As far as cost goes, it actually costs me out of pocket not that much. I had a gift card from my employer that covered the vast majority of the purchase. How I had the will power to not spend it to now? Even that amazes me.

The light went off in my head after the iPad was announced on exactly the type of scenario where I would use the iPad heavily. Every day when I come home from work, I usually sit down on the couch and catch up on any RSS feed reading I hadn’t done during the day, catching up on Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Right now I either use my iPhone or I grab my laptop. With an iPhone, it is much more suited for quick tasks not for a hour of reading and surfing the Internet. The laptop however is overkill for this task: short battery life, very little need for a keyboard in most cases, hard for me to be comfortable using it. I also typically only do one or two tasks at a time during this time period anyways, barely multitasking.

I held a book roughly the dimensions of an iPad to see how it may be for these types of situations. Was I comfortable? Could I easily do the touch motions that I can do on an iPhone? It truly seemed perfect.

Speaking of books, another reason for this is I really want to do heavy reading again. One of my big skills is how fast I can read, I have been known to finish 400-500 page books easily in one day. Buying books results in lots of clutter in our small place. I also will be doing some traveling for work reasons this year, so I want a device I can easily carry with some books for these trips. Consolidating these books onto one small device sounds perfect to me. I could also see an argument for not bringing my laptop along on some trips. Depends on where I am going, but it is certainly a possibility.

Finally, obviously I have 100% confidence in the UI. Apple almost never messes up the UI, especially lately. Their development tools do a great job at getting 3rd-party developers to follow along with their UI design. I am exited to see what applications are created for the iPad. I can’t wait for example to see what someone pulls off with a genealogy application. That could be stellar for research purposes.

I am really looking forward to April 3rd. Hopefully it goes as I think it will!

This time around, I am going with the numbers approach for debt reduction and seeing how this works mentally.

As much as I want to get rid of the Sallie Mae student loan, it has a really small payment ($105 a month) and by far the lowest interest rate of all of my loans (3.25%). While it is a variable interest rate, it doesn’t look like interest rates are going to raise much if at all for the next year given the economy. Plus the interest on this loan is tax deductible.

I’m going to go with paying off the Hyundai Elantra car loan. It is a huge loan payment to begin with ($317 a month) and I am paying a lot of interest on it right now given it is only 7 months old (with 4.5 years left on it). I can just about double the payment, which should cause the loan balance to drop significantly. Combined with potential big extra payments throughout the year on-top of this doubled loan payment, this seems the right way to go. In the end, I save a ton of interest with this method and the psychological benefit of having no car payments? Priceless!

After that car loan is gone, my wife and I will just have our student loans and mortgage to pay off. Then we can really go ballistic paying those loans off without worrying about car payments.

The question is, what is next?

After some careful deliberation, I have narrowed it down to three possible options:

• Pay off one of my student loans (this one is a private loan with Sallie Mae). This loan has the smallest balance of either my wife or I”s loans and would probably take about a year to pay off if all goes right. It currently has the lowest interest rate (3.25%) of any of our loans, but it is also a variable interest rate that has gone as high as 8.5% in the past. Plus there is always the benefit of getting Sallie Mae out of my life.
• Pay off the other car loan for the new car (2009 Hyundai Elantra SE). This would probably take near 1.5 or 2 years to do, but has a higher interest rate (5.5%) and the loan is only 7 months old. This means right now I am paying a lot of interest on the loan and paying now could save significant money down the line. Plus the huge benefit of not having any car payments and this would net a significant boost to the next debt snowball.
• Take the money we would put towards payments and have it go to a savings account. Given the economy, it never hurts to have some money stashed away. If the account balance gets larger then one of the loan’s balances, I can always due one big payment and close out the loan. If an emergency comes up, then we have money readily available.

Tough choice. Still thinking it through.

Talking to her after so many years was great, as we caught up on everything. Sadly, one of those items was finding out that my boss at that first internship who she later became engaged to had passed away 3 years ago.

It was a shocking thing to find out, I had lost contact with him after my internship and never heard about him passing away. I remember trying several times to get in contact with him after my internship ended, but unfortunately sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. either didn’t exist or were not widely used back then, so those attempts never panned out.

