I received an iPad (64GB WiFi+3G) from my husband yesterday. You know, the day people queued at stores as early as 6am (according to Dion Wired Woodmead) when the iPad 2 went on sale. They had marked down first-gen iPads at crazy prices.

I will use the device for recreation, I honestly can’t see myself working from it. Maybe I’m old school but I prefer taking notes by writing in my Moleskine journal (I know, right?). I type fast, but I can’t touch type/type as fast as someone speaks. When I used to cover ITWeb events, I used a dictaphone and transcribing was just about the worst thing ever.

The tablet is very much a social device – it’s something you’d pass around to your family members and let them play around with as well. Because of this, I won’t be using it for email. Having it on my phone is enough. And I don’t do push mail.

I topped up my iTunes account with a $30 voucher and bought a few apps, one of them being Plants vs Zombies. I don’t know if there is anyone else crazy enough to own this game on just about every single compatible device!

What has impressed me so far is the battery life. We drove to Durban earlier today and for the first time I didn’t feel like the drive was taking forever. I played games and accessed the Internet by turning my phone into a WiFi hotspot. After all this, battery was sitting at 90%.

I don’t mind that it doesn’t have a camera – I have a digital camera that has not been charged since I bought my iPhone 4 (November 2010). Also, can you imagine holding up a 9.7-inch device to take photos?

What I would like to see as an option in a newer version of iOS is the ability to password protect apps. Currently, there are “Restrictions” but it is only limited to Safari, YouTube, iTunes, installing & deleting apps and disabling in-app purchases. Pretty useless to me.

I’d take the device with me on holiday, or overnight events but I definitely won’t be able to work from it remotely.

This post was written in response to a post on My Digital Life on what my top iPhone apps were. I’ve not included obvious apps like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc. In no order, they are:

1. Dropbox – free

Dropbox lets you sync files between your phone, laptop or PC. It is very handy when I don’t have my cable, I just stick files into Dropbox and it syncs to my Mac immediately. It supports Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android, mobile web. Not sure about BlackBerry. It has a password feature for your phone which is cool.

2. Google – free

If you have a Google account, chances are you are using many other Google products. As you can see from the list above what is supported. Google Goggles is supported under Search.

3. Instagram – free

If you have an iPhone, this is the first app I will suggest you get. You absolutely have to have it! It reached 1 million downloads very fast. It lets you add effects to pics you take, making it look really professional. It’s a social network app – you follow others and they follow you, so you can see what pics they share.

4. Camera+ – $0.99

This is undoubtedly the best photo editing app on the iPhone. I’ve used loads and this is the one I settled with. There are so many things you can do with one image. At $0.99, it is worth it.

5. Hipstamatic – $1.99

Hipstamatic lets you use different lenses and flashes to create cool effect, which look vintage, sort of. It also makes pics look good and you don’t have to a very good photographer to create cool pics. Here is an example:

I have to add that after I got Instagram, I stopped using this app as often.

6. Peggle (Pop Cap) – $2.99

I’ve been a fan of this game and have it on desktop, netbook, Mac and just had to get it on iPhone. If you played it, or any PopCap game, you will know how addictive it is.

7. Plants vs. Zombies (Pop Cap) – $2.99

Same description as above.

8. Trivial Pursuit (EA Games) – $0.99

I bought this when EA Games had a huge sale in December, most of the games were eventually marked down to less 75%. I also bought Ultimate Mortal Kombat, MMA, and Scrabble. All worth the sale price.

9. Talking Carl – free

This is just a fun, and mostly pointless app. Carl repeats everything you say. Amusing for a while but cool to show people and see how fascinated they get. Entertaining for kids too.

10. CheckMyTrip – free

I just recently got this app when I went to PE last week. I could access my trip info via my booking reference number. It also helped me when I used the self-check-in terminal.

I’ve compiled a list of my best / most useful / worth buying iPhone apps.

1. Dropbox – free
2. Hipstamatic – $1.99
3. Pano – $1.99
4. PS Mobile (Photoshop) – free
5. WordPress – free
6. Rock Band – $6.99
7. Plants vs. Zombies – $2.99
8. Doodle Jump – $0.99
9. Facebook – free
10. Tweetie  - $2.99 (Twitter to release it free as Twitter for iPhone “soon”)

If anyone reading this wants to share their favourites, please feel free to do so.

Note the crappy Vodacom signal I pick up at home and other places.

Last week I bought a MacBook Pro, which I will be using full time at the office. Before I go on, I’d like to say that I had a very pleasant experience with Core, who I bought my Mac from. They updated all my software and loaded iWork for me. (They don’t do this for everyone, just media).

So anyway, the most important thing for me was getting all my email from MS Outlook to Mail. (If you Google this, you are most likely to come up with results that tell you you need to pay $10 for an app that does it). I did it, without paying for anything and thought I’d share the how-to, just in case you want to do the same someday.The ‘middle-man’ mail client you will need is Thunderbird.

On your Windows machine, open Thunderbird. If you don’t have it, download it here.

Run Thunderbird, and go to Tools > Import > Mail. You will see a list of email clients – select Outlook. This will take a while, depending on how much of email you have.

Once it’s complete, close Thunderbird and go to your Thunderbird profile directory. It should be here:

C:\Windows\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<profile name>\

If you can’t locate it, go to Start > Run and type in %APPDATA% and go to Thunderbird > Profiles.

Copy the profile and save it to your Mac.

Open Mail and click on File > Import Mailboxes. Locate and select your profile.

Ta-da!