The iPad will never replace my desktop, but it has already replaced my laptop after just two days.

I love, love, love it!

@JesseLuna said it best: “If HBO was your ‘home box office’, then the iPad is your ‘mobile box office’.”

It’s also a dream for reading, blogging, and managing social media networks on a realistically readable device. (I love my iPhone, but the small screen has its limitations.) I know I will be using my iPad for most of what I do as a non-techie user. I also know I will still need to go to my desktop for large professional projects and probably most photo editing. (More on photos later.)

My setup consists of the iPad, the Apple cover, the Apple Bluetooth keyboard, a stand, and a lap desk. (And sometimes earbuds.) This is perfect for sitting in an armchair. Of course, if I were at a desk or table, I would not need the lap desk. Also, when lounging in bed the stand is too precarious, so I just lay the iPad flat on the lap desk. The Apple cover is made of a grippy rubber material that doesn’t slide around at all, which is awesome.

Being a creature of habit, the first things I tried on my new iPad were all the things I already used on my laptop and/or iPhone: Safari, Gmail, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Netflix, Scrabble, Momento, iTunes, Wikipanion, and Notes.

Overall, these all worked as well or better than the on the laptop/iPhone. There are a few tiny glitches, where features don’t work the way I expect, but all of them are software issues, which I’m sure will be addressed by the developers.

Aha! moments:

- streaming Netflix in bed (with earbuds) while my husband sleeps

- stocking my iBooks shelves with free texts thanks to Project Gutenberg

- writing this blog post in Pages which I will later email to @JesseLuna

All of these tasks could be done with some other gadget or device, but before now I would have used a separate gadget or device for each activity.

New stuff I love on the iPad: Pages, iBooks ereader, Marvel comics viewer, Toy Story read-along, NPR, USA Today, and ABC viewer. Gorgeous picture quality, leagues better than my (10-year-old) PowerBook. Super-fast over WiFi. Screen size is perfect for personal viewing. So many options – both media and content!

Stuff I haven’t done, yet, because it isn’t supported: Hulu.

Stuff I haven’t done because I haven’t bought the right app(s): games.

A final note on photos: there is a camera connecter accessory, but I didn’t buy it. I simply took photos with my iPhone, emailed them to Flickr. On the iPad I opened the Flickr app, selected my image and saved it to my Photos, then accessed it from there. That works fine for me.

WordPress just announced its new WordPress.com Slideshow feature. This is an AWESOME update.

You can now select photos to upload then quickly add them to a blog post as a Slideshow. [Update: And, I forgot to mention that the Slideshow is iPhone and iPad friendly!]

I did a video on the process, so check it out then see my notes below the video.

Notes:

As soon as I saw the email from WordPress.com, I jumped in and started testing things out.

I found the following:

1. There are several paths you can to get the Slideshow up and running. The video above is by far the easiest.
2. You can use images that you have previously uploaded to your WordPress.com blog and that are already in your Media list. But, they cannot be “attached” to a different blog post or page.

   My lovely wife suggested a workaround here. If you really want an image to stay in a blog post or page and want to use it elsewhere in a Slideshow, just upload the image again and use it.

3. If you only add one image at a time via the “Add an Image” button on your blog post page, you will not have the option to insert the slideshow as I demonstrated in the video. You’ll have to go back and use the Gallery tab then insert the slideshow from there.

   The Gallery tab appears next to the “From Computer” tab (that I pointed out in the video), but only does so after there is an upload or an unattached image has been added to the post.

Here are some more resources to help you troubleshoot any problems:

• Information on Images and Galleries
• All about Unattached Files in WordPress.com

So now you have everything you need to go out and create an awesome new slideshow on your blog. If you want to show off your new creation, come back here and post a link in the Comments field. M’Kay?

I love promoting awesome people, great causes, events, and organizations/businesses that are doing interesting things. My favorite tech tool to help me do this is the Apple iPhone 3Gs.

There’s a reason the iPhone 3Gs is such a hot seller, it is a mobile promotion machine. I use it to check email on the road or at home when away from my laptop. I use it to take pictures that I post to my Twitter and Facebook status feeds and to various blogs. The built in video allows me to post to my YouTube Channel, post via email to my Posterous account, send short videos via 12seconds.tv, and to live stream using Qik.com and UStream. With this single tool, I can immediately share what’s going on with my life or at an event.

