Last night, a mere day after writing up Mobile Thing #6, I learned that Microsoft is releasing a version of Office for the iPad, which was confirmed this morning: Microsoft to Offer Office for iPad, Maybe a Bit Late. At first I was relieved that I wouldn't have to see if CloudOn fixes its problems. What better to play with Office than Office itself? Then I saw the catch: read all the documents you want for free, but if you want to make any, you'll have to subscribe to Office 365: $100/year.
You know how I said I'd given up on accessing Office documents on my iPad? You can still consider it given up.
Showing posts with label productivity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label productivity. Show all posts
Friday, March 28, 2014
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
23 Mobile Things #6: Creating & Editing Docs
I'd pretty much given up on the idea of ever working with Microsoft Office programs on my iPad. Even when "tablet" meant "iPad," Microsoft didn't make Office tablet-friendly. Now there are Android and Windows tablets out there as well, and the few rumors I'd ever heard that there was going to be an Office suite of apps for iOS have died. But the end result is that I don't use Office nearly as much as I used to personally. I still use it at work, yes, but that might have a lot to do with the fact that we hardly use tablets or smartphones for work at my library.
I decided to try CloudOn. I loaded it onto the iPad weeks ago, and then promptly ignored it. Remember how I said I barely use Office anymore? I didn't need to write anything, so I had nothing to test CloudOn with! But I finally sat down and created a document and can now report my findings.
The second problem was a glitch. I'm guessing there's a conflict in the app somewhere between what's pretending to be Word's spell-checker and Auto-correct. (I have this same issue when I try to email stuff from Twitterrific through the iOS mail app.) What happened was that whenever a possibly misspelled word popped up, the first letter or two of the correction would be duplicated. For instance, when it tried to replace something I'd typed with "things," what appeared on the screen was "tthings." What excellent motivation to never, ever mistype a word! Because if you do, and this glitch happens, and you have to go back and manually correct the error…
…the third problem kicks in. You know how to move the cursor in iOS, you touch the screen where you want it to move to? And if you're slightly off, you roll your finger a bit to one side or the other to reposition the cursor? Well, that signals to CloudOn that you want the Word feature where you highlight something and a box with the most common formatting options appears. Which it did. Which meant that I couldn't see the cursor to see if it was in the right place for me to backspace and erase the offending duplicated letters. GAH!2
I decided to try CloudOn. I loaded it onto the iPad weeks ago, and then promptly ignored it. Remember how I said I barely use Office anymore? I didn't need to write anything, so I had nothing to test CloudOn with! But I finally sat down and created a document and can now report my findings.
Good
If you can use Microsoft Word—and why would you be doing this if you couldn't?—you can use CloudOn. The app's mini-tour when you first log in was enough to get going. The app emulated Word successfully: not as visually attractive as Word itself is, but everything was clearly labeled and was where I expected it to be. The app saved my test document to Dropbox without a hitch, and I was then able to pull it up in Word itself without error messages or mangled text.Bad
The lag was maddening. Type a few words rapidly, look up, and realize that none of them have appeared on the screen. Wait...wait...there they are! Resume typing. Wait again. GAH! This is why I don't use Google Docs; it has the same infuriating delay between keystroke and letter appearance. I watch the screen as I compose, and if the words don't show up, I lose track of what I'm typing.The second problem was a glitch. I'm guessing there's a conflict in the app somewhere between what's pretending to be Word's spell-checker and Auto-correct. (I have this same issue when I try to email stuff from Twitterrific through the iOS mail app.) What happened was that whenever a possibly misspelled word popped up, the first letter or two of the correction would be duplicated. For instance, when it tried to replace something I'd typed with "things," what appeared on the screen was "tthings." What excellent motivation to never, ever mistype a word! Because if you do, and this glitch happens, and you have to go back and manually correct the error…
…the third problem kicks in. You know how to move the cursor in iOS, you touch the screen where you want it to move to? And if you're slightly off, you roll your finger a bit to one side or the other to reposition the cursor? Well, that signals to CloudOn that you want the Word feature where you highlight something and a box with the most common formatting options appears. Which it did. Which meant that I couldn't see the cursor to see if it was in the right place for me to backspace and erase the offending duplicated letters. GAH!2
All in all
This is an app with potential. It's got some problems, but fix them, and this app will come in handy. Like I said, we still use Microsoft Office at work, and if I found myself away from work but needing to access our documents and spreadsheets, this would do a good job. At this point, I'll probably still compose simple documents in Evernote if I have to, but fix those glitches, and this will give Evernote some good competition.Sunday, March 9, 2014
23 Mobile Things #5: Notetaking
This Thing was the first I'd heard of Springpad, although a quick peek around the web shows that it's got a devoted following. Almost every article I found about it mentioned Evernote as well, confirming my suspicion that there's a lot of overlap between the two. Lifehacker swears that the two services are growing apart and that some of their staff use both, but in different ways. I am not yet convinced. Or rather, yes, I get that they're not identical. I just don't see that Springpad does enough differently than Evernote that you would need to have one if you already had the other.
