If you’re curious about the music, you can check out a few of the songs on The SixtyOne. Overall, I’m a big fan of the music – the album hits a surprising range of genres – The Copper War, for instance, sounds like a Western ballad, while I Want Only You is clearly a Reggae song. Yeah, that’s right, Reggae – steel drums, and all. The styles and tone vary considerably throughout the album, but this largely works to keep the album interesting as it moves from one track to the next. The music is catchy and enjoyable – the only major issue I have with the music is that the lyrics run a bit too prosaic at times. It causes the songs to stumble at times to my ear – the music flows much more readily, while the lyrics feel choppy. It doesn’t ruin the music by any stretch, but it’s something that could stand improvement.

I’m typically a picky listener, only enjoying a few songs off any album. This album has more songs than usual that I enjoy, which is always a good sign. In particular, I’m a big fan of The Copper War, The Depths Below, The Inventor’s Daughter, and The Death of the Cog. I’ll continue listening, and look forward to hearing future albums as they come out.

1. One of our cats, Pyewacket, loves the iPad. Not using it, but for the space it opens up on my lap. She not only climbs into my lap now, but will let me use her as an impromptu stand for it. It’s nice to have the normally indifferent kitten clamoring for my lap.
2. Trying to figure out how to read all my web comics resulted in discovering the ability to organize RSS feeds into folders, along with reading comics through my RSS reader. This was one of the issues I had been having, so it’s nice to finally eliminate it.
3. I had several e-mails I had to show the wife and process, which normally is a bit of an ordeal to get her to sit down and read an e-mail. This time, however, I was able to open it, and treat it more as a clipboard. The iPad seems to encourage sharing the device more than a laptop, which seriously helps when dealing with things like that. The same holds true for gaming, with two player games on a single device feeling perfectly natural.

Just some minor observations as I continue to discover little bits and pieces of differences in the interaction with the iPad.

The hardware itself has been reviewed by many others, more in depth and eloquently than I. I don’t aim to replicate that effort – my interest is largely to compile my experiences and observations after a week a a two days of using the iPad as part of my daily life.

The iPad has become my primary computing device at home – e-mail, Twitter, web surfing, listening to podcasts, etc. At the high level, this worked very well – my laptop leaves my bag most often to provide a charging point for my iPad this past week.

The virtual keyboard provides fast typing, but with the auto-correct, typos can slip in unnoticed. A few e-mails sent for work have garnered comments regarding strange words popping out of the auto-correct. My biggest problem has been the spacebar – hitting the other keys doesn’t present much problem, but I tend to tap the unresponsive border of the iPad instead of the spacebar, resulting in missed spaces throwing auto-correction into conniption fits. The lack of tactile feedback, much like the iPhone, isn’t a major handicap. The only time when it is missed are the rare occasions when I am typing longer pieces of text and watching something (such as now, when I am typing this out while watching the Penguins play hockey.) In that scenario, I can take my eyes off the screen entirely for significant periods of time using only tactile feedback – impossible with the iPad.

Most of the tasks I perform on my computer feel more natural and focused while using the iPad. I think this is due to having only a single app in the display at any given moment – when I’m reading my RSS feeds, for instance (using Newsrack) the entire display is dedicated to processing my RSS feeds. For that brief time, the device becomes a single-focus appliance – no visual clutter in the background producing distractions, and no bouncing or blinking interruptions. It reminds me of Merlin Mann’s concept of processing in dashses, and I like the effect it has on my work.

I also prefer the interfaces for many of my normal activities in apps as opposed to websites. Weather, RSS, restaurant reviews – all of them are significantly better with a dedicated app. Interfaces typically feel more responsive and more rich in information – the Weatherbug app, for instance, provides a detailed (and animated) radar view, hourly predictions, local weather cams, and several detailed stats widgets in a single intuitive interface. The webpage equivalent isn’t nearly as dense or pleasurable to use.

For a device so capable of replacing a laptop for everyday work, there are a few frustrating limitations currently limiting the ability to use the device as a sole computer. The iPad is terrible for keeping up with podcasts – in order to update a list of podcasts, you must go to each one individually, press “Get more episodes” to launch iTunes, and manually determine (and download) any new podcasts. I can’t believe someone didn’t look at this, compare it to iTunes, and realize that having the system update all podcasts at once is key for any serious podcast listener.

Similarly, Safari can only have 9 tabs open at once. Open another tab, or click on a link which will, and a tab will be closed automatically to make way for the new one. That produces a really nasty surprise if you are opening a bunch of pages to compare products on Amazon, and suddenly tabs start disappearing. This keeps the browser fast, I’m sure, but it does leave the user with a nasty shock.

A final issue is that the wireless freaks out periodically. In both cases, WPA2 is being used for encryption – everything works fine, until at random the wireless will stop working until I turn it off and on in the settings. Annoying, but this seems like something easily ironed out in a software update. For now, however, it is a downer.

Overall, the iPad has done an amazing job replacing my laptop for 99% of my daily use. There are several very positive surprises, and a few issues which need to be worked out. I’d try to write more analysis as opposed to observations, but using this laptop makes me itch to get back to the iPad instead – so for now, I’ll go back to using it and keeping a list of observations.

Well, yes. It turns out that our garage, made of concrete, will slowly soak water through it. Not very fast, but given a deep snowfall like Pittsburgh had, it’ll eventually work its way through, and very slowly drip. I didn’t think much of it, until several weeks had passed, and white, smooth spots had formed on the car. It turns out calcium leeches out of the concrete, and accumulates on whatever surface is below – in this case, the side of a Honda Accord. My wife’s Accord – her baby.

After swearing I’d fix it, no problem, right away, I grabbed the hose, the sponge, and the car soap, and gave it a wash. No change. A second wash, more vigorous. Then scrubbing hard. Now the wife was worried, so a quick trip to the auto shop to grab a clay cleaning kit. This promises to clean all manner of evil off cars – spray the lubricant on, scrub with clay, be the hero of the day. Even a friendly passing neighbor swears by it, telling me he used to work cleaning cars fresh off the train using clay. The result? Nothing.

Then I remember a useful bit of chemistry – calcium doesn’t dissolve in water very well, which means the scrubbing would get nowhere. However, calcium will dissolve quite easily in an acid, if I had one in hand. Like vinegar! Rushing into the house, grabbing the bottle of distilled vinegar, I triumphantly douse the spots in vinegar, and wait for it to work. And wait. And wait. Huh. Scrubbing doesn’t help much – some of the smaller spots come clean, but the big spots have no change. One last crazy thought enters my head.

Clay from the super-cleaning kit, a little bit of handiwork, and behold! This clay cavity holds a pool of vinegar on the spot. If you look closely, you can even see the bubbles from the calcium dissolving. A few minutes of waiting for the calcium to dissolve, a quick rinse with water (the vinegar might damage the car if left on the car,) and the calcium is gone. And I feel smart for the next few hours. And most importantly, the wife is happy.

My current thought for this blog is to post the insights and learning experiences I have as I strive to improve my personal organization and skills. I’ve been striving for these for awhile, so I thought I’d use this blog as a place to record notes and share my experiences.

If you’re looking for my cache of amusing internet media, my Tumblr contains that at http://jasedit.tumblr.com – to interact with me online, you can catch me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jasedit