By Joe Puckett, PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training.

Peanut butter and chocolate were both around for quite a while before Reese’s figured out how to put them together in a convenient package. Once they did, they had a big hit on their hands. I think SharePoint and iPad are another hit combination, and developers are getting close to combining them in a way that will work for a lot of people.

Wrapping SharePoint in iPad would be a killer combo.

The peanut butter is SharePoint’s ability to gather all the information a business user needs into one place. The chocolate is the iPad’s ability to deliver information in a mobile-friendly form and interface. Wrapping SharePoint in iPad would be a killer combo.

For now, the biggest obstacles to combining these two great productivity tools in a single package are dealing with the diverse kinds of information SharePoint can include and the more widespread problem of working with Microsoft Office files on an iPad.

SharePlus shows promise in connecting the iPad and SharePoint.

Two apps, SharePlus and Filamente, are getting close to connecting SharePoint and iPad in a way that delivers the full potential of the combination. As with most iPad apps, which of the two is closest depends on which features were added during the last round of updates. So how close are they? I’ll answer that from a SharePlus perspective since it is the SharePoint-iPad connector I have been using the most of late.

SharePoint is all about lists, although some display in specialized ways that make them look like calendars or document libraries. SharePlus renders all the lists I use on a regular basis pretty well. It also allows me to see and edit the metadata associated with list items. Those are two important capabilities that I’m pretty sure weren’t easy to develop. The most impressive recent upgrade is the ability to replace a document in a SharePoint Document Library with a revised copy that was edited on the iPad. There are, however, still some quirks and limitations to doing that. Read more…

Joe Puckett Apps, iPad, iPhone Filamente, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, SharePlus, SharePoint

One Less Interruption

By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
Have you ever fumed when you felt something had interrupted your work, or entertainment, unnecessarily? If not, please share your secret. One of the great ongoing gains from the upgrade to iOS 5 will be the change to incremental OS upgrades that will allow you to keep working or watching even while the update runs. This is possible because, with iOS 5, updates replace only the software that changes. Past iOS updates were wholesale modifications that wiped the device clean and started over.

With iOS 5, incremental updates are easy. It's the first-time upgrade that'll hurt.

The Rant:
All this goodness is yours once iOS 5 is installed. The upgrade to iOS 5, however, is non-incremental and more disruptive than previous updates. Much of this is because several very worthwhile new applications are added and inserting their icons onto a home page may disrupt your carefully constructed and extremely effective arrangement of folders and icons. There also have been more reports of lost information than with with previous iOS upgrades. It is possible that, since people were already expressing a frustration with the upgrade, a higher percentage of such incidents were reported.

The Conclusion:
If you haven’t upgraded to iOS 5 yet, do it soon unless you have an unusual situation that makes it impossible. As with any upgrade, prepare for the possibility that it will not go smoothly. Back up your data, then find the backup file and make a backup of it. Knowing that there will be some new icons added, take screenshots of your home screens and folder contents (hold down the Home button and press the Sleep/Wake button) so you will have a roadmap if icons are moved. If multiple icons are moved, using the iTunes interface to reorder the home screen may be easier.

***

Read Part 1: Using Gestures
Read Part 2: Wireless Sync
Read Part 3: One Day at a Time
Read Part 4: Keys in the Fridge

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to end-users. Last week’s posts were geared to IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

Click here for a video of Puckett describing what makes a good productivity consultant.

Joe Puckett iOS 5 Rants & Raves, iPad, iPhone iTunes, screenshots, updates

Keys in the Fridge

By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
The people I work with can be charmingly absentminded, myself included. One of the more entertaining evidences of this was when I opened a refrigerator in the lunch room and saw someone’s keys on a shelf. At first I thought that they had been left there by accident, but then I realized that it was a brilliant compensation strategy for absentmindedness.

iOS 5's notification settings: Flexible and effective, but missing a universal on/off switch.

There was something in the fridge that they needed to remember to take home, and you can’t go home without your car keys. I bring this up to give you some context on why Notifications in iOS 5 is such a huge hit in our office.

It is in your face exactly the right amount. You get notifications even when the screen is locked. You can view a list of notifications by dragging down from the top of the screen. When you are busy working, you can set notifications to appear as discreet pop-ups, the way they are on keyboard and mouse machines, or you can set them to show up as the stop-the-presses box iOS has always had. Flexible and effective — who could ask for anything more?

Me, of course.

The Rant:
Could we please schedule a conference call between the people who made Notifications and the people who made Keynote? Keynote is a capable presentation app, especially for just 10 bucks. Notifications is a great improvement in iOS 5. Making an uninterrupted presentation with Keynote requires going into Notifications and turning off each notification individually. Then you have to go back in and turn them all back on. Maybe we should include the people who made Airplane Mode in the conference call. Notifications really needs a single on/off switch that puts a quiet little icon somewhere to remind you of what you aren’t getting.

The Conclusion:
I haven’t seen any keys in the fridge since iOS 5 came out. There is no way to prove that Notifications caused that, but it is good enough to have done so. Now if it could only keep us from forgetting our iPads.

