It’s become my first stop for portable gaming.  I have no need to pick up my Nintendo DS, PSP or even my iPhone.  The large screen is ideal for casual games and the iPad follows me around to spots when I want an entertaining distraction; meals, commercial breaks, even the bathroom.  ;)  I can fire up a quick game of golf or play through a few rounds of Tower defense over 10 minute bursts in my day.  The library of games is enormous and frankly makes the handheld platforms from Nintendo and Sony look weak.

The iPad has become the device I use to show people information or video on the web.  I can whip out my iPad, search for the video I want and have it load up for playback faster than it takes to boot up my laptop from a cold start.  It’s also much simpler to transport the iPad around the house than my 15″ laptop.  In fact, when paired with a keyboard, it’s very difficult to see the use in lugging my laptop around if all I need it for is word processing or web surfing.

It’s modified my organizational methods, specifically due to Things.  I’m really not that big on to-do lists, mostly because I can remember the tasks and priority levels I’ve assigned them in my head.  What it’s really assisted me on is keeping track of when something has been completed and branching out a giant project into several different tasks (ideal for work projects).  For something I need to remember for home, I typically use Penultimate, a fantastic writing app that uses your finger for quick notes.

It’s changed when I consume entertainment, such as movies and television shows.  I don’t feel compelled to fire up the DVR to record a TV show when I can watch it the next day through an network app or Netflix.   I can connect to my laptop through VNC to watch Hulu if needed as well.  There’s really no reason for me to be at the television at a certain time to catch a movie or show.

Overall, the iPad has improved how I spend my day, both when directly interacting with the web and increasing my productivity.  I may give it the trade show test at E3 this year (if I attend) and see how well it holds up as a mobile reporting tool.

Fav4 (link)

The concept of this website couldn’t be simpler (and likely borrows a page from the bottom menu on the iPhone).  The site allows you to choose 4 websites and displays them in the form of large icons.  It’s ideal for a starting home page.  My only caveat is that it doesn’t accept custom icons for any other site.  But it has an excellent selection of social sharing sites to choose from.

Popurls (link)

There are plenty of link aggregators on the web, but this is one of my favorites.  It combines all the popular social voting sites on the web and lists the trending news for the day at the top of the page.  It has a variety of customization options and  follows a variety of unique voices on the web.

Lifehacker   (link)

This blog contains a variety of posts to make your life a bit simpler.  Everything from web tools to financial tips to household design ideas are posted on the site.  It’s a wide mix, but ideally posted to spark time saving ideas in your own daily habits.

TeuxDeux   (link)

I have far too much to do; mostly at work, but also at home.   I’ve hated the majority of the to-do lists apps that I’ve seen, but TeuxDeux is fantastic in its minimalism.   The tasks move from day to day, if you forget to complete them.  It’s been very helpful in remembering little jobs over the past couple of weeks.

I use several different tools to manage multiple Twitter accounts including Digsby and TwitterFox.  I’d love to get my hands on the beta of CoTweet to organize all the companies Twitter accounts, but no response from them yet.

When it comes to a workplace Twitter account,  I’ve tested a few different approaches.  With a couple consumer electronic sites, I use a low-key, targeted follower approach.  I only add people that appear to be interested in what I’m tweeting about.  For instance, I’ll use a program like Tweetdeck to run a search (continually updated during the day) for specific keywords related to the site.  I’ll add those users periodically and unfollow anyone who didn’t return the favor within a week.

This approach definitely doesn’t grow an account quickly, but the quality of the Twitter followers is fantastic.  It’s also easily to keep up with replies and direct messages in regards to followers of the site.  Personally, I have to keep up with a variety of PR people in regards to equipment reviews and this approach is quite superior to other methods in regards to managing communication.

