So, you’ve had an iPad for a while and you want to protect your investment. The best way to do that is by practicing the basics of system maintenance and troubleshooting. Let’s take a look at some of the skills you’ll need. We will cover a wide variety of simple tasks in this tutorial, including maintenance, updates, troubleshooting and more.

I’m late to the party, but I’ve joined the tablet computer brigade, having picked up the 16 GB white iPad 2 WiFi that finally arrived at my local Apple reseller after a two-month wait. I could have had a 32 GB model a week earlier, but have been resolved to go with the base model, reasoning that I don’t have large music or video collections, anticipate that the iPad will be very much a support machine complimenting my workhorse laptops, and even the most expensive iPad 2 will all too soon be yesterday’s news.

The Daily has is one of the groups/people lucky enough to get their hands on the iPad 2 before everyone else. As such, they’ve taken the time to write a review about it. While it’s mostly positive, it isn’t glowing. What it boils down to is basically that the iPad 2 is certainly a refreshed iPad, but it doesn’t offer anything crazy spectacular when compared to the original iPad.

Those of you who were paying close attention to Apple’s media event yesterday will be aware that the brand new iPad 2 will be available for $499—the same price as the original iPad. As a result, the price of the first generation iPad has dropped, making it a very appealing purchase for those who don’t need the extra processing power or video recording capabilities.

As reported earlier, Motorola has created an ad for its Xoom tablet which parodies Apple’s famous 1984 ad. The ad, which was premiered during last night’s Super Bowl XLV, has many striking similarities to Apple’s classic commercial, such as the use of the mindless drones and the notion of fighting conformity. Motorola’s Xoom—a $799 3G 32GB tablet which will be running the Android 3.0 OS—is attempting to rival Apple’s iPad, if that’s not clear enough from the ad itself.

Last month, ChangeWave asked over 3,000 consumers about their purchase plans for the coming months. As the trends already show for 2010, people just aren’t buying netbooks, with more and more people looking towards the tablet options to fulfil their ultra-mobile computing needs. It’s hardly surprising to learn that this trend began to appear around the same time that Apple launched the iPad, and the numbers from this recent survey certainly back up the claim.

Apple has unveiled free engraving for the incredibly popular iPad, allowing consumers to personalize the device either for themselves or as quite an expensive gift. The process is pretty much the same as engraving an iPod—you’re allowed two lines of text that will appear central and near the top of the device at no additional cost. Although you should probably be aware that when we say “free,” it may end up costing you a little in other ways.

It’s that time of year again when Apple holds their quarterly earnings call. As usual, this call was full of interesting and large numbers. To start, Apple was able to reach $20.34 billion in revenue this quarter, with $4.31 billion in profits. These numbers were helped by the surprising amount of products Apple sold this quarter. Here they are: 3.89 million Macs, 14.1 million iPhones, 9.05 million iPods, and 4.19 million iPads. Wow.

Already the fastest selling gadget ever, the iPad will now be available in three more stores and thousands of more locations soon. As of this Friday, October 15th, the iPad will be available at Walmart locations across the nation. Walmart plans to have it in 2,300 stores by mid-November, and will be selling it for the full retail price that Apple does. Sorry, people, even Walmart can’t make Apple bring the prices down on their products.

The iPad has certainly left its mark on the tech industry and changed the way people access the web and their digital life. Now, with an estimated 8.5 million units sold, the iPad is the fastest selling gadget in tech history, according to Bernstein Research financial analyst Colin McGranahan. Not only that, but a different NPD study found that 13% of people who own an iPad would’ve bought a computer had the iPad not been available. That’s pretty staggering.