And yet, it works. Perhaps not as exaggeratedly as in the picture here (snagged from the iTunes preview page), where not only does the head get swollen but somehow the guy gets taller, but it works. It was silly, a little spooky, and sort of an Alice-bites-the-mushroom moment, but it works. 99 cents worth? Barely. But by the time we show 10 different people, I can think of it as 10¢ a shot, and it’s worth that.

Need a capped word? Need to YELL AT SOMEONE in all caps? Are your sentences not automatically being capped? Tired of the two-tap capital: tap the Shift key, then tap the key? Here’s all you need to know about Caps on the iPad:

• Check your Settings for capitalization features. On your Home screen, tap the Settings icon, choose General, and turn on Auto-Capitalization and Enable Caps Lock (they’re on by default).

• Don’t capitalize sentences: Let the iPad do it for you. With Auto-Capitalization on, once you use sentence-ending punctuation (a period, question mark, or exclamation point) followed by any number of spaces, the next letter you type will be capitalized.

• Tap, hold, or slide for an uppercase letter. I’m liking the slide method more and more (except perhaps for letters in the center of the keyboard—in landscape mode, they’re pretty far from the Shift key). Tap the Shift key and the arrow turns blue; tap a letter and you get a capital, and the Shift key returns to normal. Or: Hold the Shift key down (so to speak – that is, keep your finger on it) if you need a few capital letters in a row and you general use two hands for iPad typing (otherwise, Caps Lock is a better choice). Or: Slide from the Shift key to the letter you want capped (tap-and-keep-your-finger-down on the Shift key, drag to the letter key) and release when you reach the letter. Once you get past the “but I’ve never typed like this before” engram, this swipe-to-type method starts to feel like the most natural way of getting a capital letter.

• Caps Lock is handy not only when you’re in a rude, shouty mood, but also when you’re typing a lot of acronyms… AOL, BASIC.. oh wait, it’s the twenty-first century… HDTV. With Caps Lock activated in General settings, a double-tap on the Shift key turns it blue (the whole key turns blue, unlike the blue-arrow-only state that indicates that just the next letter will be capped) and provides capital letters until you double-tap the key again.

• Type ! and ? more easily. (Okay, they’re not capitals – but as you know very well, they are shifted characters.) You don’t have to tap the Shift key and then ! or ?: those keys are perfectly placed for the slide method of typing. Hit the Shift key as your finger goes down, swipe over to the punctuation, and lift your finger.

Two weeks ago, as part of my ongoing medical adventures, I was waiting in my very own private walled-not-curtained pre-op cubicle for what, given my history, was a minor procedure. The doctor (one of my two very favorites) walks briskly down the hallway, spies me through the open door, and stops in:

“Sharon! Sorry to keep you waiting, I’m running behind. I have someone in the O.R. for a very short procedure—15 minutes—and you’re next. But, I’ve gotta tell you—I have NO free time at home anymore since I got my iPad! I just can’t put it down!

“Also, I have to ask you: I’m having trouble syncing my Blackberry to my Mac [he had just switched from a PC]. Maybe you can tell me what I should be using.”

And he was swiftly off to his other patient. The nurse in my little room, busy setting up an IV, looked a little taken aback during this exchange, although I couldn’t quite identify the look on her face. And then she said:

“I’m having trouble syncing my iPhone to my PC…”

That’s what it’s like being a Mac pro.

Wouldn’t trade it for any other job.

Except maybe Queen.

So, on with the design. Saved as a jpeg. Transferred to my iPad through iPhoto, and off to the embroidery place, where I explained what I wanted to do and expressed concern about the size of the smaller elements of the design. I flipped open the iPad cover (the guy didn’t blink; and, yes, I was disappointed and a little surprised that I didn’t get at least an acknowledgement of how cool the iPad is – “Yeah, I have one, too” “Gee, I want one” or even “You Mac people are in thrall to Apple, wake up!!”).

Unlock, tap Photos, tap the single-picture album, tap the picture, and it zooms to fill the screen. I change the orientation of the iPad, and the picture obligingly rotates (still no reaction!). When he says he thinks some of the dots are too small for the machines to handle, I say “Oh, but this isn’t the real size, it’s more like this”—and with an open-pinch gesture enlarge one corner of the pattern. And that’s when I realized I was finally using the iPad as a useful tool and not just an enjoyable plaything – a first for me. The guy still wasn’t impressed (maybe he’s just one of those guys who can’t show his feelings), but I sure was.

To select a word:

1) Double-tap the word to select it; you’ll immediately get the Copy/Dictionary/Bookmark/Search buttons. (In a DRM’d book, you won’t get “Copy.” See You Can So Copy from an eBook for info on how to copy from such a book.) This is the method that assumes you hit your target on the first try.

