Day 2 - Spreadsheets (part II), & Blogs

 Had to use a Windows desktop a few times today!

In response to a few conversations about spreadsheet input on the iPad, I tried using Spreadsheets in different browsers:

GoDocs: It's pretty slick (but it ought to be at $4.99!). It pulls up your entire GDocs inventory Presentations, PDFs, Docs, Spreadsheets, etc.) - something you can't do in Google Mobile, unless you switch to the Desktop version. You can open resources in GoDocs or in another application - that's where this would have been helpful yesterday, because I can pull my spreadsheet up in Numbers. Input there is quite zippy. But once I work on it in numbers, I have no way to export it back to into GoDocs or Google Docs from the iPad. My only export options there are email, print, iWork, iTunes, iDisk (very confusing - does that still exist now with iCloud? I turned it off and the only place it still comes up is in Pages, Keynote and Numbers - Apple needs to resolve that soon!), and WebDAV - honestly, I have no idea what that is. So once I am done with my spreadsheet, it is no longer shared - one of my primary incentives for recording student preparedness in the first place was to  give real time updates to all seven collaborating teachers. Once it kicks into numbers, they loose access to my updates until I save it, store it locally somewhere, upload it back to GDocs, and re-share it with my colleagues. Given that, my solution of opening all the rows for editing before the class enters the room seems to be the simpler solution.  

Other "Open in" options include Side by Side, Docs to Go, and Good Reader. I will try those at some other point, but not today.

Of course, this was all so worthy of documentation that I opened this blog :-). Yesterday, I pledged to post my updates in the comments field, but that won't work. I want to embed images, screenshots, audio, video, etc... so I opened another bog, and I will link these posts to my Bibliotech.me blog. 

So I worked on Blogger from the iPad. I learned some great things. I bought two apps - iBlogger ($.99) and BE Write HD ($.99). iBlogger was a waste of money - it is an instructional resource with tutorials. The Blogger app itself (free) is not yet available in an iPad version.

I really, really really liked BE Write HD (very bad name) for creating posts. I can play with fonts, formatting, images, drawings, etc... It actually offers the content creator more options than desktop Blogger. The one thing I couldn't do was to embed images in the text (like the one above). In this tool they have to be separate, as far as I can tell. Another problem is that it doesn't expect users to have several blogs, so it randomly picks one rather than give you the option. There may be something I am missing there, but I posted my day one post to the school's NEAS&C blog by mistake - had to go grab the code, repost it to the correct blog, then go an delete the original post. 

I tried editing posts. You can't really do it through a browser. The post comes up in code, but it isn't the usual HTML, which I could handle. I can't make heads or tails out of what appears on the screen. You can edit in the Blogger app, but it is tiny (for iPhone), and you can't "save", only publish - which is a drawback. Drafts seem to show up in HTML, whereas published posts appear in natural language. You CAN select which blog you wish to work on, which is helpful. Absolutely zero formatting options. You can take or embed an image and that is it!

iPad plus: You can take a screenshot, open it in a drawing app, mark it up and drop it back into your photos. Much easier and cheaper than SnagIt!

One problem with using a keyboard, is that the iPad often forgets to pull up its own. It seems to assume that yours is on hand all the time (which it isn't). 

That's it for today. I had something to say about browsers, but I'll save it for tomorrow. Here is your cliff hanger: Dolphin...

Apps acquired:

• iBlogger - .99
• Blogger - free
• GoDocs - 4.99
• BE Write HD - .99