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Making the case for Word Processing on the Web: Collaborative Document Editing

2011.08.04
education, Google, WebApps
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Why would someone use an web based word processor for a school paper instead of Microsoft Word? Here are three reasons:

  1. 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?
  2. 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?
  3. 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.

Easy to Remember Very Strong Passwords

2011.06.07
education, Work
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Creating and using good passwords is the digital equivalent of flossing our teeth. We all know we should do it, but it’s time consuming and not easy to do. The good news is that it’s possible to create strong, but easy to remember passwords.

So, which of the following two passwords is stronger and more difficult to crack? Which is more difficult to Remember?

B!g1——————–
TisHw4k.%sQxWE,rUbnD<Ww

Believe it or not, the first password is both stronger, and for most people easier to remember.  It’s hard to see, but the first password is one character longer than the second, and because of the way hackers try to crack passwords, it is more secure than the second. The first tool that hackers use when trying to guess passwords is a dictionary attack. Because neither password is in a dictionary, that attack will fail. At that point a hacker will fall back to a brute force attack, where password length and character mix is important for making a password hard to crack.

So how should you choose your password?

  1. Use a memorable word or phrase that has upper case, lower case, number(s), and symbol(s) in it.
  2. Pad that with a character to make the password and then pad it with a random character so that the password length is about 25 characters long.
  3. Another example of a strong password is: D0gsD!g………………..
For more information, and to check out how secure your password is from a brute force attack, check out this excellent resource from Steve Gibson at GRC.com which was the inspiration for this blog post. Passwordmeter.com is also another great resource that help you to know how strong your password really is. If you’re really interested, here’s a podcast Steve did where explains in detail why this sort of password is so effective.

Become a Reporting Jedi Master with Google Docs Pivot Tables

2011.05.19
education, Google
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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!

YouTube & Facebook: Educational Distractions or Learning Tools?

2011.01.12
education, Family, WebApps, Work
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Do YouTube and Facebook distract students?  Of course they do!  On the other hand, can YouTube and Facebook help students with their school work?  Until recently I wasn’t sure, but after my partner’s experience with a professor who wasn’t a good teacher, and seeing how YouTube and Facebook saved her and her classmates from poor grades, I’m convinced that these “digital distractions” can be, if used intelligently, excellent Learning Tools.

Being the father of two teenagers, the husband of a partner that has recently gone back to college, and Systems Administrator at a University Law Library, I have a front row seat  on how technology is used and abused in the service of homework, research and education in general.  When my partner found herself in a college class with a teaching challenged professor, I was amazed at how she, along with her classmates, used technology to compensate for the poor classroom instruction. Her learning process for each class was as follows: Read More

Collaborative Scholarly Projects: What Tools to Use?

2010.11.02
education, Work
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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 More

My Top 9 Favourite iPad Apps

2010.09.27
education, iPhone, Work
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IBooksSomeone asked with a new iPad asked me today for my top 5 iPad apps. I had a hard time limiting it to 5, so below are my top 7 iPad apps.  There are a few apps that I love and use all the time on my iPhone, that I do not use on my iPad. This is typically because the website experience on the iPad is just as good or better than the iPad app. For example, I do not miss the Facebook app on my iPad, because the website experience is just fine on the iPad, as opposed to the sub par Facebook website experience on my iPhone. 

That said, here are my current crop of favourite iPad apps:

  1. Kindle Reader (free) – Amazon’s eBook reader has the biggest selection of current books at the moment. I have read close to 10 books on my iPad and love it as an eBook reader. I appreciate the ability to re-size the font size, look-up words instantly with it’s built in dictionary, and sync my furthest read location to my iPhone.  That said, there are a number of books that I cannot buy in digital format (are you listening W.W. Norton & Co, publisher of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels?).
  2. Flipboard (free) – “A personalized social magazine.”  It is the easiest and most user friendly way to browse your twitter feed (if you have one), or browse the online version of the Economist magazine for example.  In addition you can see the twitter comments that people have made about the articles.  This is a difficult app to explain, but once you’ve used it you’ll love it.
  3. Air Video ($2.99) – If you already have a video on your desktop computer, but you don’t want to have to spend the time and effort into converting it into an iPad friendly format, Air Video allows you to simultaneously trans-code and stream the video to your iPad or iPhone over your wifi network.  This works wonderfully when you’re at home, but will not work when you’re on the road.  Even so, Air Video is a app I use on a weekly basis.
  4. Read It Later (free) – Similar to Instapaper ($4.99), Read It Later allows you to bookmark articles that you’d like to read later while browsing news on your PC, Mac, iPad or iPhone, and then download those articles to read later on your iPad or iPhone. In the case of the iPhone, it re-formats the article so that it can be easily read on a small screen.
  5. Kayak (free) – If you’re looking to travel, Kayak is a great tool to see what flights are available at what price.  It’s hard to explain how pleasant the software is to use.  I’ve found myself using Kayak at times even when I’m not traveling just to see how much it would cost to travel to Brazil, “just in case” I was able to go. In this case the iPad software is much nicer to use than the Kayak website. Even if you don’t end up purchasing your ticket through Kayak, it’s a nice place to start your travel plans.
  6. Navionics Marine: Costal B.C. ($29.99) – If you are a sailer or boater with an iPad 3G or iPhone, Navionics Marine software is a must buy! The iPhone version of this charting application costs only $9.99, and it is well worth the money.  I wish I had the 3G version of the iPad with it’s built in GPS hardware so I could use this software on my iPad as well as my iPhone. Not only does the software track your cruises, but gives you access to tide and current information.  Once your done on the water, you can upload your cruise track to Facebook.
  7. iBook (free) – Apple’s ebook reader is very similar to the Kindle software, except that the book selection for purchase is much smaller, but you do have the ability to view PDF documents and ePub books in iBook.  I use both the Kindle Reader and iBook depending on what I’m reading.
  8. Adobe Ideas (free) – Want to draw a quick sketch or doodle? Adobe Ideas is the app for you.  Even if you can’t draw, you can always import a picture, and then trace it before exporting the drawing.  Fun and functional.
  9. The Economist (free) – I love reading the economist, but having it on my iPad makes it much easier and convenient to read. It also allows me to listen to the stories if I don’t feel like reading them.