A double-tap on a word gives you button choices

2) Touch and hold on the word; you’ll get a magnifying glass that shows the word (which is a good thing, since your finger is covering it). Drag your finger around to select another word nearby if you missed the one you wanted. When you release, you’ll get the Copy/Dictionary/Bookmark/Search buttons.

A touch-and-hold; your finger (the red dot) obscures the word you’re touching, of course.

To select an irregular area of text:

Simply press and hold two fingers at the same time at the beginning and end of the area you want to select, even if it’s across paragraphs.

Touch-and-hold with two fingers (red spots) to select everything in between. As soon as you let go, the Copy/Dictionary/Bookmark/Search buttons pop up.

To select a paragraph:

Okay, this is a little squirrelly, and I’ve been testing it ‘til I’m cross-eyed because I found it hard to believe that it was so inconsistent.

In many (some?) books, tapping with two fingers anywhere in the paragraph selects the paragraph. This works more reliably in non-DRM books (mostly freebie downloads) than in DRM (mostly purchased) books, although I haven’t the foggiest idea why that might be so. And sometimes, a book that let you two-finger-tap in one session won’t cooperate at another time. What’s worse, in some books that don’t seem to respond to this at first, making a two-finger irregular selection first seems to let you do a two-finger tap from then on for paragraph selection. (I know – if you told me that, I wouldn’t believe it either: “What, do you think you’re warming it up for selection options??”)

[Update on May 3] A quadruple tap seems to select a paragraph, too. Sometimes. Presumably the undependable results – even in the same book, same page – has something to do with how quick or how even the taps are, but I think I’m good at testing this kind of stuff, and the same speed/spacing works sometimes, and not other times. (Does anyone else tend to tap or press harder when it’s not responding the first time?)

To extend or reduce a selection:

All selection methods leave you with a selection that has “grab points” in the upper left and lower right of the selection. Luckily, you don’t have to actually grab the points (since they’re significantly smaller than your fingertip no matter how dainty you might be). Get within a half-inch or so of the grab point (within the selection), and slide your finger horizontally or vertically to change the selection area. You’ll get a pop-up magnified view of where the selection begins/ends because, as always, your finger will be in the way.

A different kind of magnifier is used when you’re adjusting a selection.

To select across pages:

You can’t. But you can change the font size so that the page breaks change and then you can select what you need. (Or, make two selections and paste them together wherever it is you’re copying this stuff to.)

Paragraphs across pages:

If you manage to select full paragraphs in the book you’re working in, and the paragraph is split from the previous page or to the next page, the entire paragraph is selected even if you can’t see it: if you copy or highlight it, the entire paragraph is copied or highlighted. (I’ve found quite often that selecting a split-across-pages paragraph highlights the entire page, but that’s only a cosmetic flaw: it’s just the paragraph that’s actually selected, as you can see when you copy it.)

The turning-the-page interface while reading a book has such attention to detail, I’m in awe. Swipe from the upper corner, and that’s where the page curls over; from the bottom, and it starts there; from the middle, and the whole page curls over instead of a corner. Glide your finger back towards the edge of the page before you let go, and the page flutters back down into its original position. That’s all very cool/fun, and adds an almost-subliminal real-world feel to the experience, but it’s not the part that made me write this.

The really impressive part is that as you curl a page over – one that’s being read in vertical, single-page mode – you can see the ink bleed through to the back of the page. It’s not just some made-up backwards greeked text, either: it’s the text from the front of the page.

It's discrete, but it's there: the back of the page shows a bleed-through of the text (and controls).

And if you’re using the horizontal, double-page mode? The curled-over part shows, as it should, the next page.

In double-page mode, the back of a page is, as it should be, the next page - both text and controls.

[updated/rewritten Apr 27 to explain difference between restart and reset]

To restart your iPad, hold down the Sleep/Wake button for a few seconds. You’ll get a red slider at the top of the screen saying “slide to power off.” Slide it to turn off the iPad. To turn it on again, hold down the Home button at the bottom of the iPad until you get the silver Apple logo.

To reset your iPad, press both the Sleep/Wake button AND the Home button at the same time for 5-10 seconds to get to the Apple logo restart screen. (If one button goes down a second or two before the other, not a problem – this is not a dexterity test.)

I don’t know if a simple restart would clear the crashing problem with The Elements, since I went right to the reset solution. It’s working crash-free now, though now I wonder how long it will stay that way.

My first few… several… oh, okay, many screenshots on the iPad were failures. Here’s all you have to do:

1. Hold down either the Home or the Sleep button.

2. Press the other button – Home or Sleep, whichever one you’re not holding down from step 1.

It couldn’t be easier: you’ll get a flash of white, suggestive of a flashbulb going off, and that’s it.

