Okay, I admit it. I was one of the first to get excited when Steve Jobs announced the iPad in February, but not for the reasons you might think. Yeah, I'm a gadget junkie, but I'm much more interested in gadgets that enable me to keep the pulse of my business, my responsibilities, and my avocations from anywhere I am.

For that, I use web apps like Basecamp and Highrise by 37Signals for project and customer management, in addition to Google Apps Premier for mail, calendar and document sharing, along with ZumoDrive for cloud storage. Our invoicing, estimating and business tools are also all online, and meetings are conducted through WebEx. 

In short, anything I need to keep on top of things, is available from any Internet-connected web browser, anywhere in the world.  

I also like to travel light. 

That's why I opted for the 13" MacBook, and then the same sized MacBook Pro six months later; 17" notebooks are just too damned big to be practical, in my opinion. 

Traveling light is also the reason that I've been using handheld PIMs since the Palm III, and searching for the perfect portable Internet device since 2006, when I bought the Nokia n770, and then the Nokia N900 six months later. Both Nokia devices were tethered to a Palm Treo for Internet anywhere access. I retired this setup last year for an iPhone 3G.

All were nifty devices that helped keep me on top of my game, and the iPhone combined with a handful of apps made me more productive than ever. But it lacked the full-screen, full-keyboard experience that made carrying a bag with my MacBook (and a bunch of supporting accessories) necessary.

After two weeks with the iPad, I can confidently and unequivocally state that the days of the giant, accessory-laden, 20lb computer bag have for me, been replaced by an iPad and a MiFi in my breast pocket. Complaints of no Flash support are bound to be short-lived; the technology is being quickly replaced by HTML5 videos, as more and more website developers recognize the innate wisdom of supporting anything that bears the name "Apple."

In simplest terms, the iPad just works. It does 90% of what I need a portable computer to do, and does it with a speed, beauty and grace unlike anything I've ever seen in any computing platform, at any price. As for the 10% the iPad doesn't do (like uploading photos and files directly to Basecamp...a minor irritation), those things can easily wait until I get to a place where I can sit comfortably with my MacBook on a desk.

The iPad is a serious tool for serious work, not only for small businesses like mine, but evidently for heads of state as well!

So if you're someone who depends on being lean and light, yet still effective...ignore the geek elite that dismiss the iPad as a toy, a giant iPhone, or a dumbed down PC. Just because it doesn't do everything that they would want, doesn't mean it's not an eminently useful, convenient, fast and delightful tool.

As proof, I just completed my time billing, issued a quote, updated 5 projects, and wrote this blog post, all while watching the Sabres play the Bruins...using only my iPad.