so, you got an iPad for Christmas…

First off, I saw an article on Mashable.com (IPads Dominate Holiday Gifts in Mashable Poll), and wondered about how many people actually got (or received) an iPad for Christmas. I decided that it would be a good thing to provide a collated list of the plethora of help articles, lists of apps to get first, and generally give a few tips about how to get the most in using an iPad.

The list of related links will be at the end of this post, but I would like to give my unsolicited advice about some of the various topics that you may deal with in the next month or so, as you become more involved with your new tool/toy.

The iPad offers quite a number of different forms of media for you to consume/peruse/read/watch/ or look at. I have some points (in no particular order) to give you.

First off, get comfortable syncing your iPad with whatever PC you have (Windows or a Mac). If only at first, you will be spending some time getting up to speed on how to do such things as syncing all of your photos, how to load various forms of media, documents, and data to specific apps on the iPad. So, it is in your best interest to take your time and check out every pane of the iTunes iPad sync panel.

Depending upon how much memory your iPad has, you might be able to load up a number of movies and videos onto it. The Kosher way is to use the Apple Video app, and to load QuickTime/MP4 files via the iTunes sync panel. That was the only way to get this sort of information onto the iPad, as well as the only way formats the iPad could use…when the iPad came out in April 2010.

Now there are a number of streaming apps, (you can stream a movie to your iPad from your PC…especially (only?) if you are at your home wireless network). There are some free apps which will allow you to play a much wider array of formats (Windows .avi files, Divx, and almost anything except Flash files).

The iPad can easily run the iBook app; the Amazon Kindle app, the Barnes & Noble Nook app, and the (free) Stanza eBook app. get all of them. The iBook app is the prettiest, the Kindle has the most books, the Nook…well the Nook is another source for books…, and the Stanza is a great source for free books (beyond Project Gutenberg files…).

It is relatively easy to get your Gmail (Google accounts in general) set up as your primary email address and the source for your calendar. Here is a great link form the Apple iPad Tablet blog which shows you how to get this detail taken care of quickly (How to Set up Gmail in iPad mail).

Since it is so easy to buy books from any of the retails sites (your iBook, Kindle, and Nook apps), as well as to buy apps from the iPad App store (in the first panel on your iPad), it is merely common sense to take it easy and think through which apps to get. A can only imagine that there will soon be a term for app remorse with regard to the iPad (i.e. buying too many apps, and then finding that they only take up space ion your tablet). There are plenty of free apps, and quite a few apps which are only a dollar or so…go nuts (if you have to).

This brings up my last point, check out the App store often (there are always new apps arriving), and in a similar manner (I would hope), check out my links page as I have some worthwhile iPad resources there.

Now, here are some more links worth looking over, if only to start to get a handle upon which apps to buy: