Join Early Retirement Today
Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
The ipad should be in your toolbox
Old 09-13-2012, 03:28 PM   #1
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Houston
Posts: 1,448
The ipad should be in your toolbox

Since getting an ipad earlier this year I surprised myself by using it with great success on several home improvement projects. I am not that handy but I can figure out a few things when stuff breaks. The ipad is great for taking a picture of the broken thing and showing it to the guy at Home Depot who can identify it. I've also used it to display parts diagrams and play how-to-repair videos from youtube while the ipad is sitting next to the broken thing. Really convenient. Yes you can do some of this stuff with a smartphone but the bigger screen makes a huge difference.
soupcxan is offline   Reply With Quote
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!

Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!

Old 09-13-2012, 04:40 PM   #2
Moderator Emeritus
Ronstar's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Illinois
Posts: 16,543
+ 1. I always use mine in my home projects. Combining screenshots, photos, links to magazine articles etc in evernote. Pdf's saved in Dropbox. I can bring everything I need to the store, workshop, etc on my iPad.
Ronstar is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-13-2012, 04:41 PM   #3
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
donheff's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 11,318
I love my Ipad but would probably use my phone for photos for the hardware store.
__________________
Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre -- Albert Camus
donheff is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-13-2012, 08:47 PM   #4
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
photoguy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 2,301
I figure with the iPad we can get rid of all our bookcases and downsize. Housing is ~500 sq/ft here so it is substantial :>
photoguy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2012, 06:49 AM   #5
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
audreyh1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rio Grande Valley
Posts: 38,008
Quote:
Originally Posted by soupcxan View Post
Since getting an ipad earlier this year I surprised myself by using it with great success on several home improvement projects. I am not that handy but I can figure out a few things when stuff breaks. The ipad is great for taking a picture of the broken thing and showing it to the guy at Home Depot who can identify it. I've also used it to display parts diagrams and play how-to-repair videos from youtube while the ipad is sitting next to the broken thing. Really convenient. Yes you can do some of this stuff with a smartphone but the bigger screen makes a huge difference.
Really handy device! I use it in the kitchen a lot to display the recipe.

I'm about ready to upgrade my iPad 1 to the new version. I would really like to the camera and video chat capability. We saw the (retina) display in the Apple store the other day, and it really is nice!

I don't buy physical books anymore except for the occasional (used) cookbook or photography book - I prefer reading on my iPad unless the book has a lot of pictures.
__________________
Retired since summer 1999.
audreyh1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2012, 09:49 AM   #6
Moderator Emeritus
W2R's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: New Orleans
Posts: 47,474
Quote:
Originally Posted by donheff View Post
I love my Ipad but would probably use my phone for photos for the hardware store.
Same here, or if I needed a larger version then I would print the photo on my color laserjet printer and just tuck that paper copy of the photo in my purse. Making my purse as lightweight as possible has been a project of mine for a while.
__________________
Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. - - H. Melville, 1851.

Happily retired since 2009, at age 61. Best years of my life by far!
W2R is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2012, 10:21 AM   #7
Moderator Emeritus
 
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 12,894
Quote:
Originally Posted by photoguy View Post
I figure with the iPad we can get rid of all our bookcases and downsize. Housing is ~500 sq/ft here so it is substantial :>
Technology like the iPad made it so much easier for us to downsize:

250 VHS tapes and DVDs: all gone. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes have all the movies we need and they can be viewed on the iPad.
600 paper books: 100 left. The rest is available in electronic format at Amazon and can be read via the Kindle for iPad app.
Recipes: 300+ paper clippings and recipe cards gone. They have been scanned, archived, and indexed in Evernote. Accessible from the iPad at any time via the Evernote app.
FIREd is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2012, 11:53 AM   #8
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
 
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 7,422
I am looking at remodeling my kitchen and bathrooms. Going to hire a contractor, not do it myself.

But I found an app. that promises to generate a floor plan just by taking pictures with the iPhone. I couldn't quite get it to work though.

