Links Roundup: iPad edition

For the last several days I’ve been playing with a 32GB 3G iPad. It’s a marvelous device, perfect for entertainment (movies, music, podcasts, book reader), but I’m not sure how well it’ll work for mobile computing (MS-Office type tasks), and blogging. I’m composing this post on the iPad, but the iPad’s touch screen keyboard is a bit awkward: I find myself typing with two fingers, and making a lot of corrections.

I’ll travel with it in another several weeks, and that’ll provide a better, more thorough test. Stay tuned.

That said, on to some interesting articles Ive recently come across. Writing in USA Today, Bill McGee asks, Have Travelers Become Ruder Over the Years? Is a heightened sense of rudeness a product of societal – or airline policy – changes?  Give it a read and you can decide.

This will keep the gourmands and grillers out there busy!  From Mark Bittman‘s “Minimalist” column at The New York Times:  101 Fast Recipes for Grilling.

Of course, I’d never suggest that you violate your IT department’s efforts to ensure you a sanitized browsing experience, but…   strictly for informational purposes, you might enjoy Gina Trapani’s Survive IT Lockdown. @Lifehacker  Related:  Top 10 Tips for Surviving Office Life

Not sure how I came across this, but there are some good nuggets of info here; from Time magazine, 50 Essential Travel Tips

If you ever use Wi-Fi hotspots, you might want to check out “How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi Networks,” from Lifehacker. Your data is likely not as safe as you might imagine.

If your job sometimes makes you feel as though you’re just a cog in an impersonal machine, read Seth Godin‘s pithy little essay, You’re already self employed

Incidentally, if you already use an iPad, one of the neatest apps I’ve found thus far is Print Central. With it, you can print virtually any document type direct to most WiFi printers or even over the 3G network.  Click on the link for full details; $9.99

Finally, a clarification:  after this post’s introductory paragraph, I abandoned composing this on the iPad.  It’s too tedious to highlight phrases in a sentence, and I really need a real keyboard and preferably, a mouse.  I love the device, but it clearly has a few limitations.  I’ll offer up a full report in another month or so.

Have a great week!!