Springpad and I got off to an awkward start. I set up my account on my desktop computer and managed to forget the password by the time I got to the iPad to sync the app. No problem: I'll just reset the password, right? Wrong. The app had a "Forgot your password?" link, but when I clicked it, the display just sort of slid to the lower right, partly vanished, and didn't do a thing about letting me in. I had to wait until I could get back to a desktop computer to fix it. And as it turns out, you have to have access to a desktop computer to reset it even if the app is working; you're not allowed to reset it from the app. A security measure, I suppose, but it feels clunky. How will this work for people who don't have ready access to a desktop?
Once I got in, things were much more fun. I think Springpad is more welcoming than Evernote was. Having categories like Books or Movies gave me ideas about what to start saving. It took me months to get into Evernote (a common experience) because I couldn't figure out where to start. But those same categories feel a bit limiting as well. I see I can make up my own notebooks outside of the categories, but it's not as obvious. Springpad has more visual appeal than Evernote. It's not entirely an Evernote wannabe, I've decided—more like the love child of Evernote and Pinterest. And the bit where you can follow other people's notes adds a dash of Delicious. I can see the appeal of looking though other people's notes, although I balk at letting them see mine. Lifehacker says you can "use Springpad as your new personal assistant." I'm resisting giggling at this: my iPad already has Google Now on it, trying to be a personal assistant, and if I had a more modern iPad, I'd have Siri as well. My iPhone is modern enough to support all three of them. How many artificial personal assistants does one person need, anyway?
Springpad and I got off to an awkward start. I set up my account on my desktop computer and managed to forget the password by the time I got to the iPad to sync the app. No problem: I'll just reset the password, right? Wrong. The app had a "Forgot your password?" link, but when I clicked it, the display just sort of slid to the lower right, partly vanished, and didn't do a thing about letting me in. I had to wait until I could get back to a desktop computer to fix it. And as it turns out, you have to have access to a desktop computer to reset it even if the app is working; you're not allowed to reset it from the app. A security measure, I suppose, but it feels clunky. How will this work for people who don't have ready access to a desktop?
Once I got in, things were much more fun. I think Springpad is more welcoming than Evernote was. Having categories like Books or Movies gave me ideas about what to start saving. It took me months to get into Evernote (a common experience) because I couldn't figure out where to start. But those same categories feel a bit limiting as well. I see I can make up my own notebooks outside of the categories, but it's not as obvious. Springpad has more visual appeal than Evernote. It's not entirely an Evernote wannabe, I've decided—more like the love child of Evernote and Pinterest. And the bit where you can follow other people's notes adds a dash of Delicious. I can see the appeal of looking though other people's notes, although I balk at letting them see mine. Lifehacker says you can "use Springpad as your new personal assistant." I'm resisting giggling at this: my iPad already has Google Now on it, trying to be a personal assistant, and if I had a more modern iPad, I'd have Siri as well. My iPhone is modern enough to support all three of them. How many artificial personal assistants does one person need, anyway?
