iPads in A&S

Jason Miller found a nice Macworld article on editing a PowerPoint on your iPad. Enjoy!

-Rebecca Johnson

So, the newest version of iTunes dropped this week. This post on MacLife gives you a summary of new features. Thanks for the link, Jason.

-Rebecca Johnson

Here are some links that Jason Miller sent me recently that detail some nifty things you can do in iOS 6.0, including how to

Use HTML to create a link in your email signature in iOS 6.0

Have multiple email signatures on your iOS 6.0 device

Reorder your inboxes with iOS 6.0

Get Google Maps back on your iOS 6.0 device

Get Google Maps “Streetview” for the Google Maps web application

–Rebecca Johnson

For this Tip of the Week, I will show you how to easily add photos and videos to email messages. This video is 1 minute and 20 seconds long.

iPad tip of the week: Emailing Photos and Videos:

With the release of iOS 6 it is now easier than ever to add photos/videos to emails. You can now add them from within the email itself. Here is how:

1. Open the mail app
2. Create a new email message by tapping the new mail icon in the top right corner of the screen
3. Tap and hold anywhere in the body of the message to bring up a list of options.
4. Locate the option that is labeled “Insert Photo or Video” and tap that option
5. You will now be presented with a box labeled photos, which will give you access to your media. Choose camera roll or photo stream depending on where your attachment is located.
6. After taping either camera roll or photo stream, tap the item that you want to attach to the email.
7. Tap the use button located in the top right corner to attach the item to the mail message.
8. Complete your email and then send.

-Jason Miller

With the flurry of updates that have been pushed out with the new iOS, you may have missed the update to the Find My iPhone app. It’s now a little easier to send a tone to your misplaced iPad. See this link that Jason Miller found at idownloadblog.com.

–Rebecca Johnson

Don’t procrastinate about updating your iPad’s operating system. Many quirky little problems that we see are due to users still running 4.3.3.* Today, Apple releases iOS 6.0, the most recent update of its operating system for mobile devices. From Jason Miller, these two links provide you with information on what features are available in 6.0: from techcrunch.com, what you need to know to update to the new iOS; and from cultofmac.com, a summary of the new features in the update.

If you have any questions about updating your iOS or would like help updating from 4.3.3 to 6.0, please don’t hesitate to call or email eTech at 8-4832 or etech[at]as.ua.edu.

*How do you know what operating system is running on your iPad? Go to the Settings app and check under the General settings. Look for “About” in the list on the right and select that. Then you’ll need to look for “Version,” which will tell you what iOS you are running on your iPad.

–Rebecca Johnson

For our first Tip of the Week, Jason Miller will show you how to improve your iPad’s performance by closing apps that are running in the background. This video is 45 seconds long.

iPad Tip of the Week: The Multitasking Bar

Here is the transcript of the video:

Welcome to the iPad Tip of the Week: Using the Multitasking Bar

The multitasking bar displays all of the apps that you have recently used and that are currently running in the background. If too many apps are running in the background, this can slow down your iPad or cause apps to crash. You can solve this problem with the following steps:

1. Quickly press the Home button twice to bring up the multitasking bar.
2. Tap and hold any of the app icons that appear on the bar until they start to jiggle and red minus signs appear on the corner of each app.
3. Tap the red minus sign on each of the apps until all apps in the multitasking bar are closed.
4. Close the multitasking bar by pressing the Home button once.

Quickoffice Pro HD ($19.99)

Pros:  stable app; friendly interface; direct link to variety of cloud storage services; can easily use this to create and to perform some light editing of Word, Powerpoint, and Excel files

Cons: limited functionality compared to desktop version of Office; limited formatting options, e.g., only 12 fonts; unfortunate tendency to slightly reformat Powerpoint presentations that have been created on desktop or laptop computers; can use the app to convert files to PDFs (though it’s hidden in the print function and exporting takes another step or two)

Keynote ($9.99)

Pros:  stable app; relatively rich formatting options, e.g., 58 fonts available, not counting weight options for many of those; well integrated into the iPad, e.g., easy access to Photos and photo stream; great if you have other Mac computers with the latest OS to take advantage of most recent iCloud sharing options; can easily export files as PDFs for Air Sketch

Cons: limited options for exporting documents (no cloud services apart from iCloud); interface for file management is limited

—-

I’ve used Quickoffice as my main iPad word processing app since I began working with iPads nearly two years ago. I love the interface–it’s simple, logical, and hasn’t changed much in all that time. I use it to open email attachments and to do some light editing on Dropbox documents. I also use it to create rough drafts. Essentially, it’s a cloud-storage friendly app that allows me to do some basic drafting and light editing, and as long as I don’t have to worry about formatting or anything terribly complicated, all will be well.

Keynote is a more recent acquisition. I started using it routinely when we offered our first iPads and Presenting workshop. I enjoy creating presentations on the iPad because I’m able to easily access Photos and photo stream and embed hyperlinks to videos and to web pages. I also like the presenter notes feature with Keynote, which gives me access to my notes on the presentation without making them visible to the audience. Keynote is a much richer presentation application than the PowerPoint portion of Quickoffice. I’ve found that the limited options in Keynote for exporting documents can actually work to my advantage if I’m trying to turn my presentation into a PDF for use with Air Sketch. It is an option within the export function in Keynote, rather than being hidden in the Print function within Quickoffice. [Thanks to Dr. Chris Lynn for suggesting I give Keynote on the iPad a try.]

So, depending on what you need to do, both Quickoffice and Keynote are perfectly serviceable and reliable.

[I have not worked much with the Excel portion of Quickoffice or with Pages and Numbers, Apple's versions of Word and Excel. If you have experience with these apps, please feel free to comment below.]