What are you favourite iPad apps?

Tech Advice for Students going back to College

2010.09.07
education, Work
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Now that I can hear the voices of excited Law Students in the hallways of the Fraser Building, I thought I’d take a moment to pass on a little bit of technology advice to help students avoid the most common laptop disasters:

  1. Install Automatic Backup software for your Laptop Computer!
    If you take no other advice from me, at least promise me that you’ll start to backup your laptop on a regular basis.  I recommend Mozy’s 2GB Free online backup service for all your school work at least.  The great thing about Mozy (besides being free for it’s basic service) is that Mozy automatically backs up your computer so you don’t have to think about it anymore.  If you combine this with an external hard drive backup system, you have implemented the gold standard in backup: The 3-2-1 Backup Rule.
    - 3 copies of all files (1 original, 1 on mozy, and 1 on the external hard drive)
    - 2 different backup formats (1 on the Internet at mozy and 1 on your local external hard drive)
    - 1 copy off site (this is important if there is a fire, or natural disaster that destroys both your laptop and external hard drive. This happened to a student in the Fall 2009 semester. Her laptop and external hard drive were destroyed in a basement suite fire).
  2. Install up to date Free Anti Virus and Anti Mal-ware software on your windows computer!
    a. This is a lot easier than in sounds.  First make sure that any other anti-virus software has been installed from your computer, and that you’ve rebooted after uninstalling it.
    b. Download Microsoft’s free anti-virus software from their website: Microsoft Security Essentials.
    c. Install Microsoft Security Essentials, and you’re done.  Wasn’t that easy?
  3. Use Google Docs for collaborative document creation and editing.
    If you need to participate in any group projects, then Google Docs will be your friend. It makes collaborative document creation and editing so much easier than emailing Word documents back and forth it is not even funny.

Enjoy the fall semester, and I hope your laptop, web browser and word processor server you well!

    Just in Time for School: Collaborating on Group Documents Just Got Easier

    2010.09.03
    education, Google, WebApps, Work
    1 Comment

    Google Docs has been my choice for collaborative document editing for some time now, but this past week a new feature was added, that will make the process of collaborating on a single document even less painful.  If you and your classmates are working on your project document at the same time, the text that others in your group are adding or editing will be highlighted so you can easily see the changes as they are made, and make sure you’re not inadvertently working on the same section of the document.

    Not only does collaborative highlighting show you where you classmates are working, but it will also show you when they highlight blocks of text, so you can watch to see if the text get deleted or moved.  I wish I’d been able to use Google Docs when I was a Bachelor of Commerce student continually working on group projects!

    Some of the other features that college students will appreciate are:

    • Footnotes and Endnotes
    • Table of Contents tool
    • Inline Thesaurus and Dictionary lookups
    • Add new words to a Custom Dictionary
    • Auto save every few seconds

    Enjoy!

    Navigating the Maze that is a Library

    2010.08.03
    education, Open Source, WebApps
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    I found an email in my inbox this morning about an new building Way-finding utility that UC Davis Law School is working on. You’ll need to use your Firefox web browser for this early version of the app to work (a Chrome and Safari friendly version will be released soon). Here is a working demo of the application.  The application is obviously early in it’s development cycle, but has the potential to be an extremely useful utility for libraries.

    Put most simply, Wayfinding is a building map router, that uses jQuery and SVG to help individuals navigate from room to room in multi story buildings.  Ideal for libraries that are often a complicated maze of book stacks.  Enjoy!

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