Questions for this week

For Thursday 4/28 and Monday 5/3, we’re going to look at the possibility of finding a set of apps that we would recommend for everyone in the Fall. Two of the biggest benefits would include:

• easily finding people who can troubleshoot with you because we’re all using the same app
• getting the apps cheaper with the bulk discount in the App Volume Purchase Program

So, what kind of apps do we want to agree on? Here are some ideas I’ve heard from Pilot participants so far:

• word processing app
• presenting app
• PDF annotation app

Are there other kinds of apps that should be set / campus wide? Do you already have apps in mind that you would recommend for these categories? See you Thursday / Monday!

Has anyone else noticed a marked slow-down of your workstation after installing dropbox? My system is always slow (I can often watch it draw the screens bit by bit) – but it seems as if since I’ve been using drop box, things are much slower no matter what I’m doing. This seems to be the case with my workstation at home as well, but I haven’t been on enough at home to really say.
Are there some parameters for dropbox that I should be setting?

How do I know whether I’m connected to the wi-fi/internet? It seems as if my email gets updated immediately – but when I try to access something “out there” on the internet, I get ‘can’t connect’ errors.

There is a small icon in the upper left of the ipad screen — is that an indicator for the strength of the connection? It seems to alternate btwn just the dot being lit and the smallest of the half circle marks being lit

How is it that email gets updated when I can’t connect to the internet? (I hear beeps from my ipad even before I see new mail in Outlook).

Could the wi-fi signal in my office be that sporadic? What would make it fluctuate like that?

Productivity Suite Question

I am comparing the iWorks suite with Quick Office and if I am reading things correctly it looks like iWorks has a better interface and more features in general (with twice the price tag, $30 for Pages/Numbers/Keynote). The one area where it is lacking is cloud support. Unless I am missing something in their documentation, it doesn’t look like the iWorks products have any built-in way to play nice with storage like Dropbox, which would be mighty nice for working on projects at home, office or on the go. My understanding is that I would basically have to Mail it to myself (the iWorks app can do this) or pony up for a MobileMe subscription account that Apple runs to bilk some more money out of me. This makes the iWorks suite somewhat less attractive for me. If I misunderstand or have missed documentation of an update could someone please point me in the right direction? Thanks.

more issues – I’ve just tried to access ANGEL on my ipad in my office:

using Safari:
I get a screen that will not scroll up/down or left/right even tho not all the courses on my ANGEL menu are visible.
There are lots of ? marks – I presume this means that the screen is not displayed correctly.
There are no navigation tabs or buttons visible – e.g. ‘logout’, ‘home’, ‘help’
Touching the links that do show up results only in the display “jumping” a bit – nothing else – no new pages, no error messages, no nothing.

Using Atomic Web -
I get a menu that has nothing other than a box with “home” and “logout” buttons, a public announcements box, a public information box, and a search and help box.
the little identity icon in the upper right of the main section of the screen says “guest” even tho the box with the home and logout buttons has ‘harringtonl1′ in its title bar
Nothing happens when I touch either the home or logout button -
The navigation buttons down the left side of the screen appear to work – got a help screen, and I think it would log me off, but i’ve lost the wi-fi connection – a hazard of my office location???

And where did that goofy icon that is associated with my posts come from????
It’s not bad – but probably not what I would have chosen!

Frustrations and questions:
Apple navigation is not “intuitively obvious to the most casual observer,” at least not for someone like me who has used Microsoft products since the days of DOS – and other operating systems such as Unix and IBM’s mainframe OS. Is there a tutorial/cheat sheet for navigation in the Apple world?

My “touch” seldom hits the option that I want (could be an eye-hand coordination issue, I know – I’ve ordered a stylus to see if that will help). Is there a secret to the touch?

Do apps close when you hit the “home” button so you see the main screen? If not, how do you close them?

How do you go back to a previous display when there is no arrow at the top of the screen? The double tap on that ‘home’ button (is that what it’s called – the round indented botton on the short side of the ipad) will get a row of icons across the bottom – are they all open? or are they just what you’ve got on your main screen? If they’re open, how did they get that way when I haven’t accessed them in the current “session” with the ipad? Do things close automatically if they’re not accessed for a while?