Syncing PC

When you’re an advanced user, you can’t get away from using a regular PC or Mac.  The iPad is a great supplemental tool.  Below are some apps that sync great between your PC/Mac and iPad.

Evernote-You’ve heard me talk and talk about this service.  It’s a note taking app on steroids, and can be a true asset in cataloging everything.

Dropbox-Easily access your files from your PC to your iPad.

Noteshelf-There are plenty of note taking apps out there like Penultimate and Noterize, but the one I reach for the most often is Noteshelf as it easily exports to Evernote, Dropbox and other services.

Bento-(Mac only)  Bento is the Access alternative for OS X.  It comes with plenty of templates and can integrate into some standard programs like iCal and Address book.  The iPad app is very useful when needing to sync your information on your Mac computer or use it as a stand alone.

News/Social/Online

I’ve spoken about RSS feeds before, some experts claim it’s dead.  From the vast array of different RSS readers out there for your iPad, I say that isn’t so.

Reeder-Very elegant and easy RSS reader to get your news.  Syncs with Google Reader.

Flipboard-View your RSS feeds as well as Twitter and Facebook feeds like a beautiful magazine layout.  Very cool.  Also supports syncing with Google Reader.

Friendly-Facebook hasn’t had an official app for the iPad yet, but the best unofficial app is Friendly.  It takes advantage of the sharp resolution from the iPad and makes it easy to reply to comments or send PMs.

Boxcar-Brings push notification for Facebook, twitter, email, Google Voice and even RSS feeds.  The app supports a multiple of other iPad apps so when clicking “View” it can bring up the designated app for that service instead of Boxcar itself.  Very helpful and something I’ve grown to rely on for email notifications.

Business

Office2 HD-If you are looking to save some money and needing more functionality when it comes to editing your documents, this app can handle both Word and Excel documents, including the problematic 2007 file types.  Its more powerful than the default Pages and Numbers that Apple tries to push on you and it’s cheaper than buying both of those two apps together.

MoneyWell- (Mac only)  Financial program much like Quicken.

Harvest-Online time management and invoicing system.  Now that the iPad 2 has built-in camera support, you can take pictures of expense receipts and add to your customer data to invoice them later.  One of my favorite services (and very affordable).

GV Connect-Nice app that connects to your Google Voice account.

Pocket Informant HD-Many people miss having the old-fashioned organizer feel when using a digital device.  Bring some of that back with this app, giving you a calendar plus tasks layout that is reminiscent of the Franklin Covey style.  Though on the pricey side, it can sync with Google Calendar and Toodledo tasks service.

So what are RSS feeds?  RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  How does it work?  In a nutshell, articles from a specific website will be “pulled” in a listing to browse without going to a website directly.  So let’s say you have five websites you routinely check to see what is new.  If your schedule permits, your browsing usually breaks down easily in the following way:

1.  Once a day you check wmctv.com for local news and Amazon.com for newly released products.
2.  At least twice a day, you check CNN.com and NYT.com for national news.
3.  For fun, you head over to televisionwithoutpity.com at lunch time to see if they have any new recaps of your favorite shows.
4.  During the course of the week, you check in on a weekly basis to see if your favorite companies have updated their particular blogs about their products.
5.  And meanwhile there are some blogs written by individuals who bring you valuable insight, but are not updated on a regular basis, so you have to keep track of the last time you checked in.

Sound familiar?  RSS feeds simplify this process where you go to ONE place to see if any of these sites (plus many more if you wish) have updated.  In some cases, you don’t even have to head over to the website.  RSS readers allow you to not just read the information as it comes in, but possibly organize and index it anyway one wants at the instant it was published online for all to see.

