Being an incurable germaphobe, the Chef Sleeve ($20) is a prescription for sanity when using my iPad in the kitchen. Yes, the plastic sleeves are meant to protect your tablet from culinary messes; but for me, it’s more about protecting the food from the tablet.

Oftentimes the most useful clues about the future come from the past. Few questions are as important to ask as, What happened last time?

When attempting to decipher the changes that Steve Jobs’ transition away from leading Apple will bring, it’s essential to examine a surprisingly analogous case: Pixar.

A trendy Atlanta eatery is the latest to adopt a growing hospitality industry trend: using iPads as interactive menus.

Guests at the Do Restaurant at The View make their selections on Apple’s culture-changing tablet, which are then relayed to iPads in the kitchen. Waiters of the human variety come in only to bring orders to the tables.

Amazon.com has listed for pre-order Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs, iSteve: The Book of Jobs. The 448-page book is being published by Simon & Schuster on March 6, 2012.

The official description reads:

After an unexplained absence, Apple products have officially returned to NBC’s The Office, which wrapped up its seventh season last night.

Apple gear was prominently seen and mentioned during the show’s earlier seasons. In 2005, for example, former boss Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) gifted a then-cutting-edge 5th generation iPod Classic (“video iPod”).

But as of late, HP replaced Apple for “promotional consideration”, as evidenced by the closing credits. Apple products continued to appear on occasion, but only discretely, the logo always obscured.

Rebutting the National Enquirer’s morbid rumors that he is near death, Steve Jobs will be among the attendees at President Barack Obama’s dinner with tech industry leaders in San Francisco tomorrow, an inside source tells ABC News.

At today’s White House press briefing, press secretary Jay Carney said that the focus of the event will be “innovation and job creation” with business leaders “who know a lot about private sector job growth.”

The full list of attendees has not yet been released, but it has been learned that outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Paul Otellini of Intel are also on the guest list.

Landing in the iOS App Store tomorrow is Index Card v2 for iPad, a multi-touch version of the corkboard-and-index-cards system popular with screenwriters and others who need to arrange multiple ideas within a project.

Inspired by the Corkboard feature of Scrivener for Mac (the Scrivener people know), Index Card allows users to move cards around, label by color, and even write on the back of cards (the ‘flip’ arrow changes color if there’s something written on the back).

This latest version adds a trio of new features: Stacks, customizable label names, and the option to export notes with the rest of your project to RTF for Word or Final Draft.

Testing the app last week, I found it to be responsive and easy to use. It does exactly what it it promises.

That said, at least on the surface, Index Card is very much about the needs of screenwriters. Developer DenVog would do well to add options in its next release to make the app more appealing to general productivity users. More backgrounds than just cork and solid black would also be welcome.

I can’t say I use index cards in my daily life, but for those that do, Index Card should prove practical. The app already counts a couple of Emmy-nominated producers as users.

William N. Fordes, a Co-Executive Producer/Writer on Law & Order, tells me that he finds Index Card “superb” and “well thought out”.

“The ease with which the individual cards can be moved around is terrific, and makes rethinking the shuffle of scenes so much easier,” he says.

Ever wondered what Apple hardware and software pro bloggers use?

Peter Sciretta is a professional blogger/journalist specializing in film and entertainment. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Slashfilm.com (stylized as /Film), which has won numerous awards and recognition from the mainstream media. Last year, Total Film named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Movies.”

Sciretta began his career on a Windows PC, but soon thereafter saw the value of switching to the Mac. “Nowadays everything I have in my home office is Apple-based,” he says.

In this post, adapted from a recent interview, Sciretta reveals what hardware, software, and mobile apps he can’t live without — both personally and professionally.

This is a guest interview by Mike Bastoli of The Pixar Blog, a popular news blog about the studio.

Lee Unkrich is the director of Disney-Pixar’s Toy Story 3, the highest-grossing animated film of all time, which was released on DVD, Blu-ray and iTunes today. He also served as co-director of Toy Story 2 and editor of Toy Story, and is a member of Pixar’s Senior Creative Team.

Unkrich is an avid Mac user and Apple ‘addict’ who can be spotted at Apple’s events from time to time. “Whenever I’m invited, it’s something awwwwwwesome,” he tweeted to his 80,000 plus followers on Twitter ahead of the launch of the iPad in January.

Here’s an exclusive interview with Unkrich, who talks about his first Mac, Apple cameos in Pixar’s movies and Steve Jobs feeding his Apple addiction.