Choosing an IPad, iAuthor and OS issues

Well, I tried in vain to find an Ipad in my district.  It was a pipe dream anyway. I am looking at some used ones on ebay, craiglist and and a local Mac reseller as well as Verizon. The advantage about a refurbished one at Verizon is that it has 3G. I don't need it now but I may want it in the future. Plus it adds $20 to my bill per month. At least there is no contract and I can just skip the extra $20 a month until I need it and just use Wifi.  It's almost the same cost as a brand new iPad2. Decisions, decisions... At least I have come to the decision that I will get an iPad2. The retina display is nice but the $100 cost difference between iPad2 and new one isn't worth it.  My idea is to use iAuthor to create the content used on the iPad and my Mac is too old to support Mountain Lion, which is what iAuthor needs to work. So I found a local refurbished iMac one on Craigslist for a reasonable price of $380 - will check it out later in the week. The costs are starting to mount but I think it will be managable. Time to generate ideas and find some funding. I am going to start small and use some of the lessons already created using the SmartBoard Notebook software as a framework and build from there once I learn iAuthor.