We all have things to do rather than wait for the show to start.

Many people have been record the show they wanted to watch on VHS back in the day, and now they simply record to their hard drive to watch at later time when they feel like it. Where everything are moving so quickly in today society, it’s just hard to set schedule just for television show.

People like choices.

Why flick through multiple channels when they can choose what they want to watch, based on the mood of the day? Viewer can also watch the show multiple time, if they want to.

Pause for the toilet break!

Viewer doesn’t have to hold their bladder until the commercial break so they can rush to the toilet. Who want to miss out the rest of the episode when the fire alarm goes off? On-demand allows viewer to pause and play whenever they like. They can even hit pause on their laptop, and continue watch the show on their iPhone and iPad while travel on the bus, train, or plane. It’s like a digital bookmark.

Easy to share.

When people heard about the show from friends and family and they have missed it, why they have to wait almost a year until the season ended for the show to be releases on DVD or Blu-ray? What happen now is people ended up pirate digital copy of the show that been recorded by other people instead, so they can talk about the show with friends and family the next time they meet. If on-demand version of the show is available to stream from network website, why they have to bother download the show when they can watch it instantly. The link to such show also easy to be sending around through social media platforms, which in turn allows popular show to gain more audience.

Create your own channel.

For yourself, or for friends. Custom channel allow viewer to choose the type and genre of the show they’re interest, so they don’t have to go through the other things they doesn’t even care about.

Shuffle!

When viewer doesn’t know what they want to watch, they can just go for shuffle mode, create random playlist of the show to watch. Just like how the old television work.

TV on-demand is starting to become quite common nowadays, especially in US, with Netflix and Hulu. Many television networks also has their show up on the website for viewer to watch at their leisure. However, it’s still not as easy to access as turn the TV on and off. Apple tries to create the bridge between digital media and television set, but still not quite success. In New Zealand, the cost of the bandwidth still quite high to stream HD videos. There are still many factors to why it is a struggle to bring TV on-demand to the mass, but the first company who can make this happen, they might have a gold mine right by their door step.

The problem was that Remote app can see library of the computer that connect to the router over Wi-Fi, but it can not see the one that connect on the wire to the router. At first, I thought it was something to do with firewall, but after triple check, it’s come down to “Wi-Fi Protected Setup” on my router. If you have the same problem, especially when you try to use the new wireless sync on iOS5 but not success, here’s the solution:

Solution:

Do check the basic troubleshooting first. If it’s still not working, login to your router and go to the manual wireless setup. Disable “Wi-Fi Protected Setup” and restart your router. When the router come back online, you should be able to connect your iDevices to the wired computer.

I went through so many posts on the forums, but many suggests that it’s all because of the firewall. It’s appear that there also one more thing to look for in the router.

What is Wi-Fi Protected Setup?

Wi-Fi Protected Setup allows user who has absolute no knowledge about Wi-Fi network to connect their devices to the Wi-Fi by using PIN or push a button. However, it’s appear to be conflict with how iTunes connect to the wireless devices.

My policy is to only subscribe to feeds that post less than 10 items a day (a couple more for truly great sources). No following the main RSS feed for a huge magazine, it’s just exhausting!

It’s sometimes possible to follow a more specific magazine feed that will cut down on the overall number of items you see.

If you don’t enjoy reading a source, or don’t read it at all, then get rid of it. I will happily use Flipboard to browse interesting articles from Wired or the like, but I don’t want 100 posts a day to flood my RSS reader – that’s for the stuff that I never want to miss.

I did have to go through the similar articles that cover the same topic from difference sources. Most of the articles I read also appear in Flipboard and Zite. It’s time to narrow my RSS sources down so daily reading won’t take over my morning. Don’t go crazy on subscribe RSS all over the net. It’s not that healthy. You just going to information overload yourself.

[via iPad.AppStorm]

Say, you want to clip the text to limit it within the space you design, such as blog title or blog content, and you want to add “…” at the end of the text. It can be achieve with this simple code:

div.title {
    width: 300px;
    white-space: nowrap;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

Example:

No text-overflow

With text-overflow: ellipsis

That pretty much it. Hope this would help when you want  to keep the layout stay how it supposed to be, and no long text will ruined that from your awesome design.

I can see this feature will come in handy when do some research on particular topic. However, I still prefer snip text out from the website and pile them together in Evernote when I do my research, rather than just save the link. But the link could have been useful for someone else who might do the research on the same topic. On the marketing side, you can collect all the information about your product, customer review, links to pictures and videos into one “stack” for easy sharing and advertising. It is the way to categorise the web together based on topic of interests. It feel like something new, but it’s not actually something new. I have been using this feature for over a year now on Zootool, which they called it “packs”.

One little problem I found with the change over is that the tags for all my links are gone, which I ended up have to go through my bookmarks and tag them all again. I wonder what happened during changing hand that cause all my previous tags to disappear. The bookmark system still the same old. The interfaces are quick and responsive. I like the “Keyboard Cat” doodle as the default profile picture. It’s like an inside joke as the new owner of Delicious are the founders of YouTube. All in all, Delicious is still a powerful online bookmark tool. I still prefer Zootool, but I do miss the comment system in Delicious.

Update: It seems like I’m not the only one who think that the new Delicious is nothing new, but the new default profile is cool.