***

Read Part 1: Using Gestures
Read Part 2: Wireless Sync
Read Part 3: One Day at a Time

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to end-users. Last week’s posts were geared to IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

Click here for a video of Puckett describing what makes a good productivity consultant.

Joe Puckett iOS 5 Rants & Raves, iPad, iPhone airplane mode, Apple, Keynote, Notifications

One Day at a Time

By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
While “One Day at a Time” was just fine as the name of a ’70s sitcom, it is no way for busy people to move through their calendars. Prior to iOS 5, navigating the iPad calendar felt like you were going one day at a time.

iOS 5's new Year view.

There were ways to get around more quickly, but they were a little cumbersome and less than intuitive, partially because they were very different from how you would do the same thing on an old-fashioned keyboard and mouse computer. That changed with iOS 5.

Need to look at a date in 2015? No problem on an iPad running iOS 5. One tap gets you to the new Year view, and a few quick swipes takes you to 2015. Tap on the date you want — even my fumbly fingers find the right one most of the time — and you are where you need to be. Need to rearrange a few things on that far-flung date? Tap and drag like you would click and drag on a computer. In fact, moving about the iPad calendar in iOS 5 is so much like using a mouse that you won’t even need to squeeze dedicated time to learn how into your schedule.

The Rant:
I know what date I want to go to. I can type. Please let me. There is still no method to go directly to a date. It seems to me that the search box could be configured to do the job.

The Conclusion:
The more mobile you are, the more volatile your calendar is likely to be, and the more dependent you are likely to be on it. The navigation enhancements to the iOS 5 calendar make it better suited to the mobile lifestyle, but there is still room for improvement.

***

Read Part 1: iOS 5 Rants & Raves for End-Users: Part 1, Using Gestures
Read Part 2: iOS 5 Rants & Raves for End-Users: Part 2, Wireless Sync

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to end-users. Last week’s posts were geared to IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

Click here for a video of Puckett describing what makes a good productivity consultant. 

Joe Puckett iOS 5 Rants & Raves, iPad, iPhone calendar, One Day at a Time

Multi-Touch Squared

By Joe Puckett, director of recruiting and training at PC Helps

The Rave:
The convenience and intuitiveness of the multi-touch gestures that helped fuel the skyrocket of iOS device sales just got a lot better with iOS 5. Four-finger up/down swipes to show/hide the multitasking bar and four finger left/right swipes to move among open apps make multitasking much faster and easier. A five-finger pinch sends the current application to the multitasking bar so you can get to the current home screen.

The Rant:
Still no widgets or a way to have the same app in multiple places? How will I know where I am without the weather widget on the home screen of my phone listing my location without me having to open anything? Most people’s digital life is not so neat that having mail in only one place is convenient. I’ve seen many Android phones with the mail application in four or more places. Being able to put the same app in multiple places enables people to group things by business function rather than computer function.

The Conclusion:
The convenience of having everything in one place is one of the primary forces driving the use of personal devices in business. The new multitasking gestures in iOS 5 make it much easier to move among all the things on an iOS device. Widgets and duplicate app icons would still be nice, but being able to leave a lot of things open and move between them so quickly is a good way to accomplish the same purpose.

***

Read Part 1: iOS 5 Rants & Raves for End-Users: Part 1

About the author: Joe Puckett is PC Helps’ director of recruiting and training. He grooms the talent here, and creates our internal and client-facing corporate training courses. A 15-year PC Helps veteran, Puckett is the one to ask if you ever have a software question.

This week, PC Helps Blog is featuring Puckett’s series of “iOS 5 Rants & Raves” geared to end-users. Last week’s posts were geared to  IT leaders and professionals. He has been researching and testing the new operating system as part of his ongoing efforts to build new iPad training modules for PC Helps productivity consultants.

Joe Puckett iOS 5 Rants & Raves, iPad, iPhone app icons, Apple, gestures, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Mac, MacIntosh, multi-touch, multitasking, widgets

Why take the long road when a shorter one is available? I know, I know – it’s the journey, not the destination. But not when it comes to getting work done. The more efficient the better.

Enter Siri, the coolest thing I have ever set my eyes upon.

The iPhone 4s has been out just a week, and, as expected, the buzz is still strong. The press about Siri, a virtual assistant that lets you use your voice to send messages, make call and set reminders, is particularly robust.

I’ve tried Siri, and I can confirm that it is neat as heck. I’ve used it to order Chinese food, send text messages, create calendar appointments, and set a reminder to organize my files.

Here’s what the tech press is saying:

It’s a Catfight Read more…

Jenny Sweeney iPhone, Worker Productivity ALICE, Alicebot, Android, chatbot, ELIZA, Iris, Siri

Today’s the day when Apple ‘s new iPhone, the 4S, hits the streets. A quick Google search yields more than 4,000 news articles about people lining up to get one.

Mine just came via UPS, and it’s more exciting than 10 Christmases and birthdays put together.