I remember once he joked to me that someday he will be working for me, as he seemed to be very impressed with my skills for a then 18-year-old Help Desk intern for a local bank. He taught me so much about my field, whether it was fixing computers, to setting up networks, to dealing with internal customers. He also indirectly lead to my final internship and first job offer, as the company he worked for after the bank ended up hiring me as well right out of college. One reason I had applied was that he had worked there at one point, so I knew they must be good.

This person I talked to today told me how fond of me he was and repeated that “someday he will work for me” joke. It brought a tear to my eye and a smile as well. Without him and her taking a chance on me, I don’t know if I would be where I am today in this big scary world. I owe him for how my career has turned out.

Thank you John. I will always remember you. Someday maybe I will get a chance to manage you.

In the morning before I go to work or in the evening when I am relaxing, there is very few times where I do a lot of typing. During these times, my predominate use of my Macbook is for browsing the web, reading Google Reader, checking Facebook & Twitter, and checking my e-mail. Most of my e-mail replies are a couple sentences long at most.

Some times I do this on my iPhone, which works well at these tasks. For me, the iPhone is great for a quick run through of that list above, but not good if I spend more than 10-15 minutes doing this. The iPhone’s battery drains fast, the screen is too small to do a ton of reading, there is a loss of flexibility many of the dedicated apps for these purposes not having all the functionality I may need.

When I do it on my Macbook, I gain the most functionality, but I lose the simplicity and efficiency of the iPhone approach. I get a bigger screen, the ability to type incredibly fast with keyboard shortcuts, better battery life, the ability to run many applications at the same time. There is a price for this though. I easily get distracted with many applications running at the same time. The applications can be incredibly complex, buggy, and unwieldy at times, some with code bases that date back 20 years or more. I would argue that laptops themselves are bulky (even the traditionally very thin Apple laptops) and can have heat issues that can make using one uncomfortable.

How do I see the iPad solving these issues? By taking the best of both approaches.

The iPad gets the bigger screen but still extremely portable, as thin as many books or a new notepad. I can just hold it with my hands, not resting it on my lap. I gain the huge speed and simplicity benefits of an iPhone like touchscreen interface, yet with the bigger screen the applications can be more complex if needed like their laptop cousins. There isn’t the heat issues, the battery is far better than any laptop (10 hours),  a faster processor than phones that doesn’t have to worry about handling the complex desktop Operating Systems like laptops. There is even accessories so I can do camera imports and manage them on the device.

For those morning and evening browsing sessions that I do nearly every day, the iPad would be perfectly suited for them. Of course there will be tasks that my laptop with a full desktop OS would be better suited for. As beautiful as the new iWork apps are for the iPad, I wouldn’t want to work on a complex spreadsheet on it from scratch. I wouldn’t write this long blog post on an iPad (unless I used the keyboard accessory…hmm). Managing my music and video collections will still need that computer, as they would have a tough time fitting on even a 64GB iPad. Plus I don’t even know if an iPad can sync its library with an iPhone yet.

That is not even getting into the added benefits the iPad gives to common people, like:

• Security: there hasn’t been one virus or high-profile security breach for iPhones (excluding jailbroken ones). This is despite the iPhone being an obvious target for hackers given its dominance.
• App Store: one stop shop to finding applications, applications get updates easily, and reviews to know the apps are good or not.
• No multitasking: What? A feature? For those who get easily confused about multiple apps running, sucking CPU and battery life, this is a feature. It took months for one family member of mine to realize that they should quit applications instead of just closing their windows and leaving them running. My grandparents have a hard time keeping track of one application, never mind 5. Keep it simple. In the end, I bet limited multitasking will be introduced, but not until Apple gets it right.
• Flexibility: Apps make this device work far longer than any computer would normally last. Those special digital photo frames you can buy? Get an iPad, dock, and it doubles as one when you aren’t using it. Plus higher quality display and more storage.

