Is The iPad "It"

would be to have a portable book containing manuals of technical nature. I'm thinking of roaming techs, for aircraft maintenance, photocopying techs, medical specialists, any electrical person on the job that needs to travel and has the requirment for complex instuctional material to refer to. A notebook is too awkward to use on the job, but the ipad would fit the bill very nicely as it would be the right size and battery life would be the main restriction I could see now.<br />

Everything is in pdf these days, the iphone had a reader app for pdf, but it wasn't the best to read on a small screen.<br />

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Not everywhere has wireless and many industries on sites prohibit these, oil and gas come to mind readily and out in the wilderness...<br />

The itouch/iphone will do me fine, it's great for remotes on iTunes for audio use. Besides, Sony Walkmans do sound better than ipods.

Sounds like an interesting device. I was thinking of getting an iPod Touch to use as a remote for my Squeezebox systems, and as PC replacement for surfing and email when traveling (instead of laptop). <br />

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However, now I'm thinking about the iPad. It apparently is quite a good competitor to the Kindle, also, which further increases it's value, as it saves putting out money for an additional ebook device. It would also work for the other purposes I mentioned, and the "killer" difference for me with the other Apple devices is that they will be offering 3G access on a monthly basis (no long term contract). <br />

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I don't live in the States, but visit. Buying a month of 3G and using VOIP applications for phone calls when travelling in the States might make the money invested in the iPad quite valuable, as it could save me a lot of dough spent on cell phone use.<br />

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Comments by anyone?

Some of the things mentioned above I've already done- I'd been watching the Apps store in the days leading up to the release, and for example, I have "My PDFs" which is an iPAD app supporting supporting PDF storage and viewing; at the moment I'm looking at the owner's manual for the Alpha DAC, but I have many other technical reference on board, available with the glide and tap of a finger. <br />

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Like others, I hope Apple will update the remote app. <br />

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With Keynote I have an arsenal of my technical presentations (work) on hand, and it imports either desktop iWorks Keynote or PowerPoint with seemingly equal ability (not surprising, the desktop version of Keynote has done that forever). With the VGA dongle, presentations on the road to larger groups are a snap. <br />

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One really can't emphasize enough how much faster this feels than an iPhone 3GS or late generation iPod Touch- they've done some new optimizations, obviously, and full screen graphics stuff just flys. Synthetic benchmarks show it running 2-4 times faster than a 3GS, but those don't seem to reflect the screen behavior and responsiveness adequately. Also, while some have run code which shows that Apps have access to just a 256 MB segment of memory and one core, X-Rays analysis at iFixit shows that there are two 256 MB memory chips stacked up in the processor package; it may be that one core and one bank of memory is reserved for the system routines. That might explain the performance better. <br />

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I'm looking at this more as a traveling work tool to replace the MBP and save space, while offering better functionality on the go, but with time I bet there will be a lot of remote apps and interesting ways to integrate this into one's audio system. I'm already curious if it would work with a Wadia iPod interface; then it could be used for a good basic CD player directly, if so inclined. There are reasons beyond the obvioius that I'm curious about this, related to digital audio products the semiconductor company I work for has been developing, which accept SPDIF and USB inputs. Possibly for a portable demo system. <br />

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By the way, the touch screen performance is really awesome, I was skeptical about the idea of some of the drawing and art products, but the feel and resolution are first rate. Makes it very easy to do editing, resizing graphics, working on page layout. <br />

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Lots of potential, but very polished for a 1.0 product. Feels more like a 2.0 or 3.0- but then it should, based on iPhone OS. <br />

Chris,<br />

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Thanks for your initial insights into the iPad. Very much appreciated. I was just wondering if the iPad can be used in the Mac "Share Screen" mode to control another Mac computer?<br />

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Regards,<br />

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Mister Wednesday

and can be used on a MAC for remote desktop work. Once I get my iPad it's the first or second (Apple Remote app will be first but will have no better functionality than my current iPod Touch....yet ) app I'll download. I wanna be able to run terminal commands (renice, etc), download player updates and launch PM or Amarra from it. My server is a Macbook SSD and I'll just use the VNC app to control the screen from my listening chair....rather than having the front-rack'd laptop open all the way and straddling my amps while I try to launch players and run downloads, etc on it.

