So the EMC office has its own iPad which team members can book out for a couple of days at a time. Finally being based back in London Bridge meant I was able to give it a test run.

I’ll be honest, I was initially very sceptical. Away from home I have my iPhone. At home I have my laptop – albeit a not very good one. Just couldn’t think why I’d need an iPad. But I guess that’s just it. You don’t buy an iPad out of ‘need’. You buy it out of ‘want’.

After a night playing with it, I can now see where the iPad would fit in in our household. It would essentially replace the browse / entertainment aspect of my home laptop. The iPad is very portable and lighter than our laptop. You can take it anywhere without needing a lot of the peripherals that are often attached to the main computer. It’s also quite fun browsing the web on such a responsive and intuitive touchscreen interface. It’s something I’ve become accustomed to on the iPhone but the iPad just magnifies the whole experience a lot more in an environment (your home) where device size is less of an issue and you’d like a bit more screen real estate.

It’s a shame there are less apps available out there right now for the iPad. It’s meany we’ve only really been able to surf the web and play a few notes on the piano app. I’ll be keeping an eye on developments (and prices) now though with interest.

Slideshare have a right-hand column area for presentations where they show statistics on a specific presentation and background information on the presentation. This information is probably of much less importance to the user when compared to the actual content of the presentation but I’ve always found it pretty interesting information. It’s like when iTunes tell you that you have 280 songs in your library, which is 1.7GB’s worth of music, and 20.1 hours of music. Seriously, who’s going to care how long playing ALL your music in your library, back-to-back, will take? Not many people, but it’s one of those ‘oh that’s interesting’ nuggets of information that just adds value to the page and, I think, adds a bit more kudos to your site. It’s like having a friend who knows a bit about everything, in that alot of what they say isn’t of immediate importance but it’s interesting / amusing / entertaining / educational.

I often push for this kind of information, where available and relevant. Sometimes it’s information that users wouldn’t need (which makes it an ‘interesting’ bit of info) or it may be something that the user does want to know (in which case you’ve already worked it out for them).

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift, and that’s why we call it the present.” – Kung Fu Panda

We just watched ‘The Bucket List’ – starring Jack Nicholson an Morgan Freeman. It was quite a moving film about two oldish guys, two very different guys who are both told they have 6 months to live. They then create a bucket list of things they want to do before they die. Things like skydiving, see something majestic, kiss the most beautiful girl in the world, etc.

Have to say, the most moving bit – the most memorable bit – of the film for me was a bit where Morgan Freeman described how his marriage had become stale and all focused on the kids without them knowing. When the kids left he looked at his wife and couldn’t remember why he loved her in the first place. That scares me. It’s such an easy thing to happen. I’ve witnessed it happen first-hand. With our first child, now almost 9 months old, I can really understand how that can happen to a couple, and how I – as a husband – need to guard against that from happening. Before you know it 30 years have passed.

I and the guys who watched the movie made our own Bucket Lists. Most list items involved spending time with friends and family. We set ourselves the challenge of making a list of 3 things. For a long time I could only think of 1 – ‘to spend every single remaining moment I could with those who truly mattered to me. My family and friends’. At the time of writing the list, all I could think about were my wife and little girl. All the stuff about going to places, eating nice food … that didn’t really appeal.

None of our lists contained anything work or career related and I’ve kept hold of that piece of paper as a reminder. You don’t want to be making that list when time is about to run out. Identify what really matters to you and use your time wisely doing these things.