I’ve also tried manufacturing popularity in order to boost the Twitter account.  For instance, by adding users that were guaranteed to follow me back, the account appears to be more popular than it actually is.  This provides two benefits:

1. The Twitter account will be pushed to the top of any directory listing. Nearly all Twitter directories, including the popular WeFollow, use total twitter followers when ranking accounts.  If your site has the most followers, the site ranks at the top within the category.  Over time, the higher ranking increases quality followers.
2. By appearing popular before announcing a Twitter account, I’ve discovered that people are more likely to follow you.  Very often, I’ve found myself balking at following someone with less than 100 followers due to a lack of popularity.

Unfortunately, manufacturing popularity has a couple major drawbacks.  Those early followers won’t give a darn about your tweets and their endless tweets dilutes tweets / replies from your quality followers.  At some point, I’ll probably use a tool like FlashTweet to mass unfollow the early additions.  The risk of being unfollowed is lessened as the majority of these Twitter “Power users” have at least 5,000 followers and it’s difficult for them to manage all their followers.

Finally, I’ve recently opened up a couple accounts as simple RSS dumps.  I use TwitterFeed to kick out updates of bargains and forum posts to the Twitter account.  It’s really nothing more than an attempt to tie into Twitters budding, real-time search function and drive more traffic to the site via Google.

When managing all the accounts while out of the office, Tweetie for the iPhone is an absolutely dream for 3 bucks.  It’s designed for Twitter power users as you can quickly pop in and out of different accounts. Managing followers, replies, messages, etc. is very simple with Tweetie.

As for my personal account, I often fine myself tweeting about updating Twitter accounts. That and all the wonderful mundane details of my life.  

For instance, I don’t think my co-workers on LinkedIn need to read about parties I attend and post about on Facebook.  To a similar fashion, my Facebookean friends likely don’t care about what I find intriguing about new trends in the online landscape or what I’m diving into at work.

Throw Twitter into the mix and I’m getting bogged down in massive customization of status updates.  I have one personal twitter account and three business related twitter accounts for the sites I handle.  While Facebook friends probably hear much of what I post to my personal Twitter account, I always phrase things differently.  Not due to the size restriction, but rather catered to the people that follow me.  The exchange of ideas is much more of a rapid-fire experience on Twitter than it is on Facebook.

The only use I can see for Ping.fm is a Facebook / Myspace crossover, but Myspace is nothing more than a glorified landing page for me.  I’m down to communicating with 1 person on Myspace and it’s barely worth checking anymore.

Getting back to customizing my status updates for the sake of certain audiences, it’s even more prevalent when I’m punching keys out to type up a new blog post.  I love having my own web address using my name, but it comes at an expense at the amount of truth that I can share in this space.  It’s the potential audience that I have to be concerned about.  It’s personal branding on the very smallest of scales.  It makes me second guess diving into controversial subjects like politics, religion or anything of the like.

So is that necessarily a bad thing?  I’ll let you know when I figure it out.

(BTW, my new goal for this blog is to post once a week.  Be sure to call me out if I don’t deliver!)

• 30 days ago, I was driving from South Carolina to Los Angeles without a full time job.
• 20 days ago, I was on my first interview at a social networking company in Westwood.
• 10 days ago, I was on my third callback interview with a tech company in El Segundo.
• 5 days ago, I had three different job offers in my lap.

Today, I finished my first week at a job I absolutely adore.  My co-workers are fantastic, my boss is extremely savvy, the company culture is awesome and the work is refreshingly challenging.  It’s the type of job that I’ve always wanted, but never been able to find on the East Coast.  So how does one manage to pull this off in an economy supposedly headed for a recession?

There’s one simple rule to always keep in mind before attempting this type of transition.  Stay positive, no matter what happens! Opportunities will always come your way and you will be able to see them with a positive attitude.  Seems like new-age mumbo jumbo, I know.  I never really understood that mantra until recently.