Despite it being a "notetaking" app, I don't think Springpad is as good at letting you create your own content (like taking notes during a presentation) as Evernote. It seems more oriented towards saving things you find online as well as finding related online things that you might like to know about as well. I may need to come up with a project of some sort to test that out thoroughly. Evernote is certainly meant to save things, but I don't see it as a finding tool. I'm going to keep Springpad on my various devices for the time being because it's going to take a few months to really get a feel for it. Based on what I've done with it so far, I think it would be good for people who find Evernote more than they need (or want to deal with). It looks like its forte would be in researching for personal projects. For a professional project or complicated personal project, I would be more likely to recommend Evernote.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Thing 45: Cloud Computing
Huh. There's not much in this Thing about the downside to cloud computing. Try searching "cloud crash Google" (ironically, you can Google this). You'll get a slew of articles on what happened this spring when Gmail and GoogleDocs went down for a few hours. Apparently there are already a lot of people who can't function without them.
Obligatory cynical reaction now taken care of, let's move on to the benefits of cloud computing. I'm getting more cloudy by the moment, it seems. My most recent switch is to using web-based email for my primary account. I'm making the change for several reasons, but one of them is that I'm tired of not being able to access my email from any computer I'm at. Yes, I could have left my emails on the server, but my ISP's webmail is unpleasant to use. I figured I might as well switch to a service that assumes you'll be keeping your messages online, and doesn't just offer a MB as a backup while you're on vacation.
After peeking at the Web OS articles, I don't think I'm going to need to leap into this right away. Beyond surfing the web and handling email, much of what I do just involves the basic Microsoft Office programs. GoogleDocs can handle most of this--okay, it'd be nice if they'd upgrade to the point they can handle .docx files, but if I have to, I can revert to .doc. And rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to make the next version of Office cloud-compatible ("Office Web"), so maybe a little patience is all that's necessary.
On the other hand, I really do need to pay attention to data backup. Again, with a dial-up connection, online backup was just a fantasy. Now it's a practical option, and yes, sounds much cheaper than the therapy I'll need if I lose both the computers and the external hard drive.
At present, I don't think cloud computing is affecting my productivity one way or another. Basically, I don't take my work home and I don't travel as part of my job, so I almost never have to access work files when I'm not physically in the office. It's pretty obvious, though, how this could benefit all those people who do need to carry their work with them, at least virtually. Likewise, I'm not that worried about security right now, simply because I'm not working with confidential materials. But it's a good question: is your data safer in the cloud or on a laptop or flash drive that could be lost, stolen, or damaged?
Say, if I decide Mint.com is a safe option, that's cloud banking, isn't it?
Obligatory cynical reaction now taken care of, let's move on to the benefits of cloud computing. I'm getting more cloudy by the moment, it seems. My most recent switch is to using web-based email for my primary account. I'm making the change for several reasons, but one of them is that I'm tired of not being able to access my email from any computer I'm at. Yes, I could have left my emails on the server, but my ISP's webmail is unpleasant to use. I figured I might as well switch to a service that assumes you'll be keeping your messages online, and doesn't just offer a MB as a backup while you're on vacation.
After peeking at the Web OS articles, I don't think I'm going to need to leap into this right away. Beyond surfing the web and handling email, much of what I do just involves the basic Microsoft Office programs. GoogleDocs can handle most of this--okay, it'd be nice if they'd upgrade to the point they can handle .docx files, but if I have to, I can revert to .doc. And rumor has it that Microsoft is planning to make the next version of Office cloud-compatible ("Office Web"), so maybe a little patience is all that's necessary.
On the other hand, I really do need to pay attention to data backup. Again, with a dial-up connection, online backup was just a fantasy. Now it's a practical option, and yes, sounds much cheaper than the therapy I'll need if I lose both the computers and the external hard drive.
At present, I don't think cloud computing is affecting my productivity one way or another. Basically, I don't take my work home and I don't travel as part of my job, so I almost never have to access work files when I'm not physically in the office. It's pretty obvious, though, how this could benefit all those people who do need to carry their work with them, at least virtually. Likewise, I'm not that worried about security right now, simply because I'm not working with confidential materials. But it's a good question: is your data safer in the cloud or on a laptop or flash drive that could be lost, stolen, or damaged?
Say, if I decide Mint.com is a safe option, that's cloud banking, isn't it?
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Thing 29: Google Tools
So many options, so little time. What to play with first?
