The iPad is a magical device, loved by all who spend countless hours reading, playing with it. At the end, you’ll have a dirty looking screen full of smudge marks and oily finger prints. To keep the iPad in its optimal condition for as long as possible it is important to keep the iPad clean and safe. To protect the body, its best to use one of the many available iPad cases. I’m using Apple’s iPad Case.

One thing no one would deny is that iPad is a wonder for babies, with sticky hands, which are sometimes greasy and many a times wet. Cleaning the Screen is important because it is all about the TOUCH. So here’s how you should clean your iPad Screen.

1. Unplug all cables and turn off iPad (press and hold the Sleep/ Wake button, and then slide the onscreen slider). This will eliminate entirely the risk of an electrical shock during the cleaning process
2. Use a soft, slightly damp cloth but be sure to not allow moisture in any openings in the iPad
   DO NOT use window cleaners. These can damage the oleophobic coating on the iPad screen and reduce the functionality of the iPad over time
3. Wipe the iPad in a circular motion and be sure that no sand, dirt, or dust is on the cloth used to whip the screen

Always make sure to use a soft cloth and a slightly damp one to clean the screen, any microfiber cloth would do. The ipad has an oleophobic coating which is sensitive to soap, grease removers and any mild or hard chemical of any sort. The iPad Screen coating is designed to repel oil. That may be why finger prints show up so quickly on the screen.

There is another way to keep your iPad clean is to protect it with screen protective layers like the Speck ShieldView Anti-Glare Protective Screen, which is around $17.55 on Amazon.

The IOS 3.2.1 update brings some exciting changes for your iPad. Following are the main changes:

• It Improves the Wi-Fi connectivity
• Fixes an issue that could prevent copy & paste of single-page PDF attachments in Mail
• Addresses issue that used to cause video playback to freeze
• Improves the reliability of video-out when using iPad Dock Connector to VGA Adapter
• Added Bing as an option for Safari’s search field

This update is compatible with both the WiFi and 3G iPad models.

To update, hook up your iPad and click the Update button on the Summary tab to update the software. Or you can download the stand alone updater from here

What was equally frustrating was looking at Safari 4. Sometime back, while in 3.x stage I installed Gears in Safari also for WordPress Admin usage. As my primary browser Firefox was working fine, never got the chance to have a look at Safari after the mega 4.0 upgrade. Googling came across this link. Following are steps required to make Gears run in Safari 4:

1. Uninstall Gears
   1. Launch Terminal
   2. From the command prompt, enter the following:

      /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/Gears.plugin/Contents/Resources/uninstall.command

2. Reinstall Gears
   1. Visit http://gears.google.com/?platform=mac#
   2. Click “Install Gears”
   3. Accept the license agreement
   4. Launch “gears-osx-opt-3.dmg” once it’s downloaded
   5. Install “Google Gears.mpkg”
3. Restart Safari

For me, the only thing required was “http://gears.google.com/?platform=mac#” as previously the Gears auto-check was giving error “Your browser is not supported”. Happy to report Gears is active now.

Note: Just upgraded to Safari 4.0.2