Len Edgerly

I wasn’t sure how I would use an iPad. That’s why I was sure I wanted one. It was like landing on a new planet without a map. It was like leaving the groomed cross-country ski trail to cut my own tracks in the woods. I couldn’t wait to get my hands and mind on one. I was first in line at the Denver Cherry Creek Apple Store on April 3rd to bring home a WiFi-only model.

Here is what I thought I’d be using an iPad for:

Books
E-mail
Newspapers and magazines
Watching my photos scroll by in slideshows set to my favorite music
Word processing, spreadsheets, and Keynote presentations
Solitaire and Bejeweled

Here is what I’m actually using it for:

Streaming movies with Netflix
Watching TV shows with iTunes
Mind-maps with MindNode
Paid content from The Financial Times, PressDisplay, Wired, and GQ
E-mail
Creating blog posts
Plants v. zombies

What surprises me the most is that, after curious experimentation with the iPad book-reading apps, I now do very little long-form reading on the iPad. When I want to read a book, I pick up my Kindle. It’s simpler. It has fewer distractions. The paper-like calmness of the screen lures my mind into a slower, more receptive state. My mind on iPad is like a monkey in a cage, rattling the bars, trying everything at once. My mind on Kindle is like an owl that seldom blinks.

The other big surprise is that the iPad has restored my lost love for television. Sometime during the last five years, my wife and I simply stopped watching TV. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because watching the tube has come to seem lazy and vegetative. There is always something more interesting going on somewhere else in the house, especially at the computers. I’ve seen media buzz about hit shows like The Wire, Glee, and Mad Men, and I vaguely sensed I was missing something. With the iPad and iTunes, I’ve purchased a couple of shows and found them wonderful, especially the premier episode of The Wire’s Season 5, titled “More with Less.”

Ditto for how Netflix has revived my love of movies. With the monthly paid streaming service, I often take a break from whatever work is on my To Do list and watch a not-so-old foreign film, or an embarrassing favorite starring Meg Ryan and/or Tom Hanks. I’ll watch for 15 minutes or so, then get back to work. It’s fun. And it’s fantastic on long flights like this one from Minneapolis to Fairbanks.

The print that I read on my iPad is mainly from my Financial Times subscription. I love how they’ve replicated the distinctive apricot color of the paper version. I sometimes watch the videos of the smart reporters talking about their stories, but I find these clips hang up and buffer too much, even on our fast home WiFi. I’ve purchased two copies of Wired, just to see what they’re up to, but I don’t love it yet. Same with GQ. Too expensive and too many ads.

A promising newcomer to my iPad habits Flipboard, which makes it easy to flip through My Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as other content. I don’t really understand how it works or what it can do yet, but my fingers seem to enjoy playing with it.

About the only thing that has NOT surprised me is how handy and fun it is to use my iPad for e-mail. I’ll be glad when the operating system catches up to that of the iPhone 4, so I can see all my e-mail accounts in one inbox.

In another four months, I expect that my iPad list and habits will have evolved some more. At least a couple of times a week I check for updates to my apps, as well as the top-ranked lists to see what new creations are breaking through. The Apps Store is still my favorite app, because that’s where all the surprises come from.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Most mornings in Maine, I wake up in time for the sunrise. I can see the sea and sky from my side of the bed, and if the scene looks promising I think about taking a photo. Yesterday there was no gap between the thought and the rolling out of bed. I pulled on my shorts and tiptoed down the creaky stairs with my Nikon, hoping not to wake my wife and the Yorkie Claire. I arrived at my usual sunrise photo spot on the path to the beach just in time to catch the sun hovering over Prouts Neck.

As it happened, my parents were on Prouts Neck yesterday morning, waking up at the Black Point Inn. I joined them there for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and real maple syrup. Things got more complicated after that, involving a drive to the southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford to check out my Dad’s scary-looking bloodshot left eye. It all turned out okay, and we even made it to Ocean Park in time for the long-planned family party at my sister’s place.