I started with Google News. I'd used Newsvine for my news ever since Thing 12--which is to say, I'd used Newsvine for a while, finding it to be the least obnoxious of the social media sites, and eventually reverted to picking up headlines here and there instead. Dang it, I don't want my media to be social. I rarely even read the reader comments attached to a news story. Using Newsvine or Digg or the other social media sites was like trying to read the newspaper while sitting in a room filled with people I didn't know calling back and forth to each other about what they'd just read or had seen online or whatever: hard to concentrate. Hmph. >:(
This Thing was the first I'd heard of Google News (I suppose it's listed on various Google pages, but it hadn't caught my attention), and I was wary--please, not another social media site! Much to my relief, Google is going to try to customize the news to what it thinks I want to read, not the most popular news of a bunch of people I may have nothing in common with.
My initial reaction leans toward the positive. It'll take a while to get used to the layout, but it always takes me a while to do that. I mean, I'm not entirely used to Newsvine's layout, and that's been how many months? Google's preference for simple layouts serves them well here, although the sheer number of links on the page is pushing that simplicity to the limits. There were a couple of glitches--for example, I tried to sign up for the local news of St. Paul, MN and ended up with the local news of a St. Paul somewhere in Canada--but they were worked out quickly. I liked the timeline feature, although when I clicked on what I thought was a story from 2004, I ended up with one from 2008. And ye gods, I'm lazy: it feels like such an effort to scroll down and get the news past the first part of the screen!
For productivity tools (oh goody, we're back to productivity tools!), I chose Gmail. I've been using Gmail for a while, actually; it's the email I've been using for all the Things that demand registration. I did a bit with labels back when I used this email for mailing lists, but that was about as far as my experimentation got. But for a while now, I've been thinking that this may become my main email address, and so it was time to take a closer look at it. I'd never poked into the Labs that I can recall. Now I've done so and have set up the gadget that warns you that you might be about to send an email without its attachment. And now I know why some emails have a > in front of them while others have a >>. Cool.
Drawbacks? Well, I'm still on dial-up at home, and Gmail is definitely oriented toward high-speed connections. Yes, there's the option to go for basic HTML, which delivers the mail just fine, but a lot of the fun features disappear (and no visiting the Labs while you're on basic HTML). I'm still a bit cautious about storing my main email online forever--never mind that I've had how many computers crash on me at home and have barely saved my downloaded archives each time? But in all the time I've had this address, Google has done an excellent job of weeding out the spam--that's practically enough to make me switch regardless of any other feature.
I started with Google News. I'd used Newsvine for my news ever since Thing 12--which is to say, I'd used Newsvine for a while, finding it to be the least obnoxious of the social media sites, and eventually reverted to picking up headlines here and there instead. Dang it, I don't want my media to be social. I rarely even read the reader comments attached to a news story. Using Newsvine or Digg or the other social media sites was like trying to read the newspaper while sitting in a room filled with people I didn't know calling back and forth to each other about what they'd just read or had seen online or whatever: hard to concentrate. Hmph. >:(
This Thing was the first I'd heard of Google News (I suppose it's listed on various Google pages, but it hadn't caught my attention), and I was wary--please, not another social media site! Much to my relief, Google is going to try to customize the news to what it thinks I want to read, not the most popular news of a bunch of people I may have nothing in common with.
My initial reaction leans toward the positive. It'll take a while to get used to the layout, but it always takes me a while to do that. I mean, I'm not entirely used to Newsvine's layout, and that's been how many months? Google's preference for simple layouts serves them well here, although the sheer number of links on the page is pushing that simplicity to the limits. There were a couple of glitches--for example, I tried to sign up for the local news of St. Paul, MN and ended up with the local news of a St. Paul somewhere in Canada--but they were worked out quickly. I liked the timeline feature, although when I clicked on what I thought was a story from 2004, I ended up with one from 2008. And ye gods, I'm lazy: it feels like such an effort to scroll down and get the news past the first part of the screen!
For productivity tools (oh goody, we're back to productivity tools!), I chose Gmail. I've been using Gmail for a while, actually; it's the email I've been using for all the Things that demand registration. I did a bit with labels back when I used this email for mailing lists, but that was about as far as my experimentation got. But for a while now, I've been thinking that this may become my main email address, and so it was time to take a closer look at it. I'd never poked into the Labs that I can recall. Now I've done so and have set up the gadget that warns you that you might be about to send an email without its attachment. And now I know why some emails have a > in front of them while others have a >>. Cool.
