Throughout my life I’ve been a short-term memory gadget lover (luh-vah). When I first get my hands on a new gadget I act like Lenny Small from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men as I love and hug my new gadget almost to the point of killing it (how many mice did Lenny go through by the way?). The initial excitement of the new gadget tends to wane as time progresses to the point I typically run across the gadget a year after purchasing wondering what the hell I was thinking when I thought the gadget would be useful in my life. With that said, I’ve run across a few winners that coincidentally tend to winners in the overall consumer market but I would venture to guess for every 25 gadgets I buy, I may have 1 gadget winner that I’ll still be using a year after purchase. I might have a gadget problem.

Apparently, sometime in the past year and a half I managed to become totally dependent on my iPad. How did this happen? Sure, the iPad is cool but a coolness factor alone won’t hold my attention for a year and a half – I’m slightly immune to cool, after all I’m a geek. So why did I become addicted to the iPad?

Friday night I was flying home from a business trip where I enjoyed the extended legroom of an exit row. The segment is a popular segment so I missed the upgrade to first class by one spot – I digress but it still bothers me that I was so close to the promise land on that flight. In any case, I had enough room to pull out my massively bulky, weighty but ultra performing Lenovo W510 due to the extended legroom but I decided to throw the laptop bag into storage above the seat and stick with just the iPad. After using the iPad for as much as the flight I could I placed the iPad back into the seat pocket in front of me for the landing and apparently due to the drugs I have been prescribed to eradicate a nasty extended cold I forgot to secure my iPad in my messenger bag. Finally, after unpacking and settling in my home office around midnight I realized I did not have the iPad and surmised I must have left the iPad in the seat pocket.

My first thought was panic because my wife mentioned she was having lunch with a friend on Saturday and her friend’s son wanted to play with the iPad. Then I started to freak out about the information on the iPad and remembered I had an 8 digit passcode protecting my iPad where the information will be wiped after 10 attempts. If you have an iPad and do not have a passcode setup, take a pause from this article and update the security on your iPad! The next thought hit me like a ton of bricks, what about the information on the iPad! As I started to think about my information I realized I only had a couple applications I use that only locally store on the iPad and most applications I use including email, contacts, calendar, Toodledo, Evernote, etc… all use syncing to or from the service. Alright, I started feeling good except for the loss of a $800 gadget. My next thought was that my life and work are too integrated with the iPad and that I would need to replace my loss immediately so I purchased a White 64GB iPad 2 WiFi version (I was going to purchase the 3G version but Best Buy did not have one in stock so I picked up a Cradlepoint to work with my U600 3G/4G USB to provide WiFi from 3G/4G signals. Additionally, a couple years ago I started purchasing AAPL stock when I purchase a product so I’ll need to execute a $1k order Monday (why do I do this?).

So obviously the iPad somehow got integrated into my life (and my family’s life). What was the tipping point that took the iPad from “cool” to “addictive” for me?

As it turns out, the answer is simple. There are two conditions that have contributed to this addiction… Steve Job’s vision and Apple’s execution to create an outstanding product combined with software from Apple’s iOS to the scores of apps. The iPad has become my center for personal and work information as I sync email, contacts, calendar, to do lists, notes and presentations. I now purchase and read all books and magazines using the iPad (with the minor frustration of not being able to read during takeoff and landing of aircraft) and connect to Comcast on-demand, HBO Go, Netflix streaming and Slingbox through the iPad so the bulk of the reading and video content are viewed through the iPad. I attend business meetings through Webex and GoToMeeting unless I’m hosting and I control my finances with various banking and investment apps including the much improved Mint app which was finally recently updated. While traveling I’ll pick up my news, weather, traffic and flight information from the iPad. At home, my 5 year old utilizes the iPad to have picnics with her dolls and daddy and play educational games and some non-educational games too (although I guess Angry Birds has physics built into it). In addition to all these add-on apps, the iOS provides simple access to WiFi networks and an incredible user experience not to mention a form factor to carry most places and use on a plane when I’m not in first class or an exit row.

I had to go purchase a new iPad in about twelve hours after losing because the device has inserted itself in my personal and business workflows by helping me become more mobile and efficient through a great mix of hardware and software. I’m happy to say that the iPad 2 has already been heavily used both by my 5 year old and myself after restoring from backups.

The Geeks wanted to send out a Happy Fourth of July to our American readers!

Additionally, we wanted to thank all our loyal readers for sticking with us since we opened our blogging beta doors on July 5th, 2004… 7 years ago. Thank you!

eReaders (eBook Readers) have been all the rage this year as more and more vendors have joined what seems to be a massive land grab for mindshare and of course market share. However, there really are only a handful of vendors and products commanding this industry right now.

We take the top ones including the Amazon.com Kindle (and Kindle DX), Barnes & Noble NOOK (and NOOKcolor), Sony Readers, Borders’ Kobo and of course the Apple iPad, and compare them head-to-head.

We also tell you which reader to pick based on what your main interests and/or needs are. This valuable report is yours free when you subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Don’t want to sign up? Buy it instead!