Now this new morning has arrived. There will be comings and goings at the cottages. Darlene is feeling better after her bout with a stomach bug yesterday that meant she missed the party. Claire is chewing a rawhide chew on the old braided rug. I love the light indoors and out this time of day. It bathes the old things of the cottage in a golden glow that makes everything look right.

Our six guests have returned to Nebraska. The old cottage sighs and settles into the rhythms of a man, woman, and a very small dog. We are all on the same bed on the second floor, listening to the surf and a sultry Pandora mix based on “The Girl from Ipanema.” Fog hides the horizon. She reads her Kindle, I play with my iPad. The Yorkie tugs at the sheet and snorts. Coffee cools in my mug. I could live here.

I believe in biking. I rode hard each morning this week, usually at 5:30 in the morning, when the streets and roads were mainly clear of vehicles, except for the street cleaner in Old Orchard. I found the East Coast Greenway, which follows an abandoned railroad track through the woods and across a marsh. Sweat is good. Riding the waves with just my body is good. Having the cottage full of young teens is good. Having a lull before the next wave of family arrives is good.

I’m reading Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel, a tasty, layered tale set in the reign of Henry VIII. The protagonist is a real person, Thomas Cromwell, portrayed as a sly survivor who is maybe wise, too. I’m reading the novel on several e-readers, to compare them, but I returned the Kindle version because for some reason it didn’t have a table of contents. The nook so far beats the Kobo, because the latter is slow to load the book and has no way to look up words or search. Same with the Sony Reader Pocket Edition, which comes in last, because the screen is too small. You get about the same number of words at a time as on an iPhone book app, but you can’t really put the Sony Reader in your pocket unless you’re Captain Kangaroo. After a couple of gee-whiz days of marveling at the gorgeous e Ink Pearl screen of the new Kindle DX Graphite, I’m not using it much, because it’s too big for my taste. I’ll probably return it within the 30 days that Amazon amazingly provides for free evaluation of the Kindle, and they even pay for shipping it back, no questions asked. I want to see the high-contrast Pearl screen on a new Kindle six-inch, which I bet will be out before I turn 60, on August 30.

The dog is dozing, and the wife is still reading. Is there anything I’ve neglected to tell you about this moment? No doubt, but this will have to do for now.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I took a sabbatical from political stuff a few months ago, asserting that it would last until today. So will I load up my iPhone with the Slate Political Gabfest? I’m in no rush, actually, especially here at the beach. I’d rather play with BlogPress on my iPad in the few moments before it’s time to fire up the grill for hot dogs.

My nephew Steven, 14, and I took the train to Boston this morning so I could introduce him to my friends at Boston Media Makers. We did not discuss politics the whole way, and the world moved on.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Getting ready for tomorrow’s iPhone 4 launch, I’m trying out Flickr as an easy way to post to my blog from the iPad.

The plan is to upload a photo from my iPhone, then go to my Flickr page and edit the text with the photo, so I’ll be creating the post all in Flickr. This is because I’ve had difficulty posting to my blog using Safari on the iPad and my normal WordPress dashboard. Likewise with the iPhone/iPad WordPress app. This may be completely due to operator error. In any event, here goes…

My father was not wild about the idea of a cane. Now, at 83, he has transformed this sign of age and weakness into yet another expression of his dignity and poise.  On most days, he walks a mile from his house to his office.  He has the posture of an admiral, the precision of a surveyor as he steps across Mt. Auburn Street to the Post Office. His bamboo cane is more for information about the pavement and balance than for bodily support.

We meet for lunch once a week when I’m in Cambridge, Mass.  He loves it when my iPhone calendar burps and I need to call him up for a reminder about the lunch plan he scribbled in the pocket calendar he always keeps in his sportscoat pocket.  When it became clear that neither one of us could remember whose turn it was to pay, we began writing that down, too.  We alternate among four restaurants.  I always enjoy our conversations, even though discussion of the present Administration is now best skirted for the sake of comity. There are plenty of other things to talk about.  I always learn something from our lunches.  I always feel proud walking beside this strikingly handsome man, moving at our shared slow pace along the crowded sidewalks of Harvard Square.