Drawbacks? Well, I'm still on dial-up at home, and Gmail is definitely oriented toward high-speed connections. Yes, there's the option to go for basic HTML, which delivers the mail just fine, but a lot of the fun features disappear (and no visiting the Labs while you're on basic HTML). I'm still a bit cautious about storing my main email online forever--never mind that I've had how many computers crash on me at home and have barely saved my downloaded archives each time? But in all the time I've had this address, Google has done an excellent job of weeding out the spam--that's practically enough to make me switch regardless of any other feature.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thing 28: Customized Home Pages
Well, this was hauntingly familiar. I'd dealt with customized home pages way back in August with Thing 13 (Online Productivity Tools). There seem to be a few more options out there this year, but the principle is the same.
Since Thing 13, I've been using iGoogle as my home page on my home computer. This time, I've been testing Netvibes and Pageflakes out as well. I want to like Netvibes more than I do, but it's been having small problems ever since I signed up. I had to sign up twice because it locked up the first time and my registration never went all the way through. Started simultaneously with Pageflakes, Netvibes takes noticeably longer to load which isn't much of a selling point, and sometimes it just doesn't load at all. And finally, something about the layout just rubs me the wrong way aesthetically. I've changed the template and colors, but it's still not to my taste. The various widgets do what they're supposed to do (mostly), but I find many of them unattractive anyway. I do like that they've got a fairly wide assortment of widgets, but iGoogle has more (so there).
Pageflakes' strong points are the things I didn't like about Netvibes: it loads faster, I like the layout better, and most of the time, with any given flake, I like its look more than Netvibes' corresponding widget. Its mail flakes seem to have more problems accessing my email than Netvibes' do, though. But at least I didn't have to sign up for it twice, and so far it hasn't had hiccups in loading.
I'm not quite ready to dump iGoogle yet. I may not like its layout quite as much as Pageflakes', but I find its basic simplicity appealing in its own right. And the gadgets I've found are mostly doing what I need them to do, although why the birthday reminder gadget occasionally just stops working puzzles me.
Some gadgets, regardless of platform, are just really useful. I like having my various email accounts viewable with a quick glance at one page, rather than traipsing around from login screen to login screen to check them all. I think Facebook and Twitter do just fine as small gadgets: it strips them down to their essentials and cuts out the noise (well, Twitter doesn't seem to have much beyond its essentials, but it still works great as a gadget--if you like it in the first place). And what's a start page without news headlines or brief weather updates?
Like giving Twitter a fair shot, I'll probably continue to try all these home pages for a while and see how they work out in the long run. There are always new gadgets/widgets/flakes to try, after all--may as well see them in three incarnations.
Since Thing 13, I've been using iGoogle as my home page on my home computer. This time, I've been testing Netvibes and Pageflakes out as well. I want to like Netvibes more than I do, but it's been having small problems ever since I signed up. I had to sign up twice because it locked up the first time and my registration never went all the way through. Started simultaneously with Pageflakes, Netvibes takes noticeably longer to load which isn't much of a selling point, and sometimes it just doesn't load at all. And finally, something about the layout just rubs me the wrong way aesthetically. I've changed the template and colors, but it's still not to my taste. The various widgets do what they're supposed to do (mostly), but I find many of them unattractive anyway. I do like that they've got a fairly wide assortment of widgets, but iGoogle has more (so there).
Pageflakes' strong points are the things I didn't like about Netvibes: it loads faster, I like the layout better, and most of the time, with any given flake, I like its look more than Netvibes' corresponding widget. Its mail flakes seem to have more problems accessing my email than Netvibes' do, though. But at least I didn't have to sign up for it twice, and so far it hasn't had hiccups in loading.
I'm not quite ready to dump iGoogle yet. I may not like its layout quite as much as Pageflakes', but I find its basic simplicity appealing in its own right. And the gadgets I've found are mostly doing what I need them to do, although why the birthday reminder gadget occasionally just stops working puzzles me.
