Along comes the iPad which quickly throws the technology world in a tizzy. Proponents and detractors alike seems swept up in an almost religious-like fervor. Some of this is Apple’s doing when they call the iPad “magic.” Some of it is the technology echo chamber’s desire

My take is that no one has decided what the iPad will be. This idea of a blank slate (Tabula Rasa) confuses the heck out of prognosticators. They try to evaluate what it is (no camera, no 3rd party apps) instead of seeing what it might be. The real question isn’t about the iPad, but the about whether or not Apple and developers can invent the apps that could make the iPad into the indispensable piece of hardware.

After getting a spankin’ new hard drive, I went about the business of reconstructing my data. My first impression was how much of my data exists in the cloud. Through email attachments, web posts, Flickr accounts, Google Docs, and web servers I was able to download almost all the data for my current projects. I was also using CrashPlan and Mozy to various other archived files. The big chunk of data that were missing was iTunes Library. Senuti was essential for retrieving my iTunes Library from my iPhone and iPod.

I was lucky in the fact the much of data exists off my laptop. In the future I’ll be thinking of my hard drive as a rest stop for data instead of its final destination.