With all the high-prices iPad holders out there, it’s nice that there’s a $2 version available.


OK, it’s a business card holder from OfficeMax, but it works great for holding the iPad horizontally, and two of them inverted against each other holds the iPad vertically too.
If you order through the OfficeMax.com site, it’s Buy 1, Get 1 at 50% off, so you can buy two for $3. I have half-a-dozen scattered around my office and home. (I prefer the silver, if you can find it.)
Speaking of Matias, they have one of the best keyboards I’ve ever used, the TactilePro. If you like the old-style clackity-clack, like the Apple Extended Keyboard from  years back. It’s so good, it’s currently sold out, even at $150.
MacWorld reviewed it, and gave it 4.5 of 5 stars
Matias promises availability in May.
Although this is for laptops, it might be perfect for holding an iPad. I expect these guys will have a dedicated iPad version soon though.
This iPad slipcase might be just what I'm looking for: top-loading, minimal additional size and weight and decent price ($30).
Interesting exercise: publish an entire magazine about working remotely by working remotely. One potential downside: 

> “I was way more productive, but way less happy…, I think one of the reasons people get into magazines is that it’s collaborative.”

I think my department (and many others) should do a similar experiment for a week or two.
If you're going to eat pork, might as well go whole hog.
This stand is the first I've seen that I want to buy. It looks beautiful and functional without being overly engineered.
The Nielsen Co. reported recently that people spend 3 1/2 hours a month watching TV and using the Internet simultaneously

That's all? I do that much time every night. Wait, should I be proud of that?
Road trips.
Call me when I can drive to Disneyland from San Francisco with nothing more than 10 minutes to top off. Current and planned pure electric cars get maybe 200-250 miles on a charge, and take upwards of three hours to fully charge. Even super-powered chargers you might find at a filling station are planning 30 minute charges.
Hybrids or range extended vehicles which use a gas tank solve this problem, but for many of them (e.g. the Chevy Volt), you’re going to get 40 miles on the battery and 300 miles on the gas tank, which kind of defeats the point.
They’re great for the commuter who drives 15 or 20 miles round trip a day, and can plug in on either end of that commute, and I wouldn’t mind having a Tesla roadster (only $101,500!), but I don’t see the current crop of cars competing for my cash just yet.
Malbec is a newly discovered grape, for me. It’s only in the last year or so that I’ve learned about it, and it’s rapidly becoming one of my favorites. It’s become a popular wine in Argentina, and is growing in popularity in California. In the 2008 Zolo, it’s a medium-bodied taste, which I think it would lay down well, as it has some some solid structure behind it, though the tannins are not at all overwhelming.
Like many Malbecs, this wine has an inky darkness to it, a deep, deep purple on the edges, almost black as it pools, with a strong plummy or jammy taste. It is the perfect companion to many meals, including tonight’s, my first use of my new Big Green Egg.
I haven’t spoken of my Big Green Egg yet, as it’s only a couple of weeks old, and, other than a test-firing to make sure it “works”, I hadn’t used it before tonight. What is the Big Green Egg? In few words, it’s a ceramic outdoor griller and smoker, shaped, yes, like a big, green egg. I bought it for an absurd amount of money after a few friends swore how good it was. I’d been wanting to buy a new grill to replace my crappy $40 metal bowl, and I’m not a big fan of gas cooking.
(The Egg has a “following” that seems as “cultish” as that of Mac users. No surprise, then, that I’m drawn to it. I’ll have unboxing and set-up pix shortly.)
Tonight, as I pondered dinner, and despite the fact that I went to Forbes Grill Steakhouse on Saturday and I’m going to 5A5 next Saturday, I felt the need to fire up The Egg and sizzle some steak on it.
The economy has done some bad things to a lot of people, but one of the good things its done is made good steak cheap. How cheap? How about Prime grade New York and Ribeye steak for under $10 a pound? Thanks to Costco, I was able to stock up on three or four pounds of each, for less than the cost of one 12 oz. cut of each at a high-end steakhouse.
Tonight I fired up The Egg, and in 20 minutes it was at a roaring 600 degrees. Whew! I sprinkled a New York steak with some kosher salt and fresh ground pepper on both sides, and let it sit while The Egg came up to temperature. Then three minutes on each side with the flames caressing it, and then a couple of minutes “baking” with the fire dialed down, and it came out slightly north of “medium” on the edges.
The uncut steak shown here isn’t slathered with sauce; that color comes from The BGE, which produced a fantastic crust, while remaining moist and juicy. The steak was chewy without being leathery, and despite my initial fear that it had been overcooked and ruined, it was only slightly above temperature.
(Next time, I’ll limit it to two minutes on each side, and two minutes “baking”, so it’s pinker. I know, for a steak lover, I still don’t like it to far below medium. Better than a decade ago when I wasted a good cut at “well done”. Shudder.)
The 2008 Zolo Malbec was in fact the perfect companion to the New York steak. It neither overwhelmed it, as a Zinfandel might, nor succumbed to it, like a wonderfully subtle Pinot Noir might do.
In all, it was a enjoyable meal, and I’m looking forward to more pairings of Big Green Egg and my wine collection.