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?

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

Thursday, August 5th, 2010 7-9PM

Join best-selling editor Beth Barany as she shares with you how you can get access to learn how to become a bestselling author.

• Have you published a book, and had the thought, “My book should have double the number of sales!” Have you ever asked yourself, “I know my book is good — how can I have more people lining up to buy it from me?”?

• Are you stuck with the same number of people who tend to buy your book, or say they’ll buy your book?

• Does the idea of increasing the number of people on your mailing list, your author platform, scare you?

• Are you afraid that the work of building a loyal readership may be too hard for you to do? Does it ever seem hopeless?

• Do you worry that your business may never grow beyond natural word-of-mouth? That you’ll basically remain anonymous beyond your small group of family and friends? ?

If any of these questions were a “yes” for you, then you need to attend a free introduction I’m giving on “How to Be A Bestselling Author: 3 Essential Tips to Building Your Author Platform Now (Whether You’re Published or Not!)”

This evening is specifically designed for you if:

• You are already published or are working on a book, but you want to be a world-class bestselling author. ?
• You have a reasonable online presence — such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn – -and you want to go from spending your time with online socializing to doing online social networking and selling your books through your social networking. (It can be done!)?
• You want to build your audience by building your list in a way you feel comfortable doing.?
• You just *know* that you’d be living your true purpose if your book sold to large audiences. ??

RSVP here

Here’s one from my email:

I’ve done nothing on my WordPress site in ages but am about to put up a story. I see (and had heard) 3.0 was available to download.

Do you think I dare do it, here with nobody to help me if it all screws up? My feeling is that it should be OK as there must be millions in the same boat, but don’t want to if I am wrong!

I think you can do it!  The longer you wait, the more people will have found bugs and fixed them, but if you have time to focus on it it’s very doable.  Before you upgrade, you should make a backup of your site – either the content (through Tools -> Export) or the database (through the WP-DB-Backup Plugin).

Here are detailed instructions:  http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress

Just follow the instructions carefully, and don’t panic.

You may have issues w/ your theme, or some plugins that will also need to be upgraded. If so, your backup will help you get fixed up. If you are worried about a particular theme or plugin, simply do a Google search for your theme name and “WordPress 3.0 upgrade” to see if anyone has posted words of caution to the internet.

Saturday Mornings, 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Join us for a 5-week course that will get you started with the WordPress blogging platform.

We will cover the following subjects:

Week 1: July 10 – Why WordPress? WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, and how to install.
Week 2: July 17 -  The basic components of WordPress content:  Posts, pages, Categories, Links, and Media. How to think of your site to take the most advantage of WordPress.
Week 3: July 24 – Choosing a Theme, and WordPress theming.
Week 4: July 31 – Plugins, Widgets, and other ways to extend your site’s functionality.
Week 5: Aug 7 – Basic Customization of your site

Each session is $20, or you can register for all 5 in advance for $90 (a 10% discount).

You can pay in person, or register online using PayPal. Class is limited to up to 10 students per session, so register soon!

Number of classes

All 5 classes $90.00 Individual Class $20.00

Come join us Friday July 9th for Tech Liminal’s First Anniversary party!

We’ll have our doors open from 6-8PM on Friday so come down and celebrate our first year of business with us with some snacks and drinks and great people!

Friday, July 2nd 6 – 9PM

Join us for snacks and art as part of Oakland’s First Fridays Art Walk!

Artists come check out our space, we’d love to show your art!

For July and August we will be showing the photographic works of Brennan O’Brien.

Brennan O’Brien has been studying photography since 1974, including course work at UC Berkeley, and sees no reason to stop. He has shot with large format, medium format, 35mm and oatmeal boxes. Since converting from film to digital in 2003 a new horizon has opened in his photography.

Brennan travels the Bay Area with his camera, capturing the western light and spectacular natural forms that make this region a destination for visitors from around the world. Locals will appreciate the powerful images of our familiar buildings, bridges, and skylines that he has captured with his digital lens.

He is a regular contributor to DPC, the online website of the Digital Photo Challenge. Portraits, photoshopped montages, and landscapes are all submitted for judgment by other photography enthusiasts. Every summer he teaches a digital photography workshop at Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp, where, between classes, he can shoot photos of towering redwoods, youthful clowns, inspired musicians, and meandering creeks.

You can see more of Brennan’s works on the Digital Photo Challenge site.

Tuesday June 22nd 6 -8 PM

Concerned about the recent discussion around Facebook and Privacy?  Want to learn how to keep in touch with friends and family without leaving your life an open book to marketers and scammers?   Facebook is undoubtedly a wonderful place to congregate online, but as it has become more popular and more “open” you risk giving away more than you intend.

Bring your laptop to this workshop, where you will learn how your information is used on Facebook, how it appears to others, and how you can keep things private.  We will go through Facebook’s Privacy and Application Settings menus, clean up app clutter, and close down any unwanted views into our personal news stream.

Cost: $15

And on Twitter?

After we save this post, we’ll be able to share it on Facebook.  Do you see it?