With other platforms, it much easier for manufacturers to develop extensions. With Apple and its proprietary dock connector, manufacturers have a much harder challenge to create add-on for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. One of the first extension for the iDevices is the Square payment platform through the headphone jack. Working on the same concepts, a little known company called ThinkFlood has developed Redeye mini. If you’re not familiar with RedEye, it’s a small dongle, which plugs into your iDevice’s headphone jack and when paired with the RedEye application, turns your iDevice into the ultimate universal remote control.

From Thinkflood website:

RedEye hardware adds infrared capability to your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad so that you can control thousands of devices, from TVs and cable boxes to lighting systems and air conditioners. Together with the RedEye application  you have complete control over your home theater and many other devices that use infrared signals. Create custom activities around the things you do most — listening to music, watching movies, channel surfing — so you can spend more time doing and less time punching buttons.

How it works:

• You download the free App from the App Store
• Plug in the RedEye mini to your headphone jack.
• The application gives you the ability to setup rooms, select manufacturers and train the app for your devices. (45,000 plus). You can also manually train the app for your device.
• You can define activities, which are bundled tasks that would have required 3 different remotes to do the task
• The best part about the RedEye solution is the endless customization options to choose from different button styles, re-arrange the layout, and even combine the buttons from different devices, all on the same screen.

Where to Buy:

The RedEye comes in two models, you can read a comparison about the products here on ThinkFlood site.

RedEye is a USB solution which sells for $171. Buy RedEye now from Amazon

RedEye mini connects with your iDevice through the headphone jack and sells for $49. Buy RedEye mini now from Amazon

The RedEye products are welcoming addition to the iDevice platform. Looking forward to more cool devices coming up for the platform.

Its remarkably easy to purchase and consume digital media on the iPad. In my usage I have no eye strain issues to report after reading over countless books and magazines since its launch. For me the weight of the device is not a  big issue. Outdoor reading is a real problem with the glare though, that can be reduced with the anti-glare screen protectors.

Every e-book platform comes in with its own DRM, which means if you buy a book on Kindle you can’t read it on iBooks and vice versa. But if you are going to remove the DRM’d from your ebooks, then its possible to move all your library into iBooks.

So here I’ll review the major ones available for iPad. The review only considers iPad versions of the apps, as many have iPhone editions also. Without further ado:

iBooks

iBooks by Apple is the most visually pleasing and closest to natural reading ebook reader available on any platform. Little effects like the page turning makes it a more engaging experience. With the 1.1 update (I wonder why would someone has not updated yet – its free) now you can read PDFs within iBooks as well. The book shelf interface is welcoming addition to interface design and it helps in assembling your reading list. iBooks will let you add notes to your books (PDFs don’t have this functionality at the time of writing this article).

With 5 of the 6 leading book publishers on board, the iBookstore since launched offers a considerable wide variety of books. But definitely Kindle has more to offer at the moment. I wish Apple would allow you to buy books from iTunes also, as at the moment you can purchase within the ibooks app only. iTunes link

Kindle

Before iPads launch, Amazon’s Kindle was The ereader of choice. Amazon is a smart company and they realize the power of monetizing their huge books inventory on every platform available. The ability to sync your books on the Kindle Hardware, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry and Android is just fantastic. The book reading experience is very easy. It allows you to add notes and sync them across all devices.

Like iBooks, you cannot load your own books. The Amazon Store is easy to use and purchase, but unlike iBooks app, you need to purchase from the site. On sync your latest purchase will be available for reading. iTunes Link

Barnes & Nobles

Barnes & Nobles launched Nook their ebook reader quite later than there competitor Amazon. The platform and the device have had fairly average success on the street. The app comes with all bells and whistles like notes, bookmarking, plus you can also Google your queries and see wikipedia results too. The app also offers the ability to customize it with themes.

The book selection, like the real Barnes & Nobles store is great. Like Kindle, you need to purchase your books on the web store. iTunes Link

Other notable book apps:

Stanza

Stanza is one of the must have books app on iPad. With this app you can side-load from variety of content sources. It lets you select from 50,000 free classics and many thousands more from paid partner stores. It sports features like notes etc.

For any book reader this is one app which is highly recommended as it offers the most versatile reading material. iTunes Link

Borders

In there own words “Borders eBooks gives you the freedom to buy and read eBooks anytime, anywhere on your iPhone. Suddenly craving the latest thriller or an exciting new bestseller at 3 in the morning? No problem. It takes just a minute to purchase whatever you’re in the mood for, and once you select the Buy button, your next great read will begin downloading instantly.” Borders is a well established brand and its the latest retailer to enter the ereader for iPhone and iPad. iTunes Link

Free Books

As the name suggest, its Free Books. And 23,469 off them available for you to read them to hearts desire. The ereader is a simple application, which lets you – read the books. It allows you to bookmark and when you open up the app again it saves your previous location. Downloading a book is easy from within the app. iTunes Link

Shakespeare

If you are a fan of the famous English writer, you are in luck. The complete works of William Shakespeare are    available in this one app; all the 40 plays, six poems, 154 sonnets etc. The content is art rich and resizable. It automatically remembers last page read. All text is searchable within the app. iTunes Link

Concluding:

Book reading is a very personal experience and requires a special environment to be in to enjoy the book. What iPad offers is a vast majority of the literate worlds treasure in one magical device where your consumption can needs can easily be fulfilled. Books is just one area, iPad is equally great with comics, children books, religious books and magazines. Talking about Magazines, the Wired app is a revolution in itself. Stay tuned for Magazine app round up.

Whats your favorite books app on the ipad?

