It's Day 19 and my paperless experiment is actually going pretty well. The iPad actually works as a pretty good substitute for printing out all those PDF's I used to lug around.

Some problems I'm still running into:

--Best Synching / Files App?: Can anyone tell me what app is the best for automatically synching files on my Mac and my iPad? I've been using GoodReader, which I only sort of like. What I want is automatic synching and updating. The files need to live on both the laptop and the iPad, but a cloud backup would be nice. No real need to have the ability to edit files on my iPad (my fingers are too fat), I think reading would be fine. But I guess this feature could come in handy later on. Am willing to pay for this feature.

--Meeting Paper Hand-Outs: The rest of the world does not seem as enamored or supportive of my paperless iPad experiment as I am. In meetings I keep getting handed stacks and stacks of paper. What is the etiquette here? Should I politely request only electronic files, sent ahead of time? Can I ask after the meeting for electronic copies? Should I talk about my iPad paperless experiment, risking sidelining the real point of our meetings?

--Reading Web Content Offline / Online Journals: Instapaper was recommended to me, and it seems pretty good. Still, I want something that pulls Web content without having me have to do anything. An app that pulls all the EDUCAUSE publications for instance. It may be that magazines and journals need to create dedicated apps, but I wish there was a universal app that I could point online journals towards and always have the latest copies.

--Basecamp: I have not figured this one out, as it seems like there are a bunch of Basecamp apps. For now I'm simply working with Basecamp through the iPad Safari browser. Can anyone recommend the best Basecamp app?

--Kids: My biggest problem so far is that the kids seem to want to steal the iPad once I get home to watch movies or surf the Web. When I grab it back to do some reading, they get cranky. I'm loathe to drop $500 of my own money for a first generation entertainment device, but the iPad is such a great content consumption device for the entire family that holding out is proving difficult.

Have any of you utilized your iPad to go paperless? Any tips, tricks, hints or other questions I should be asking?