Before moving, research the area you want to live in.  That includes the type of job you are going after, the size of the city you desire, the cost of living, the weather, the nightlife, etc…  Research it for weeks, perhaps months.  Call anyone that you know in the city to get personal opinions about the best areas to live.  Start building a network of friends through Facebook or another social network.  Post questions at the City-Data forums to get ridiculously detailed answers from locals.

Build up a sizable pile of cash before leaving your current part-time or full-time job; 3 to 6 months of living expenses.  If you have a hard time doing that, redefine what it means to sustain yourself.  Can you live on Ramen noodles or Mac & Cheese for a couple months?  Can you live with a couple roommates in a shoddy apartment for a month or two?  Plan out exactly how long your savings can last before you have to take a job that you may dislike.

If you are moving to a city like San Fransisco, Chicago or NYC, ditch the car if you own one.  Public transportation is obviously more efficient.  If you are moving to a city like Los Angeles, Seattle or Miami, you need reliable transportation.  I’m not saying that a bicycle is out of the question, but you really need a car for interviews in large, spread-out cities.  Figure out the logistics of driving the entire way versus flying.  Flying may be faster, but you can take vastly more belongings by driving.  Plus the road trip is a fantastic memory that you will relish forever.

Stock up some technology before you make the trip; a laptop, a smart-phone and a GPS unit specifically.  Turn-by-turn directions from a cheap GPS unit is INVALUABLE in a new city.  A smart-phone, like an iPhone / Blackberry, is going to be very helpful when it comes to keep track of contacts / email.  A laptop is vital for a mobile online job search when you arrive in the city.

If you don’t know anyone personally in the city, hit up Craigslist and start perusing the listings.  Search by the areas of the city that you know to be safer.  Use Walkscore.com to identify the listings with nearby stores.  Look for situations that don’t require a lease signing.  There are plenty of these in the temp housing section of CL.   You could also try marketing yourself as a potential roommate in the Housing Wanted section.  It’s a great way to land leads for roommates that haven’t even listed their place yet.

Be aware that you may have to end up living with a bad roommate for a month or two.  If that person has to find a potential roommate that’s 2,500 miles away, odds are that everyone else has turned them down.  Try to set up multiple appointments to look at places when you arrive.  Target furnished places without a lease.  Odds are that you will want to move after making friends in the city.

Before driving / flying across the country, go dish out the best $20 that you will ever spend and pick up Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters.  You may not use any of the alternative techniques in the book, but it will put you into the mindset of an aggressive job search.  Read it from cover to cover.  Every single iota of advice in that book is utterly brilliant.

So you’ve arrived in the city and need to start looking for a job.  Grab that laptop and hit the streets.  I typically spent a couple hours in the Coffee Bean (local coffee chain) and the rest of the day in a branch of the public library using the free wi-fi.  It’s a perfect place to work diligently in peace and quiet.  Dress for an interview every day of the week.  I was called to a few same-day interviews, some within a couple hours of the call.

As far as my job search went, I only targeted jobs that I knew would interest and challenge me.  I made small alterations in my resume to cater it to the job in question.  I sent detailed cover letters within my email message and included a letter of recommendation with each query.  I probably sent out my resume 30 times over the first two weeks and landed an opening phone interview 15% of the time.  I skipped all the major job sites like Monster and Careerbuilder.  I actually only used Craigslist and local company sites that listed jobs.

Some people hate going on an interview.  I’ve come to relish it.  I’ve been on so many in the past month that I feel like a professional interviewer.  The key to being successful in an interview is asking questions.  That’s it.  That’s the big secret.  Do you still have to be savvy? Yes.  Do you still need to relate your experience to the job in question? Yes.  But asking questions is your chance to shift the balance of power and grill the interviewer.  Don’t wait for them to ask “Well, do you have any questions for me?“.  Just fire away whenever the topic strikes.  Find a question that they can’t answer and they will remember you.  Go to Barnes & Noble and read a book listing interview questions if you can’t come up with anything.

