Comments on Day 19 Of My iPad Paperless Experiment

• Posted by Guillaume Ratel , Lecturer at Ithaca College on July 20, 2010 at 5:30am EDT

• Caveat: I don't own an iPad, I have an iPhone and assume the apps I mention exist for both devices

  _Syncing app: have you tried to use dropbox? They offer 2gb of space for free, it looks and works just like a normal folder on your hard drive, they have a nice (free) app in the app store that will let you open your cloud based documents in Goodreader (which in my opinion, is by far the best pdf reader for iOS devices, although I really wish it would let you annotate the documents like Aji Annotate does, but I digress). For dropbox, I'll be shameless and plug my own referral if you're interested in creating an account to try it: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEyODI1MTQ5

  _ Reading web content: still not really what you're looking for but I find Read It Later to be superior to instapaper (they offer both a firefox/chrome/safari plug-in for your Mac and an app for your iPad). I think the best solution to pull content into one place is still to subscribe to RSS feeds and open them in a dedicated reader (I can only recommend Reeder to do this on iOS devices).

  _ Kids: sadly, I don't know of an app that will make your kids not want to use the device. But if it existed, I'm sure that would be a very successful 99c. app.

• Another vote for Dropbox
• Posted by A on July 20, 2010 at 7:00am EDT

• I'm a huge Dropbox fan - it syncs what's on my desktop and my netbook so I have access to everything I need, even when I'm offline. Plus, I can access all my files from my mobile devices.

• synch app
• Posted by David O , Assoc Prof/Philosophy at Univ of Louisville on July 20, 2010 at 7:15am EDT

• +1 on Dropbox. I've used it for a year or so and love it.

• great experiment
• Posted by Damon Osborne , Associate Professor of Education at Mount Vernon Nazarene University on July 20, 2010 at 7:15am EDT

• We're looking at piloting a MacBook/iPad combo to replace a convertible Windows-based tablet - so I conducting the same type of an experiment as we speak.

  I also recommend Dropbox, but would also suggest Evernote. Syncs between my iPhone, iPad, and my MacBook Pro.

• fellow iPad piloter
• Posted by Leslie , Curriculum & Instruction at University of Maryland on July 20, 2010 at 8:45am EDT

• Hi there,
  I am working with a group of arts educators piloting iPads. We too have been blogging about our experiences (http://artsedtech.wordpress.com/). I recently blogged about my own experiment - attempting to teach an undergraduate educational technology class this fall using only my iPad (http://artsedtech.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/can-i-teach-a-technology-course-using-only-my-ipad/).

  I found your question about meeting handouts interesting. Here are my thoughts:

  - Even if you request a digital file ahead of time, they will make you a copy anyway. The person in charge of the meeting isn't always the person making the copies, and I anticipate this request wouldn't save trees, although it would allow you to remain paperless to some extent.

  - Requesting a digital file ahead of time might mean that you get it five minutes before the meeting...which is fine as long as you retrieve the file from your email on your iPad. If you have to sync each time, that's cutting it close.

  - Refusing paper during the meeting will probably send a "techier than thou" message that you do not intend to send.

  Sorry I didn't directly answer your question. I don't think there is an established "etiquette" about this yet.

• Dropbox!
• Posted by lkrs on July 20, 2010 at 9:15am EDT

• The answer to the first question is Dropbox. And when you need to use some particular file (.pdf, .doc, etc.) you can either read it w/in Dropbox (ok as a reader, not great) or GoodReader can download it directly from your synched Dropbox account in 'The Cloud'.

• Posted by DO on July 20, 2010 at 9:45am EDT

• For kids, perhaps you should a password on the iPad that they can't guess?

• Dropbox and meeting notes
• Posted by Matt Purdy , Associate Director of Career Services at College of Business, SIU on July 20, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

• I use a PC, a MacBook Pro and an iPad in my day to day activities...

  First off, I LOVE Dropbox - Count me in for another vote there!

  As far as getting paper in meeting, I agree with Leslie. Demanding electronic only copies might not endear you to the meeting organizer. A couple of different ideas:

  1) Start a new trend of having meeting documents being emailed to everybody in attendance in advance and make them responsible for printing them out (somewhat impractical).

  2) Scan the documents that you get in meetings and put them in your dropbox so they are accessible locally and on the cloud.

  I've been trying the second option for the past month and it's worked beautifully for me - I actually USE my meeting notes now in my various projects! To help remind me of what we talked about I also scan in all the notes I took in that particular meeting (I prefer handwriting notes on the fly rather than typing).

• Going Paperless
• Posted by Sam , VCUTS at VCU on July 20, 2010 at 12:30pm EDT

• Dropbox is very good. An alternative is Sugarsync. Both do a good job. For pulling down content, it sounds like you need a RSS reader. Reeder is great but I have also used NewsRack with positive results.