I predict that the iPad will become the computer of the future for the common people, while being a valuable companion for geeks who really do not need to use a full desktop computer every time they need their Internet fix. I know I will be in line for one, my mother is also wanting one too.

iPhone OS 3.2 released

Not sure what exactly would be in this update to tell the truth. The iPhone really needs a a revamped notification system. Perhaps with the introduction of the tablet maybe Apple will include an e-book app that automatically syncs with your e-book purchases, like the Kindle iPhone app does for Kindle Store purchases? Only obvious improvement to me worthy of a minor version increase, although I am sure there will be a bunch of small improvements they will throw in.

iLife & iWork ‘10 released

Apple seems to do iLife & iWork releases every year or two in January, so this could be one of those years. The big obvious upgrade we have been waiting for is 64-bit support. It would be interesting if they actually made iWork.com useful (meaning editing files too) outside of viewing files you put up there.

Additional U.S. Carrier(s) for the iPhone (at least T-Mobile in the next few months, Verizon in summer)

Rumors have been going around crazy that AT&T exclusive contract for the iPhone ends in 2010. Some rumors say it even ends tomorrow (1/27/2010). Given that the iPhone is currently only GSM 3G, I think the most obvious new carrier is T-Mobile if any new carriers are announced tomorrow. A long shot is an announcement about Verizon getting the iPhone in the summer, but I don’t think that will be announced this far in advance.

The Apple Tablet (I love the name Apple Canvas, but I am guessing they will go with iPad or iSlate)

• 10 inch “Tablet” device running a new version (4.0?) of the iPhone OS announced, for sale in March.
• OLED Screen, incredibly thin
• Wireless-N connection built-in
• 3G Wireless that can be used either by subscription or content purchases will include the bandwidth costs. That way impulse book, movie, tv, and song purchases can be made anywhere, subscription or not.
• Fully functional communication device (e-mail, web browser, apps, etc).
• Built-in multitasking (iPhone OS 4.0 in action)
• Tons of e-books, movies/TV content, music, etc.
• Wireless syncing thanks to Wireless-N, no ports outside of power port, includes MobileMe subscription

Only way to find out: watch tomorrow!

Edit: Expanded on my original predictions.

You can also donate by going to the Support Disaster Relief in Haiti page ran by Google. You can also go the Red Cross web site to donate.

Financial Goal #1 – Pay off Subaru Forester loan

With my next payment halfway through this month, the Subaru Forester loan will drop below $2,000. Being this close to paying it off, I really want to get this done. Thanks to some job related money coming in sometime in January and my tax return that usually comes in mid-February since I file my taxes as soon as I get the relevant paperwork, I think there is a very good chance I could have it paid off by March. Maybe even sooner.

With that, $225 a month becomes available and is a significant victory in my budget.

Financial Goal #2 – Look into credit unions

Within short walking distance of my work, there is a credit union branch that I am going to look into. Not only are credit unions well-known for their customer service and great rates, but this one also has an awesome feature of letting me scan checks and depositing them online. Combined with many ATM’s in gas stations and stores being free and it is very tempting to switch from Bank of America to them. I am also going to see if there is any chance of refinancing my new car loan with them.

Financial Goal #3 – Saving for a new house

With the Subaru Forester loan being paid off in the next 3-4 months, I plan on doing a debt snowball into a savings account with the idea of selling our condo towards the end of 2010 and moving into a house. We are ready to own a house. Given that houses will probably not be any cheaper than they are now, this is a good time to take advantage of the market.

Financial Goal #4 – Double the emergency fund

Even though the economy is slowly showing signs of turning around, it is clear that we need a better emergency fund as we now have a bare minimum $1000 tucked away. I would like to at least double my current emergency fund, just to give us a little more cushion to work from.

I never use my MySpace account. I think the last time someone posted on in was months ago. I log in once every few months, usually out of boredom.

Yet there is one big reason I am holding back. My dear cousin Jennifer who passed away almost two years ago has her MySpace page. Back when she passed away, her MySpace page provided viable insight on what was sadly happening with her as her life spiraled out control, thanks to her blog posts and comments. It has since became a memorial for her, frozen in time except for a comments feed that family and friends post on from time to time. It certainly has helped me cope with her loss, as I can “write to her” when I need to.

Deleting my MySpace account will still give me access to her page, but I will no longer be able to post on it.

I still need to think this through more. I won’t cancel my MySpace account for now.