Following up after the interview with a thank you is key.  I’m old school.  I like the hand-written note.  I interviewed with nearly all tech companies.  I’m sure a thank you email through have sufficed, but I’m also of the opinion that my note would stick out over other candidate’s emails.  It’s more personal and certainly more time consuming than tapping a few buttons on the keyboard.  Mail them out within 24 hours of your interview, no exceptions.

Finally, try to stay patient during downtime.  It’s easy to let the mind worry about the future after several interviews.  Offers take time to put together.  Keep plugging away at sending out the resumes and wait for the offers to come in.  If you nailed the interview and followed up with enthusiastic interest, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t the perfect fit based on experience.  When you get an offer from one company, let the other companies considering you know immediately.  It will speed things along in the process.  Be gracious

So that’s pretty much the truncated version of the past 30 days.  Life is good and it’s getting better every day.  Now I just need to take some surfing lessons.

Electronic Arts sells ad space on digital billboards within the game. When gamers hop online to play a little Burnout Revenge on the Xbox 360, they will see advertisements that have been digitally uploaded to the tracks. It’s a relatively new form of advertising and brand new to the campaign front. Pop it in today and you will see an advert for Barack Obama’s campaign.

Putting all political-position squabbling aside, it’s obvious to see that one campaign understands how to incorporate new forms of advertising to reach voters. And I’m not talking about the youth vote that gets tossed in Obama’s corner all the time. The new average age of video gamers is now 35. We are getting older every year and still playing video games. This form of advertising reaches a much wider audience than people think.

Where does that put McCain or the people advising his campaign advertisement spending? Why isn’t his team investing in new forms of media to reach the same demographic? He admitted in an interview last year that he doesn’t use a computer or email. And that’s completely understandable. He’s from a generation that simply didn’t use computers and his war injury precludes him from typing.

Let’s say for a moment that I completely agree with McCain on all issues. (I don’t, nor do I with Obama.) Putting issues like Net Neutrality aside, rapid changes in computer technology already influence an incredible amount of policy decisions. How in the world do I plausibly vote for someone that doesn’t integrate computer technology into his daily life? I use a computer every single day of my life. It’s integral to my job, my livelihood, my social network. It’s the same for millions of Americans. Why shouldn’t we expect the same of the next President of the United States?

I want a President that uses iChat, Skype and Google Talk to stay in touch with Senators and Congressmen. I want a President that’s got world leaders connected via LinkedIn. I want a President that uploads Flickr pictures from the iPhone and posts updates about his / her day on Twitter. I want a President that publishes Youtube videos about what’s going on with policy decisions. I want a President that answers a few topical questions via a weekly podcast that gets fed out to iTunes.

All political positions aside, I want a President that gets it.

The whole movie is nothing more than a conversation that continues for about 90 minutes.  Freeman and Vega play off each other in a very human manner.  There are nice bits of comedy interspersed in the film as well.

- The Google / United Airline debacle was an extremely interesting technology screw-up this week.  Basically a single person accessed an article, around 1:30 A.M. last Sunday, about United declaring bankruptcy in 2002.  Since it’s a low traffic time for accessing news, Google bounced it to the Popular Stories section on the main Google News page.  Bloomburg picked up the story as new and the ensuing financial panic caused shareholders to sell a billion dollars worth of stock.  The price on the stock dropped by 75% in a matter of hours.  Yay computers!

- If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the political opening for SNL this week.  The remainder of the show is complete drivel, but the Sarah Palin / Hillary Clinton skit is absolutely hilarious.  Tina Fey nails Palin’s look, mannerisms and accent.

• I enjoyed the premiere of The Shield’s final season this week.  It was a slow start considering the pacing of the previous episode, but it laid some brilliant groundwork for future story lines.  I’m thinking Shane lives, Ronnie goes off the deep end, Vic and Acevada take down the Mexican cartel in a very bloody fashion and Dutch finally goes to jail for strangling neighborhood cats.

