Last week I spoke to 70 members of local women’s group about how they could potentially use iPhone’s and iPad’s in useful ways in their lives as retirees. As I made a list of apps and use cases for my presentation I thought about how much I’d miss my iPhone if I were forced to give it up, and remembered a story that my father used to tell about a Yankee Clock Peddler. The story goes like this…
The Yankee Clock Peddler and his travelling companion start out on a sales tip in a rural area, and they stop for the night at a farmer’s house. In the morning before leaving to make sales call in neighbouring communities, the clock peddler asks the farmer if he’d store a clock for him for a couple of weeks, and that he’ll pick the clock up on his way back home. The farmer agreed to this, so the Peddler wound up the clock and placed it on the farmer’s wall before leaving (the farmer does not yet own a clock). When out of ear shot, the traveling companion asks the clock peddler why he left the clock at the house. Didn’t he want to sell the clock on the trip? To this the Yankee Clock Peddler replied, “don’t worry, by the time I come back in a couple of weeks, the clock will be sold… the farmer will happily buy it from me.”
The moral of the story is: “We can do without any article of luxury we have never had, but when once obtained, it is not in human nature to surrender it voluntarily.”
I have been an advocate for eBooks for a couple of years now, but in spite of the the flexibility and features that eBooks provide, my relationship with them is not always as loving is it could be. Let me start by listing all the things I love about eBooks:
Portability: Being able to take a dozen books with me when I go on trips is wonderful (and taking them without breaking my back). Being able to have my book with me whenever I have my iPhone with me is great, especially when I’m stuck in a doctor’s office, or on a bus.
Ease of Purchase: No need to travel across town to go to the book store. I can buy books on my iPhone or computer, and then have instant delivery to all my devices.
Instant Dictionary Access: With some books in particular, being able to simply click on a word and instantly get a dictionary definition has made a high difference in my reading comprehension and enjoyment. Last summer I read the 20 book Master and Commander series, and found the dictionary feature to be invaluable as I was introduced into all sorts of archaic English and old nautical terms.
Ability to see where other’s have highlighted parts of the book (in the Kindle app): This is a great flag to let me know when I should slow down and really pay attention when I’m reading. This would be particularly helpful when reading text books.
Syncing bookmarks between devices. As a person with multiple reading devices (and iPad and iPhone) being able to switch back and forth between the two, and have them both keep track of where I am in the book is an extremely handy feature.
Lastly as a person who’s eyes are starting to grow older, I can envision a day when I will appreciate the ability to increase the font size of the books I’m reading, without have to purchase a large text book.
In summary, eBooks have a lot of great things going for them. What is there not to like? Unfortunately a few things… Now for my list of complaints that turn my relationship with eBooks rocky from time to time:
DRM is Evil! Most of my complaints below would go away if Digital Rights Management (DRM) software was not used when publishing eBooks.
Cannot copy and past a paragraph into an email or to Facebook.
I cannot choose the eBook reader I want to read my eBooks in. If I buy an eBook from Amazon, I have to read it in the Kindle reader. If I buy a eBook from Apple, I can only read it in the Apple iBook reader. I should be able to choose which app I want to read my books in no matter what store I’ve purchased it in.
I can’t put my eBooks on my bookshelf at home to show off to visitors what books I’ve read, and what some of my interests are for (I guess that is what GoodReads.com is for).
Apocalypse protection: If I’m away from civilization for some reason, and cannot charge me electronic devices, my beautiful eBook readers turn into pretty paper weights.
For some people the color screens on tablets are hard on their eyes. For them, color eBook readers are a no go.
So yes, I do love my eBooks, but as in most relationships there is definitely room for growth and improvement. While I’m waiting for eBook vendors to improve I’ll enjoy reading books on my iPad and iPhone and try to ignore the shortcomings.
Why would someone use an web based word processor for a school paper instead of Microsoft Word? Here are three reasons:
When collaborating with classmates on a group project, do you get tired of trying to figure out which of the versions that have been emailed to you is the most current?
Do you get discouraged when you are faced with the task of merging edits from 2 or more students into a single document near the end of the group project?
Do some of your edits get lost in the group collaboration email shuffle?
If you’ve said yes to any one of the questions above, then you should take a serious look at using either Google Docs or Microsoft Word Web App for your next group project. That said, here are a few things to keep in mind as you being to collaboratively create and edit documents on the web:
While the look and feel of Microsoft Word Web App is very similar to the desktop version of Word, you cannot add or edit footnotes, end notes, or tables of contents in the online version of Word. You can connect to the file from your desktop version of Word to add and edit those elements in your group document however (on a Mac you’ll need Mac Office 2011 to do this).
Google Docs supports foot notes, end notes and tables of contents in the web browser, but the editing interface is not as rich as the desktop version of Word. For some people this is not a problem. For others it is a show stopper. You can decide for yourself.
In any case, if you need to collaborate on a document, don’t just reflexively email it to your collaborator, instead think about writing it in Google Docs and sending them a link and leave the email document shuffle behind.
Spreadsheet of Data + Google Docs Pivot Tables = Reporting Jedi Master
Pivot tables are the quickest and easiest way to get useful information out of spreadsheets of data… especially large spreadsheets of data. Google Docs makes using pivot tables quite easy if you’re familiar with spreadsheets. Let’s say you have a spreadsheet of conference attendees with contact information along with the sessions they registered for, and the date that they registered. Using a pivot table you could quickly find out if there is a correlation between the people who registered for the “how to get organized” workshop, and how early people registered.
