly, while I may use it every now and then, the Media side of the device is just there.

Games:
The iPhone/iPad/iPod platform has started to hold it’s own in the gaming world, and the iPad versions of the games really shine because of the size of the screen and the power of the device.  I told myself that if I got an iPad, I would get the Plants Vs. Zombies game (HD version) and I don’t regret it.  On the iPad it’s exactly the same as playing it on the PC and it’s easy!  Outside of that I am sticking with the freebies until I find something that’s really good.  Even the free games run and look great.

Apps:
Ahh the other reason for getting the iPad.  As I have stated many times, there are a lot of developers of applications that are only doing work in the apple environment.  While Android is the “up and coming”, it’s still not there yet, and I want access to the available apps that are out there.  Yes, we have an iPod in the house, but that’s Andrew’s and he rarely lets me play with it. Given that I have my Droid, I will have access to all that is Android, and now that I have the iPad, I have access to all that is Apple.  There really are apps for just about anything too.  There is only one little problem….. The iPhone/iPod apps are very small.  the iPad has a beautiful screen and when you run the iPhone/iPod apps, it’s tiny.  Yes there is a 2x button that doubles the size, but the pixels look bad and often it makes the app blury.  Case in point, the Facebook app.  There is no native iPad app for Facebook so I get to use the iPhone one for notifications and photos, but everything else is through Safari.  The iPhone Facebook app just looks silly when stretched out to iPad size.

The last two nights I have been able to sit on the couch, browse my Google reader and catch up on my news sites, sit with the family while we watched TV, and occasionally look up some info.  I am very happy with the purchase(present?) and will be doing much much more with it in the future.

Las Vegas and Kick Ass

Posted by on April 21, 2010 No comments

So I haven’t posted much this last week because I am in Las Vegas for a Microsoft conference. I love traveling because it gives me the chance to scope out what gadgets other people are using for their trips. Personally I am traveling kind of gadget lite with only my laptop and my Droid, but I love walking through the airport or even around the conference floor and seeing what phones, readers, and laptops people are using. Amazingly enough. I have only seen a grand total of 2 iPads! Guess people haven’t jumped on the bandwaggon just yet. Also got to see 1 Nook e-reader out in the wild. Now this may be just because I am at a MS conference but the primary phone has been the blackberry, followed by the iPhone, an then a mix of Droid and WinMo phones.

But anyways, enough with the geeking out, I am really enjoying the conference and learning a ton more about server management. I also am taking this trip to Vegas much lighter that others because I am getting to the point where it’s not about sight seeing and more about relaxing.

Speaking of relaxing, I took a break last night and went to see Kick Ass. For those of you without a TV or internet (how are You reading this?) Kick Ass is a new superhero movie about an real life version of a comic book hero. Instead of super powers or mass ammounts of money it’s just a guy who wants to help people. It is very based in reality and amazingly graphic. I highly reccomend that You pay attention to the rating on this one as it is not for kids at all. Personally I thought it was amazing. It will certainly set the bar for upcoming superhero movies and center them in reality. Given that I am writing this on my Droid I don’t want to go into too much detail but I will say Go See It! Hopefully there won’t be too many copy cats that get themselves killed. Remember kids, don’t try this at home!

Trying to resist.

Posted by on April 4, 2010 No comments

So back in January we saw the announcement of the iPad and now the time of the tablet is upon us.  I wrote up a small preview back when it was announced and mentioned a few of the issues I have with the device.  Mostly it came down to some of it’s capability and it’s price, two things that I still hold as the primary reasons for holding off on buying one.  The problem is that there are so many reasons to check one out.

Let me explain.  I have a Droid, and before that I had a Blackberry Storm.  I am on the Verizon network and have no plans to change that anytime soon.  My phone plays music and runs apps and plays videos just finr so the things I would use an iPod for are all covered…..except the litany of custom iPhone and iPod apps that are available.  It would appear that since Apple was first to really grasp the App market mentality that many of the primary developers have embraced that as the high visability area to produce their applications.  Due to this, most of the more utilitarian and high quality apps are produced for that platform.  Not to say that there are not any good apps for the Android market, there are, but they are still playing catch up.

Because of this, I have been kind of yearning for the ability to make use of some of these apps.  Until now, the only way to acomplish this has been via the iPod.  Andrew has an iPod and I have toyed around with his for a while, but it would be wrong of me to monopolize it.  So, that means my option has been go out at buy myself an iPod touch.  But again, my phone does more of that and so getting yet another small touch screen device for only a little functionality doesn’t seem like a wise use of funds.

Enter the iPad.  So over the last 4 months there has been a lot of talk about what the iPad will be able to do, as well as an ongoing war between Apple and Adobe over Flash.  (FYI, for those interesting, I am in the Flash camp.  It’s damn hard to do things on the Internet without flash.) Other things that have gone on are all about showing how many new and cool things the iPad can do.  From Specific games designed for the larger screen to the ability to stream Netflix Watch now movies.  (Which personally, I think is huge.) So now we have a device that is 1/2 way between a netbook and a iPod, that has full access to all the apps available to the iPod and iPhone crowd.

Gizmodo has a great set of articles that covers why you should, and shouldn’t get the iPad.  I am still riding the “Not gonna get one” side of the fence, but from what I have seen as of late, it’s becoming increasingly difficult.  The biggest issue, of course, is still the price.  I can’t see dropping $500 on something like that just yet.  I also have a feeling that we may see a price drop within the first few months.  I have changed my original estimate of $300, to a good solid $400 for something of this worth.  So a simple $100 price drop on it would totally entice me to buy it.  It is just still too early to jump on the bandwagon and grab one.

But the gadget guy in my is screaming in the back of my head.  It’s gonna be a long month or two.