{"id":846,"date":"2010-06-15T12:55:03","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T16:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/?p=846"},"modified":"2010-06-15T12:55:03","modified_gmt":"2010-06-15T16:55:03","slug":"a-writers-new-tooltoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/15\/a-writers-new-tooltoy\/","title":{"rendered":"A writer’s new tool\/toy"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I first heard about the iPad, like many people I scoffed and thought, What’s the point? It’s just a big iPod.<\/i> Then I got to play with Debbie Ohi’s<\/a> at a Toronto Kids Lit meet-up, and I was hooked. In this case, big makes a, well, big difference. It’s a lot easier to type on and read off, just for starters. I immediately saw all sorts of possibilities, and as soon as they went on sale in Canada, I went out and picked one up:<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

I haven’t been able to use it to its full potential yet, as I was too cautious to let it leave the house until the screen protector I ordered arrived (yesterday), and I’m still nervous about the idea of taking it out places like the public transit. That said…<\/p>\n

What I’m already doing with it:<\/b><\/p>\n

–Staying organized<\/b>. I was using an online calendar for reminders of major responsibilities, but I still ended up scribbling out little to-do lists for the day or week to keep track of smaller goals. Now I have both integrated into one app. My desk looks much less messy than it used to! (Which means it has gone from horrendously messy to very messy.)<\/p>\n

–Taking notes<\/b>. I brainstorm best in handwriting, and I’ve found an app that lets me scribble down notes (I use a stylus) and organize the pages so that I can group all the notes for any given idea together… instead of having to search through as many as five different notebooks for them, like I have in the past. I’ve also used the basic Notes app for little things like making up a list with my husband to try to figure out what we’d want to do for the house next.<\/p>\n

–Reading<\/b>. I haven’t yet tried to read a book on the iPad (too many print ones waiting for my attention here), but I have been enjoying newspapers, news feeds, and magazines, all of which I’m finding far easier to read on the pad than on my desktop computer’s screen. <\/p>\n

–Music<\/b>. Since I didn’t already have an iPod, or any other sort of mp3 player, I can now carry my music around with me and listen to it wherever I want.<\/p>\n

What I’m looking forward to doing with it:<\/b><\/p>\n

–Checking e-mail and surfing the web on the go<\/b>. There’s wifi everywhere, and if I decide I really need it I can get a 3G plan. I can see this being *really* useful when traveling in particular.<\/p>\n

–Word processing on the go<\/b>. If I want to work on a story when I’m out of the house, the iPad is far lighter than my laptop. And I’m hoping it’ll also be a good alternative for reading manuscripts I’m critiquing–until now I’ve always printed them off because I hate reading off the desktop’s screen so much, but that’s been a lot of paper and ink.<\/p>\n

–Networking on the go<\/b>. I’ve got apps for updating my blog and logging into Twitter.<\/p>\n

–Figuring out where the heck I am<\/b>. I’m going to be driving up to the cottage for my critique group’s annual writing retreat this year, for example, and now I’ll have GPS to keep me on track.<\/p>\n

And that, I’m sure, is just the beginning. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Anyone else picked up an iPad yet? What have you been using it for? Got any other tech that you love?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first heard about the iPad, like many people I scoffed and thought, What’s the point? It’s just a big iPod. Then I got to play with Debbie Ohi’s at a Toronto Kids Lit meet-up, and I was hooked. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":848,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846\/revisions\/848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megancrewe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}