At least the default avatar is cool.

It feels to me like in its effort to go mainstream, the new Delicious has lost or underplayed its strengths and not yet shown us anything new that has world-changing potential. Maybe it will come back as a result of the tagging that happens as stacks are created. I don’t know. [ReadWriteWeb]

Update (11/09/2011): It appear that the tags missing at the beginning are back.

[Delicious]

[Source]

Reading

I spend most time reading on iPad. I find it’s the best way to browse through constant feed of my RSS subscriptions on my Google Reader account, which I normally get around 300+ posts each day. The app I use for this job is Reeder. I started using this app on iPhone before I get an iPad, so it was an easy choice. However, I did switch to Flipboard for a while as I find that the way to browse through that app is a lot faster, especially when the articles are realign like pages from magazine. Then, I switch back to Reeder as I miss the Readability function that allow me to read a whole article without the need to visit the website. The only problem I have with Reeder is that it is not as easy to scroll through the feeds and mark them as read like when using Google Reader on desktop. I have to manually mark each feed by myself.

Some may like Flipboard because you don’t need to be subscribe to RSS feeds, but you get selected articles from the choice of topics that you choose in Flipboard. I actually found that what appear in Flipboard usually show up in my RSS feeds in some form. The app I use to browse through random articles based on my chosen topic is Zite. The app keep track of what articles I read and then use algorithm to fine tune it recommendation engine to help suggest of what articles that I might be interests. It help me get through my day when I run out of RSS feeds to read.

There will be sometime when I find articles that I want to read, but I just don’t have time. I send the link of that article to Instapaper to read later. Unlike bookmark, the app download the article for me to read even when there is no Internet available. I was a fan of Read It Later app before I switch, and I think it’s still great since it’s focus on multimedia side. For now, Instapaper do the job for me.

Web Browsing

Browse the web also my thing, and the iPad allow me to access them at light speed without the need of waiting for my computer to boot up. It’s also a much prefer choice than iPhone because of the larger screen. Some may get by with Safari browser that come with the iPad, but I use iCab Mobile browser because I find it is the closest to the browser such as Chrome and Firefox. It feature tab that allow me to quickly switch between website much faster than Safari. It allows me to add modules, which act like extension to the browser, allow me to send the page to Instapaper, or view source code. It’s not as flexible like extension for desktop counterpart, but it’s something. It’s allow me to change the browser ID to other browser such as Safari for iPhone so I can browse the site as it would appear on iPhone for debugging. The app also allow me to download files and then save them to my file manager app. It is far better than Safari, but sadly iOS does not allow me to choose which is my standard web browser so the link I open from other app would open Safari instead of iCab.

Sketching

Bigger screen of iPad help set it apart from iPhone, and that task is better when do the digital drawing. The app I use for sketching is SketchBook. Some artist prefer pen and peper, but for me the iPad and BoxWave Capacitive Stylus replace that. I have no need to carry extra sketchbook around with multiple colour pencil or paint because everything are include in one package. I open it up to sketch down some idea or storyboard. I can take picture of the location using my iPad and then sketch on top the picture as the app is support layers. I can also export it to Photoshop for final touch up.

Remote Control My Desktop Computer

While my desktop computer is render large video file or something that require sometime to process and I need to be somewhere else, I can access my computer remotely from my iPad by using LogMeIn. The app allow me to see what happening on my desktop screen while I’m away. I can check how long it is left until the computer done the tasks, which I can check back later to start a new tasks or shut the computer down when it is no longer need to be on. The app also has ability to turn the computer on when it’s in sleep mode, but I believe my BIOS is too old to support that function. The app does work on iPhone, but larger screen is a much better way to go.

Write Screenplay

Idea for the scene can strike at any time. Some may just write a note on piece of paper, but I prefer to have it in the right format. My prefer app for the task is Celtx. With ability to sync to the cloud, I can start writing on my iPad, and then continue writing on my desktop later through it desktop software counterpart, and back to iPad when I have time while I’m away. The app also allow me to email the script as PDF file to other as well.

Take Notes

Evernote is an extension of my brain. The app sync all the notes I take to the cloud, which allow me to access it from multiple devices. I can sketch something and send it to Evernote for storage, and access it later. Best of all, it allow me to search through the text, even the one that is in the image. I also keep database of fonts and Photoshop brushes with picture as a sample in Evernote for easy browse and access.

Portable Portfolio

With larger screen but still portable, iPad is the best portable portfolio. I can quickly show my works to the client in the cafe, or plug it out on projector or TV via accessories HDMI cable. The iPad can do slideshow, open PowerPoint, play movie files, and access Internet. The battery can last up to 9-10 hours if you use the device non-stop. No need to carry laptop around.

Final Thought

All the tasks I listed above can be done on iPhone, but trust me, the larger screen of iPad allow the user interface much easier to work through. When you work with someone else, it is a much better way to flip screen around instead of hand over the iPhone to client. It is the device that stay in the middle between smartphone and a laptop. It can be start up fast with no boot time. It’s my prefer device for reading and surf the Internet while still in bed.

There are many more things I do on iPad such as keep my events and appointments in Calendar app, keep my contact list sync across devices, check movie showtime from the nearest cinemas, check the route and bus timetable via GPS. Now you know what I do with my iPad, how do you use your?