I’ve actually had a keyboard for my iPad for quite a while now.  When I first got my ipad 1, I got a normal case for it.  All good, but I did not think getting a keyboard was worth the extra money.  Then a bluetooth iPad keyboard when on sale.  At $30 I thought I would give it a shot, and if I find out I do not use it like other things I ‘thought’ I wanted, it was to go in the junk pile.  Wow, was it ever useful.

So a couple of things here. I commute.  I have my iphone jailbroken so I can get web access. (its called tethering and you can pay an extra $20-30 a month of you do not want to jailbreak).  Normally I would use my laptop, but I decided to give it a week and only use the iPad.  Did not miss it at all!  In fact, I have stopped taking my laptop home with me and only use the iPad.  Same when I travel or take a road trip.  Just the iphone and ipad.  Since the iPad has a FAR better battery life then my laptop, I do not need to bother taking a power supply.  Just toss in the small adapter and cable and that’s it.  It may not seem like that much of a savings, but I find I’m much more willing to simply grab my iPad and take it with me then I ever would with my laptop. Also, the keyboard is easy to use, allowing me to type at almost 80% the same speed I do on my normal keyboard. One tip I can give you is if you do not use keyboard shortcuts, learn them.  Short cuts, using the tab key to jump from filed to field and using the arrow keys to move around the screen makes living without a mouse acceptable.  The only slowdown is when I need to right click on something.  But you get used to that.  As I said, 80% efficient for all tasks.

I’m just as productive on the ipad as I am on the normal machine since 85% of what I need to do I can do using web services. But what about the other 15%?  Then what?  Glad you asked.

There are a number of ways to deal with the last 15%.  The easiest is remote access.  If you are not a computer God and know how to set up secure remote access to your home/work computer, there are a number of apps out there that can help you.  The easiest I know of is. Teamviewer.

Download Teamviewer to your desktop or laptop.  I recommend you configure it so its always on.  Leave your computer on ( I normally turn off the screen) and make sure it does not go into sleep mode. Next download the Teamviewer app onto your laptop and boom.  You now have access to all your files and apps. Teamviewer is one of my top iPad apps.

Just need access to your files?  Start using cloud storage services like dropbox, microsoft skydrive or even google drive which just came on the scene recently.  And of course, for almost all of these services there is an app for that.

Finally, check out onlive desktop.  This give you a virtual windows 7 desktop with windows apps.