I'm listening as write...<br />

Kinston Trio circa 1958...Recorded via Capitol/ Mastered by Pete Abott (U47 mikes) Yum yum.<br />

The pad is driving The Millett Hybrid Tube/SS battery powered amp. AKG 701<br />

Ill switch in my 26 tube amp in here soon. (best Triode ever built)(hums like a banshee if poorly treated)<br />

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I first noticed the bajo sounded wrong... lost its banjoness. But the voices are stunning. Bass is tight and clean. 12 strings are thin and watered down. Banjos are good if they stay in the background but put them upfront and they go south. <br />

This recording is very good on Pure Music with a very convincing presentation presentation. The sound stage is simply enormous as is the playback via the iPad. But I think that speaks for Mr. Abotts skill at the controls. I think he also recorded Frank Sinatra as well. (yes, u47 's)<br />

The pad is nice for pleasant listen... Do not ask it to deliver all things it will not but I have had the cans on for nearly 2 hours and I still like it. When all is said and done Steve Jobs has done it again. Good boy Steve...Whats Next?

In my opinion, iPads and their future imitators will not succeed as e-book readers until color e-ink technology becomes better and less expensive. All backlit displays cause eye strain after a while. Reading emails and articles is one thing...curling up with a good novel is another.

I curled up with my iPad reading an older Jack Reacher novel (Echo Burning) that I'd never gotten around to before, (not easy to find in stores), I spent about three hours reading last night, no eye strain or even hints of it. <br />

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Now, granted, my eyes are pretty close to 60 years old, so they have lots of practice, so they may be stronger than yours, and my vision is good enough I don't need glasses still, so maybe I'm some kind of special exception. ;^)<br />

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OTOH, if you haven't actually held an iPad in your hand and looked at the display and used it for a while, it might be a little premature to pass judgement. (it's an IPS LCD display, In Plane Switching, the highest grade used for professional LCD monitors, not the HP and Dell crap you buy at Best Buy or Buy More, which is some variation of TN LCD with pretty mediocre off axis performance). <br />

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YMMV, but IME, it works very nicely as a reader, and a couple of friends, similar age, now having seen it, are strongly considering purchases. <br />

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Of course, what clinched the deal for me wasn't E-reader capabilities (though that's nice during travel), but Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, and being able to to presentations via an external VGA dongle to XGA projectors. Business travel is going to be my biggest use of this, I'm sure. <br />

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And the web experience is among the best- particularly the ease with which you can resize the size of sites that use too small fonts in some locations, like Computer Audiophile! ;^)

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Ted, Chris, et al,<br />

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Anyone who can comment on the iTeleport (aka Jaadu) VNC app? It's $25! wow!<br />

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apparently, it's $25 just for the iPhone as well.<br />

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I just picked up an iPad this evening - took all of 30 seconds at the Apple Store in Soho. As a NYer, I do NOT stand in line for anything! <br />

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Very pleasantly surprised overall with the iPad. <br />

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Viewing photos and movies are great.<br />

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Wish I hadn't bought the fancy Sony LCD photo display last year! <br />

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My Macbook Air has to go back to Apple for repair (bad audio board), I just might be able to get by with an iPad at work for a couple of days. Time will tell.<br />

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clay<br />

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Hi Clay - Great to read you picked up an iPad. I looked at iTeleport / Jaadu last night but held off on the purchase for some reason. I know it's a favorite app around here though. <br />

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By the way, my Air has had the board replaced for bad audio as well. The audio is out once again but I haven't had the time to bring it back in for another replacement.

iTeleport app works very well here controlling my MacBook Pro. I was hoping that there would be an iPad version of Remote. Some network issues with the iPad-ordered an Airport Extreme Station. <br />

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I'm not as impressed with this device as other seem to be, but iPad apps can be impressive.<br />

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Steve

Check out engadget.com they are posting quite a bit of different articles about usage, the OS and apps that are working and some not working. Some of the articles are pretty interesting, some not. <br />

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There loads of other sites giving there angle on it as well.<br />

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http://www.engadget.com/#latest keep scrolling down to find articles.<br />

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Has anyone used skype on it yet? And can you use a USB dac with it?

