Read and Write to a Standard USB Thumb Drive from the iPhone/iPad

USB Flash Drives are the storage media of choice for everyday people. They are cheap, easy to carry around, and work everywhere. Unfortunately on the iPad you can only read from them in a limited way with the purchase of the $30 camera kit, and not at all on the iPhone. CloudFTP, a $99 device from Sanho, changes this. CloudFTP gives wireless file sharing capability to any USB device attached. Just plus in your USB key into the CloudFTP, and access your data via Wifi wireless using a web browser or FTP client.

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Create Transparent Graphics Using Paper by FiftyThree on the iPad

Paper by FiftyThree is a popular drawing app that has been gaining allot of attention lately. Well deserved attention, and it's latest update has really expanded it's utility. Now, not only can you save your drawing to the cameral roll, you do so without the background. This one option open a whole range of creative opportunities. Let explore some...

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Auto Trace (or Live Trace) Bitmap Images into Vector Graphics on the iPad

When you are working as a graphic designer, often customers will come to you with low resolution art (often from the web) and expect you to be able to use them in their projects. While a challenge there are several techniques that will allow you to do that without sacrificing the quality of the project. One solution is convert bitmap images into vector graphics. Just load the image in the background and recreate it with a vector graphics application. Simple but possibly time consuming. Professional illustration programs, like Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand, have features where the program will automatically recreate the image for you (Live Trace in Adobe Illustrator). While apps on iOS often aren't as fully featured as there their desktop equivalents, you can often combine different apps to achieve the results you need. There are several vector illustration apps for the iPad that should meet anyone's needs. Combine this with the VectorPro app ($9.99) from Ramen Shoppe to provide the automatic tracing function, and you can get pretty good results from bitmap images.

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Install and Use Typefaces (Fonts) on Your iPad

Like a good library of clipart, a large collection of fonts is an important tool in any designer's tool chest. Unfortunately Apple doesn't allow you to install them on the iPad. But don't let that stop you from getting the job done. Here is how to setup your existing type library so you can use them when creating material from the iPad. No jailbreak necessary.

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Use an Existing Clip Art Library with the iPad

A good library of clip art, is one of the first tools a graphic designer picks up. Useful in presentations or the start point for more customized designs, the use of existing clip art is valuable on the iPad. Here is how to get your art ready for the iPad.

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Backup Your iPhone/iPad Photo Library to the Cloud

Some of the most irreplaceable information on your iPhone/iPad are your photographs. The device itself can be easily (if not without cost) replaced. Lose your data and it may be gone forever. Having a good systematic backup scheme is important, easy, and pretty cheap.

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Read and Write to a SD Card from an iPad—SD Card Readers Review

Music players, audio recorders, GPS units, scanners, ebook readers, cameras of all sorts, even robots... gadgets of all sorts use SD cards to store data. A working SD Card reader for iOS brings the power of these great gadget to the iPad and iPhone. The following devices allow you to read and write to SD cards without jail-breaking your iPad.

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