You could also quickly determine how many people attending the conference are out of Province (or State). I’ve just scratched the surface; it’s truly amazing the information you can glean for playing around with a pivot table and a data set. I first used pivot tables over 10 years ago while working at at Westech Building Products, a manufacturing company, and they were invaluable when analyzing production and sales data.
Take a look at the following 1.5 minute video for an excellent overview. Happy spreadsheeting!
How to sync and edit documents from my desktop computer on my iPad is a question that I’ve had ever since I purchased my iPad in April of 2010. The good new is that I finally have a good answer, and ironically the apps that facilitate the editing and syncing are ones that I’ve used for years now, one of which has just recently come to the iPad and iPhone… or at least recently came to my attention. Here’s the equation:
Dropbox + Documents To Go = iPad Document Nirvana!
Here is what you need to turn your iPad into a document editing & syncing machine:
Step 1: If you don’t have a free Dropbox account already, then now is your excuse to finally download and install it on your desktop computer(s). Dropbox is a cloud service that synchronizes files between your computers, and keeps them up to date. It runs on Mac’s, Windows & Linux. For example, I have dropbox running on my Mac laptop and Windows desktop computer. So when I save a file to my Dropbox folder on my desktop computer, that file gets save to my account on the dropbox server on the internet. The next time I turn on my laptop, it checks to see if any files have changed, and then if they have, download the changed files to my laptop. It is a wonderful service if you use more than one computer (or computer & iPad/iPhone). The use of Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of data, and then $10 per month (for $99 per year) for 50GB of data. I personally subscribe to the 50GB plan because I store all my family photos there along with all my documents, but I digress.
Step 2: Install the free Dropbox app on your iPad (or iPhone, or Blackberry, or Android phone if you have one) via the Apple App store. Enter the same user name and password that you setup your Dro
pbox account with on your desktop computer.
Step 3: Again via the Apple App store, and install Documents To Go Premium – Office Suite. Make sure you get the “Premium” version for $16.99, as the basic version does not sync files with Dropbox (or Google Docs). Once you’ve installed the app, press the “Online” button on the bottom nav bar, and then the app will ask you what type of account you want to synchronize with. Select Dropbox, enter your account information, and you set.
That’s it! You’ve now turned your iPad into a legitimate business machine so that you can word process & spreadsheet on the go, and sync everything back to your desktop computer. Enjoy!
What are the top 4 Things you can do to save electricity in your office?
Turn your computer off at night if you aren’t already.
Even better, change the power settings on your computer so it goes to sleep after 15 minutes or 20 minutes.
Turn your lights off when ever you leave your office.
Next time you buy a computer, seriously consider purchasing a laptop (they use about 1/4 the power of a desktop computer).
Do you know how much electricity you use in your personal office or cubicle? Do you know how much energy your desktop computer or laptop uses? If you are like me, you probably don’t know. Over the past year I’ve measured how much electricity the different electric and electronic devices use so that I can make better decisions as I try to reduced my personal energy foot print (I use a device call the Kill-A-Watt to measure the electrical draw of each item).
Below are the power draws of all the electrical devices in my office (here is spreadsheet with a longer list of home and work electronics & their power draws):
Lights On: 64 watts
27″ iMac Computer in Use w/ 2nd 24″ monitor (both screens at 50% brightness): 142 watts
I’ve been hearing lots about Gary Taubes’ “Why We Get Fat” book. In it he argues that the calories-in/calories-out model is wrong, and that a low carb, moderate fat diet is good. Here’s an insightful critique of the main assertions of Mr. Taubes’ book at Science Based Medicine: http://j.mp/gCBhDz
The bottom line from Science Based Medicine:
“Rather than jumping on the low-carb bandwagon before his ideas are properly tested, the precautionary principle suggests that it might be more reasonable to follow a moderate diet like the Mediterranean diet (or to follow Michael Pollan‘s stunningly simple advice to ‘Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’), to limit ‘empty calories’from simple carbohydrates like sugar, to eat a variety of vegetables and fruits, to choose low calorie density foods that are more filling, to limit meat intake, to limit salt, and to keep looking for behavioral and environmental ways to change our calories-in/calories-out balance.”
Good advice that I’m going to try to follow… although some of those empty calories (especially in chocolate form) are so difficult not to give into every now and again!
Can iPhones and iPod Touches be more than just a distraction for students, but actually help you with your home work and research? Below are some apps that can help turn your mobile device into a tool for better grades. I’ll start off with some serious apps, and move to a handful of less serious tools that show the potential of mobile apps in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
A colleague of mine asked me yesterday what tools I’d recommend for a group of a dozen or so scholars spread around the world to collaborate on a scholarly project. The good news is that there are lots of good tools available for people to use. The bad news is that there are lots of good tools to choose from. Depending on your group’s particular requirements and preferences, you may choose a different tool set than your colleagues down the hall.
That said, here are my primary and secondary recommendations for collaborative tools, along with some rational for my selections: Read the rest of this entry »
Last week I spoke to 70 members of local women’s group about how they could potentially use iPhone’s and iPad’s in useful ways in their lives as retirees. As I made a list of apps and use cases for my presentation I thought about how much I’d miss my iPhone if I were forced to give it up, and remembered a story that my father used to tell about a Yankee Clock Peddler. The story goes like this…
Pivot tables are the quickest and easiest way to get useful information out of spreadsheets of data… especially large spreadsheets of data. 
Step 2: Install the free 