  When given paper at meetings I comment that I will just scan them into Evernote which is my all time favorite app. Great for taking notes and storing all types of snippets and files for use on just about any device or platform. It is killer.

  I have the same experience with my kids. It is a lost cause. Theby just love the thing.

• If you want to edit files...
• Posted by Dr T , Assistant Dean for Off-Campus Programs at Rutgers on July 20, 2010 at 1:15pm EDT

• yet another vote for Dropbox (and also for ReaditLater.) A great editing tool that works seamlessly with Dropbox is Docs To Go--essentially a Microsoft Office suite for mobile. Another free syncing app, if you just want to write short notes that show up on all your devices, is Simplenote. Between the 4 apps mentioned in this post, I no longer bring my laptop home each night; in fact, it has not been out of its docking station at work in the last 2 months.

• sync - SugarSync and Evernote
• Posted by Mig Luna on July 20, 2010 at 2:15pm EDT

• I know Dropbox gets lots of votes everywhere, but when I personally tested apps that allow me to sync across a Mac, Windows PC, and iPhone, I discovered that SugarSync was superior to Dropbox. The main advantage to me with SugarSync is that it allows me to choose specific files on my Mac to sync (and also backup to SugarSync's servers). Dropbox provides only one main folder to sync. SugarSync, therefore, conforms to my preferred file structure. As you work on a file (say, a Word document) it syncs your changes in the background in real time if you have Internet access so that the version on the server is always identical to the version you are working on. If you are momentarily working offline, as soon as you access the Internet SugarSync uploads all of the changes made since the last sync session. Also, SugarSync allows me to share specific folders with others with password protection, which has helped with collaborative projects and to share large files easily. SugarSync's servers also save recent copies of files so if you would like to return to a recent version of a document, you can retrieve it from them. I use a Mac at home, a Windows machine in my office at the University, and an iPhone. I have access to all of my synced files across these platforms. SugarSync's customer and technical service, even for free accounts (2GB) is accessible and very helpful.

  For syncing web clips, notes, voice recordings, and photos (through iPhone app) that I've collected across my platforms, I use Evernote. I can even forward email to Evernote's servers to place in my account. Evernote provides many web browser extensions, such as buttons and menu options, to save from webpages. Again, everything is synced automatically.

  Good luck!

  (For a comparison chart of various syncing programs, see

  https://www.sugarsync.com/sync_comparison.html)

• Meetings
• Posted by TechieLibrarian on July 20, 2010 at 3:30pm EDT

• I have good luck removing paper documents from my files as soon as possible by scanning them into PDFs via a nearby high speed scanner. Toss 30 pages in the tray and set it to e-mail or filedrop the resulting pdf to my machine then get rid of the paper copies.

• Posted by Roy on July 20, 2010 at 4:45pm EDT

• 1. With Dropbox, your files are backed up not only in the cloud, but on every computer you installed dropbox on. So you have multiple failsafes.

  2. You can access dropbox from a webpage, and so get your files from any computer with web access--not just the ones you've installed dropbox on.

  3. Dropbox keeps a history of revisions, like a wiki. So if you need an old version back, it's available.

  I've never tried sugarsync, but one of these cloud storage services is mandatory for anyone who uses more than one computer. Flashdrives are ancient history.

• Dropbox
• Posted by Philip Empey , Assistant Professor at University of Pittsburgh on July 20, 2010 at 9:00pm EDT

• Another long term dropbox fan here. I have not evaluated SugerSync. The 2 Gb free account, saving of old file versions, web-access, and easy off-line storage for on my wifi-only iPad are all pluses.

  It's also important to notice how well the transfer/syncing app integrates with the other apps you use routinely to ease file movement between apps (not always easy on the iPad). Good reader opening dropbox directly is a good option for viewing but it's not as easy to do two-way transfer (off the iPad) if you want to edit the file. Other apps like Quickoffice or DoctoGo Premium do it better. A listing of programs dropbox integrates with for easy file transfer is at http://www.dropbox.com/anywhere/apps.

• Kids and i-pad
• Posted by Julie on July 23, 2010 at 8:45pm EDT

• Make them earn it! If they want an hour of i-pad use, they owe you chores of 'equivalent' value!

• SugarSync > Dropbox
• Posted by Mig Luna on August 3, 2010 at 9:15am EDT

• Well, I appreciate the added detail about Dropbox in response to my questions. SugarSync does everything Dropbox seems to, but with the added convenience of allowing the user to choose precisely which folders to sync (up to web-accessible versions sitting on their servers and synced across various platforms such as Windows, Mac, iPhone, Blackberry). As a result, SugarSync remains my preferred 'cloud'-based backup/sync app.