Some gadgets, regardless of platform, are just really useful. I like having my various email accounts viewable with a quick glance at one page, rather than traipsing around from login screen to login screen to check them all. I think Facebook and Twitter do just fine as small gadgets: it strips them down to their essentials and cuts out the noise (well, Twitter doesn't seem to have much beyond its essentials, but it still works great as a gadget--if you like it in the first place). And what's a start page without news headlines or brief weather updates?
Like giving Twitter a fair shot, I'll probably continue to try all these home pages for a while and see how they work out in the long run. There are always new gadgets/widgets/flakes to try, after all--may as well see them in three incarnations.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Thing 23: Final Thoughts
Oh, where to begin? I gained several favorite new Things through 23 Things. I went from having no idea what Facebook was to using it daily to keep my long-distance social life on track. I didn't understand why people want to blog (why so many people want to blog!) and now I'm tentatively considering starting a personal blog once I sign off on 23 Distractions. And let's not even get into listing the online productivity tools--those are just plain fun (and useful--a win/win situation!). Plus there were the old Things I was already familiar with that I was happy to see during the program: seeing LibraryThing on the list made me feel like I was already being trendy and innovative on my own.
Naturally in a list of multiple options, some will be less attractive than others. The idea of doing much with my photos online just leaves me feeling exhausted, not creative. I keep forgetting I have a Delicious account, much less that I can use it. Second Life may have to wait until I put grad school behind me and get a faster Internet connection. But at least now I know that these Things are out there and I've tried them, rather than just hearing about them and idly meaning to look into them someday.
I liked that I knew people, usually coworkers or fellow students, who were also going through the 23 Things. It was always interesting to read their takes on stuff; often they picked up on aspects of something that I didn't consider important or vice versa. And yes, if you do a "23 More Things" or "Another 23 Things," I'm likely to sign up.
Naturally in a list of multiple options, some will be less attractive than others. The idea of doing much with my photos online just leaves me feeling exhausted, not creative. I keep forgetting I have a Delicious account, much less that I can use it. Second Life may have to wait until I put grad school behind me and get a faster Internet connection. But at least now I know that these Things are out there and I've tried them, rather than just hearing about them and idly meaning to look into them someday.
I liked that I knew people, usually coworkers or fellow students, who were also going through the 23 Things. It was always interesting to read their takes on stuff; often they picked up on aspects of something that I didn't consider important or vice versa. And yes, if you do a "23 More Things" or "Another 23 Things," I'm likely to sign up.
Thing 22: What Did I Learn Today?
I came into 23 Things wanting to learn more about the new stuff out there in Internet-world. I'm coming out of it knowing more and wanting to learn still yet more, so it looks like the program worked. Unlike a resolution to lose weight or break a bad habit, a resolution to keep poking around in Web 2.0 will probably be easier to keep because it promises to be interesting and often fun as well.
I've been hearing intriguing things about Lifehacker, so I'll probably get its RSS feed and try it out for a while. It sounds like it could keep me posted on useful Web 2.0 developments. I don't know how many Things I'll find a use for in our library, for all the reasons I've detailed over the past four months, but when I come upon someThing new, I'll give it a good onceover and see if we can use it. I anticipate far more success with Web 2.0 in my personal life because I can probably always find some justification for a new toy!
I've been hearing intriguing things about Lifehacker, so I'll probably get its RSS feed and try it out for a while. It sounds like it could keep me posted on useful Web 2.0 developments. I don't know how many Things I'll find a use for in our library, for all the reasons I've detailed over the past four months, but when I come upon someThing new, I'll give it a good onceover and see if we can use it. I anticipate far more success with Web 2.0 in my personal life because I can probably always find some justification for a new toy!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thing 17: ELM Productivity Tools
I knew about the Electronic Library for Minnesota before I started the 23 Things. It's been very useful now that I'm back in student mode--I love being able to get journal articles without having to take the time to go over to a library and I really don't miss trying to make photocopies from bound journals. However, I didn't know that the databases came with extras before playing with Thing 17.
I think EBSCO's Personal Folder feature will be really useful. It was a lot easier to save the articles for my current class to this folder instead of downloading them to a flash drive. After all, I never remember which flash drive I used and when you save an article to a computer, the file name is a meaningless string of letters and numbers--saved to the Folder, the file name is the article title. Although my high hopes for getting all my articles neatly organized and available from any computer crashed when I realized that one of the assigned articles was from another company's database. Oh well.
