Steve
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Homepage: http://www.bostedor.com
Posts by Steve
A Custom Day-Timer iPad Case
Apr 26th
By Steve Bostedor
There aren’t many cases out there for the iPad right now so I decided to roll my own. I really wanted something that would let me take my iPad to meetings to replace my laptop and legal writing pad. I bought the Apple iPad case but it’s too thin, doesn’t offer much protection, and has no pockets.
I needed something more like a daily planner style case. After finding nothing online, here’s how I made my own!
As you will see below, I used a Day-timer case as the base of this project. I chose this one because of the inside pocket that was meant for the calendar. After taking that out, it fit the iPad as well as the Apple iPad case perfectly!
The Pieces
- Duck 12 in X 20ft Foam Wrap (only use one sheet) $7.00
- Office Max microfiber cleaning cloth $4.00
- Scotch double-sided tape $4.29
- Day-timer Personal Organizer $49.99
The Process
1. Start by removing the calendar and legal pad from the inside of the Day-Timer
2. Cut one sheet of the foam wrap to the size of the inside pocket on the Day-Timer. Remember that we’re using the picket that slides in sideways, not the vertical one.
3. Using the double-sided tape, affix the micro-fiber cloth to the center of the foam wrap and then slide the entire sheet (micro-fiber side down) into the side pocket. Affix it to the inside of the pocket using the double-sided tape.
Steps 2 and 3 are needed because the inside pocket on this case are a bit scratchy for a glass device like the iPad. The micro-fiber cloth also cleans the screen a little each time that you slide the iPad into and out of the case.
The second pocket in this case fits the Apple Bluetooth keyboard perfectly! This turns the Day-Timer into a complete portable office that weights about half that of my HP Elitebook. There are also a couple of extra pockets in the case that you can use to carry business cards, pens, iPhone, and any other small accessory.
Usage
If you are just using the iPad bare (with no other case), you can simply prop the iPad in portrait or landscape mode in the case as shown below.
If you are using this with an Apple iPad case, you get the extra flexibility of positioning. It also makes it look more like a daily planner (especially with the Calendar app running).
Conclusion
You can also see this case in action on our YouTube review channel as well as in Episode 13 of The iPad Show.
Use AirVideo To Stream Videos To Your iPad
Apr 13th
When I bought DVD movies for my 3 year old, they would be scratched up and useless within a week. As a result, I decided to make copies of every DVD that we purchased in both ISO and movie formats.
I’ve always wanted an easy way to stream those movies from the media center to the many portable devices in the house. Unfortunately, each device has its own native video format and converting the videos became a redundant nightmare.
AirVideo allows you to stream a multitude of video formats from your PC or MAC to any iDevice, including your iPad! As you can see in the screen capture above to the right, you can convert the videos to the iPad native format on the fly or queue them up for permanent conversion on the remote computer.
To get started, follow these steps:
- Download the server application to either your MAC or your PC
- On the PC, run the server and then choose the folder(s) to share
- Install the application on your iPad
- Once the app is launched, add your PC to the server list
- Start watching movies!
When you add a movie to the conversion queue via the iPad application, the conversion process actually happens on the remote computer, not on your iPad. This frees you up to do other things with your iPad while the conversion is happening.
The awesome thing about this application is that you don’t really need to do a full conversion like that to watch the movie. It has a very impressive on-the-fly conversion process that seamlessly converts video from virtually any format as you’re watching it! Just press “Play with live conversion”, sit back, and enjoy the show.
I’ve tried a lot of applications that stream various media from your computer to your iDevices but nothing even comes close to the feature set and reliability of this application. I consider this a must-have for every iPad.
Air Video is $2.99 for the full version. There is a free version that lets you test out the features on a limited number of videos per server if you’d like to give it a spin before committing your coffee cash to the App Store.
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