I won’t go on about how I never win anything and how this was a total shock to me, and focus on the iPad itself.  This thing is very slick – that is the best way I can describe it.  Browsing the web or reading a book on this device is a very satisfying experience.  With the bright screen and 10 hour battery life, it is really a sight to be seen. 

The dual cameras are interesting, one in the front and one in the back.  I haven’t yet taken any pictures with it though.  It will also capture movies too – which is a nice bonus.  For the most part, I have been using it as an eBook reader 99% of the time.  This mixed together with Amazon’s Kindle app makes for a great book reading experience. 

Overall, I guess if I was going to jump into the tablet computer scene – I could not have been handed a better device to do so.  I am sure over the next few weeks and months I will be sharing more awesome iPad related apps, tools or tips on this website so stay tuned.

Wish you had an easy way to test how your website looks on a mobile device, but don’t feel like whipping out the ol’ iPhone right now?  What if you don’t have a mobile device to test from? The iPhone Simulator gives you a web-based area where you can see how your website would look if somebody happened to be browsing it on an iPhone.

All you need to do is plug in your website URL and let the website take care of the rest.  The main purpose of the iPhone Simulator is to give you a web-based application to test your iPhone web apps or the iPhone version of your website you might be working on. 

You can also switch the view to horizontal or vertical with ease, just like you would do with a real iPhone.  Well, almost.  You hit a button with the iPhone Simulator, I don’t want to hear horror stories from anybody trying to turn their monitor sideways.

This is a website resource worth saving for any website designer. Go check it out at iphone-simulator.com.

• Darker Wood
• Retro Wooden Wallpapers
• Sticky War
• Wood Wallpaper 2
• Vista Wood Logo Wallpaper
• Wood Wallpaper 2, Dark Edition
• Apple Wood wallpapers
• Abandon Otis Walls
• TheOriginal
• WinGNOME Wood
• Mac Wood
• Lamps wallpaper
• Wood Sepia 2
• Wooden Boards Wallpaper Pack
• Elegance On Wood
• Blackflower Wallpaper Pack
• Parquet
• Dark Wooden Wall
• Elegance On Wood v.2
• It’s um.. wood…
• Vista Leather Logo Wallpaper
• Ubuntu Carbon Wood
• Wood Texture Stock
• how sexy can wood be?
• Wood Sepia

Have a favorite that didn’t make it onto the list?  Be sure to let me know. Also, feel free to spread the list around to see if we can find even more great wood wallpaper.

Is it just me, or is Apple starting to remind you more of the Real Player more and more? Or perhaps, maybe Adobe and the 10,000 unrelated updates it asks for?

Want to keep up to date whenever your Google Reader has fresh new content to read through?  There are several browser plugins that will do this, but not many for the operating system itself.  I have three solutions though to cover all of the operating system bases:

• Google Reader Notifier (for Windows)
• Reader Notifier (for Macs)
• GrNotify (for Linux)

Now you should have no problems at all keeping up with my RSS feed.  Feel free to subscribe and pass it around to others. 

I do have to say it looks pretty slick.

+ Check Out Gmail.app (Mac Os Style) on Userstyles.org!

I’m not bitter though, instead of fighting the noise – I’ll just contribute to it.

You’ll need Firefox and an install of the Greasemonkey extension to get it going, but for all the Mac OS X Fans out there – this is for you.

+ Download and Install the Google Reader Prettifier!

Well first things first, it didn’t stay running long. After going to about two or three Web sites, it just died on me. That isn’t so cool. The inteface needs some work, but I am sure a polished look will come in time. One more thing that really gets me is there is no right-click menu! This might be some sort of Apple thing, but if you are going to have a program on Windows, I need my right-click menu.

Overall, I think in the future it might be great – but this release shouldn’t be people’s first impressions of it. They should have held off a little while longer till they got it at least fully usable. Download it for yourself, and let me know what you think!