The Search Alert feature was less successful. Having dinked around with it for a few days, it looks like I can set up a successful RSS feed through IE7 or Outlook, which is fine when I'm at work. But I use Firefox 3 and Thunderbird at home, and I just couldn't get the RSS feed set up on either of them successfully. Oh, it looked like it was set up in Thunderbird (Firefox couldn't "see" the RSS feed at all), but whenever a new article came in and I clicked on its link, I was sent to a login page that wanted a username and password that I didn't have. If I tried, perhaps I could get this working on Google Reader, but like I said back at Thing 3, I don't want to use Google Reader. And it wasn't clear where I should go for help. My library? EBSCO?
I've had mixed feelings about NetLibrary for years. It's a great idea, but the books included seem to mostly be a random mixture of this and that. And once I've chosen a book, the layout strikes me as odd. Maybe I'm just wired for print books more than electronic ones! But I love the idea of being able to run keyword searches on books, not just journal and magazine articles, so I hope NetLibrary (and other variants of electronic books) continue to improve.
I think EBSCO's Personal Folder feature will be really useful. It was a lot easier to save the articles for my current class to this folder instead of downloading them to a flash drive. After all, I never remember which flash drive I used and when you save an article to a computer, the file name is a meaningless string of letters and numbers--saved to the Folder, the file name is the article title. Although my high hopes for getting all my articles neatly organized and available from any computer crashed when I realized that one of the assigned articles was from another company's database. Oh well.
The Search Alert feature was less successful. Having dinked around with it for a few days, it looks like I can set up a successful RSS feed through IE7 or Outlook, which is fine when I'm at work. But I use Firefox 3 and Thunderbird at home, and I just couldn't get the RSS feed set up on either of them successfully. Oh, it looked like it was set up in Thunderbird (Firefox couldn't "see" the RSS feed at all), but whenever a new article came in and I clicked on its link, I was sent to a login page that wanted a username and password that I didn't have. If I tried, perhaps I could get this working on Google Reader, but like I said back at Thing 3, I don't want to use Google Reader. And it wasn't clear where I should go for help. My library? EBSCO?
I've had mixed feelings about NetLibrary for years. It's a great idea, but the books included seem to mostly be a random mixture of this and that. And once I've chosen a book, the layout strikes me as odd. Maybe I'm just wired for print books more than electronic ones! But I love the idea of being able to run keyword searches on books, not just journal and magazine articles, so I hope NetLibrary (and other variants of electronic books) continue to improve.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Thing 16: Student 2.0 Tools
Oh, great timing. Here I am: a Student 2.0.
I first encountered the Assignment Calculator about a year ago, although I can't remember what brought it to my attention. I tried it for a paper that was due shortly after Thanksgiving. I suppose I can't blame the Assignment Calculator for the fact that I let myself get distracted by eating turkey and baking holiday cookies and ended up staying up the night before the paper was due, writing it at the last moment just like when I was in college. Plus, the Assignment Calculator is more organized than I am, period. It talks about creating an outline and a thesis statement before starting the first draft--I've tended to skip outlining altogether and my thesis statement is often about the last thing I come up with. If the U didn't create an Assignment Calculator for grad students because they thought grad students had matured and had their acts together...well, not necessarily.
The Research Project Calculator looks like an excellent idea. If you can keep any students from developing my procrastination habits while they're still young, their future professors will thank you. However, I can't imagine us getting any students here except law students, and most of them probably hang out at their school libraries. So I don't see us using the Assignment Calculator, much less the RPC. I suppose what we need (or what our pro se patrons need, rather) is a calculator that will walk them through the steps to file an appeal on schedule, including getting a brief written. The Appeals Calculator--doesn't that sound useful?
Well, for me, another semester starts next week, bringing more opportunities to use the Assignment Calculator. I really am trying to be better about outlining and sometimes I know what my thesis is before the end of the paper, so maybe I can get more practical use out of the Assignment Calculator.
