Prepare Your Content
You want to consume media on your iPad. I know it. Otherwise, what’s the point? Just as the iPhone before it, Apple is locking down the iPad to play only a few video and audio formats. Why? Apple wants you to purchase content through iTunes. Music and video from iTunes, of course, works perfectly on the iPad giving iTunes a boost in sales because of simplicity. If you get your media from other, less reputable sources, make sure to convert your media to the appropriate format.

For audio content, the iPad supports AAC, proteced AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV. Most likely, the music and podcasts you listen to now are already in the correct format. In terms of video, the iPad supports H.264 encoded video up to 720p in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats. The iPad also supports 480p content in the MPEG format.

You may also watch video content on the web. Although the iPad doesn’t support flash, it does support HTML5 video. At launch, a handful of providers will support the iPad, including CNN, vimeo, and Sports Illustrated. Apple is compiling a growing list of website who play nice with the iPad to check your favorite website.

Did You Pre-Order?
Just as the iPhone before it, expect supply of the iPad to be limited at launch. Whether the crunch corresponds to marketing or logistical issues, consumers will be scrambling to get their hands on this device. Unless of course, you were smart enough to pre-order the device. In late March, Apple opened up pre-orders allowing customers to order online for guaranteed April 3rd delivery or reserve a unit for in-store pick-up at launch. Although convient for early purchasers, those looking to purchase on launch day will find it more difficult to locate an iPad.

All hope is not lost. Reservations expire at 3:00 in the afternoon so if your store is out of units, check back at around 3 to pick up a device not claimed. Perhaps a better shot, check out your local best buy. Although not available online, local best buys with certified apple departments will be selling the iPad on April 3rd. The inventory for each store is confidential, with sources claiming only 15 per store. Best buy’s will not be opening early but a best buy rep says best buy will be issuing iPad tickets before the store opens to ensure the safety of their customers.

Set-Up
As with other Apple devices, the iPad will feature simple set-up. Like the iPhone or iPod line, plugging the device into your computer should be the brunt of the set-up.

However, you need iTunes 9.1 to sync your iPad. On a mac, go to software update and make sure you have the latest version of iTunes. On a PC, launch iTunes, click on help, and then select “Check for updates” to confirm you are running the correct software.

Once your software is updated, your iPad will show up just as any other iPod or iPhone. Simply follow the prompts and choose to sync your music, photos, apps, and videos.

Apps
According to Apple, all most apps currently in the app store will run on the iPad. The idea here is to get the huge library of iPhone and iPod touch applications running on the iPad. To do this, the iPad will scale these nonnative applications. However, from early reports, scaling isn’t perfect and some apps run terribly on the iPad. To ensure a great experience, here are some native apps you should install on your iPad.

• iBooks
  Designed by Apple, iBooks allows users to, you guessed it, read on their iPad. Simply sync your DRM free ePub documents in iTunes, and get to reading. Oh wait, you are looking for new content. iBooks doubles as a book marketplace allowing you to purchase your favorite titles and new releases all from your device. This application also allows you several in book features as well, including search, bookmarking, and font adjustments. Look out Kindle, iBooks is coming.
• ABC Player
  Looking to watch your favorite ABC content right from your portable device, this app is for you. Allowing you to view full episodes of Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and the rest of the ABC lineup, this application is great for consuming quality media. In fact, this app won’t cost you a penny and ABC is not charging anything per episode, so you essentially get all the media you want for nothing. Why download an episode in iTunes for $1 when this app legally gives it to you for free?
• WordPress 2.4
  I love wordpress. I have been using it for years to manage my various blogs and have never had any problems with it. Version 2.4 of the wordpress app is designed for the iPad allowing you to create and edit blog posts and monitor comments all from one simple application. If you run wordpress, this app is critical to your mobile workflow.
• Netflix
  Are you a netflix subscriber? If so, prepare yourself for unlimited streaming right on your iPad. This netflix application allows you to watch all the TV shows and movies you want as part of your netflix unlimited membership. The app itself is free for netflix subscribers. With plans starting at $4.99 per month, video content on the iPad is getting cheap.
• NPR
  I get a lot of my news from national public radio. I currently listen periodically on my freecom musicpal and look forward to catching up on the days news directly through the iPad friendly application. At a cost of nothing, why not download NPR to stay connected?
• iWork
  Consuming media, checking email, and causally browsing the web is fun but sometimes we need to get some work done. Apple has engineered the iWork suite specifically for the iPad allowing you to professionally create, edit, and view word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. For $30, or $10 for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote respectively, managing schoolwork or business information cannot be easier.

The iPad looks to change the market the way the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone changed their respective markets. But the iPad is dependent on third parties to produce high quality apps and content to enjoy. Although launch looks to offer a wide variety of this media, I expect the future to hold an even brighter outcome. The iPad will be the device of the future.

What You Need

• An External Hard Drive
• Time Machine
• Time

Maintenance
Before you do anything, it’s time for some maintenance. I went through the folders I use the most and deleted all the unnecessary files. From old documents to program DMG’s, I removed most of the unneeded bloat from my hard drive. Not only is this a generally good habit, it saves some space on your drive and makes your back-up that much shorter. From there, I sorted extraneous files and cleaned up my desktop. (Right now, the only icons on my screen are of the three hard drives.) Basically, I preformed spring cleaning in August.
I also suggest taking inventory of all the applications and preferences panes you have installed. Jotting down the few panes you have isn’t an issues but if, like me, you have a lot of apps hand writing them all down is troublesome. For that, open up terminal and type: “ls /Applications/ >> appsiuse.txt” without quotes. You’ll now have a text document with all your apps listed.
Check Your Software
Some maintenance every now and again is worth while but before investing any more time and money into this upgrade make sure the software you use most is supported. If you NEED a certain application and for whatever the reason, it doesn’t work, you’re in trouble. If you have a back-up you could reinstall leopard and restore you’re back-up but that’s a hassle. Use this wiki to check what software is currently supported in snow leopard before moving on.
Back-Up
The bread and butter of this post: protecting your data from failure. It’s highly recommended that you back-up your computer regularly but I cannot stress how important this is now. Installing a new OS posses the largest risk for error and you can never be too careful with your documents and irreplaceable media.

