It first showed it’s true colors when I updated my work MacBook to the latest version of OS X and the whole thing died on me. Pulled every trick in the book to revive it, but alas, it was done for. So while I waited for the sys admin to trying and figure out what to do with it, I relied on the iPad to continue working, and it came through with bright and shining colors.

First off, it saved my ass in being able to email back clients and coordinating work. If that was the only thing I needed to do, it saved my ass. But it went further, and got me on the file sharing network, and I could edit reports with iWork, instant message with the team, update my calendar and more. It was amazing that no one in the office noticed I wasn’t on a laptop only until they came over to ask me a question and realize that I bought the new iPad and ooohed and aaahed in amazement at how thin it is.

But that was work, and now I find myself using this bad boy as my main device at home. I even stopped brining back my work laptop and doing everything I need on the iPad. My favorite use for it is when I go out for a shoot, and want to really see what I got without having to sit at the Mac mini at home in my room. I just plug in the camera connector kit, slide in the SD card, import the photos and I got instant large screen viewing of my pictures. Great for triage, and only keeping the best shots of the day. Also comes in handing when I’m not sure if you got a good shot and can’t tell from the small screen on the camera, I get a better view on a large screen without too much hassle. Though I would love to be able to do some preliminary work on photos right on the device. Rating photos, light and basic touch ups here and there. Would be a great workflow tool before I go in to Aperture on the Mac.

On a day to day basis, I use the iPad for emailing, calendaring, Facebook, Netflix, reading on the kindle, instant messaging and doing some light research and blog updates. With more and more specialized apps that take the interface beyond expectations, I see this as being my main tool and only going back to a laptop or desktop for when I need to do really heavy work like intensive reports and spreadsheets, photo editing and design intensive tasks.

So far, I’m loving this bad boy and how it’s changed the way I do things, and its so much lighter than lugging a laptop around. Best part is you don’t have to take it out of your bag when going through security checks at the airport. Bonus!!

My 1st annoyance was the keyboard. Its a great keyboard but I found that if you didn’t have the Apple case/kick-stand, it was really hard to type on it. When  holding it in portrait mode, it was awkward to type long messages with both my thumbs as I held it in my hands, and landscape mode just was a pain as it challenged my thumbs reach.

It was very pleasant to sit on the balcony in the mornings and go through all my news in Google Reader. The touch navigation was a dream and it really made reading the news an immersive experience. Viewing and sharing pictures was also very immersive. Navigating photos and showing them to friends was definitely a more enjoyable experience than showcasing them on a laptop, as I could pass it around and they can interact with it, as if a real set of photos.

Prolonged use of the iPad, though, was a bit of a mixed bag. Trying to hold it for long periods of time, while watching a movie or tv show put a lot of strain on the hands and arms. Laying in bed and kicking back to watch a 1hour TV show proved a lil frustrating as leaning it on my thighs left it at an awkward viewing angle, and holding it was just not fun. Again, this out have been a different experience if I had the $40 Apple iPad case. I think that the case should have come standard with the iPad as it would have solved a lot of physical usability issues, but I guess Apple knew this and decided to sell it separately because of its necessity.

I was quite disappointed that a lot of the apps I used on a regular basis from large companies was not updated for the iPad (Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, MobileMe Gallery, Skype) and a few required me to buy a whole new version of the app at full price (Things). I understand that if they did develop an iPad app, it would have an updated UI and a very different experience, but a lot of apps have been ported over very easily and quickly by other developers and they’ve done a great job at iPad specific versions (Evernote, Dropbox,WordPress). I guess the wait is for the iPad version of iOS4.

I had the wifi only version, and only being able to use it at home or the office, I thought that its usefulness is tied to a data connection. Most apps are tied to the net and if you dont have connectivity, the iPad really isn’t much use.