The IOS 3.2.1 update brings some exciting changes for your iPad. Following are the main changes:

• It Improves the Wi-Fi connectivity
• Fixes an issue that could prevent copy & paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
• Addresses issue that used to cause video playback to freeze
• Improves the reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
• Added Bing as an option for Safari’s search field

This update is compatible with both the WiFi and 3G iPad models.

To update, hook up your iPad and click the Update button on the Summary tab to update the software. Or you can download the stand alone updater from here

• Open, copy, and save files directly from the iPad, iPhone, or iPod
• Access the device from other applications
• Browse the iPhone, iPad, or iPod through the Finder
• Mount multiple iPhones, iPods, or iPads at the same time
• Convenient menubar item to mount and unmount the devices
• Works without Jailbreak!

The best part is MacroPlant is giving this great app for free until September 1, 2010. So go ahead and grab yourself a copy of PhoneDisk. To use it for free, use the following registration code:

2H96A-QK7MX-8GEYK1V-ZR6S8

The usability factor is dead simple, launch PhoneDisk and mount your iDevice – for Finder its an external USB drive. There are plenty of reasons this application can be very useful.

The latest iteration of the Macbook Pro are significantly advanced machines with Intel’s latest i5 and i7 (on customized orders) processors. Being the ultimate mobility platform, these quality machines can very well support high performance tasks such as graphics, number crunching etc. Although the Macbook Pro’s screen itself is great but then there are times where you would like to work on a bigger screen. Connecting your Macbook Pro to an external machine couldn’t be easier. You just need a Mini-DVI converter to your choice of monitor input i.e., DVI, VGA etc. There are people who are just not satisfied with 2 screen solution (1 Laptop + 1 External monitor). In those cases you need more than just one converter cable.

In this post we are going to discuss one such scenario where a wintel desktop machine connected to dual 22″ Acer displays needs to be replaced with Macbook Pro. Before we begin, there are few things you need to know about the solution you are developing.

• Macbook Pro Model & Generation:
  Each iteration of Macbook Pro has a different hardware, which in the needs to be supported by the solution. You can find out about your Macbook Pro by going to Apple > About this Mac > More Info on the Top OS Menu. In my case its the following:
  Model Name: MacBook Pro
  Model Identifier: MacBookPro 5,3

  This is a 5th Generation Macbook Pro with 1 Mini DVI port.

• Screens and desired Resolution
  Its very important to know about the hardware you have. In my case the screens are Acer X223W Q, each supporting 1680 x 1050 resolution.

  If you haven’t purchased your monitors yet, please make sure that the hardware you’ll use to connect them supports the screen’s optimal resolution. There is no point in viewing your mac in low res.

• Screen Setup
  Lastly, you also need to decide how are you going to use the extended desktop. Will your solution require you to have Macbook Pro screen active or would you use it without it? What and where you would like to things to appear? This will require some getting used to but trust me the extended real estate available, you’ll just love it.

In my research I have found the following solutions, which doesn’t mean this is it. There may be more solutions available now at the time you are reading this article. If possible check with the Apple Store / Genius Bar as newer products are released frequently.

Matrix DualHead2Go & TripleHead2Go

The Matrox uses your Macbook’s Mini -DVI port (you’ll need the Mini-DVI to DVI converter) to connect to 2 or 3 external monitors depending on your requirements. This is a good solution with minimal hardware addition you will need to get the task done. Most of the mainstream manufacturers are supported with different resolutions. The Matrox solution comes in multiple editions: Analog, Digital & DP edition, chose the right one that works for you. Please make sure to read the features of the Dualhead2go ($264) and TripleHead2Go ($300) products in detail before purchasing.

DIAMOND BVU195 USB Display Adapter (DVI and VGA with included DVI to VGA adapter)

In my case the problem with the Matrox solution was the resolution available on the screens was not supported. On searching I came across the USB solution from Diamond. It requires you to connect it to your Macbook Pro and connect the screen to to device. So for each monitor you will need one adapter. I would recommend also looking at buying a USB hub to save the USB ports on the Macbook. When connected each monitor is recognized as an independent screen and you can play with it as required. The Diamond BVU195 HD USB Display Adapter is a good choice for multiple monitor solution, which is for around $74 each. Don’t forget to download latest drivers from DisplayLink site. There is a great post on using Diamond BVU195 here.

Other viable solutions:

There are solutions available for the ExpressCard / 34 slot but Apple has decided that now only 17″ Macbook Pro’s can only have them. If your Macbook has a ExpressCard / 34 slot, then please do look at ViDock 2 from Village Tronic. There is a great post by here about using this solution. Other products from Village Tronic are also good, do give them a look.

There is a also similar solution to ViDock from Magma called ExpressBox 1, which costs around $725.

Tritton technologies have SEE2 Xtreme, USB to DVI or VGA External Video Card under $100.

Kensington also has under $100 product called Kensington K33928US UNIVERSAL MULTI DISPLAY ADAPTER

EVGA has to models available EVGA 100-U2-UV16-A1 UV Plus ($55) supporting 1600×1200 Resolution and EVGA 100-U2-UV19-TR UV Plus 2048×1152 Resolution ($84.5). Nice post here on using this hardware.

If you happen to own an iPad, Air Display ($10) turns it into an extra monitor.

… and there maybe other vendors too. If I’ve missed someone, please do mention in the comments.

Conclusion:

You know your budget and problem better than I do. The many possibilities discussed above will solve your problem. I would advise you to discuss the specifics from the store from where you are purchasing the equipment. Make sure the drivers are available for Mac. Try to buy from a store who accepts back your purchases.

Image via OS X Daily