I haven’t blogged here for a while. Life gets busy at times and through prioritization (putting the important items in front of less important items) I’ve been choosing to simply gain more experience with the iPad, and to receive and learn more about the accessories before blogging a bloated bit of blah.
I can now report that the iPad Case is an important accessory to own. The iPad Case is value priced. My husband conferred with me as to the price, and wasn’t able to digest that the case was $39. He bet on the price being $69, and this was following receipt of the case, visually inspecting the quality of the product. I checked my orders and sure enough, the iPad case was $39.
I’ve had some problems however. While the iPad case protects, and has handy built in mechanisms to set the iPad on its side or in a slanted position for blogging, as well as cutouts for all of the iPad ports, I didn’t seem to have luck getting a battery charge when I set the iPad, embraced by the black case, on the iPad dock. I didn’t spend a ton of time on it, but from initial attempts, I just didn’t see that the iPad was making the connection with the case surrounding the docking slot. I will try again soon.
I just recently received the Camera Connector accessory and slid my SD card from the Nokia D40 into the SD port and into the slot on the iPad. I assumed it would recognize the card presence, but nothing happened and I could not figure out what to do next. So I put that aside to prioritize for a later time when I can focus and possibly read the iPad handbook, wherever that might be.
I purchased Roxie headphones from the Apple store that are providing excellent audio with the full ear cushion instead of buds being pushed into my ear. I can use the Roxie headphones with my XM handheld radio when I’m on the treadmill, and on the computer when I’m taking a Lynda.com course. So the headphones were a great value at $69 and are colorful, fun and include a nice zipped bag to store the headphones.
Another bit of discovery I’ve been enjoying is browsing through the hundreds and probably thousands of apps. I’m not one to run out and buy impulsively just because something looks or seems cool. { … oh ah, well, the iPad? Hmm, yea, the coolness factor may have played a role. But as a web geek, I do have a responsibility to stay in the forefront of technology, so it was really more of a business tool. Right.) I’ve been focusing on the FREE apps initially, and have a few ideas for possible paid apps that I may purchase once I’ve read all the reviews. I’ve always needed a fitness and nutritional log. There are some really neat looking fitness and diet/nutritional logs designed to help track progress and possibly even calorie and fat intake for a bit of effective weight loss. There are some FREE game apps, and I’ve dabbled there, but I’m not one to spend time playing games at all. I have too much work to do, keeping up with customer projects as a web designer. In my free time I tend to prioritize the fitness regimen, household chores, gardening, pet health and well being and whatever else might be presenting importance at the time.
One app in particular that I seem to reference frequently is the Weather Channel. The radars and local weather reports, graphics and other fun visuals are an enjoyable way to track the weather.
So in summary, a few things I need to investigate and learn more about include:
1. Figure out the SD Camera Connection gizmo and how it works.
2. Figure out why it seems that when I sync my itunes install on the PC with my Apple iPad it wipes out any new apps I’ve installed on the iPad. There must be a way to show which device takes precedence.
3. Figure out if I can charge my iPad on the charging dock while safely in its black case.
4. Isolate the fitness and nutrition app to begin a disciplined log of food I consume as well as the exercise and cals, carbs burned as well as overall time of fitness routines.
I posted an RSS feed for the top 10 FREE iTunes Apps on the right column of this site. I’m also going to be gleaning through those RSS feeds to find if there are others that might be a nice resource to add to this blog site.
…. enough of blogging this morning. Time for work….. 
