As you might have guessed I’m doing a trip through various parts of the US and I’ve left my computer at home to try and save weight also to try and give myself a bit of a break. It’s really hard to turn off completely so I’m grateful to be able to bring my iPad with me. I was concerned about the cover I bought when I won this lovely machine as it hasn’t held up and the stand bends making it challenging to use. I was extremely grateful to the people at The Snugg when they offered me one of their covers to try out. I promptly swapped covers and have been using it for the last couple of weeks.

It’s a good little device and I can see it should last longer than my first one, don’t get me wrong it did last about 18 months but The Snugg is better and I can see it lasting longer. The one I’ve got is one of their leather ones (I really need to get the word ‘one’ into this sentence a few more times) and looks more classy than my old one. I’ve been very excited to have used it. There are a couple of little problems, partly as you need to be very careful doing up the Velcro when you put the machine in The Snugg or you can’t access the ports easily.

It has a nice little place at the back where you’re able to slip your hand in so you use it as a hand held device and take notes while walking around without letting your iPad fall. Lovely idea but not for me as I need to wear my reading glasses to write/type and I don’t feel reading glasses are suitable for walking around in. The hand does really comfy and it also feels quite stable.

I found a new use for it while I’ve been attending this conference, it’s not ideal but it works for me. I have challenges taking notes while looking at the front of the hall/whiteboard/PowerPoint presentation or whatever, it really sucks having to change glasses every few words and it means I miss half of the presentation. I gave up and started scribbling my notes in a notebook using my distance glasses, the writing is shocking as I can’t read it while I’m writing it but it’s better than nothing. I’ve discovered if I rest my notebook on my iPad (in its cover) then I get a much better surface than without and my notes are that much more legible. I get the feeling I’d have far fewer problems with younger eyes that adjusted themselves better.

I have so much to say about the trip but I’m struggling with technology so it might wait until our return. Just as an example it took me three attempts to get the iPad to accept wait, it tried to put in hesitate and gripe before paying attention and getting it right. Also, the first sentence in this paragraph took me a couple of minutes as it wouldn’t recognise my typing and every time something went wrong it would put the cursor early in this article rather than where I had been typing. Not too mention getting the links into the article.  Arrrrrrgh!