ipad ← A Little Ludwig Goes A Long Way

iPad mini rippling thru my hardware setup

Dec

2012

Ok I got an iPad mini for Christmas — thanks family! The lack of retina display does bother me, it is super noticeable. I will certainly upgrade to an iPad mini retina when it exists. But it is interesting to see the impact on the rest of the gear in my bag. * obviously the ...

At least the Surface has forced me to think about what devices I carry

Oct

2012

Overall the Surface is, well, a turd. It is a crappy cheap laptop. Or maybe an ok-but-expensive tablet, although completely lacking the tablet apps I want. But it has forced me to think about the gear I carry. Right now my bag contains a laptop (MacBook pro or ASUS ultra book depending on the day), ...

Watching TV on the iPad

May

2012

I pay a large amount to Comcast/Xfinity each month to view nearly their entire lineup (ex non-English channels) at our home. And because we pay for a Time-Warner Cable sub as a gift for a family member, I also have access to a TWC account. A lot of dollars per month. I’d like to watch ...

My overall reaction to iOS5? Confusion.

Oct

2011

OK like the rest of the working world I spent hours yesterday trying to upgrade my iPhone4 and iPad2 to iOS5. About a dozen retries for the phone, maybe half that for the iPad, and I finally got there. Not a great experience but no harm done, just a half day of my life wasted ...

Air Display iPad app is way cool

May

2010

OK, this thing seems a little laggy, and doesn’t seem to love Spaces, but the promise of “Air Display”:http://avatron.com/apps/air-display/ is freaking phenomenal. The iPad makes a GREAT auxiliary display for my MacBook. Guys, hammer on the performance and on Spaces integration. This app also somehow seems related to all the remote desktop apps, there is ...

Mech Eng basics on the web

Apr

2010

Taking Finite Element Analysis this term which would be way easier if I actually had ever taken a basic course in mechanical engineering. Beams, trusses, springs, cantilevers are all foreign to me, I was learning about resistors and capacitors when the MechEs were learning this stuff. Web to the rescue: * “Cantilever calculator”:http://www.efunda.com/formulae/solid_mechanics/beams/casestudy_display.cfm?case=cantilever_endload#target up at ...

First iPad-only day trip

Apr

2010

Ok took my first day trip today to San Jose with no laptop — iPad only. I can’t imagine ever taking a laptop on a day trip again. Massive reduction in bag weight, no need to pull the iPad out of carry on bags at security, good email and web access at airports and job ...

40 years of computing!

Apr

2010

I’m using my iPad to remotely login to an XP machine at UW to run ANSYS, which still feels exactly like ANSYS from the 70s: painful syntax, all upper case, incredibly modal. Takes me way back — card punch machines, pin feed dot matrix printers, disk packs, paper tape. Man those were the days. Will ...

iPad apps — first week likes, dislikes

Apr

2010

So here is my first week of good and bad apps, I have spent way too much trying things out. My motto — “Buying iPad apps so you don’t have to!” These look good and I actually use them: * “iAnnotate”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iannotate-pdf/id363998953?mt=8. As “previously discussed”:http://theludwigs.com/2010/04/the-ipad-and-pdfs-conclusions-for-now/, the user interface is byzantine, but it works largely as promised ...

The size of our gadgets

Apr

2010

Some smart guys have noticed that “internally, the iPad looks more like a battery with a computer than a computer with a battery”:http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/the_ipad. This is a pretty fundamental point. I remember back in my first job, working on automotive electronics strategies, someone asked me “how small can a CD player be” and to me it ...

iPad file management blows

Apr

2010

Hoisted from the “comments”:http://theludwigs.com/2010/04/the-ipad-and-pdfs-conclusions-for-now/comment-page-1/#comment-1064: For all the great things on the iPad, file management is currently a disaster. I’ve got two different apps that can connect to my ftp server and my iDisk, but neither one can get the downloaded documents to Pages or iAnnotate. I have to use iwork.com to get files into Pages, ...

The Nook dude at the Barnes&Nobles looked forlorn today

Apr

2010

How bad would it be to be a Nook pusher right now? The Kindle has its adherents, the iPad is out there, why would anyone buy a Nook? I have to think that B&N is going to bail on this strategy at some point. Amazon on the other hand I think is playing its hand ...

iPad and remote desktop

Apr

2010

I am trying out my iPad as a remote desktop client to my mac, my windows machine, and an appserver at UW. The net is — it works, but I would never use if for any kind of depth work. There are a number of rdp/vnc clients for the iPad. I went with “Desktop Connect”:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/desktop-connect/id364907570?mt=8 ...

The iPad and PDFs — conclusions for now

Apr

2010

Several comments have asked for my recommendations. After two days of tinkering, here is what you should do if you’d like to use your iPad to read and annotate PDFs. * get the “iAnnotate”:http://itunes.apple.com/app/iannotate-pdf/id363998953?mt=8 app. Its UI needs a lot of work, downloading and uploading are clumsy, but it does a fine job of letting ...

iPad Day 2 — PDF reading and annotating

Apr

2010

One of primary use cases I am testing out on the iPad is reading and annotating PDFs. I am in the process of reviewing 200-300 papers on nanowire/nanotube manipulation via electric fields. Printing them all out would be horrendous and unwieldy — I did print the first 30 and it was a 2 inch stack ...

iPad day 1

Apr

2010

Really really slow on first sync. I’ve purchased a ton of iPhone apps over time and the iPad insists on installing all of them, even crappy ones that I have uninstalled. * Kudos to: The calendar app is gorgeous. The Book app is beautiful but so what, I’ll still read most books on the Kindle, ...

iPad preorder day arrives

Mar

2010

Ok well the day arrived. I can’t quite figure out what the ipad is for. I still need to carry my iPhone for phone calls. I still need to carry my MacBook Pro for real software — Matlab, Mathematica, Aperture, LaTEX-heavy docs. I’ll still carry the Kindle for its awesome battery life. Would I carry ...