It is about creating as well as consuming but creation has to be simple.

It offers a better web experience (Flash excepted) than either my Mac or iPhone (and it is faster than both)

Key apps have a way to go like the Mail app and the Calendar App. They aren't yet good enough.

The soft keyboard is terrific and you get used to it really quickly.

You need a cover:  the Apple cover with the built- in stand does help but don't try to remove the cover quickly. You simply cannot.

Kids love the interface and 'get it' immediately.

It had hidden charms, you find out about things it can do you did not realise by chatting to the profusion of iPad users.

32 gig is a minimum.  I would already have spooled out of 16 gig.  Add photos and music and docs and ...and...and it soon eats up space.

It is 'instant' and immediate.  For breath and depth I still need the data on my Mac and the rage of applications. Therefore it is not a substitute but I use the laptop differently and the iPhone differently as a result of having the iPad.

If anyone asked me if it is worth getting or 'should I wait for the one with the camera' I reply go now, there is plenty that will enthral you and when you want to move on, give it to the kids!

 Most things I don't need to secure but some things I do, but the iPad has one level of security:  on or off and this does not reflect the multiplicity of usage including handing it to others to use.  Protect my calendar, my docs and my email and the rest you can have access to. Elliott Masie and I totally agree on that.

Soon I saw the State Correctional Facility on my right.  it bore a passing resemblance to the  hotel, apart from more barbed wire. Check out the link and the picture to see what I mean! I ran up to the road leading up to it and on a bit, then turned round as the road ended.  As I ran back a police car pulled along side me;  " You are committing a felony by being on this road' 'Can't you see the Correctional Facility and didn't you read the sign.' I apologised and ran back to the hotel with the police car shadowing me on the other side of the road.  As we reached the sign I looked back to read it, he gestured for me to look at it.  I read it, and then gestured apology, and he gestured, okay, you are clearly an ignorant alien who does not understand US Law.  And then he drove off and I resumed doing what I was doing at the start of my run, which was to run round and round the huge hotel car park. (By the way, highly recommended as a stimulating way of passing the time, and hugely enhanced by avoiding cars screaming out of their parking spots at 100mph with the driver adjusting the radio or looking for his iPod.)

What I learned:  pay attention to the environment;  remember what might appear VERY familiar might not be,  and then you miss the key signs. So running by a prison can be quite like life!

She managed to get the interface in minutes:  she loved swiping the Apps so they flicked from screen to screen and she also learned (how, I have no idea) to open and close Apps.  So even when she was enthralled with a book, she would reach over to close th

e App and then get me to reopen it.  Listen a bit more of the story and then close the App and so on.  Her parents were worried about how I would react when she hurled it across the room having got bored.  But the opposite was true; prising it out of her fingers was nigh on impossible. And it did not appear to be too heavy

to hold.

Her elder sister was spelling out names with the alphabet and making ellaborate 'clicky sticky' pictures which she wanted to email immediately back to her mother on her first session.  Emailing is really easy on an iPad of course.  Each email had a unique message but ended with, 'and I love you Mummy'. 

A massive hit for both kids. Perfect for learning. It is a combination of the glorious interface and some brilliant and imaginative Apps.

And if you want to know how my 90 year old mother got on with the iPad the answer is:  not well.  Couldn't work out the gestures on screen as she either push so hard on the screen that it was about to implode, or wave her fingers 1 mm above the screen and moaned about its lack of responsiveness.   We see if you more luck next time.  But touching the screen intimidated her rather than liberated her.

It is very poor leadership on Brown's behalf.  He wants people to believe in him, and wants credibility BUT someone who so obvioulsy has a 'front' for the public and a real self for his staff, is doomed to never achieve that. He is no different from the CEO who stands up in a public forum and tells his or her staff how important they are and how supportive he or she is of them, and then yells at the first person to put a foot out of line. Long ago Tom Peters told us to 'Walk the Talk'. It still applies, and it applies to politicians as well as company executives.  What a gift to the opposition and on the day before the final, decisive leadership debate.  As I said, this was a defining moment.

These are the opening words of James Martin's 11 minute film called: The Meaning of the C21st which is a synopsis of his book of the same name. James Martin founded and runs the C21st School at the University of Oxford.  You can watch the film here.

You can see the video here, and as Tim Berners-Lee concludes:  'We are only just starting'.