Tag: Microsoft

Three apps to help your iPad dress up like a PC

Dale

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is great. However, some of us have lots of our work living in the Windows environment. To help us out, many apps have been created for the Apple tablet to help us out.

I'm a PC
I'm a PC

Below are three free apps that try to bring a few more windows to the iPad.

  • PocketCloud – Pocket Cloud lets you access your work or home Windows PC via Remote Desktop. There are several other apps in the Apps Store that offer this functionality but for a fee. When you need to get to your computer using only an iPad, PocketCloud does the job nicely in a touch environment
  • CloudOn – CloudOn is an interesting new app that allows you access to the files in your DropBox account so you can edit them in a virtual version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. The service was simple to set up but I did find editing documents to have a bit of lag.
  • OnLive Desktop – The OnLive Desktop app takes virtual computing a step farther for iPad users by giving you an entire Windows desktop (Start menu and all) to play with. OnLive Desktop gave me the smoothest transition back to the Windows world. Creating an account (and waiting for it to activate) took longer than I expected but it came with 2GB of free storage for all my Windows files. Editing documents in MS Office was much smoother than CloudOn and I found this app to be a great way to show off PowerPoint presentations.

I should be clear about one thing. None of the apps above will replace your Windows PC. You won’t have an iPad that runs Windows too. The apps above are close but some things are are just not the same in a touch environment. If you’re an iPad user who also runs Windows, all three apps above are worth taking a look at but don’t throw out your PC just yet.

Office 2007 Demos: Get up to speed

Dale

Well, it happened. Our school finally upgraded to Office 2007. I was reluctant to be happy about the switch. The new version took away all the menus just when I was starting to figured out where everything was.

However, after a few weeks of use, I have grown to like the new Office. Yet, I still get stuck from time-to-time with the new version.

The good news is that Microsoft has a real treasure trove of demo videos on all sorts of things within the entire Office 2007 package. The sad thing is that they hid them away at there website where you have to download each video one-by-one to view. (Come on Microsoft, streaming video online was innovative in 2005. Where have you been?)

Fortunately, someone has posted all these videos to YouTube; making browsing through them much easier.

Here’s what I recommend, go here to see what videos are available and then find that title at this YouTube channel. I think the Word video above is a perfect place to start. Share which ones you’ve found valuable in the comments below.