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I can’t believe that next week I am heading back to a work where sleep is a luxury (though I am in a mild version of that world right now!) and a clean apartment will soon be a thing of the past. Oh to keep up with 2 side jobs and three blogs be a career woman and a graduate student! I will certainly be challenged this semester. I will certainly grow professionally and academically. And I will (almost) certainly be losing my mind a few times a day. But as I head back to school visions of sugar plums techy toys dance in my head!

iPad

A giant iPhone (I would know since I have had 2 iPhones in the last month!) is what the boyfriend tells me. Well, I love my iPhone — wouldn’t it just mean more to love? I recently did some sales trainings to get a free license for Mobile Me. (I wanted the track my iPhone app, so that future iPhone thieves stand less of a chance and I didn’t want to pay $99 for it! Don’t ask how I got access to the trainings. There are some things that are better left undisclosed!) Naturally, those trainings are meant to leave you feeling you absolutely must have every apple product out there. It totally worked. The thought of  writing notes about class (and about blog posts ideas) on my iPad and then wireless syncing those notes to my MacBook Pro gets my inner geek all excited. And how cool would it be to have galleries of my work for clients to see at the swipe of a finger (see what I did there)?

MacBook Pro

Did I mention that I don’t actually have a MacBook Pro yet? I’m going to need it (I actually need two, because I think that some major fights will break out in my household if we had to share something as cool as this!) to edit those photos in my gallery and to make awesome videos of awesome stuff. (Look…anyone who says they’ve got everything all figured out is lying. So I don’t exactly have everything I’m going to use my MacBook Pro for figured out yet— don’t judge me. ) The new MacBook Pro has a glass trackpad that allows it to use multi-touch technology (like the iPhone and the iPad)– no buttons! (Read about it here.)  I know that I sound like an Apple fan girl right now. In reality, the only Apple products I’ve ever owned are my iPhones (all three of them…ugh. Yep…still bitter.) and my iPod (age 5). But Apple’s discreetly feminine branding is working its charm on me. I’m a marketer; I know exactly what they are trying to do. I’m falling for it. Kudos, Apple!

Digital Pen

This may or may not be a more practical gadget than the previous two. I’ve been debating whether or not to invest in a digital pen for over a year now. While there are a few brands that make digital pens, the only one I’ve seen in action is by Livescribe. The pen records voice while you take notes. Later you can click back on different parts of your notes and the pen will play back what was being said at the time that you took that note. The pen also allows you to upload your notes as a PDF file. There are two major drawbacks (thus, my year long “to buy or not to buy” debate persists). You have to write in the special Livescribe notebooks for the pen to work. (I’m sure you can’t bet these notebooks at Staples for $1) The other drawback is the price tag. How often do you lose pens? How often are your pens stolen? How pissed would you be if the pen you lost (or the pen that was stolen) had cost you $150? Exactly! While I’m not ready to financially commit to this gadget, I would be totally stoked if it were gifted to me. Are you there Lightscribe? It’s me Laura!