Here’s an example of how I used my iPhone for shameless self-promotion. A couple of months back, I noticed Nancy Rodriguez’s Twitter update where she mentioned that she and the crew from Q1047, the local Hip-Hop and R&B station, where going to be live broadcasting from a nearby McDonald’s. It was around 7am so I grabbed a fast shower then zoomed over to McDees. I had chatted with Nancy before via Twitter so it was great meeting her and the rest of the Rico and Mambo show. I took a couple of photos of them in action, posted the pictures to Twitpic and Twitter, spoke to Nancy, then headed back to go home.

Now, I’ve been listening to Q1047 since I moved to Ventura County and it’s my favorite station. So I was glad to post pictures and tweet about them on Twitter. But as I headed back to the car I realized that I could have plugged my new online blogging course. So I decided to grow a sack and went back to ask Nancy to send a shoutout to my BuildYourFanBase.com readers and she kindly did so.

Fifteen minutes after I left the live broadcast, I had uploaded the video shoutout to YouTube and had already tweeted out a link to my blog post on the event. Minutes later Nancy retweeted the link and gave my blog and new blog class an on-air shoutout.

Now that’s promotion at the speed of light!

Do you have any other mobile promotion tech tools that you swear by?

It’s hard to believe that it’s been exactly one year since we first heard of the miraculous landing of flight 1549 in New York’s Hudson River. The great hero of the Miracle on the Hudson was Captain Chesley Sully Sullenberger who managed to safely land the plane without any loss of life. Truly a miracle.

So much has happened since then. President Obama was sworn into office, the Twittersphere sprouted green avatars to support protesters after the Iran Election, and now we have the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti.

One thing these events all have in common is that important snippets first showed up on the picture sharing site TwitPic. Amazingly, TwitPic was created in a weekend by Web developer and master tinkerer, Noah Everett (@noaheverett on Twitter).

One of the most famous TwitPic pictures ever posted was by Janis Krums (@jkrums on Twitter) live from a ferry in the Hudson River just after the airplane crash.

Just yesterday, Noah Everett revealed in an interview with Andrew Warner (@AndrewWarner on Twitter) on Mixergy.com that shortly before the Miracle on the Hudson, he had planned on shutting down TwitPic because he was having trouble keeping the site up and running in a consistent manner.

I want to send Noah Everett a BIG “Thank You” for pushing through the tough times and keeping the site up. It’s an important global resource and it is greatly appreciated.

This is a MUST WATCH interview. Everett gives details on how he first started TwitPic on a spare server, the ups and downs of running a site that takes off like a wildfire, and shows you how he was able to direct TwitPic by focusing on being a nice business. There is also a transcript of the interview on the Mixergy.com site.

View the Noah Everett interview

Related Posts:

* Mashable: TwitPic Worth More Than $10 Million?

Animoto, the video creation company, has an iPhone application that allows you to create a video out of pictures on your iPhone. The iPhone version requires at least five images and an audio selection from the Animoto library then you are all ready to create the new video.

The iPhone application gives you the option of creating a 30-second or a Full-Length video. The 30-second video is free but does not allow you to include video snippets or post it to YouTube. I didn’t try the Full-Length video so I’m not sure if those features do show up there.

Unfortunately, the video you create on the iPhone does not show up on the regular Animoto.com web site under your account. They have a message saying that developers are hard at work on that.

Besides these minor limitations, the free Animoto iPhone app is easy to use and makes a great dynamic video.

Some great uses:

1) Great for photographers who want another way of presenting their photos

2) Realtors could snap a few pictures, add music, and create a great video for a home listing -ON LOCATION

3) Great for sharing pics from any event. You’ll be able to share something much sooner than by uploading and tagging pictures via Flickr

4) Mix in pictures of a loved one and a message then send it to them for their birthday. A nice surprise!

5) Great quick way to share the happenings at a political rally to keep people engaged.

The following video was created using the iPhone application and pictures I took on my trip to Denver. I used the “share” feature, emailed the resulting link to my email address, ran the video then used the embed code to place it on this post. Enjoy!

If you like this post you should totally either subscribe to the RSS feed, sign up for the email version, or leave me a juicy Comment below.

I go to this park almost every day and each time I see something different. When coming up with blog topics, you don’t have to fly off to Rome or hike the Alps to experience beauty. Sometimes you just have to appreciate what’s in front of you, then write about it, take a photo, or shoot some video.

I took this photo with my iPhone then used the PicPosterous application to post the photo directly to my Posterous blog and also to this blog. I wanted to make a note about it on this blog so I just added this text section to it.

Posted via web from jesseluna’s posterous