]]> Imagine, if you will, opening e-mail attachments, visiting the Internet, shopping online, digital photos, video calling, social networking, watching a movie or TV, playing games, listening to music, reading a book, and more…all rolled up in one appealing and extremely portable device that measures 9.5” by just under 7.5” and weighs less than a pound a half. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Apple’s iPad!

To be fair, there is an entire industry of tablets out there worthy of your attention. Blackberry has their Playbook tablet, the Kindle and Nook are evolving more into a tablet with each generation. Asus, Samsung, and Lenovo also offer tablets with very good reviews at competitive prices, but the iPad was the pioneer and remains the dominant player in the field. Not to mention, I own an iPad and am in love with it.

The iPad functions like a big iPhone . There are over 90,000 apps (applications or programs) specific to the iPad and several iPhone apps worked in a modified way on the iPad. You are sure to find a few dozen programs out of 90,000+ that will truly amaze and entertain you. Of course you can use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even video Skype on the iPad. The screen size makes watching a movie or TV show or reading a book or magazine a pleasure. (All of which can be purchased from iTunes.) The glass screen makes any images come alive with clarity. Because I use my iPad for heavy duty e-mailing and writing I set it into an external keyboard rather than having to type on the touch screen. (My bad typing needs all the help it can get!) Just like some smartphones, the iPad can be held horizontally or vertically depending on the mood you’re in for viewing. You really have to see and touch it to believe all that it is capable of.

By the way, you have a choice when buying an iPad whether you want only the wifi feature or, for a monthly data usage fee, you can have 3G or 4G to stay connected to the Internet 24/7. Every weekend I train from New York City to Connecticut. There is no wifi on the train, so I opted to pay the small monthly fee to stay connected during my weekend commute.

I could just go on and on describing my enjoyment with the iPad, but rather than my talking about it and until you get one in your hands the best thing you could do is visit apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/ to see it all first-hand. Be sure to click Play All Guided Tours.

Good, now I can get back to playing with my favorite toy…you guessed it – my iPad.
]]> http://abbyandme.com/posts/im-talkin-ipad/feed 0 http://abbyandme.com/posts/an-easy-way-to-transfer-from-ipod-to-itunes http://abbyandme.com/posts/an-easy-way-to-transfer-from-ipod-to-itunes#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:20:00 +0000 Abby http://abbyandme.com/?p=337 I was called upon this weekend by a friend whose computer died. She and her daughter had about 1,000 songs between their two iPods, which were purchased online, as well as copied from their own CDs, into iTunes. Their songs were now trapped on the dead computer and on their two iPods. What to do? Good news for any of you in this dilemma – with little time and effort and at the low cost of $14.99 you can transfer your music from your iPod to iTunes.

If their broken computer was functional, I would have attached an external hard drive (like an extra brain) to the computer. Then I could have moved their music libraries to the external hard drive and onto the new computer. But, that wasn’t an option.

If I plugged their iPods into their new computer and did a sync (making the computer and iPod combine content), iTunes would have wiped out everything on the iPods. Obviously not an option.

Instead, I visited the wesbite http://www.purpleghost.com/ and downloaded (moved from the website to their computer) the program TuneJack. Have your credit card at the ready. Be sure to print the receipt when your purchase is complete. TuneJack will send you an e-mail with a license number that is required to begin the installation of the program onto your computer.

Before you start the download process, open iTunes and make the following change:

1) Click Edit.

2) Click Preferences.

3) Click on Devices tab.

4) Click in the box to the left of “Prevent iPods and iPhones from syncing automatically.”

5) Click OK.

This stops iTunes from automatically syncing when your iPod is plugged in. There can be times when you don’t want to sync automatically. This is one of those times.

Next, plug in your iPod. There’s one more change we want to make before we install TuneJack.

1) Wait until iTunes identifies your iPod, click on your device in the left hand sidebar.

2) Click in box to left of “Automatically sync when iPod or iPhone is connected” to remove the check – deactivating the choice.

3) Click Apply.

4) Click on “eject” symbol  to the right of your device name then unplug your iPod.

iTunes will now NOT open automatically when you plug in the iPod. (We don’t want iTunes to be open when we use TuneJack. They don’t play well together.)

Next close any open programs on your computer – especially iTunes.

Great! Now you can install TuneJack by following their very clear instructions. I always like to turn my computer off and back on after I install a new program. That’s your call.

A shortcut for TuneJack will appear on your desktop. Double-click on the icon and follow their step-by-step instructions. (A warning window will appear asking you to deactivate the auto sync at plug-in. We’ve already done that, but you can double check. Be sure to close iTunes after checking.)

At the step where TuneJack wants to find your iPod, plug in your iPod and wait patiently. When I did the initial transfer from the iPod to iTunes an error message appeared. I didn’t panic. I just repeated all the steps again and it worked perfectly the second time around.

Be patient, read what’s in front of you, and take deep breaths. Keep in touch and let me know how it worked.

For those of you that don’t know an iPod from your elbow (and you’re not alone), take a peek at Chapter 24 – Extra, Extra, Read All About It: The Scoop on Cell Phones, PDAs, Blackberries, iPods and iPhones in “Is This Thing On?” A Computer Handbook for Late Bloomers, Technophobes and the Kicking & Screaming (p. 349).