I first encountered the Assignment Calculator about a year ago, although I can't remember what brought it to my attention. I tried it for a paper that was due shortly after Thanksgiving. I suppose I can't blame the Assignment Calculator for the fact that I let myself get distracted by eating turkey and baking holiday cookies and ended up staying up the night before the paper was due, writing it at the last moment just like when I was in college. Plus, the Assignment Calculator is more organized than I am, period. It talks about creating an outline and a thesis statement before starting the first draft--I've tended to skip outlining altogether and my thesis statement is often about the last thing I come up with. If the U didn't create an Assignment Calculator for grad students because they thought grad students had matured and had their acts together...well, not necessarily.
The Research Project Calculator looks like an excellent idea. If you can keep any students from developing my procrastination habits while they're still young, their future professors will thank you. However, I can't imagine us getting any students here except law students, and most of them probably hang out at their school libraries. So I don't see us using the Assignment Calculator, much less the RPC. I suppose what we need (or what our pro se patrons need, rather) is a calculator that will walk them through the steps to file an appeal on schedule, including getting a brief written. The Appeals Calculator--doesn't that sound useful?
Well, for me, another semester starts next week, bringing more opportunities to use the Assignment Calculator. I really am trying to be better about outlining and sometimes I know what my thesis is before the end of the paper, so maybe I can get more practical use out of the Assignment Calculator.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools
Toys! Whee!
I tackled the start page first. It's not that that sort of start page is new to me: my ISP (EarthLink) has had one like that for years. But there are lots of gadgets on it that I don't like that are hard to get rid of and the look is generally cluttered, so I was willing to try another one. I went with iGoogle's page because it had a nice clean look, figuring that I can always go back to EarthLink's if iGoogle starts to annoy me. It's a bit odd getting a peek into my Gmail account instead of my EarthLink email though, since Gmail is only one of my backups.
I would get a lot more out of these tools if I didn't already have a PDA. It takes only a few seconds to turn on the PDA and three minutes bare minimum to get a computer up and running. These online tools aren't much use for reminding me to do stuff that isn't computer-based (set the rice to soaking, return the library books). The PDA has problems in this area too--it doesn't really remind me of much if I forget to check it in the first place--although I can set it to sound an alarm as a reminder, which has been helpful.
That aside, many of these things looked useful. Google's calendar was more than adequate for the events I typed in to test it with. Remember the Milk seems to be getting lots of good reviews, but when I try to enter a task, it locks up. I'll try it from another computer, but how much use will it be if I can only use it on certain computers? Backpack was probably useful as all get-out, but it was overkill. Actually Backpack looks like it might be an equivalent to Microsoft's SharePoint Server, in which case, Backpack does a much better job of explaining itself than SharePoint does. We could probably use it at work except that we've already got SharePoint.
The sticky note programs look like they have potential. But because they need to be downloaded, I'm going to try them out at home first; our IT department frets about unapproved software being installed on our work computers.
I tackled the start page first. It's not that that sort of start page is new to me: my ISP (EarthLink) has had one like that for years. But there are lots of gadgets on it that I don't like that are hard to get rid of and the look is generally cluttered, so I was willing to try another one. I went with iGoogle's page because it had a nice clean look, figuring that I can always go back to EarthLink's if iGoogle starts to annoy me. It's a bit odd getting a peek into my Gmail account instead of my EarthLink email though, since Gmail is only one of my backups.
I would get a lot more out of these tools if I didn't already have a PDA. It takes only a few seconds to turn on the PDA and three minutes bare minimum to get a computer up and running. These online tools aren't much use for reminding me to do stuff that isn't computer-based (set the rice to soaking, return the library books). The PDA has problems in this area too--it doesn't really remind me of much if I forget to check it in the first place--although I can set it to sound an alarm as a reminder, which has been helpful.
That aside, many of these things looked useful. Google's calendar was more than adequate for the events I typed in to test it with. Remember the Milk seems to be getting lots of good reviews, but when I try to enter a task, it locks up. I'll try it from another computer, but how much use will it be if I can only use it on certain computers? Backpack was probably useful as all get-out, but it was overkill. Actually Backpack looks like it might be an equivalent to Microsoft's SharePoint Server, in which case, Backpack does a much better job of explaining itself than SharePoint does. We could probably use it at work except that we've already got SharePoint.
The sticky note programs look like they have potential. But because they need to be downloaded, I'm going to try them out at home first; our IT department frets about unapproved software being installed on our work computers.
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