• The good ideas and inspiration flow @breakfastblogging meetup. #
• My favorite new #iPad app: Flipbook. #
• Buddy Pressin' with @menslow and @likethegodess and @salliegoetsch. Spelunking some themes, getting it to work. Fun! #

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It’s been about 4 months since I got my iPad. After the initial amazement of a GIANT iPhone wore off, I was left with a tool that meets most of the needs I was imagining the iPad would meet. And I still use it with joy.

Here are some of the things I love and hate about it:

Portability. I used to walk around with a giant backpack, into which I stuffed a laptop, an SLR camera, and sometimes a second laptop. I moved around like a laden camel. Now, I just have a small handbag to hold the iPad, my phone, wallet, and Tech Liminal leaflets.

Battery Life. 8 hours or more. I am no longer that person in the coffeeshop looking for a plug.

Presentations. I give a lot of presentations. With Keynote on the iPad I can just whip one out at any time. It’s harder to author presentations than on a computer, but if you are just using text and shapes, it’s pretty snappy. The 9″ screen makes it viable to show these off and have a conversation at the same time.

Reading books. There are a couple of apps for reading books. IBooks is pretty good, as is the Kindle app. They all let you turn the brightness up and down, make bookmarks, and remember their place. I find that using the iPad as a reference library is pretty handy – and tends to interrupt my work less. I use GoodReader to download PDF’s and HTML reference pages. GoodReader crashes on the bigger files, which is unfortunate, but it’s great for looking up that darn PHP function whose arguments I can’t remember.

Music everywhere. The speakers on the iPad are mighty enough that I use it as a radio wherever I happen to be: cooking in the kitchen, gardening, hanging out with friends.

There are a couple of downsides:

The web is not touch-screen ready. AJAX knickknacks and rollover states on websites don’t all work. So, for example, I can’t just go into my WordPress blog and start writing.

It’s really slippery. Without a case, I would have hurled my iPad out the window by mistake. Fortunately, there are a lot of cases out there, which will give you a form-factor and handholds that you can really use.

I wrote this blog post on my iPad, even, using the WordPress app. Note the lack of links and most formatting.

What about you? Do you love it? Hate it? Wish we would stop gushing about it?

• What does "In the Cloud" mean? Maybe not what you think: http://bit.ly/99BHsi #

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• Apologies to those of you who tried to send email to info@techliminal.com and had to jump through hoops. We believe you're human! #
• Thank you EFF, for everything you do to make it possible for everyone to have fair use: http://bit.ly/bqKVsn #
• At Automattic for the WordPress Framework bake-off. Who will win? #

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Thursday August 26th 7-9PM

Learn how to get results using Facebook.  Presenter Irene Koehler will guide us through the best practices with Facebook Fan Pages – everything from creating good pages to how to engage and excite your community.  

More information:  http://www.meetup.com/Eastbay-LocalPreneurs-Meetup-Group/

• At @roozcafe, ran into the @breakfastblog team. Turns out we are meeting next week, but I got some writing done anyway. (on the iPad) #
• Also @roozcafe: 7 macs, 1 Pc. 1 iPad. 5 people without screens. #
• How NOT to convert a site to Thesis: copy old table-based content. Paste into custom_functions.php, in a giant case statement. #
• Dismayed to see that the top google search result for "ASCII table" is a clickfarm with an image of the information instead of text. #
• Congrats @sarahdopp for the launch of http://cultureconductor.com/! Looking forward helpful reading about online community building. #
• Drupal Gardens launched yesterday! It's exciting to see that making Drupal sites will soon be as easy as WP sites. http://bit.ly/aK3Dwa #
• New Tech Liminal feature of the week: Photo Printing! We can now print photos up to 13×19 on our Epson Stylus 1400. #
• Curious about using WordPress as a CMS? Check out a presentation I gave last month on this topic: http://bit.ly/bNgdBa #
• The information system has outpaced the wisdom system – Van Jones. #

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• The information system has outpaced the wisdom system – Van Jones. #

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• Drupal Gardens launched yesterday! It's exciting to see that making Drupal sites will soon be as easy as WP sites. http://bit.ly/aK3Dwa #
• New Tech Liminal feature of the week: Photo Printing! We can now print photos up to 13×19 on our Epson Stylus 1400. #
• Curious about using WordPress as a CMS? Check out a presentation I gave last month on this topic: http://bit.ly/bNgdBa #

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This is a presentation that I gave at the San Francisco WordPress Meetup group in June of 2010.

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 1 – 3PM

BuddyPress: Build a Social Network on WordPress

BuddyPress has been described as “Facebook in a box.” It used to be that you could only use it with WordPress MU, but now we have WP 3.0 and BuddyPress works whether or not you have Multi-site enabled. Set up groups, forums, detailed user profiles, group blogs, activity streams (status updates), etc. Import your no-longer-free Ning group.

As usual, we will start with introductions and an open Q&A period. I’ll try to stick to the schedule this time, to make sure we end by 3 PM to leave time for networking. The more people who can show up in time to start at 1 PM, the better.

Note that parking is sometimes challenging, so give yourself an extra 10 minutes.

Soft drinks will be provided but snacks are not guaranteed: eat beforehand or bring your lunch.

Price: $3.00 per person

Learn more here:
http://www.meetup.com/Eastbay-WordPress-Meetup/calendar/14175555/