• Finding a new place to live on Craigslist has been disappointing to say the least.  Trying to make a long distance connection with a potential roommate is somewhat dampened by the anonymity of the Internet. Ugh…

• I had some of the worst sushi in my life today.  Japanese marinated mushrooms might sound tasty, but the ones I ate were the consistency of rubber and completely flavorless.  Yelp is going to get a mouthful of unhappy words from me this week.

• True Blood on HBO was an offbeat show.  It reminded me the feeling I got when watching Carnivale for the first time.  The oddball choice of setting in the deep south is strangely interesting.  I doubt it will make it past a couple seasons though.  Entourage was excellent as usual.  Eric looks a bit like a clone of Ari though.

• I’m really crossing my fingers for iPhone’s 2.1 firmware this week.  It’s rumored to be coming out with the new version of iTunes on the 9th.  I’d love to see turn-by-turn GPS implemented, but any other super secret iPhone powers will be welcome.

• My favorite Hulu video of the week: Taco bed!

Of course all I had was my iPhone. The laptop in question was about 578 miles away.

I downloaded the Simplify Media iPhone app a couple days ago for free. (It’s free for the first 100K users and $3.99 afterward.) Install the SM app on your PC / Mac and it uses iTunes, Winamp or just directories to share music. Sync it up with your iPhone and you can listen to your entire music collection without having to transfer it to the iPhone. It streams the music through the net and the quality is superb. You can add up to 30 friends and share your entire music collection online.

It works great on the 3G network or Wi-fi. Don’t bother using it on Edge though. It also downloads album art, lyrics and artist info. One downside is that it takes a really long time to archive huge collections on the computer. If you have more than 5000 songs, go watch a movie while it indexes the music.  Simplify Media is also having some growing pains due to the massive popularity of the iTunes app as well.

I’m also starting to enjoy Stitcher.  It’s a neat app that organizes a ton of podcasts and broadcasts them in a radio format.  I don’t like the little ads at the bottom of the screen though.  It makes the app seem overly sluggish.  I’ll take a few more days with it before sending it to the App graveyard.

I read an interesting article over at ReadWriteWeb yesterday about the release of Moveable Type 4.2.  Very cool information about combining social networks with the blogging platform.   The Action Streams are a self hosted version of Friendfeed or, to a lesser extent, Twitter.  BuddyPress also looks interesting but it’s still in development.

There is a lovely article about Twitter etiquette over at The Morning News.  I totally agree with the first rule.  I’ve been blocking Twitter spammers since the start.  Zero followers is better than 100 spammer followers.

I’m happy with the blog design for now.  I keep tweaking it every day just a little bit, so expect to see small changes.  I’m also looking to add something new to the sidebar, but I’m trying to figure out what I should toss in there.  I’m really digging the minimalistic look right now, but I’m still missing something.

I also completed a quick video preview of Friend Book for the iPhone this afternoon.  It’s not out on the App Store on iTunes yet and it’s certainly worth checking out when it hits the digital streets.  Click the picture to the left or the Youtube link at the top of the page to watch the 3 minute preview.

I’ve been receiving an inordinate amount of Facebook friend requests lately; many from complete strangers.  No matter how many times I passively hit Ignore, they keep firing pleas at me.  Facebook desperately needs to add more options for my possible response.  Speaking of Facebook, the new look absolutely stinks.  It’s slow to load and I have to browse those stupid tabs to read someone’s page.

I’ve been playing around with the Flip Mino for a week now.  The video and sound quality is really excellent for the size of the camera.  It’s about the height of my iPhone, but skinnier in width.  I wish I had the camera when my sister and I filmed our Rock Band session a couple weeks ago.  Unfortunately Mikey and Gerbil broke up after our three day World Tour in Rome, London and Paris.

Shazam: This music app is great for people who are clueless to the names of songs and artists.  It can listen to any song playing on the radio or over a loudspeaker and identify it through the iPhone’s microphone.  You can mark the song for download on iTunes, watch any Youtube related video about it or send a link of the song to your friends.