I am a father who has not yet earned his cane. My two daughters live in Cambridge and fill me with pride at the accelerating pace and originality of their lives.  I am a grandfather, too, amazed to enter a four-year-old boy’s world from carpet level, remembering dimly the joy of making up new worlds each hour, with the help of stuffed animals and trucks.

To all the fathers in the house: Profound thanks.

I can’t stand to look at images of oil-smothered birds and beaches soiled by black blobs. They make me nauseous, as does the media’s recent focus on whether the President is emoting enough.  I can’t even imagine the pressure building every hour and day on executives of BP, Obama’s team, and the people of the Gulf.  I pray for the unsung BP heroes working round the clock to stop the leak.  Maybe we’ll get some good news this week about an idea that will stop the oil flow before August, when the relief wells are completed.

Meanwhile, what can we do?

Go green, is what occurs to me on a green-gray morning in Cambridge.  Buy bicycles. Walk more. Turn off the air conditioning unless the heat gets crazy.  Turn down the heat.  Till now, I will confess that I have been mainly a talk-the-talk environmentalist.  This mess makes me hard-core.  The BP spill marks the end of my personal complacency, because every single small green act is a way of doing something in the face of excruciating tragedy.  If the images and facts of this calamity are not enough to turn the consciousness of the nation toward sustainable growth, then we are simply doomed.

I don’t claim a rational link to my next intention, but I also plan to start eating more green stuff.  As I approach 60 this summer, I know I need to reboot my eating and exercise.  Most of what I love to eat is not green.  Donuts, cookies, toast with honey, hard salami, Ritz crackers, Jarlsberg cheese, chili, root beer — those are some of my favorite foods, balanced by the occasional virtuous dinner of fish.  I’ve heard you can establish a habit by doing it for 30 days in a row, so I’m going to eat something green every day for the next 30 days.  Bring on the lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and asparagus.  On our next trip to Whole Foods, I’m going to simply buy anything green, including green tea.

I’m going to look for the green in every scene, like the one outside my window this morning.  That’s an oak tree closest to me, and beyond it glow the rich green grass of the park and the muted green of the famous Sycamore trees that line Memorial Drive along the Charles River.  I also notice my green-covered One Laptop Per Child computer, which I use in tandem with the one I gave my grandson.  The text messages I send on my iPhone appear on a green background.  The top index card on my hipster PDA is green. The traffic light in the intersection outside my window just turned green.  It’s time.

Green doesn’t get mad. Green grows toward the sun. Green loves the rain. Dave Brubeck is green, or at least that’s how a Pandora mix based on his music sounds this morning.  My birthday on August 30 will have a green theme–I’m not sure how, but something will occur to me.  Real green has to start somewhere.  Why not today?



I’m on a Southwest flight, half way from Boston to Denver. In my “Life Is Good” cloth bag, I’m toting a Kindle 6-inch and the iPad on which I’m drafting this post in the Pages app.  I told Bryan Person last month that if I had to choose between the iPad and the Kindle for a long flight, I’d take the iPad. That’s still probably true, but the Kindle has been coming back up in my world lately, to the point where I would probably now reply, “Why do I have to choose?”

If I had checked my Kindle along with my laptops in the suitcase, I would have missed a great read that occupied me for the first hour of the flight. At a Logan Airport newsstand, I saw that James Fallows has the cover story in the current issue of The Atlantic, titled “How to Save the News.” I pulled out the Kindle and bought the issue wirelessly for $1.49. It’s a fascinating piece, in which Fallows explores Google’s quiet but significant initiatives to help print news publications break through to the Promised Land of renewed ad strength for digital content. I read the article slowly enough to think about it as I was taking it in.  I find that my Kindle is the perfect way to follow a complex article, because I see fewer words at a time than is the case with print on paper.  The Kindle made getting the article (and paying The Atlantic something for Jim’s good work) almost as easy as simply thinking about doing so.