While other tools such as carbon copy cloner and SuperDuper work well, I’ll be using time machine for this post. Grab a clean external hard drive, firewire is recommended for speed and the ability to boot from the drive, and plug it into your mac. From there, go into your applications folder, launch time machine and turn it on.

Now, just let the program run it’s course. When you first enable time machine it will create a complete back-up of your computer. For me, after maintenance and moving youtube videos/events to a different external hard drive, I had about 170GB of data that needed to be backed up. This process can take some time so I recommend backing up your entire hard drive the day before your upgrade. This saves time when you have snow leopard in hand and allows you some breathing room to resolve any issues you may have.

That’s everything you should do before installing snow leopard. The easiest way to upgrade is to choose upgrade in the snow leopard installation interface. Ideally, it will install snow leopard and keep all your settings, documents, and media the way you left them in leopard. However, for those of you who want to start fresh, you can always wipe your drive clean and install snow leopard by it’s self. From there, you can restore your data from time machine or just start from the beginning: it’s your choice. I plan to detail this process, in video, in the near future so stay tuned and subscribed.

1. The Software. Mac OS X is the most complete operating system I have used in many years. It has the eye candy everyone wants but is also responsive. Apple doesn’t preinstall junk-ware from third-party manufacturers on your machine either. They simply install the functional media suite iLife, free of charge, to get you on your way.
2. Applecare. Let’s say you are a new user and for some reason your machine is not working correctly. Nothing is perfect all of the time but apple doesn’t put you through the annoying hoops other companies call customer service. All you have to do is call Apple and a representative will do their best to help you. Do you live by an apple store though? If so, just go to the store and a ‘genius’ will help you fix the problem. If they can’t, they will replace the faulty component and in some cases give you a completely new machine. Even on the apple website you can find hundreds of tutorials to help you with any issues you are having.
3. Security. With new viruses, trojans, and spyware hitting the web every day it’s imperative to keep yourself protected. Apple made this a priority and uses an operating system designed more securely from the ground up than windows could ever be. Besides that, there are only a handful of viruses for the mac platform so the chance of getting infected is extremely low. With apple releasing security patches frequently, you can rest easy at night knowing your data is protected.
4. Quality. Apple has been leaps and bounds above the competition when it comes to making reliable products. The new unibody design for their laptop line is extremely durable and it’s single piece of aluminum is bound to keep your laptop running for years to come. From the past though, apple machines are still chugging along today. A friend of mine uses a three year old powerbook G4 as his primary machine and it can still do everything he needs it to do. From school to work to play, you can expect your mac to keep up with your needs.
5. Design. Apple machines are known for their sleek look and have been trend setters for years. Companies have tried over and over again to capture the sleek look of an Apple PC but few have matched what Apple has done. Functionally, Apple first brought firewire to their notebooks many years ago and now firewire is the gold standard for connecting high-speed devices to a computer. When apple began installing iSight cameras on all of their notebooks, the competition noticed. It’s almost common now to see webcams installed on mobile computers. When apple does it, you can expect other companies to follow suit.

It’s not an issue of being biased when making a choice to buy a mac. You can run windows or linux on your apple machine but you also get the benefits that no other company besides apple can supply.

]]> http://michaelsherlock.com/2009/01/08/why-apple-computers-are-worth-the-price/feed/ 6 http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/12/18/mac-os-x-netbook/ http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/12/18/mac-os-x-netbook/#comments Thu, 18 Dec 2008 21:55:42 +0000 Michael Sherlock http://michaelsherlock.com/?p=237 Mac OS X is locked to apple computers only but wouldn’t it be nice to install it on any system you wanted. How about a low cost Netbook? Well, the folks over at wired have made a video on this very subject.

I was a little surprised when I watched this video though. To actually get this to work you need an illegal copy of OS X and the video covers where to download it from. Now I wasn’t surprised how the video takes you through the entire process but to actually show and endorse illegal activity was surprising.

In any event, it is an interesting watch. I think apple will need to open OS X to all systems in order to expand but right now there are alternative ways to get OS X on any machine.

]]> http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/12/18/mac-os-x-netbook/feed/ 0 http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/03/08/coming-soon/ http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/03/08/coming-soon/#comments Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:04:08 +0000 Michael Sherlock http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/03/08/coming-soon/ Hey Guys,
Starting next week I will be starting a new weekly technology show. As of now, the name has not been decided but I’m thinking of either the sherlock report or the michael sherlock show. Please comment with your two cents about which name you think is better. Also, thanks to my new mac, it’s really easy for me to mack new videos and produce more content for my viewers. Embedded, is my video restating this information and talking about a few others things. Defiantly check that out. Also, I’m very sick, a mix between influenza and another mystery virus, so content will be little to none until I get better. Hopefully, I will be better next week for episode one of the new show.


Also, note this video was recorded before I became ill.

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