Chris,<br />

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I pre-ordered the 64GB unit and it arrived early sat morning. I would have to agree it is a lot zippier. While I don't think this to be the ultimate audio device a number of my apps took on a whole new persona. I have nLog which is a synthesizer and man did it become a whole new app. I can't wait for the update they are doing for the iPad.<br />

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The damn thing is going to pretty much delete the need for my MacBook Air.<br />

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Thanks<br />

Gordon

Chris, I take it that WinAdmin is essentially the same as Logmein Ignition, which I had for my iPod Touch and Logmein gave a free upgrade for the iPad version, which is quick and slick. I'd like to try WinAdmin, but I've never configured a home system for secure remote access, other than through Logmein. Can you provide a guidepost of how to actually set it up to work? Logmein has an annual fee and I suspect that WinAdmin does not to do the same thing.<br />

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As to 1X size apps being double-sized on the iPad, I think that Rivermote isn't bad. I can set the iPad on its stand in portrait mode on the coffee table in front of my listening position and have a nice view of the app from that distance. The big buttons are certainly easier to hit correctly than on the iPod Touch.<br />

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But, I agree that the apps designed for the larger screen are beautiful... JCR

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Gordon, <br />

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I'd love for the iPad to eliminate the need for my Macbook Air, but two things prevent it thus far - the iPad doesn't yet support Excel/Word/Powerpoint (although there are rumours), neither will it connect to your own Proton for traveling audio. <br />

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Other than that though, I'm with you.<br />

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BTW, what VNC program are you using?<br />

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thanks<br />

clay<br />

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Like Mister Wednesday, I immediately asked myself whether it might be possible to control another Mac computer and thought: Hey, if it can control a PC, it must be able to control another Mac... I mean, this could circumvent the serious limitations of the browser (no flash!!!) and the missing multitasking option. I like to surf when I'm not listening seriously, and I would really love to have the iPad as do-it-all device for the listening chair. Which essentially means browser and remote control for the music. I hope that my assumption is right, and that the iPad really is able to control another Mac. Can anybody verify?

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Yes, there is iPad software that can control a Mac. There are apps for doing so - I'm looking at the iTeleport, but since it costs $25 I was hoping to hear from others what they are using - thus my questions about VNC apps.<br />

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clay<br />

Encore and cfmsp,<br />

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I was thinking specifically about the internal Mac OS X Share Screen capability of controlling any other Mac computer that obviates the need for any third party software. <br />

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I was hoping to find out if the iPad comes standard with this kind of Share Screen internal capability that allows me to use my MacBook Air to remotely control my MacBook Pro-based music system.<br />

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Regards,<br />

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Mister Wednesday

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Not that I've seen. I think of the iPad OS as more of a platform than anything else. There's not much provided by Apple other than very basic functions.<br />

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Apple's Remote function would be the closest thing there is to a full-on VNC program.<br />

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clay<br />

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Why don't you review the HiFace transport? That would be far more interesting. I think it is a revolutionary little device that deserves your full atention.

Still a little early for conclusive report, but my initial impressions of iTeleport for the iPad is that 'there are still a few bugs in the system'.<br />

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If the bugs are removed, and essential missing features are added (without loading up with non-essential features), it should be an impressive program for controlling music servers remotely via iPad.<br />

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Annoyingly, I don't seem to be able to use multi-touch gestures when in Touchscreen mode. An example, I can't scroll through iTunes using the two finger multi-touch gesture via Touchscreen mode. I could do this in non-Touchscreen mode, but then you have to move the mouse. I had trouble initially adapting to the fact that (in non Touchscreen mode) the mouse had to be moved before tapping the screen to initiate the selection (i.e. simulate the mous click). OTOH, the entire screen serves as the trackpad, which is a plus.<br />

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Presumably, a version of Touchscreen and multi-touch gestures will be offered in a future release, as any program so far ahead of the pack in the cost department has set high expectations for itself as to what it delivers.<br />

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I selected iTeleport due to it being the iPad equivalent of the popular Jaadu iPhone app, despite it's expense. None of the VNC apps I saw in the App Store for the iPad were free, but I could have purchased several for the price of the iTeleport.<br />