Getting started

Ok, so how to start?  Well, first we need to know how to find RSS feeds on a website. To find out if a site provides RSS feeds, you have to look for the standard RSS symbol (““).  If you are using Firefox, the symbol will appear directly in the URL address area, to the right.  Clicking on this symbol will either give you a list of the types of RSS feeds on the site itself, or take you straight to where you want the subscription to go.  Firefox has built in abilities to read RSS feeds directly but it’s limited.   Using FireFox’s “Live Bookmarks”, subscribing to an RSS feed will add the feed to your bookmarks list.  When highlighting that bookmark, you will see a popup appear, listing the titles of the latest articles for that feed.  This certainly is adequate enough to find out if RSS feeds are for you, but as the image shows, it gives very little information for each item and doesn’t show you whether you want to actually read it. When clicking on a title, it will take you to the direct article.  Again, not that efficient, as opening up each individual weblink you are interested in can take time and resources.  But the advantage is, using your browser as an RSS reader is easy and quick, and possibly a good RSS starter for you to understand how it works before committing to a full fledged reader.

Moving on

So now that you’ve gotten more familiar with RSSs, either through using the starter apps (or you were already comfortable with the concept), you are ready to try out readers with more power to them.  Below are some different types of readers, hopefully one will speak to you.

Google Reader (Web-Based)

I use Google Reader. It’s web based (meaning it’s powered by the browser instead of a stand alone application), I can share items with other Google readers, and it works with a multitude of stand alone applications.  The most obvious benefit of an online reader like Google Reader is that no matter whose computer you’re using, you can access your feeds from the same interface, with the same items read, unread, starred, and tagged, as long as you’ve got a browser handy. Aside from that, Google Reader really gains loyalty with its robust keyboard shortcuts, search, and tagging features. For a listing of all it’s features, make sure you got good with Google Reader.

NetNewsWire (Mac OS X)

The free, Mac-only NetNewsWire is the signature RSS feed for OS X. It has fast performance and better feed handling offline than its web-based counterparts. One of NetNewsWire’s best and most unique features is its Smart List feature, which works like iTunes’ Smart Playlists: it creates special watches for important topics or authors you don’t want to miss. The downside of many desktop readers is that there’s no online access, and it seems to missing some more of the robust features in other Windows only RSS readers, but it will sync with Newsgator, which also can sync with Google Reader.

FeedDemon (Windows)

The freeware, Windows-only FeedDemon, also from Newsgator, is the Windows counterpart to NetNewsWire. It can sync with Google Reader, so it’s possible to have the best of both worlds.  FeedDemon has its own set of unique features—like newspaper format and “shared experience”—that add an impressive feature set not available in any other reader.  It also has a very Outlook type interface, which is familiar to Windows users.

Of course, the above list is not considered extensive at all.  If you really want to be thorough, check out two other types, bloglines (web based reader) and Times (Apple only).  More readers come available every day, and once you include mobile apps for your iPhone, iPad or Android devices, the list gets even more extensive.  Just make sure you choose a RSS reader that works for you.  The point of RSS subscriptions is to make one’s life simpler, not more difficult.

Morning

As many of you know, I work from home, so my day starts when I walk into my office first thing in the morning (even if I have an early call).  This particular day, I have a later appointment around 10 AM.  This allows me to sit down at my desk to get those early morning things taken care of.  The first thing I do is to take my turn in a game called Words with Friends (like Scrabble) with various friends I’m playing against.  It’s an easy game that can be played on my own time which may mean a game can last for hours, days, even weeks.  It’s actually a good way to start the day because I have to put my thinking cap on right away to come up with the best word I can use to score against my opponent(s) with the letters given.  I’m rather competitive.

