"I don't work for money, I work for you."

Yesterday morning I, and a few of my good friends, Commenced from Rhode Island College.  This is all very good and wonderful but one of the more interesting, as the commencement ceremony most certainly was not, points of the day was receiving of my graduation/birthday gift.  It was an iPad 2.

Now, I should preface by saying that I and my family are a little weird about our mechanical and/or electronic paraphernalia (this includes cars, as well as phones and computers and such) in that we tend to give them names and treat them as if they have sorts of personalities.  I've had friends and significant others who find this practice somewhat odd, but I'm pretty sure that most people are passively guilty of this activity (tell me you've never sworn at your computer as if there was any chance that it could understand you).

So we name our computers, etc, and more often than not those names have some sort of meaning attached.  So when I opened up consideration for the iPad's name to my family, the name Jane was offered up almost immediately and just as immediately accepted.  'Why' requires some explanation.

My family and I are fans of a novel called Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card, and all that follow it in the series.  In the book's reality, computers are pretty much all flat, touch screen tablets and table faces and are called "desks".  So when I first heard about what the iPad was, I thought to myself that here was the frontrunner of desk technology.

Within the Ender series there is a character named Jane who I cannot describe further without spoiling the story.  Just know that the name is appropriate.

Jane has proved to be an auspicious gift given what I will be doing for the majority of the summer (teaching Game Design for the iPhone and iPad as is further detailed in a previous post).

So for the past couple of hours Jane and I have been getting to know one another and I've downloaded a bunch of potentially useful (and free) apps to play with.  I may periodically mention them here if I find some really neat ones.

One of the things that has me most smitten with the iPad as a useful device is how absolutely natural it is to type on one.  This entire post, for example, was composed in the simple notepad app that comes standard with the machine from my living room couch, from the middle seat of the car as we drove to and from seeing the new Thor movie, and from the movie theater itself.

So.  New toy, new tool, new prospects, new things to learn, and yet another platform on which I can test my budding ePublishing skills.  There is surely more to follow :)

Also, if you were wondering where the title came from, it' a quote from First Meetings.