All in all, the iPad is a great device. Its performance was impressive, the UI was solid and the feel and sturdiness of the device was great. At the moment though, until a few of my favourite apps are ported over, and iOS4 comes out giving it multi-tasking and a few other features, it feels more like a fun toy and not something I will use on a regular basis. I found my self reverting to my Macbook Pro to do a lot of tasks, as I am a heaving multi-tasker. iOS4′s new features are going to be a welcome upgrade and I will look in to it as soon as it comes out, probably a 3G version.

Do you have an iPad, and how long did it take you to get used to it? Do you have the Apple Case? How does the keyboard feel for you?

Whats even worse is getting your head back in to gear, and in to work mode. For me, this means logging in to a bunch of email and social networks accounts, as well as administration control panels. You think it’s all good, until you’ve locked yourself out of a whole bunch of sites, coz your mind is still in its zen and peaceful state, looking at blue waters and azure skies.

This is when I decided I might need a password manager.

I need something that :

1. has good encryption
2. can be used on multiple macs
3. possibly iPhone synchronization
4. can be used for more than just passwords eg: membership numbers, application serial numbers
5. easy and intuitive user interface (and I’ve very critical )

A quick search on Google, Versiontracker and a few review sites, I settled on trying out  1Password by Agile Web Solutions and Wallet by Acrylic.

Both applications are very similar animals, but have very different spots. They both have excellent encryption and allow you to store and retrieve login/passwords, serial, credit card and membership numbers and iPhone synchronization. Their similarity ends there though.

Wallet

Wallet has the simpler interface that looks very similar to Apple Addressbook’s 3 column interface. It starts you off with 3 folders/categories of information (Serial Numbers, Web Passwords, Credit Cards), but you can create your own custom categories as you please.

Creating a new entry under a category is as simple as clicking the plus sign under the selected category. Creating an entry under Web Passwords gives you standard fields of Name, Username and Password. You can add additional fields if you needed, but its pretty straight forward.

When it comes to retrieving web login information, Wallet makes it easy to automatically enter your saved credentials to a site by way of a menu bar applet. Go to a site you saved the login/password for in Wallet, and click the menu bar icon. Enter the master password you setup for Wallet, and it will insert the credentials in to the web form. I haven’t had extensive use with Wallet yet to talk much about it, but since I have multiple accounts on some sites, I’m not sure how it handles that.

When it comes to synchronization, Wallet uses MobileMe or a WebDAV server to sync iPhones and multiple computers. This means thats iPhone users have cloud access to their Wallet database, and don’t need to do much to sync their information.

Wallet looks like a great app, and for the $20 price tag, is pretty reasonable. Its got good features, multiple mac and iphone sync, excellent encryption and an easy to use interface.

1Password

1Password is a pretty feature rich application. By default, it starts you off with 6 categories (Logins, Accounts, Identities, Secure Notes, Software, Wallet), and has a plethora of predefined templates for storing information including email and instant messenger setups, text notes and identity persons.

My favourite feature is the browser plugin, that saves passwords as you type them in to web logins. This makes it a lot easier to save them, as its quite cumbersome to remember all your accounts and passwords at setup time. As you go through your daily routine and come to a web login form, fill it in, and the browser plugin will as you if you want to save it to 1Password. The plugin doesn’t stop there, enter your credit card information and create a identity profile in to 1Password and you can fill in registration forms or purchase forms with a couple of clicks.

Synchronizing multiple macs and an iPhone with one database isn’t as straight forwards as entering your MobileMe credentials in Wallet. The Agile website recommends you use DropBox to keep one database synced with multiple machines. DropBox is an amazing web service, but if you don’t have one, your gonna have to get one. iPhone syncing is through wifi, which means you have to manually sync your mac with your iPhone for the latest info.

1Password looks like the more power application, with great browser integration but I wish it could sync using MobileMe giving my iPhone cloud syncing. At $39.95, its price tag is pretty steep.

Final Verdict

So far both of them seem to be very capable and excellent applications. I will be using the trial versions for the next month to really make up my mind, and will write an in depth review of both soon.

Have you used or tried any of these applications? What are your thoughts, preferences? Are there better applications out there I might have missed? Leave me your comments!