Once that is taken care of, I actually start working on my computer which may lead you to believe that I don’t really need the iPad at the moment.  Truth be told, I still use it, even in front of my various computers.  I’m busy working on items like bills, invoices, outstanding invoices, status on jobs with backups, news and orders placed.  I’ve got a dozen screens open to everything, including former emails, I’ve already downloaded.  What typically happens though is I start to receive emails for the current morning.  Some personal, some business and some certainly SPAM.  If I were to stop what I’m doing every time I hear the telltale ding a new email comes in to see what it is, I wouldn’t have time to leave the house.  Besides, another dilemma is if the email is not urgent and I’ve already read it, I will now show it as read in my email client and I could possibly forget to respond in a timely manner.  This is where I can use the iPad to help me.  I hear I received a new email, I can open up my iPad and check emails on the server level, reading them there.  If it’s something that can wait, I can let it download and leave it unread so I won’t forget about it later. If it is urgent, I can stop what I’m doing and flip over to get it right away.  And best of all, if it’s SPAM, I can just delete right there without letting it fill up my inbox, risking infection.  The iPad’s email client (though not perfect I admit) allows me to quickly zoom through different accounts with a literal flick of the finger and my focus is not taken away from what I am trying to get done before I leave for my client appointment.

Mid-morning

When it is time to leave the office, I have one job to do before I leave.  I fire up an app titled Harvest which I use to track my real-time for business related matters.  This particular app works for me on multiple levels, the key one being I can open it whether I’m online or not.  If offline, I simply track my time as normal, then sync up later when I hit a wifi hot spot.

The customer I’m seeing on this day doesn’t happen to have wifi, but because I chose apps that can be used in an offline environment, I still bring my iPad in.  The reason I was called out was due to a machine constantly rebooting on the customer.  I’m able to stop the reboot process and finally see the blue screen that is causing all the trouble.  Though I’m fairly certain I know what the error message is referring to, I want to be sure, and thus I pull up my Evernote app which I’ve always kept up to date on the iPad and check my notes to verify I’ve seen this error before.  Yes, sure enough, it’s faulty memory.  The computer is turned off and I pull the offending module.  The machine can be used now but it’s at half speed and the customer agrees to order some more.  I need to take down notes of the machine’s type so I use the calendar feature which, when I’m online, will sync to my online calendar of Google Apps.  I always keep notes of each customer visit, as well as writing up the machine type so I can get the right memory, I place it here.  The next wireless network I hook up to, my calendar item will be synced automatically without me having to do anything.  At the minimum, I’ll have the information when I get back to the office to order.

Before leaving the customer, I make sure to stop my Harvest timer so I know exactly when I was finished on-site.

Lunch

I got done with the customer earlier than expected but don’t really have enough time to do anything before my lunch meeting at 11:30.  So I head to the restaurant, which was chosen because it had free wifi access, and wait  for my colleague to arrive.  I have a good 30 minutes which is plenty of time to pull up my Salesforce CRM information and update the customer I just visited.  With the customer records updated, I also check my email and though I know the content of most of the emails thanks to my phone, I can now answer them properly whether they are business or personal.  Of course, I technically need to keep track of this on the Harvest app since it applies to work, so I make sure it is tracking.

I still have time to kill, so I go to my RSS reader which on the iPad is Early Edition (I can’t wait for it to sync with Google Reader some day) and discover Television Without Pity has updated a recap of one of my favorite shows. This is not work related, so I actually pause the Harvest app.  I’m always trying to be as accurate with my time as possible.  I’m able to take some time and enjoy reading until the person I’ve been waiting for arrives.  Once he’s there, I open up Bento, a database app which can sync with my desktop version and I use one of the libraries for Meeting notes.  When we are done, I get ready to go to my next appointment.  Opening up Harvest I realize I forgot to turn the timer back on, but it’s no problem as I can input the times manually.  It’s not as accurate but necessary when things get missed.  I also make sure to start it for my next appointment.

Afternoon

Now this customer I am going to has a wifi access point which makes things easier where the iPad is concerned.  While I’m waiting on a computer to finish a particularly long install process, I get an email from a customer asking for my next available opening.  I’m able to check my calendar, reply back, and receive an affirmative response, ending in adding a new appointment to my calendar before the computer is done with it’s job.  As I’m leaving, the customer wants to pay me my previous invoice but needs to know the total, as he doesn’t have the number in front of him.  That’s no problem, because I have all my invoices synced with Dropbox, and I can pull up his last invoice, and read it him the total (or resend the invoice in email if he would prefer).