But when I got a flash of black, and was dumped into “Slide to Unlock” mode, I thought the first was the iPad differentiating itself from the iPhone/Touch, and the second was a careless bug/feature. I took several shots, and then, when I went to check, I couldn’t find them; they’re supposed to be put into a specially created Photos album, but they just weren’t there.

Well, what a difference a second makes: If you start with the Home button down, and press the Sleep button just a little too long, you’ll be putting the iPad to sleep. But with your finger still pressing the Home button, as soon as you release the Sleep button, the Home button is turning it back on. So: a flash of black (going to sleep, then instantly waking up) followed by the Slide to Unlock situation.

So, if you’re going to start with the Home button down, make the Sleep button press a quick one! Alternatively, start with the Sleep button down, and make the Home button secondary – it’s much more forgiving of a slower release.

Getting the screenshots to your computer is easy, if not obvious. They’re stored in the Photos app on the iPad in an album named Saved Photos. When you sync your iPad, this is one of the few things that don’t go into (through?) iTunes: the “photos” go right to iPhoto. They’re separated into Events based on the dates you took them, so you can get to them in iPhoto either through choosing Events from the Library list, or Last Import in the Recent list (assuming you access them before importing more pictures from elsewhere). And, of course, you can email a screenshot (“Proof of the Highest Score in the Western Hemisphere!!”) the same way you can email photos from the Photos app, by tapping the Export button and choosing the email option.

When you spend umpteen hours a day with eyes focused on your screen, your brain is intimately familiar with the elements you see. It didn’t take the metal bezel to proclaim the hi-res MacBook Pro model: a glance at the screen identified it – everything is obviously smaller. But not in a bad way. It’s still very comfortable.

I put two display MacBook Pro’s close together (accidentally disconnecting an external Time Machine drive in the process) to see what “30% more pixels” provided as a practical matter. On each screen, I opened two windows in Pages, set them to 8.5 inches wide (measured by the ruler at the top of the document window) and put them side by side. On the standard screen, the windows totally covered the screen. On the hi-res screen, there was still a strip along the right side that showed the (now-reconnected) Time Machine drive icon, with plenty of clearance for its name as well. So, that 30% is going to give me some breathing room: two Word documents side-by-side and still room to leave the Dock out on the right edge; accommodation for Adobe Photoshop and InDesign’s ever-present, not-skinny palettes; more Desktop mess…

And I’ll be getting it without squinting, because the screen is clear, sharp, and beautiful – and it will be glare-free (for “only” a $150 premium).

And I’ll be getting it from my favorite source, TekServe in Manhattan, because those guys (and I mean that gender-generically) – they really know what they’re doing.

(And, now, this blog will turn its attention back to the iPad.)

Okay, I admit that for a long time I’ve said that the Geniuses aren’t usually all that smart – but when you christen something “genius,” you’re only asking for trouble and snarky remarks. And I know that I’ve been using Macs since before some of the Genius Bar dudes were born (seriously!), so it’s not a fair match if I stop by the Bar to toy with them.

But I expect sales people and geniuses to know the basics, and to be able to answer reasonable questions, about Apple products. Especially when the product is a new one, on display (more or less). I went to the Apple store this morning, where I wanted to do a quick look-see, hands-on, test drive of certain a new MacBook Pro. But, nooo…. And if this is the way shoppers are treated – by totally uninformed personnel – I’m shocked that any but current Mac users would bother buying a Mac from a place like this.

I’ve been waiting for the new MacBook Pros to come out because it’s time for a new one. I wanted to get one a couple of months ago, selling my 2.5-year-old MBP while there was still 6 months of AppleCare on it (a good resale point). Generally, however, new laptop models come out at about the same price as the just-previous generation, and I was talked out of buying one and into waiting for the new ones (I’m not mentioning any names). But, not only did the new models come out at a higher starting price, the extra feature I need has an extra, extra cost: I need an anti-glare screen. And, although that was already an additional charge, now there’s a catch: you have to get a model with the higher-res screen, paying a premium for that, in order to get anti-glare. Now, I might be able to rationalize the extra cost, but I don’t think I can deal with the tinier pixels; Adobe palettes are already driving me squint-crazy. But how would I know for sure without looking at one? (Because it would drive me even crazier to have to set it to a lower resolution after paying for the higher one!)

So, off to the Apple Store in Willowbrook, in Wayne, NJ, only minutes from my house. Past the up-front iPad displays (already have one, thanks), to the MacBook Pro table: a line of 13-inchers along one side, 15-inch on the other. A glance at the 15’s tell me they’re at the familiar, standard resolution. Can they be adjusted? I’d have to get to System Preferences on 4 machines, so I’ll just ask a salesperson. I had to go snag someone; the store was just about empty but only the security guard had bothered to acknowledge my existence.

Here’s how the conversation proceeded with the guy I grabbed:

“I’d like to see the Mac Book Pro with the higher-resolution screen so I can decide if that’s the one I want. Are any of these a high-res model?”