I’m not alone either. Pre-orders broke records. And no doubt a good chunk of those new iPhone users will be bringing their devices to the workplace.

To give you a leg up, here are seven quick tricks – plus one detailed tip – to get you up to speed with your colleagues who are pros at using the iPhone for business:

Mine just came via UPS, and it’s more exciting than 10 Christmases and birthdays put together.

1. Easy punctuation.
Inserting a period from the symbols box can become tedious. You want to send messages with proper punctuation, but deadlines get in the way. Here’s a quicker way: Double-tap the spacebar. Problem solved. Reputation saved. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Consumerization of IT, iPhone 4s, tips and tricks

BlackBerrys, iPhones, iPads, Androids – they have altered the way we work. More than half of American workers do some work from home, and almost a quarter perform job-related tasks at home every day.

Are you the type who steps away from the grill for a sec to check your e-mail?

So why would work stop on a holiday like the Fourth of July? (It doesn’t.) If you are the type who steps away from the grill for a sec to check your e-mail, here are a few of our most popular tips that promise to make your holiday a little less work-infused:

iPhone

Easy punctuation

Inserting a period from the symbols box can become tedious. You want to send messages with proper punctuation, but deadlines get in the way. Here’s a quicker way: Double-tap the spacebar. Problem solved. Reputation saved. Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Android, BlackBerry, How To, iPad, iPhone, Time-Saving Tips Fourth of July, grilling

If you thought “consumerization of IT” was just a silly 2010 catchphrase, think again. According to a recent study conducted by IDC and Unisys, 95 percent of information workers use self-purchased technology at work. Unisys is calling it a revolution.

But as with every upheaval, there’s some pain to be had. In the same study, researchers note that while employees are using their iPads, iPhones, Androids and netbooks at work, their employers are unaware of the extent, and have not put solid plans in place to regulate the use of employee-owned devices.

Not only are they on a different page as their employers, they’re in another bookstore.

Here are some of the highlights from the study:

• Employers don’t have an accurate understanding of what and how many consumer technologies their employees are using in the workplace. For example, workers in the survey reported that they are using smart phones, laptops and mobile phones in the workplace at nearly twice the rate reported by employers.
• Workers are using consumer technologies and applications for business, but give their employers poor grades for the internal IT support they provide for these technologies. The researchers found that more than 40 percent of workers surveyed are using text and instant messaging, online communities and blogs for work. Also, industry analysts predict that the number of workers using smart phones for work will double between 2009 and 2014. Yet not even half of employers allow workers to access enterprise applications via smart phones.
• Employees say their employers are more permissive about use of consumer technologies than is reported to be case by organizations. Sixty-seven percent of workers say they can access non-work-related websites, but only 44 percent of employers say their employees can access non-work-related sites. Likewise, 52 percent of workers say that can store personal data on the company network, but only 37 percent of employers say this is the case.
• Employers expect to increase business use of social networking applications significantly in the next year, yet they are not integrating those applications with their enterprise apps and often lack basic guidelines and policies governing the use of social media in the workplace. Forty-six percent of workers surveyed are dissatisfied with their employers’ integration of consumer devices and social networks with enterprise applications. What’s more, 40 percent of organizations surveyed say that don’t have guidelines for social media use in the workplace.

Researchers conclude that, “While [information workers] are intimately familiar and facile with technology, they have little understanding of the security risks, management issues, and policy and governance implications that arise from mass introduction of consumer devices and applications into the workplace.”

In other words, preparedness — that’s IT’s job. And here are some suggestions from the study authors:

• Manage and support these popular consumer technologies;
• Secure critical data and assets against hackers, viruses, identity thieves, and other widespread consumer IT threats;
• Offer the interactive “app” experiences that consumers are looking for when transacting with their suppliers;
• Handle the expected increase in transaction load that these new interactive experiences will impose on the IT infrastructure;
• Attract and retain the new generation of workers entering the workforce.

In a recent post here and on Forbes.com, our CEO Brian Madocks offered his own suggestions. Read what he had to say.

Jenny Sweeney Android, BlackBerry, Customer Service, Help Desk, How To, iPad, iPhone, Mobile Devices, tablets, Windows Mobile

As always, the last few weeks of the year are reserved for retrospection. This is the time of year when we make resolutions for better living, all while reading the endless Best Ofs and Top 10s courtesy the media, niche and mainstream. We aren’t going to offer a standard Top 10 in this post, nor are we going to come up with any flimsy resolutions; we’re just going to take a look at what the business tech world’s been yapping about all year.

“The iPad is becoming, in effect, a jumbo BlackBerry.”

If there were three main themes this year in tech, they were this:

• The consumerization of IT/BYO tech
• Enterprise domination by iPads and tablets
• The increasing use of mobile devices for business and the growing need for specialized mobile IT support

Here’s a look at some recent bookmark-worthy articles that touch upon these topics: Read more…

Jenny Sweeney Android, BlackBerry, Cloud Computing, iPad, iPhone, Mobile Devices, What We're Reading, Year in Review Montreal Gazette, Network World