I was one of those who pre-ordered last year and waited anxiously for the UPS truck to appear, but while I enjoyed this new bit of technology, I remained guarded about what it’s role might be in my workflow. It has seemed to me to be less than a laptop replacement, but I hadn’t decided just how much less. And that’s where things sat for much of the last year.

Recently, though, I noticed I have been using it a lot more around the house for reviewing/approving blog comments left here, doing quick email checks, watching for breaking news, looking up recipes, and lots of other miscellaneous tasks.

And when my MacBook Pro had to pay another extended visit to the Apple Store, I found myself relying on the iPad. In the process, I discovered several things.

Most important, I found that my brain and fingers have finally adapted to the on-screen keyboard. I remember that I thought I would never get the hang of it, and for a while relied on an external keyboard. But slowly, over time, it snuck up on me. That instantly increased the iPad’s utility tremendously. After taking notes during several meeting, I realized the notes were no longer full of typos and errors. Bingo.

Another big change–the long list of available apps. I’ve downloaded quite a few, abandoned many, but found some workhorses. Among them:

• Things. It’s a list maker & task manager. Simple at first, but you can complicate it up by using tags and filters. It syncs wirelessly between my laptop, iPad, and iPhone, which dramatically extends its usefullness.

• Omni Outliner. I’ve been using the Mac version on my laptop for several years to organize projects and research. Now I can sync the outlines between my computer and iPad, and fiddle anywhere.

• Evernote. This is handy for notes, web snips, audio notes, and bits & pieces of just about anything. It syncs on the fly to your mac and iPhone. Another very handy app.

• Dropbox. A great tool for sharing and syncing any kind of document. The free 2GB has been plenty for me so far.

• Kindle Reader. The iPad isn’t my first choice as a reader, but it’s nice to have available, and it syncs to the latest page that you’ve read on your Kindle, iPhone, or any other Kindle platform.

• Netflix. Got a free half hour to kill? Sign into your Netflix account and watch a movie or television show from their instant library.

• Blogsy. I just added this blogging app in the past couple of days, and have not yet had a chance to fully test it out. But it appears to be more fully developed that the current version of the WordPress app. I am, though, still watching for an iPad version of MarsEdit, which has been my primary blogging application on my Mac for some time.

• News Apps. I’ve got quite a few, including the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, AP, NPR, BBC, Blomberg, USA Today, Pro Publica, Pacific Business News, Honolulu Magazine, The Nation, Chronicle of Higher Education, The Hill, Inside Higher Ed, and,yes, Civil Beat. It’s more news than I can digest at any one sitting. That’s when Instapaper comes in handy.

• Social media–YouTube, Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, and Flipboard, which accesses both and more in an attractive package.

And more. Really.

Now, instead of wondering whether the iPad has a place, I’m starting to wonder whether it would be worth upgrading to the iPad 2. That’s a switch in my thinking from six months ago.

That word boiled down the immediate reactions to yesterday’s announcement that Oahu Publications, owner of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, has reached an agreement to buy the larger Honolulu Advertiser. Word spread quickly following a 4:15 press release and meetings in both newsrooms.

Hats off to David Black for pulling off one of the industry’s biggest upsets.

Now things get confusing. Black says an attempt will be made to sell the Star-Bulletin. If it doesn’t sell, and he doesn’t expect a successful sale, there will be a “consolidation” of the two newspapers.

MidWeek, which has been the money maker for Black that offset at least some of the S-B’s losses, is not being offered for sale, and it seems virtually impossible that a new buyer could emerge for a stand-alone Star-Bulletin.

Black wins in the deal, but are Star-Bulletin staffers on the chopping block and again at risk? Or do they also emerge as winners?

The current Newspaper Guild contract covering Star-Bulletin employees is between “The Honolulu Star-Bulletin” and the union, and expires on March 14, 2010. However, the contract specifies that its terms (and protections) remain in force during negotiations.

According to state business registration records, “Honolulu Star-Bulletin” is a “master trade name” registered by Oahu Publications, Inc. The Star-Bulletin does not appear to be incorporated as a separate legal entity.

This appears to mean that the contract covering Star-Bulletin employees will remain in force during any “consolidation” since Oahu Publications, which operates under the trade name “Honolulu Star-Bulletin”, will be the surviving entity that is buying and consolidating the assets of the Gannett’s Honolulu Advertiser.

On the other hand, at least according to published accounts and information provided by the Guild, the Advertiser contract will terminate at closing of the sale, although the Guild will still represent and negotiate on behalf of Advertiser employees.