Leaving his office, I turn off the Harvest app and head straight to the bank, always happy to deposit a check.  The line is rather long, and while I’m sitting there, I realize that I forgot I needed to create a specialized card for a friend of mine, using Send Out Cards, and I had something in particular in mind.  Knowing it’s possible I could forget it again, I need to make myself an note.  I’m in the car and its awkward to type up much there, even with a phone.  Using Dragon Dictation on the iPad, I turn off the radio and create a new note.  It easily takes down what I say, which I can then copy right out of it.  Opening up the calendar app, I paste a new item in a calendar I have marked as TODO, and paste the information  into the header, setting the time for later in the day when I’m certain I’ll be home.  (Google Apps allows you to setup separate calendars that can have default and distinct types of reminders for a new event.  In this case, I have my TODO calendar set to always send me a text message so I can remember to do a certain task at a certain time, even if I’m away from my computer).

After I get back to my office, I’ve gotten a lot of my earlier work done.  The only thing left is to order the memory for the customer and invoicing for the day’s work.  I do have to manually open Bento, so it will synchronize the meeting notes with my desktop version but again, I’m happy to not have to duplicate any work I’ve already done.

Evening

After dinner, work hours are generally over but that does not mean I’m done with the iPad. I usually leave it on my coffee table as I watch TV.  On this day, I actually log on using IM+ Lite so I can chat with friends while we watch a favorite TV show together.  Of course emails coming in are also easy to answer right there instead of heading back to my office.  When I hear thunder outside, I pull up WeatherBug to see the current radar. A commercial alerts me to a new movie released on BluRay, and I then open Netflix to make sure to add it to my queue.  Finally it’s time for bed and I’m done with iPad for the day.  I’ve used it from morning to night and it’s made my life a lot easier, as good technology should.

Gone are the days when viruses are embedded in your emails (ok, not completely gone, but they found a way around it).  Instead, they send you an email with a link that takes you to a website.  Either the website is riddled with viruses or it’s a phishing scam, meant to appear like a financial institution to steal your password.  How do we counteract this?  Most of the time, viruses come through with masked wording over the link.  By simply placing your cursor over the link (do not click on it), you should be able to read the actual link versus the one that is showing up.  In some email programs it will display in a pop up tab. In others, like a browser, it should show up in the bottom of the screen. Below I have two links as examples. The first example will take you to Google results from a BNI search. The second example on the surface looks like it would take you to the same place, but it really is a bogus address that will take you nowhere.

This is a correct link taking you to the correct site:

http://www.google.com/ – hl=en&q=BNI&aq=f&aqi=g10&fp=8ec80112f99bfde5

Notice when you hold your mouse over the link, it displays exactly what you see written.

Now what most viruses/phishers do:

http://www.google.com/ – hl=en&q=BNI&aq=f&aqi=g10&fp=8ec80112f99bfde5

Notice when you hold your mouse over the link, it is different then what is shown here. What to look for is the beginning, if they are trying to trick you into going to mock site of youtube or your bank, the beginning part of the URL will have to be different.  So instead of www.youtube.com, usually it will be like youtube.alk.com.Very similar but not the same.

Now unfortunately, thanks to the benefit of the wonderful “tinyURL” or similar services, you might not have this option. TinyURLs is a way of shortening these long web addresses down so it’s easier for people to receive and click on the link. Holding your mouse over them will not help in any fashion. However, please read through the email carefully. If all the person did was send you this link, even if they filled out the subject, my advice is don’t click on it. If the wording in the email is very generic like “Check this out” or “I thought of you” that’s still too easy for someone to spoof on their own.

On the flip side, if you are sending a link to a friend or colleague, please give sort of personal information so it’s obvious this came from you and was meant for them. As stated above, the generic, “This reminded me of you…” just won’t cut it anymore. For lack of anything else to say, you are free to use “Honadle.com: Don’t alter your business to fit your computers, alter your computers to fit your business.”