I'm turning into *that* geek

[selenay]

So, I think that I may be setting up a plan to very, very gradually save towards buying an iPad. Yup, I'm becoming *that* geek. I'm figuring on early next year for the actual purchase, by which time the iPad 3 will be out with whatever nice extras it's going to have. So that gives me around a year to put a little bit aside each month.

It may be sooner if the global BBC iPlayer comes to Canada before the end of the year :-) That, for me, would be the killer app that would have me out buying an iPad immediately. Being able to watch BBC stuff from the comfort of my bed without worrying that my laptop is going to shout at me when I move it and upset the hard-drive? Yup, sounds good to me :-)

Mostly, I'm thinking that I want something with a decent (but not huge) screen that's very portable and will make it easy to keep up with things on the move and watch videos wherever I want. My iPod Touch is fab around the house and on short trips for keeping up with emails, Twitter and Facebook, but it's not practical for longer trips (like, say, two weeks in England next year) and definitely not good enough for some of the streaming video stuff that's now around. It was lovely to fly without my laptop and I've kind of decided that dragging a laptop around airports is just not for me anymore. Not when there are other, lighter options.

So, I'm going to save up for an iPad. I am turning into Gadget Girl.

I've also been thinking about off-site back-up, particularly now that Amazon has launched it's Cloud Drive service. My music is all ripped CDs (that I own), so if I lost the data it would be a pain but not the end of my life. What I really want to have a good back-up location for is my photos and my personal documents. I've thought about DropBox on and off but never quite got around to it. As I use Amazon for so many other things, I may look at testing the Cloud Drive and see what I think.

Today is "plan next week's menu" day. I think that it needs to include many noms. Sunday is going to be a repeat of the stunningly nommy salmon and garlic/rosemary roasted potatoes from last Sunday. I'm thinking that Monday may be chicken wings, possibly baked with a BBQ rub. It's been ages since I last had chicken wings. I may even go wild and do some potato wedges to go with them. Currently, I'm stuck on Saturday. Do I want to treat myself to some form of take-out? If so, what? Or do I want to see what my butcher has that is nom? Or do I want to try a new recipe?

Oh, the dilemma!

I'm leaning towards take-out. Possibly of the sushi variety. Or, if I start Humira on Saturday and I'm feeling achey, it may be pizza.

Comments

[bouldergirl]

As much as I love gadgets I am surprisingly gadget free. I have a netbook which I love and might be tempted by a smaller scale iPad (say the size of a trade paperback instead of a textbook for screen size) if they ever made one. I have a very old Nano (1st gen) which almost never gets used these days.

My husband is looking at an iPad. He is just waiting for the next gen which could be out as early as September (to try and hit the education market).

Good luck on your saving. It will be extra exciting when you have been anticipating the purchase for so long.

[nosila]

I'm with bouldergirl. I'd like a slightly smaller iPad. If I was going to get something that size, it would be the MacBook Air. I need to start saving towards that. I need to have a savings jar, the same way The Boy does. Then I can put my pocket money into it every week! Oh, wait, I have those payroll deducted Canada Savings Bonds...*rushes off to check her CSB balance*

[selenay]

Sometimes, half the fun of new gadgets is the planning and saving :-)

I used to be a fairly gadget-free person, but I now have two iPods (Touch and an old classic), a Kindle and a laptop. It's nice to have all the options and each thing I have tends to have its own distinct niche in the way that I function.

As the iPad2 was an incremental release, I'm thinking that waiting to see what the next one has is a very sensible plan. To be honest, I think the only people who are buying now at the Apple freaks and the people who were planning a purchase around now anyway.

I'd quite like to see a 7" or 8" iPad, but Mr. Jobs has so far said that he's not going to go smaller than it currently is. I can sort of see his point, but it would be nice to have that option.

[selenay]

I'd like to have the option of a smaller version, but having played with other peoples' iPads the current size seems about right for what I want - small enough to be fairly portable, large enough to watch videos well. It's not something that I anticipate chucking into a handbag, but I would like it to easily pop into a backpack.

I have a gadgets savings account and a scheduled transfer to put a bit of money into it every paycheck. The money mounts up fairly quickly if you don't touch it! That's how I bought the Kitchen Aid and the iPod Touch last year. I also have an envelope that I put some cash into each week. The idea is that then I've got money around to pay the plough guy through the winter, without having to anticipate the snow or take a big hit if there are several bad days in one week. As I continue putting in the money throughout the year and the plough guy only came five times this winter, that money also mounts up and every couple of months I put it in the bank and add it to the gadgets account.

By the time I'm actually ready to buy the iPad, I should have far more than I actually need even for the highest-end model.

Yeah, I like saving :-)

[gmul.livejournal.com]

Since you won't have seen it on Facebook the other day - "Graham Mulholland has, for those with an anti-iPad prejudice, the vision of a car seen this afternoon with the registration IPAD (or presumably 1PAD) being driven by a complete twat (i.e. without due regard to signals, road markings or other road users.) Make of it what you might."

The tablet landscape will obviously be somewhat different in a year. The iPad is what it is and the next one will doubtless be incrementally different to the current one. There will also have been a proper tablet version of Android out on a range of machines for a while by then as well, including a wider range of form factors if you wanted slightly bigger/smaller/USB/whatever. Of course the BBC might not release the global iPlayer for Android, or some other crucial app be missing which would knock them out of consideration again.

Cloud Drive is an interesting variation on the usual online storage products. Whether being able to stream your music to you is actually useful when MP3 playing devices are ubiquitous is another matter. Still, it's a "trusted brand" and their online services seem in my experience to be more reliable than, say, Microsoft's. Apple have online storage of their own too of course, which integrates nicely but is a lot more expensive than free!

I'm going out to buy my Kindle tonight so I shall be happy thing and get very little productive done tomorrow (except in as much as I'd count loading content on to it as productive!)

[wadjet-theperv.livejournal.com]

Lovely to hear you feeling more positive :) Take out is always good. We need more sushi bars and takeaways here. We can only get little packs from the supermarket, although I've thought of trying to make it myself now that everything is available. They catch sea salmon in the bay in the summer, I might give it a go.