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Whither Printing for the Mobile Masses?

January 13, 2012 By

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

The one office item my smartphone or tablet can’t put in my pocket is the printer – and it’s the one I miss the most. (Sometimes you need a hard copy.) Who will step up and make it easy for me to print while I am on the road?

Two categories of businesses haven’t done so yet, but would benefit from it. There is also PrinterOn, a service with a technical approach that fills the bill nicely.

You email the file you want printed directly to the printer, which is about as platform-independent as you can get.

First, office supply and package shipping chains, who could learn a thing or two from convenience stores. A convenience store chain in my area made an excellent marketing move to drive foot traffic into their stores by installing no surcharge ATMs in every store. People come in for cash. They leave with a cup of coffee, a doughnut, milk, bread, a bag of chips, a thicker waistline and a thinner wallet than if they had gone to their bank’s ATM to get their cash.

Office supply and package shipping chains both have print services in their locations. Part of the reason is to increase foot traffic. All have apps for various mobile platforms, but none of them appear to have made it easy to print from those devices to their print services.

A service called PrinterOn may be able to show them the way.

The PrinterOn approach [Read more...]

Filed Under: Mobile Devices, Worker Productivity Tagged With: , , ,

Like Peanut Butter & Chocolate

January 4, 2012 By

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.

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...]

Filed Under: Apps, iPad, iPhone Tagged With: , , ,

OneNote for iPad has Arrived

December 21, 2011 By

Earlier this year, when Microsoft released OneNote for iPhone, obsessive note-takers rejoiced. It meant being one step closer to total organization. Last week, they inched even closer with Microsoft’s release of OneNote for iPad.

OneNote for iPad

OneNote for iPad: Goodbye 2x, hello tabbed interface & expanded language support.

The market is flooded with note-taking applications, but OneNote consistently ranks at the top (see Lifehacker’s recent list). That’s because the PC version is free with MS Office, which most corporate employees use anyway, and syncing is a cinch with a SkyDrive account, which is also free. Other plusses include automatic save (for those of us who forget to hit CTRL+S regularly), sharing capabilities, and the ability to view and take notes on mobile phones.

Keep in mind that with the free iPad version, you will only be able to create a total of 500 notes. If you want to create more, you will need to pay $14.99 (compared to $4.99 for the iPhone version). Features new to the iPad version include a tabbed interface and expanded language support.

Here’s how to use it:

  • Open the OneNote for iPad app.
  • Sign in with your Windows Live ID (Hotmail, MSN, Xbox Live, Zune pass, Windows Live Messenger, etc.).

To create a note:

  • On the navigation bar at the top right of the screen, click the icon that looks like a document with a plus sign.
  • A new note appears, into which you can add text, images, checkboxes and bulleted lists.

OneNote for iPad will automatically sync your notes to your Windows Live SkyDrive account, but you can also manually sync notes. Here is how:

  • On the home screen of OneNote for iPad, tap Settings (in the upper left area of screen).
  • Tap Sync Now.
 When the sync is completed, you will see a time stamp with last updated date and time.
  • You can also email a note from your iPad. Just click the envelope icon in the upper right corner of an open note.

To view your synced notes on your PC:

  • Open a web browser and go to http://skydrive.live.com.
  • Sign in with your Windows Live account.
  • Click on My Files on the left side.
  • Click to open a folder, and double-click to open a OneNote file.
  • With a Note open, click on the Home tab, and choose “Open in OneNote.”
  • Any changes you make will automatically be synchronized.
  • If you want to save a copy to your PC, go to File, select Save As, and choose a file type and location.

Note: Any notebooks you create on your mobile device will be automatically synced to your SkyDrive, but not files you create on your PC. To share a PC-created notebook, open it, go to File and choose Share, then select the notebook you want to share, where you want to share it, sign in and click Share Notebook to complete the process. It will sync automatically once this step is completed. Also, if you save your notebooks on a network drive rather than locally, you may encounter syncing problems.

Note to Apple OS users: Microsoft has not created OneNote for Mac.

Filed Under: iPad, Office 2010 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Beyond AppleCare: iPad Support for Business Users

December 16, 2011 By

Recently, we featured a series of rants and raves about upgrading to iOS 5. For the posts, Joe Puckett, our director of recruiting and training, offered his take on the new version — from using gestures and wireless sync to device standardization and setup challenges.

This week we offer another take on the tablet: The most common support questions from corporate iPad users.

An iPad support call

Click to view a video of an iPad support call.

iPad usage in the enterprise continues to grow at a rapid pace, but quality support options for business users are limited. Companies deploying iPads have had to build support capabilities in-house, or direct their users to AppleCare standard support — the same support Apple consumers receive.

AppleCare support stops when a non-Apple-specific application, like Microsoft Outlook or PowerPoint, is introduced. When this situation occurs, to what resource or resources should the end-user be directed? And what types of questions can be anticipated?

Here are a few we have encountered from our customers:

Working with Microsoft Office Documents on the iPad

  • Modifying a Microsoft Office document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) on the iPad
  • Converting Microsoft Office documents to PDF files and annotating them (using downloaded Apps)
  • Editing or working with Excel files on iPad using downloaded apps such as Numbers or Documents to Go
  • Correcting formatting problems when converting Word or PowerPoint documents into Apps like Pages or Keynote
  • Fixing formulas, formatting, and broken links in Excel spreadsheets on the iPad
  • Viewing track changes markup or comments in Word documents using Documents to Go or Microsoft Office Web App
  • Working with PowerPoint documents on iPad using Keynote app, and switching between PowerPoint and Keynote from laptop to iPad and back.

iPad Interface/Hardware

  • Mastering Cut, Copy, Paste, and Replace features to avoid backspacing or retyping text
  • Toggling and making effective use of spell checking, auto-correction and other keyboard features
  • Configuring iPad for mobile device management solutions like MobileIron, and Good Technology
  • Quitting Apps that are frozen or behaving erratically; restarting malfunctioning iPad
  • Adjusting settings to conserve battery life when charger not readily available
  • Recovering paid app that was accidently deleted
  • Sharing files to a PC with Wi-Fi or USB connections
  • Troubleshooting Wi-Fi, 3G, Bluetooth, and VPN connection problems

Read a more comprehensive list here (PDF), and view a video of an iPad business call here.

Filed Under: iPad, Worker Productivity Tagged With: , , ,
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