More Adventures With Finney (my iPad)

This is my third attempt to write this blog from the new iPad WordPress app. The ACFLS blog and website are constructed using WordPress, so I was excited to download the app. Last week my first attempt to blog from Finney was scuttled when WordPress asked for a setting change for the site. Webmaster Bonnie Riley (by day she is a lawyer editing family law producers at CEB) tweaked the settings. Today I had no difficulty logging on from Finney the iPad (Note to Apple– women associate the name with a personal feminine hygiene product, not a legal pad. I cringe when I say or write IPad. Finney was my childhood neighborhood library).

So I wrote a detailed blog and tapped “save.” the post vanished and couldn’t be recovered. So I began again. Now “save” works just fine. In fact, I began this post from my family room and I am finishing it in a booth in Dos Arbolitos, while waiting for my huevos rancheros.

So where was I? Oh yeah, i am writing this on the onscreen keyboard. For long projects the external keyboard is better, but I have to have a stable surface or the iPad wobbles and looses it’s seating on the USB mount. Usually it is more convenient to just use the touchscreen. I do find that I do not use all of my fingers when typing. Even with the click sounds activated, I am looking at the keyboard since it is on the same screen as my text. I still hit the m or n instead of the spacebar too often.

I have now learned how to move documents back and forth between Finney and my computer via iTunes, mounting Finney wirelessly as another drive using the Airshare app, posting documents via MobileMe to my iDisk, or using the Goodreader app. Pages on the iPad doesn’t recognize the Word docs, so I may find myself using Google docs. From what I have read, use of a newer version of the Pages program on my laptop may be the answer.

I prefer Finney to paper, Kindle or the laptop screen for reading documents. Today I’ll be reading the Elkins Family Law Task Force report in PDF. There are apps that let you annotate a PDF.

One really, really disappointing feature is cut/paste/copy. One can’t mark a start and stop place. Either one applies the function to a single word, or to the entire document. There isn’t even the option of cutting/pasting/copying by sentence or paragraph.

In my last post, I said one can watch TV at Hulu.co, but Hulu uses Flash video rather than HTML5, and iPads do not run Adobe’s Flash. Apple says Flash uses too much battery life. The techie websites indicate that there are conversion options on the horizon. The most annoying Flash issue arose when I subscribed to the e-edition of the L.A. Times. The Times failed to disclose that this is a Flash based service that cannot be read on the iPad. My email complaining and canceling has not been answered. On the other hand, KCET (the local PBS station) announced that one can watch it’s shows on the iPad.

Mac Mail and Calendar are enhanced and beautiful on the iPad — searchable versions of a paper Daytimer-like book. They sync in the background via MobileMe. I’ve read that Google Calendar is another good alternative.

So I do my morning email on Finney and read the online newspapers. I’m particularly enjoying some news aggregators — Fluent News and SkyGrid. I also really like Instapaper, which lets one save articles for off line reading. I carry Finney with me for reading, calendar, and notetaking. It is instant on, instant off. No booting up a computer or waiting for a program to load. The battery life is astonishing. I think I’d be comfortable using it on a motion hearing with the key docs in PDF form (unusually bring the laptop to hearings as we scan all pleadings and I prefer not to wrangle multiple Bindertek volumes for most things.

Finney doesn’t replace my computer (I work on a MacBook Pro). Finney doesn’t replace my iPhone. But Finney does many things better than either and is carving out a new role for itself in my workday and recreational life.

Some of you sent emails after my last iPad blog. Please consider posting a comment instead by clicking on “Comment” below.

So now that I have composed this post on Finney, I find that WordPress gives me no clue how to upload it. If you see the blog, you’ll know that I figured it out.

P.S. I forgot to say that I solved the instant messaging issue. I turned notifications on for AIM in settings, and then set my preferences in AIM not to log out for 24 hours. Now when I’m using Finney, any instant messages pop up and give me the option to view them and respond. My new MacBook Pro with the current version of iWork arrived today. When I finish getting several more tasks done, I’m going to migrate from the 2006 MacBook Pro to the brand new 2010 MacBook Pro. My CrashPlan harddrive also arrived today. As soon as the new MacBook is working smoothly, I’ll be backing it up to CrashPlan’s hard drive, shipping it back to them and then updating via the cloud whenever I am on line.