According to the Guild’s advice to Advertiser employees:

Until the acquisition is complete, your contract continues in place. However, after that date, which has not yet been set, according to Gannett the new owner will not honor our wages, our vacation, or our seniority. Presumably the new company, Oahu Publications Inc. will set new working conditions. According to labor law, once the new owner sets new conditions, the owner can change them only by bargaining with the union. Your union will continue to represent you.

So my informed guess is that Star-Bulletin employees come out of this with more of a claim on the positions in a future merged newsroom, although it’s fair to say that uncertainty still prevails.

Black says he hopes to retain two editorial voices, and there is at least one precedent for doing just that. Following the merger of the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga News-Free Press, an unusual arrangement retained competing editorial pages. This was defended as a way to retain the distinct regional political views formerly represented by the competing newspapers. However, I don’t know that the editorial policies of the Star-Bulletin and Advertiser have been distinct enough to warrant this kind of arrangement.

If you’ve been through it before, you know there’s nothing like that sinking feeling of the sudden news that your workaday world and potentially your career in journalism has a life expectancy of just six to eight weeks.

And the confusion over the meaning of this complicated transaction and how it will affect employees of the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin makes the emotional turmoil worse for those involved in both ends of the transaction.

No one can be totally surprised that Honolulu finally proved unable to sustain two competing daily metropolitan newspapers, given the economic turmoil of the last decade, beginning with the post-9/11 crash to the collapse of global financial markets.

But the survival of the Star-Bulletin after the 1999 announcement of its imminent demise gave hope that Honolulu could buck the industry trend and remain among the dwindling ranks of two newspaper cities.

Rumors have periodically run their course, but few really believed that Gannett’s deep corporate pockets would not, in the end, provide enough financial momentum to leave the Advertiser as the last newspaper standing.

In a column published this morning, Black say he began looking at options of either closing the Bulletin or attempting to buy the Advertiser about a year ago.

A year or so ago, we began searching for possible solutions, including closing our door or purchasing the Advertiser. Closing would mean cutting our losses and pulling out; purchasing the Advertiser would mean an additional, major investment in Hawaii. As believers in Hawaii, despite taking on additional financial risk, we felt a rational market consolidation was warranted.

At that time, Black’s company and majority, Black Press, had just reported losses of $26.3 million in 2008. Layoffs and cutbacks were the order of the day, and rumors about the possible demise of the Star-Bulletin were flying, prompting the Newspaper Guild to war, “Beware of rumors and how they spread.”

And here we are, a year later, with the surprise announcement that Gannett is giving up and selling out to Black.

Wow.

This bill would change the due date for annual personal disclosure statements for the prior year filed by legislators. It seems like a simple thing. Require financial disclosures to be filed when they will do the most public good in allowing the public to be assured that personal financial interests are not driving legislative action.

According to Common Cause:

Some lobbying entities also have business relationships with legislators, but surprisingly, legislators are not required to disclose their financial interests until after adjournment of the legislative session. Senate Bill 653 would require legislators to report their finances by the “first crossover” deadline in early March, so that potential conflicts of interest can’t be kept secret while legislation is being finalized.

Is this a problem? Well, according to the State Ethics Commission web site, only a handful of legislators have filed their financial disclosures covering the 2009 calendar year.

In the Senate, first to file honors go to Sen. Clarence Nishihara, who filed his report on January 14.
Senate. Others filing promptly were Josh Green and Fred Hemmings (Jan. 20), and Norman Sakamoto (Jan. 25).

First to file in the House were Finance Committee chair Marcus Oshiro and Republican Cynthia Thielen (both on Jan. 19). Also completing their disclosures early in the year were Marilyn Lee (Jan. 25), Ken Ito (Jan. 26), and Denny Coffman (Feb. 1).

Under current law, legislators (and state officials) do not have to disclose their financial interests until May 31, which this year will be over a month after the legislature adjourns.

Even SB 653 provides too much leeway. Financial disclosures should be due within 30 days of the end of the year or other reporting period. There’s really no reason to keep the public in the dark for so long after the close of the reporting period.

But SB 653 didn’t get a hearing last year, and isn’t yet scheduled for a hearing this year. If it isn’t heard and passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by Friday’s First Decking deadline, it’s dead. A companion bill in the House, HB 785, is already dead after failing to be passed by the first committee before the deadline for lateral movement.

Another bill calling for a change in disclosure timing is on the Common Cause agenda. S.B. 2321 would speed up disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures in elections run by mail. Currently, the deadline for campaign spending reports falls after ballots are mailed and voting is already underway in an election conducted by mail. This happened during the special City Council elections last year.

Check out the fate of the bills in the Good Government Package. If my quick count is correct, there were 20 GoodGov bills referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only three even got public hearings, all of those were killed.