As for the iPad, it’s the perfect magical tool for a tray table in coach. My Apple iPad case lifts the top of the screen to a comfortable angle for typing and grips the tray, so there is no sliding around. In addition to writing this post, I’ve done some MindNode brainstorming for a Western States Arts Federation tech presentation I will give in St. Louis in September, and I read some from my Financial Times iPad app, which has a smart and simple way to download the latest content for off-line reading.  I haven’t had time to play Plants vs. Zombies or listen to the any podcasts.

So I agree with Mike Elgan, who says there are good reasons for using an iPad and a Kindle. BTW, if you haven’t seen it yet, click here for Mike’s brilliant comparison chart for an iPad, a Kindle — and a Rock. It was great to talk with him for Kindle Chronicles #97 last week.

There are about 10 laptop computers on this flight, one Kindle, one iPad (mine) and lots of print books and magazines.

Life is good, and the news is worth saving.

[Delayed upload, after getting home in Denver.]

As we settle in for our seasonal relocation to Cambridge, Mass., I’m thinking of how many great things have come into my life over the past few months because of the Internet.  I’m taking as my text for this rumination a book published this year by my friend Steve Garfield, Get Seen: Video Secrets to Building Your Business (Click here for Kindle edition.)

Steve’s book is about how to get seen using video, which he knows something about, since he was one of the first bloggers to figure out how to put video on a blog.  He created Steve Garfield’s Video Blog on January 1, 2004.  I’m thinking about video this morning, but more broadly, I’m thinking about the joy of risking any kind of exposure using the powerful tools of the Internet.

Here is a sample of what’s happened in my own life lately because of getting seen:

1. Yesterday, for the first time, I met in person a listener of The Kindle Chronicles who in a Facebook comment offered to help with a project I’d started to provide Kindles to active-duty soldiers in Afghanistan.  Ken Clark and I visited for a couple of hours here at the house, planning next steps for E-Books for Troops, and sharing some more of our stories.  With his help as co-founder, my initial idea has already reached an entirely new level, with our filing yesterday to create a non-profit organization, and I’ve met someone with a keen interest in things I care about, from EB4T to all things Apple, to the joys of family and reading.

2. Before Ken arrived yesterday, I met here for two hours with Adam Weiss, a brilliant podcasting consultant whom I met at Boston Media Makers, an event created and hosted every single first Sunday of the month by Steve Garfield.  Adam has helped me create show notes pages for my two podcasts, and yesterday he took me deep into the bowels of GarageBand to tweak the audio quality of the shows.

3. Podcasting about the Kindle and e-books has been fun, but the best part has been meeting listeners and fellow pioneers in the Kindlesphere.  My current posse includes Stephen Windwalker, Andrys Basten, Bufo Calvin, and Abhi.

4. The Reading Edge Facebook page is like a club I created in a tree house, where there is always someone hanging out that I want to visit with.

You get the idea.  I had friends and a life before the Internet, but in the past few months (and years) the connections I’ve made go way beyond what I could have imagined in normal hours.  I’m also pretty much of an introvert, which makes the Internet a comfortable way to begin getting seen.  You sit in a room with your laptop or iPhone or iPad and you type stuff, or upload video, photos, or audio.  You are alone at the same time you are connecting.  Perfect.  And if you keep it up, sooner or later the virtual images of people will lead you to being in their actual presence, at a PodCamp or your own living room.  You will be amazed at how your life can unfold.

It’s IT takes getting seen to really see what’s out there. There’s genius in it, and many possibilities to make a difference.

I arrived at the Cherry Creek Mall garage this morning at 4:30, which was early enough to put me first in the line of those who had reserved iPods at the Apple Store. The blue-shirted team was pumped up and gave me a royal-geek welcome as James guided me through the simple purchase of a 16GB iPad WiFi only. I still don’t really know what hit me, or what I will do with this thing. It’s gorgeous, heavier than I expected, lousy to read in sunlight, and gorgeous. Even though it mimics the iPhone user interface closely, it still feels strange, which is part of the appeal to me. I love learning something entirely new. This qualifies.