Look at those file management options in Quickoffice! Drag a file to cloud storage, email it, delete it, share it in social media, distribute it wirelessly (the blurred out bit at the bottom of the window). Nice.

Not many options here in this file management interface. Well, until you get the little thumbnails jiggling, then a few more show up, but I find that vaguely aggravating.

—

An additional note on word processing on the iPad: it helps to have modest goals. For example, I must use the track changes function in some of the work that I do. While there are apps that provide track changes functionality, OnLive Desktop and Office2 HD, both are buggy. OnLive Desktop is free (woo-hoo!) but it is critically dependent on robust wireless because you’re working with a virtualized version of the full Office suite. It also requires some maneuvering to get your documents into the virtual space in which you can begin to edit them, and this maneuvering can only happen on a desktop or laptop computer. OnLive is also undergoing some difficult financial times, so there’s that. Office2 HD ($7.99) is an app that resides on the iPad. I’ve not worked much with the app apart from trying to use track changes as I edited an 80-some page document. MUCH crashing ensued. Perhaps with a smaller document, all would be ducky? I will experiment and let you know. What is wonderful about the iPad, obviously, is its small size and how quickly it wakes up. I’d much prefer to use it than my aged, ailing, and heavy laptop. I’m willing to put up with some slightly awkward workarounds for these reasons. But for my work that requires track changes, these apps don’t seem to be the solution.

-Rebecca Johnson

eTech iPad Workshop Series

The eTech iPad Workshops are designed to provide Arts and Sciences faculty, instructors, and staff with information that can help them incorporate the iPad into their teaching, research, and work life. These one-hour brown-bag workshops are held at noon on Tuesdays in the eTech Conference Room in the Bureau of Mines. For all workshops, bring your iPad and please make sure that you know all relevant user names and passwords associated with your device (i.e., Apple ID and password, AS and MyBama user names and passwords, Dropbox, etc.). Workshops will be limited to 10 participants, we will schedule additional workshops by request.
Contact eTech by email to reserve your spot—etech[at]as.ua.edu

August 28:  iPad 101
We’ll take you on a tour of the settings menu, give you an overview of transferring files to and from your iPad, and give you a brief introduction to some of the popular apps in the College of Arts and Sciences.

September 4:  App of the Month—Dropbox
We’ll show you how to get a Dropbox account, how Dropbox is integrated into a variety of apps, and how you can use it to transfer and share files.

September 11:  iPads and Presenting
We’ll take you through a number of presenting options, including Keynote and Air Sketch.

September 18:  An Overview of iOS 6
In early September, Apple will release the newest version of their mobile operating system. We’ll provide an overview of the new features in iOS 6.

September 25:  iPad App-stravaganza
We’ll cram as many app overviews as we can into 40 minutes, followed by 20 minutes of discussion of these apps and any others that participants would like to share.

October 2:  File Transfer, Cloud Storage, and Your iPad
How do you transfer files with no USB drive? We’ll show you how with iCloud, Dropbox, iTunes file transfer, GoodReader, and FilesConnect.

October 9:  App of the Month—GoodReader
Like a Swiss Army knife for your iPad, GoodReader can be used to annotate pdf’s, transfer files, share files wirelessly, and more.

October 16:  iPad Accessory Showcase
By popular demand, we’ll provide a hands-on showcase of a variety of accessories for your iPad, including microphones, keyboards, styluses, and camera connectors.

October 23 through the end of the fall semester:  TBA

Air Sketch 

($9.99) Air Sketch allows you to mark up a presentation saved as a PDF and do so wirelessly, freeing you from the podium in the multimedia rooms. You can also use it as a wireless whiteboard. Be aware that to use the untethered option, Wi-Fi must be available. As in other apps, you can zoom in and pan using two fingers. Tip: Write smaller and more detailed text while zoomed in. Also, the eraser shrinks when zoomed in, allowing finer control. And see this post for how to use Air Sketch with Tegrity to record your presentation.

Air Sketch Controls

These controls appear along the bottom of the application window.

1. This button provides the server address of your iPad. Type this number into the URL field of a browser on the multimedia computer. Hit return, and your iPad will appear in the browser window.
2. As you markup the whiteboard or a PDF, you can take a snapshot of what is currently on the iPad.
3. All of your snapshots are kept in this folder.
4. You can set the background image for Air Sketch here. It pulls from your Camera Roll or Photo Stream.
5. You can share your sketch/annotated presentation here via email as a PDF or a JPG, or you can save it to your photo library (Camera Roll and/or Photo Stream).
6. These are the Undo and Redo buttons.
7. You can select various line weights and colors here. There is also a highlighting tool.
8. An eraser
9. This clears the board.

Tips from the Air Sketch website

How to open a PDF file in Air Sketch

1. Email the PDF file to yourself or use a File Manager App that supports the “Open In . . .” feature, such as Dropbox, to transfer it to your iPad.
2. Open the PDF file within Mail or the third-party file manager app to view it.
3. Tap “Open In . . .” and select Air Sketch.

Working with PDF files

• Air Sketch works with one PDF file at a time and doesn’t store or manage PDF files directly.
• Tap the page number on the PDF page controls to quickly jump to any page.
• Tap Share-> Email as PDF to email the entire annotated PDF document.
• Note: There appears to be a limit to the size of email attachments on the iPad. We’ve (the “we” here are the app developers) found that documents under around 10MB (or PDF files up to around 75 pages) tend to be sent ok, but sending larger ones may fail. This appears to be an OS limitation and happens in other apps as well, which we hope will be addressed in a future upgrade.

For more additional information about Air Sketch, visit qrayon’s website, the developer of Air Sketch: http://www.qrayon.com/home/airsketch/tips.aspx

Related post: Using Tegrity with Air Sketch on Your iPad