We know that this is the sort of information to go out of date relatively quickly and we plan to update this as new information and products become available. Stay subscribed and stay in touch!

Hey GfG readers – we’ve drawn the winners in our recently held giveaway of the LAlarm Laptop Security software and have sent out the e-mail notifications to the 30 lucky winners.

Congratulations to all of our winners! Stay tuned to the website and/or our RSS feed and/or our newsletter to find out the next time we have another sweepstakes.

Just in case any of the notifications got caught by spam filters, here is a list of the winners’ e-mail addresses (sanitized for your safety of course). If your e-mail address matches one of these and you didn’t get an e-mail from us, please shoot us a note to see if you’re a winner.

Happy New Year to you, our readers, your friends and family. Here’s hoping that 2010 is a better year for us all.

In the meantime, while we wait another 12 months to see how things will shake out, we dare to give you our humble predictions for what’s in store gadget and technology-wise for 2010. We’re not going to go too much out on a limb with our 2010 prophecies, because we don’t want to be too disappointed if they don’t come to pass!

GfG’s 2010 Gadget and Technology Forecast:

• Apple puts out a tablet-based computer
• Lots more Android-based smartphones pop up on cell carrier networks around the world.
• The iPhone comes to Verizon
• A handful of 3D TVs hit the market
• The eBook Reader (eReader) market heats up even more. Lots more vendors throw their hats into the ring.
• At least one Google Chrome OS based netbook hits

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all of our readers, your families and friends.

Here’s hoping that under your Christmas tree is packed with gadgets!

Here’s some of the notable articles and gadgets from this past week:

A few weeks ago we reported on Legacy Locker asset access scheme in case of death, well now it’s live. Residents in Broughton, UK, decided that they didn’t like Google’s StreetView intrusion, and got a bit angry with the StreetView driver. In some positive Microsoft news, downgrades are going to be available for Windows 7, much like the XP downgrades from Vista.

Back to tangible gadgets: Guitar Hero enthusiasts will like these new Guitar Hero cufflinks (no batteries needed!), and Flip has a new tiny HD camcorder.

We made an attempt to answer the question “What is a Gizmo?” (a.k.a “What is a Gadget?” ).

Last but not least, the Conficker worm has gone live so it’s important to get your computer and security systems up-to-date.

Here’s our usual weekly summary of featured items from Gizmos For Geeks:

Starting off the week were a set of novelty Stone Ice Cubes – just the ticket if you worry about harming the planet when making ice cubes. We also featured a set of kitchen scales that has a neat pull out display.

We wondered out loud about whether or not you should jump on the Twitter bandwagon.

For those of you worried about security or just like the added conveniences and coolness factor, this doorlock might just be for you, or maybe you could just travel to the future to see if you’re going to need one with this Flux Capacitor!

Jobs have been in the news recently, so it seemed fair to post an interesting video about the Job Market and reported that workers who are allowed to surf the web at work have increased productivity!

Finally,  poor ol’ Silicon Graphics Inc. has filed for bankruptcy once again and has been bought out by Rackable Sytems.

Here is last week’s featured gadgets and news items at Gizmos for Geeks:

To start off the week, we took a look at Legacy Locker – a rather needed innovation that allows you to pass down important account details for your online ‘assets’ in the case of your death.

We found two interesting pieces of software: Claymation’s Stop-Motion Studio Tool that allows the user to make their own stop-motion movies and Palringo – a mobile messaging service that allows you to mix up all the major IMs with and chat to groups all in one.

Dell just rolled out their Adamo Notebook which is essentially Dell’s response to the MacBook Air – thin & stylish.

Rebit’s 160GB Automatic Backup Device makes it quite easy to backup your data regularly.

Got $40k laying around? Get a Novelquest Emporer Workspace – a very high end workspace that puts you inside the spine of what can only be described as a giant dinosaur. On a more practical note, the Just One Club Card’ allows you to put all of your loyalty cards’ barcodes onto just one card.

Sony got together with Google to put 500,000 free public domain books onto their eReaders. You can save money (possibly up to 90%) on international calls by using Vopium on your mobile.

In perhaps a sign of things to come, a new magazine from Popular Science called the Genius Guide is being rolled out online only.

As a Cinco de Mayo present for Geeks everywhere, the Geeks from Gizmos for Geeks has re-released Bargains for Geeks simply because we love to get our hands on various gadgets and gizmos, but if we have to pay full price we can’t buy nearly as many as we really want! After all, the Geek’s motto is “Whoever dies with the most toys wins!”

While visiting various Geek-related bargain and deal sites, we noticed only certain products and deals were listed. Unfortunately, these products were not always what we were looking for. We’ve decided
to grab all bargains and deals from our favorite shopping places as well as best selling and new products. You can get your hands on the latest deals from the various shopping places by visiting the website or subscribing to either the RSS feed or the daily email (you know us as some have received our newsletter for nearly four years, we will never sell the list).

Save your time for playing the latest game release or watching last week’s episode of Battlestar Gallactica on your TiVo and stop wasting time hunting for bargains by visiting multiple sites that pick and
choose what products you’re going to see. Leave compiling the deals to us, and just search for the right deal for you.