One of the technologies I’ve been waiting to advance more into the mainstream is electronic signatures. While I have a smooth process down to print out contracts and other documents that need my signature and then scan them into PDFs with my Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner, I would still like to whittle down the signatory process even further. Now that EchoSign, an electronic signature solution is an Adobe acquisition, I decided to reopen my research into electronic signature options.
As a cloud-based task management application, Do.com greets you with full HTML 5 goodness. It’s a real slick and responsive task management application for individuals or project teams. I’ve long been a believer in the democratization of project management data and how cloud-based applications can help geographically dispersed project teams collaborate and communicate during projects. read more
When I first thought about enterprise uses for the iPad, project management was at the top of my list. When I first held the device in my hands, I could imagine it replacing many paper based tasks and offering an unprecedented level of mobility for tasks like project management. ProjectPlanner HD for iPad helps fulfill that early of vision of mine for the iPad as a project management tool. While it can be easy to argue that iPad project management apps lack the robustness of mainstream project management applications like Microsoft Project and cloud-based apps like Liquid Planner and Zoho Projects, they do offer the features that the non-PMP ninja PMs should find useful.
I’ve been using Penultimate since I first got my iPad. Up until now, I had to email my Penultimate note pads to my Evernote account. The email step in my workflow was fine but I longed for Penultimate to get Evernote integration.
Well, my wish came true because of its last release, Penultimate now includes Evernote integration enabling you to send Penultimate notebooks and pages directly from the app into your Evernote account without workarounds like having to email Penultimate notebooks to your Evernote email address.
The Kindle Fire is definitely one of the hottest sellers of the 2011 Christmas season. I went for the Amazon Kindle early on because I wanted to get a taste of an Android-based tablet. My expectations with the purchase were that it wasn’t going to be a game changer and wouldn’t supplant my iPad. While there isn’t a lot new in the device, and despite what Jakob Neilson bemoans it is actually a smooth 7” tablet.
I was quick to outfit my new Kindle Fire with free apps because I never intended for it to supplant my iPad and I want to see how much use I apps on my latest mobile device before I spend any money on outfitting the device any further.
Here is a list of some must have (and more importantly free) Kindle Fire Apps available from the Amazon Android store:
I am still rocking a first gen iPad 3G with WiFi but it is an important productivity tool for me. After recovering from going a little too app happy in the early days of my iPad ownership, I’ve come up with the right mix of apps that keep me productive and well informed.
Here are my favorite iPad apps for 2011:
I am always on the lookout for a better Adobe Acrobat PDF reader for my iPad so the recent launch of the free Adobe Reader for iOS really caught my eye. It also works on the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPod Touch. Considering the tense relationship that Adobe must have with Apple, they are not ignoring the iOS platform by any means, which is good for users.
The Getting Started Guide that ships with the Reader is well conceived and walks you through how to interact with PDF documents using this new reader app. In fact, I encourage technical writers with an interest in documentation for mobile apps to check out Adobe Reader for iOS for the Getting Started Guide because it shows what can be done with mobile app documentation.
The first contestant in my home office for the iOS 5 upgrade was my 1st generation iPad 3G. It’s a device that sees a lot of use during the day but if I bricked it would be a crisis but not as bad as if I bricked my phone. iOS 5 performance on my iPad has been great (but not quite as great as my iPhone) and except for some groups getting out of whack my upgrade was a rather painless affair.
Microsoft Office applications have been a major part of my working life for years. Throughout my work as a technical writer and later as a computer book technical reviewer and then freelance writer, I’ve been able to watch the growth and changes in Microsoft Office from all sides.
The most exciting developments for me have been seeing Office applications move to the web and onto mobile platforms other than PCs. I remember the first time I saw a demo of Zoho Business and got first access to Writely (now Google Docs) and could see the potential for such applications on the web. But my question even back then was how smoothly could such applications integrate with desktop applications. This question is getting easier to answer now with many recent developments.
I’ve comes to see the desktop suite extend beyond its desktop origins into both the web and mobile layers. These are natural layers for Office applications since the way people work has changed so dramatically. This new model also accommodates the diffe
Now that I am back to more of a semblance of life after getting my groove back, I am relying on my iPad a lot more especially when it comes to documents. While the iPad may never replace my laptop, it does let me do away with carrying around papers. The new Evernote integration with Quick Office Pro HD really caught my attention.
Quick Office Pro HD is one of the apps I use when I want to review documents on the go. While the pace of development for iPad apps that can substitute for desktop Office applications is on the uptick, I am still waiting to see the apps take wide advantage of integration opportunities with cloud-based apps like Evernote and others.
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