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Bugs are probably teething pains, at least hopefully - ie. such items as not always rotating the screen (despite not having the rotation lock button on), and getting out of sync when resizing the screen (i.e. zooming in, a la multi-touch gesture) such that the entire screen is no longer accessible (and is clearly not positioned where it should be, as evidenced by the gray/white checkerboard pattern, which IS positioned precisely where the screen should be). There were other anomalies, but I'll try to ensure they weren't self inflicted before reporting.<br />

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More impressions to be reported later.<br />

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I can also report that iTeleport is for the most part intuitive. Since I rarely read manuals, this is important (to me), and even more so when using a device like the iPad, where manuals would seem to be anathema.<br />

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Let's just hope that the iTeleport doesn't try to do too much - the benefits of a less is more philosophy are quite apparent with the iPad. Apps that stray from this do so at their own peril, IMO.<br />

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I'm interested to hear what others have to say about Remote control programs - VNC-based & otherwise, as this is the primary use of an iPad for computer audiophiles until someone figure out how to get the digital signal out and routed to say, a Proton portable DAC. <br />

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cheers,<br />

clay<br />

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Chris, why would someone buy an iPad for their home theater? It doesn't have an HDMI out. That alone is a dealbreaker. A remote app program is not unique...Gmote for Android does it very well and is free.<br />

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But of course that's not its only fault. It can't multitask(Listening to Pandora and checking your Stocks at once is impossible). It doesn't have flash support used by the majority of businesses and commercial websites. It doesn't have a camera. You're stuck in Apple's closed restrictive app market. It doesn't do 720p. It doesn't do 1080p. It can't even output over 1024x768 via its Dock's VGA output.<br />

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Of course it's faster than the 3GS, it has a 1GHz processor. But that's the same one that will be in the iPhone 4G...so no big deal there really.<br />

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What will be worthy of a home theater is the Notion Ink Adam. Everything the iPad can't do, it can. For a lower price. http://www.notionink.in/adamoverview.php<br />

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Dual Core, 1080p Video, HDMI, LCD + eInk, etc, etc. It runs Android too(which anyone can program with Java btw). It's quite simply a better choice for home theater or computer audiophile use. It'll be out this summer along with a bunch of other tablets to choose from too.<br />

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What would be really cool is a tablet designed for an audiophile. Wouldn't be too hard to throw in a Burr-brown DAC.

"revolutionary little device"<br />

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while the Hiface usb converter is an interesting device - worhty of review by Chris if he's so inclined, it's barely evolutionary, and definitely NOT revolutionary.<br />

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Were your hyperbolic words not inserted into the middle of a thread about a bonafide revolutionary device, they would've not suffered my response here.<br />

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frankly, any device whose output is S/PDIF (can you say legacy? dare I say 'dinosaur'?) does not deserve the word 'revolutionary' in the same sentence, IMHO. <br />

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Nice price, great form factor, absolutely agreed. Proprietary drivers to provide full USB capabilities of computers (i.e. 192kHz via USB), very cool. Revolutionary, not even close.<br />

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Now, back to the iPad on this thread, please.<br />

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respectfully,<br />

clay<br />

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Pandora is just spamming links...don't click them...<br />

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This site needs to be able to flag spam and rate up/down comments.

One man's spam is another man's scrapple.<br />

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One could argue that your first post here (deathwish238) is also spam, in the sense that its sole purpose is to promote a product that isn't yet available (no known release date) on a site not intended for discussion of video/home theatre capabilities (via a specious comparison to the iPad based in large part on the high def video (output) capabilities for which the iPad is not designed).<br />

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"It's quite simply a better choice for [...] computer audiophile use"<br />

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As to the audio capabilities of your promoted product:<br />

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1) will it support any of the well known, top quality music players (e.g. Amarra, Pure Music/Pure Vinyl, XXHE, cmp, jriver, foobar, mpd etc.) from any of the major platforms? NO<br />

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2) Will it even support iTunes playback and/or library management? NO<br />

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End of discussion as it relates to computer audiophile playback, I'm afraid.<br />

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I'm not sure I see the point in paying for HDMI and other high def video (output) features in a portable device. It's not like I"m gonna carry around a 42" plasma/LCD. ;0<br />

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Perhaps your intentions would have been more clear here if you had simply provided the link to your youtube channel, and your posted video entitled: "Hitler Denounces the iPad", complete with reference to your product.<br />

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http://www.youtube.com/user/Deathwish238<br />

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clay<br />

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