How do I put any media of any kind on my iPad?

I know there is an Amazon Kindle book for the iPad. Maybe you can play Amazon movies & music, too?

iTunes is my preferred music player on my PC, but I buy more music from Amazon than iTunes.

Sounds like you’re suffering from locked-in syndrome that happens when you bump into the edges of the stuff Apple designers think you ought to want to do.
I thought on the iPad you have USB access through the cord you charge it with ?

I don’t have an iPad but I get stuff onto my android tablet by firing up a little FTP server app and ftp’ing stuff onto it from another computer.

I do that only because the USB that charges this gadget presents a peculiar standard (not normal drive filesystem) to the USB port so I can’t copy anything over that wire.
[ except from the Windows 7 machine that can see it with some code that some with media center ]

Maybe you can get an ftp server app for the iPad too ?

I’m not sure about the date and time thing. I would probably take it into the Apple Store to have them look at/replace it.

If you want to get stuff you download onto it it needs to be mp4. Luckily Handbrake makes this easy. Then iTunes will transfer it over to the iPad.

If you need content send me a e-mail. I have 300Gigs of music/movies/tv shows sitting on a server in Poland. I can walk you through getting into it.

If you can’t get it on there using iTunes and the proprietary 30-pin—>USB cable, you can’t get it on there. As @johnpowell points out, Handbrake will usually convert a video into something that iTunes will transfer to your iPad. Oh, and if you run Linux, no iTunes for you, so the iPad is completely useless :D. Then again, most Linux users prefer Android tablets.

As for the time/date, my rule of thumb with Apple products is that your only solution for that sort of issue is to take it to the Apple™ Store. See, they tend to lock the software down pretty tight and hermaphroditically seal the hardware so that they are the only ones that can fix them most of the time anyways at least without getting gray hairs and ulcers.

Lastly, you are not a freak, merely part of the minority who has needs that an over-hyped, locked-down tablet cannot handle; most people never run into the rather restrictive limits of the iPad

I solved it. Since I live on campus, the university requires you to go through a bunch of security walls to use the network. I guess they updated the security walls recently, so I had to register the iPad through their website. The iPad could not figure any of this out and the date/time had nothing to do with it. So in 6+ hours, I’ll have a movie to watch on the airplane.

Ryan my flight is stupid early but I might hit you up for some of your stuff for the trip home.

To solve all your problems… JAILBREAK!! Then you actually get your money’s worth

You don’t need to jailbreak. I watch Netflix streaming on my Pad and tv shows from their Web sites. Just download the appropriate apps; most of them are free.

@janbb Some people do need to jailbreak. I guess it depends on what you want/need to do with it.

@jerv Of course; I meant in terms of watching media other than from iTunes but sure it does depend on what you want to do.

@janbb, I’m going to be on a plane so I needed the media actually on the iPad, not streaming.

@nikipedia Ah – got it now. Haven’t figured out that one yet; don’t know if it’s possible.