It does indicate the variety of software apps. being produced though for iPhones and iPads. Hard to find a category that isn't covered. I heard pilots can get special mapping apps. which load their flight charts for them, for instance. And iPad will probably become a big deal in health care.
explanade is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-14-2012, 12:07 PM   #9
Recycles dryer sheets
ducky911's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 497
I have the first ipad and use it daily. I wish it had flash...I wish it would print..I with it had a delete key.....and now with this site getting greedy I wish it had better pop-up blocker....this ing ad popping up everytime I open a post is nuts!
__________________
You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
Retired July '11 investments in very low cost index and mutual funds, balance once a year at best.
ducky911 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-15-2012, 05:12 AM   #10
Moderator Emeritus
Ronstar's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Northern Illinois
Posts: 16,543
Quote:
Originally Posted by ducky911 View Post
I have the first ipad and use it daily. I wish it had flash...I wish it would print..I with it had a delete key.....and now with this site getting greedy I wish it had better pop-up blocker....this ing ad popping up everytime I open a post is nuts!
It will print to an e-printer
Ronstar is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 09-15-2012, 02:14 PM   #11
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso)
Give me a forum ...
Katsmeow's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 5,307
Quote:
Originally Posted by photoguy View Post
I figure with the iPad we can get rid of all our bookcases and downsize. Housing is ~500 sq/ft here so it is substantial :>
In our old house we had at least 15 bookcases. When we decided to downsize (not all that small but still no room for that many bookcases) I went and bought on Kindle all the books I thought I would ever have any interest in reading again that were available. In the new house I have 2 bookcases (well my son has 2 in his room) and all our other books are all on Kindle (mostly read on the iPad or on my phone). Those bookcases hold the books that are not on Kindle (mostly no longer in print). Periodically I check to see if any of those become available on Kindle and replace them when and if they do.
Katsmeow is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-15-2012, 03:49 PM   #12
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
photoguy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 2,301
This may be blasphemy to book lovers but here's what we do:

photoguy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-28-2012, 04:27 AM   #13
Full time employment: Posting here.
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 956
Quote:
Originally Posted by FIREd View Post
Technology like the iPad made it so much easier for us to downsize:

250 VHS tapes and DVDs: all gone. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes have all the movies we need and they can be viewed on the iPad.
600 paper books: 100 left. The rest is available in electronic format at Amazon and can be read via the Kindle for iPad app.
Recipes: 300+ paper clippings and recipe cards gone. They have been scanned, archived, and indexed in Evernote. Accessible from the iPad at any time via the Evernote app.
Wow! That is awesome! We are in the process of downsizing from 4000 square feet by the end of October to two places at 1200 square feet each. In addition to some of the cool IPAD features, it looks like it can be a huge benefit for us. I was originally thinking IPAD for when we ER next year, but looks like it would be extremely beneficial in our downsizing transition in the next several weeks.

I am also interested in how IPAD with 4g may be useful to minimize internet costs at two places. Carrying one of these is already an ER strain. Any feedback from people with two places, two internet bills, etc.? Do any services offer a "hibernating" plan?
48Fire is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-28-2012, 09:06 AM   #14
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
photoguy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 2,301
Quote:
Originally Posted by 48Fire View Post
I am also interested in how IPAD with 4g may be useful to minimize internet costs at two places. Carrying one of these is already an ER strain. Any feedback from people with two places, two internet bills, etc.? Do any services offer a "hibernating" plan?
Well you can setup a personal hotspot and tether all your other devices to the ipad. Been playing with this while visiting my brother and using his iphone 5 in this capacity. Seems to work well but I think the bandwidth caps (6GB/month) would be very limiting for anything more than email/surfing.
photoguy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-28-2012, 09:43 AM   #15
gone traveling
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Eastern PA
Posts: 3,851
As far as a hotspot using a smartphone - I use either my/DW's Nokia (Windows) phone to act as a hotspot (5 connections at a time, for either) as a backup in case we would lose house electric for any reason and would not have access to the net.

We're not "extreme" smartphone users and have a standard data plan (2 Gig each) at an additional $20 (each) per month.

I've used it for logging on our laptop, netbook, and KFire and it works well. In fact, it's a bit faster than our "in the boondocks" net access.

While we don't use it on a normal basis, it's good to know that we have the access in case of of outages (coming up to the "October storm" of last year, when we lost electric for three days). Today, we have a backup generator and backup net access (via our respective phones, and net devices). Bring on the snow!!!
rescueme is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 09-29-2012, 06:34 PM   #16
Full time employment: Posting here.
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 956
Thanks for the replies, I will take a better look later.
48Fire is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


» Quick Links

 
All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:36 AM.
 
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.