Box Office: This simple app takes your GPS location and finds all the movies / theaters in the area.  It offers the Rotten Tomato rating for every movie and can be organized by rating or title.  Most importantly, it offers fast access to the showtimes in all the nearby theaters.

NetNewsWire: This is the fastest way to read RSS feeds on the iPhone.  I can rummage through posts on 15 sites when I wake up in about 10 minutes.   Just be careful to keep up with the feeds otherwise there will be a huge number posted on the icon all day.

AOL Radio: Turns the iPhone into a radio with 200 stations of music.  You can bookmark stations and mark songs for download on iTunes later.  The sound quality is extremely good for a web based radio.  Pandora is also pretty good for specific artist preferences.

Tap Tap Revenge: It’s Guitar Hero for the iPhone.  It’s only 3 buttons and four songs, but there are four levels of difficulty and the possibility of downloadable songs in the future.  You can also shake the iPhone to hit the right beats instead of tapping the screen.  Lots of fun and it’s free!

Graffitio: This app uses the GPS to figure out where you are and looks for nearby restaurants, bars, stores, parks, events, etc.  The apps creates persistent online graffiti walls for you to write notes about the business.  You can also read notes from people who have been there before.

• Still up in the air about the 3G iPhone and it’s only a few days away.  It’s going to raise my phone bill another $30 a month.  I really don’t mind that much, but I have plenty of wi-fi access for net browsing.  Maybe I’ll try canceling the 3G data plan after I sign up.  I will get 150 more texts messages though; yet I’ve never broken 40 in an entire month.

• I’ve been looking at apartment sublets in Chicago lately and feel like moving there for a couple months or two.  I picked up a part time gig at Mahalo recently writing guides and it’s fairly lucrative for the amount of “work” I have to put into it.  Anyway, I’m weighing my options while stockpiling money like Scrooge McDuck.  Maybe it would be cool try some sort of urban nomading for a while; limited to cities without the need for a car.

• I’m not going to E3 this year.  I have the press pass ready to go, but flights were ridiculously expensive this year.  It was going to cost me something in the range of $1,200 for airfare, hotel, various expenditures.  Boooooo!

• I totally want a Flip Mino so I can start cranking out some Vlogs.  I played with one at Best Buy and just loved it.  The video quality isn’t HD, but the quality is darn good.  My Canon digital camera shoots average video, but the microphone just plan sucks.  Plus the Mino takes about an hour of video.

• And if my sister is reading this, the answer to your last question is SHIRTS!  I’m completely dependent on your fashion sense and survive from Christmas to late July on whatever clothing items I receive from you.

• Despite my constant workouts, push-ups are my Achilles heel.  That’s why I started up the One Hundred Push-Ups challenge this week.  I just hope my forearms don’t snag like twigs somewhere along the way.

• This one is pure, unadulterated vanity. Check out the Kor One water bottle:
  
  Pretty damn sleek and perfect for those skinny treadmill cup holders.  But more importantly, it’s open / close with one hand.  I want one now.

• I discovered Popurls through Stumbleupon this week.  It’s a web 2.0 type site that collects the rss feeds from popular sites (Digg, Fark, Google news, Youtube, Flikr, etc…) and displays them on a aesthetically pleasing page.  You can move around the order of the sites on the main page or even go with a category layout if you prefer.  Anyway,it’s now my home page in the new super-fast version of Firefox.

• 20 Superfoods to lose body fat and gain muscle; I eat about 13 out of 20 of those on a daily basis and can attest to their success.  I’ll have to pick up some Quinoa tomorrow as well as some fish oil.

• Youtube recommendation for this week: Peep Show.  Not a youtube series at all, but rather a popular British comedy.  It’s about 2 guys living in a flat in London and their successes / failures in their careers / relationships.  Extremely funny and very easy to understand (No thick accents like The Office).