“Umm…they all have the same size screens.”

“Yes, the size is the same, but I want to know if one of these can be set to the higher resolution.”

“Umm… higher resolution? Oh!” [The light dawns… he thinks] “You want to look at the 15-inch screens on the other side of the table.” [We were on the 13-inch side of the table.]

“Yes, I want a 15-inch model, but you’re aware that some of the new models come with high-res screens? And that I can’t get an anti-glare model unless I also get the hi-res?”

“We don’t have any anti-glare models on display.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a hi-res model here. I thought you could save me some time instead of my looking through settings for each one.” [He watches as I pull out System Prefs on the first machine, then move to the next and do the same.]

“But these screens are all the same the size.”

[Less patient, and a less let’s-not-make-him-feel-dumb voice] “You do know there’s a difference between the screen size and resolution, right?”

He looks at me semi-blankly, not sure how to fake it at this point, and without the grace to admit he doesn’t know; he doesn’t seem to know what he doesn’t know. I look at my husband, who’s been checking the other displayed machines.

“You know, I could just take a look at some regular screens and see if I can figure out what the analogous resolution would be.” [Should I explain to this guy – the salesman, that is, not my husband - the difference between pixel-per-inch resolution and “resolution” as a measure of horizontal by vertical measurement?? Nah, too busy trying to think, through pain-medication haze, what that analogous resolution would be.]

The salesman (salesboy?) follows me to the table of iMacs, as I continue talking to my husband “Do you remember the hi-res? 1600-something by 1000-something? Can you check the Apple site?” [I wave a hand toward the iMac next to the one where I’m pulling out System Preferences for the Display prefs. The salesman shakes his head.]

“Oh, these screens don’t go up that high,” he says helpfully.

And he’s shocked, shocked, when he sees that the current resolution is set to 2760 by 1440. He apparently realizes his limitations and says he’ll be right back. He comes back with information:

“We don’t have any of the hi-res MacBooks on display” [duh]. “We don’t even have any in stock, but you can order one.”

“I can order one online. I want to see it. Do you really expect people to order a machine with features they haven’t seen?”

He shrugs politely.

[To my husband] “Maybe we can check the Short Hills store tonight or tomorrow?”

[Salesman] “Oh, they’ll have exactly the same thing, all the stores have to put out only the things we’re told to put out.”

He says he’ll be right back. He comes back with reinforcements.

[New guy] “We do have one of the hi-res machines in the back, but we can’t open it for you.”

I look at my husband – and, okay, I probably rolled my eyes. Didn’t I just pretty much say I wasn’t going to buy a machine when I hadn’t yet checked out the screen at the higher resolution?? But not so the salesmen can see; I’m not that rude.

[Husband, to salespeople] “Is the manager here? Can we speak with him?”

They nod and walk away agreeably. I am now at my limit, not of patience, but of pain tolerance: with recent spinal surgery, even with drugs I can’t walk or stand comfortably more than 5 minutes; 15 minutes is approaching agony. They come back:

“The manager is here but he’s busy, he’ll be awhile”

My husband looks at me waiting for a decision: he knows I’m about to wimp out, give up, and get home as quickly as possible to my pain-reducing horizontal approach to life. He knows my little nod means “Okay, try again, I can last a little longer.” He asks the salesman how long “awhile” is, and if there’s someone else who can help. The guy again disappears, and reappears with what he thinks is happy news:

“Actually, the manager says they’ll be opening a box and putting a hi-res machine on display later today.”

Inside, I’m exploding… Later today? I’m on my way to the oncologist and might not be in the mood for returning later today. Even with good news [which it was], it’s physically too difficult for me to be up and out in the morning and again in the afternoon. And what do you think – that normal people have time to come to the mall on a Thursday morning and come back again in the afternoon?. But I just look at my husband and roll my eyes again, eloquently. (Hey, really, the salesmen couldn’t see that, I turned away from them.)

[Husband, calmly] “Well, if you’re going to open the box today, can’t you just open it now?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that simple. We have to image it, and set it up right, and…”

Of course. Not unreasonable – and lord knows, Rich and I set up new machines for people all the time, and it really does take a surprising amount of time to get a new Mac up and running, even if you’re not imaging it.

But it sounded unreasonable after dealing with a salesperson who didn’t know the basics about computer displays in general, about the new MacBook lineup in particular (couldn’t they give these guys a cheat sheet at the very least?), about what was actually in stock….

We thanked them and left. (And I’m afraid I’ll just have to go back tomorrow, though I’ll sure as hell call first to see if that machine’s set up, and hope that I get a knowledgeable answer. I can just hear it now, when/if I get there: “Are you the person who called about the hi-res MacBook Pro? So, you want to see the 17-inch models then, right?”

Is this any way to run an Apple store?