Category: Computer tips

When I got my iPad, I wasn’t sure how useful it would be, or what business apps I’d find for it. So far, the search for a satisfactory spreadsheet app has been fruitless. I’ve bought the Numbers app, but can’t get used to it.

However, I do use the iPad every day to read email, RSS feeds, and blog comments, so it was definitely a good investment.

Non-Work iPad

Of course, the iPad is useful for non-work activities too, and I occasionally use it in the kitchen, to read a recipe from a website.

When using it, I make sure that the iPad is out of the spatter zone, or if things are getting messy, I put it into a big Ziploc bag. The touch screen still works, and the iPad is safe from mishap.

I couldn’t believe that Think Geek is now selling what is basically a ZipLoc bag now, to seal up your iPad in the kitchen. Would you pay $20 for 25 of these “iPad Chef Sleeves”?

My advice is to save your money, and pick up a box of ZipLoc bags the next time you’re at Costco, or the grocery store.

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When was the last time that you got a cassette tape with your new computer?

I found this tape – A Guided Tour of Macintosh — while cleaning out the basement today, and it came with our shiny new Macintosh in 1984. The Mac also came with printed manuals, quick start guides, and countless floppy disks.

That computer, which is still in the basement, didn’t have a hard drive, but we bought an external floppy drive, so we could have two disks available for copying and pasting.

It was way overpriced, compared to the other computers of the time, but we loved it, spent hours staring at that small built-in black and white monitor. Good times!

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How are your data analysis skills? Excel is certainly making a push to be a “self-service BI tool” in the next version of Office, using PowerPivot and PowerView.

Besides Excel, there are other tools for analyzing data, and free university courses, through coursera.org, to help you get started. I’ve listed a few of the courses here, to give you an idea of what’s available. They require a sizeable chunk of time each week, during a set time period. The courses also have major projects or a final exam, so don’t sign up if you like to take things at your own pace.

Data Analysis

There is a Data Analysis course, led by Assistant Professor Jeff Leek, from the Simply Statistics blog. The course starts Jan. 22, 2013, and runs for 8 weeks. The workload estimate is 3-5 hours a week, with short video lectures and two major projects.

 

One of the prerequisites for the Data Analysis course is some familiarity with the R statistical programming language (http://www.r-project.org/). I’ve never used it, but R is a free download, and you have almost 6 months to learn a bit about it before the Data Analysis course starts.

Computing for Data Analysis

To get up and running with R, you could enroll in one of the other free courses – Computing for Data Analysis with Associate Professor Roger D. Peng. It’s a 4 week course, starting September 24, 2012, with about 3 hours of video per week, and 2 major projects.

 

Learn to Program: The Fundamentals

And if you’re completely new to programming, a University of Toronto course can help you learn the basics. Senior Lecturers Jennifer Campbell and Paul Gries, use Python as the language in their introductory course, Learn to Program: The Fundamentals.

Their course starts on September 24, 2012, and runs for 7 weeks. It’s estimated that the workload is 6-8 hours per week, with quizzes and a final exam.

 

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This morning I checked my iPad, to see how much storage space is left. I have the 32 GB version, because I figured that by the time it’s filled up, a newer, shinier version would be available.

With iOS 5, you can go to Settings > General > Usage, to see the storage space available, and a list of the top 10 space-hogging apps. Uh-oh, there’s only 7 GB of storage left.

The Major Space Hogs

I was surprised to see the MobileRSS app at the top of the list. That’s what I use to read the RSS feeds in Google Reader, while enjoying my morning coffee.

MobileRSS is one of the apps that I use every day, so I’m not going to uninstall it, just because it’s a space hog. Maybe it would use less space if I don’t “star” so many articles. I’ve also been unsubscribing from feeds that aren’t useful to me, so that might help too. Don’t worry though – your blog’s feed is still in my list. 😉

The Zinio app is the second worst space hog, but that’s not surprising, because I use it for a few magazine subscriptions. Maybe some old issues can be deleted, to make it a bit smaller, if the iPad space gets really tight.

Deleting Unused Apps

Looking at the rest of the items in the top storage list showed that there were many apps that could easily be deleted, because I never use them.

I left Numbers on the iPad, despite the fact that it’s one of the highest space users, at 401 MB, and I don’t use it very often. It cost $9.99, and I’m determined to get my money’s worth from it, eventually. I wonder how big Excel will be, when its iPad version is released, and how much it will cost. What’s your guess?

The good news is that the iPad now has 14 GB of storage space available, so I can start downloading more stuff that I’ll never use!

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Recently, I received a cool looking gift from Microsoft – a Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse. The mouse lies flat for storage, and you bend it, to snap it into shape, when you want to use it.

It has a very small transmitter, that sticks out about 1/2″ when plugged into the computer’s USB port. When you’re not using the transmitter, just put it on the front or back of the mouse, and it magically (or magnetically) sticks there.

Instead of a scroll wheel, there is a slider, and that feature was very easy to use.

Testing the Arc Touch Mouse

The mouse was easy to install and use – I just plugged in the transmitter, and it was ready to go. On my first try, I didn’t bend the mouse far enough (one click, instead of two), so it didn’t work. After checking the Getting Started guide, I gave the mouse another click and it fired up.

The mouse handled well, for the most part, but it was a little sticky when trying to do some fine work. Maybe it gets better when the mouse has been used a little longer, or the operator has more experience.

Back to My Old Mouse

I worked with the Arc Touch mouse for a couple of hours, but couldn’t get used to it, so I’ve put it away for now. It would be better suited to someone with larger hands than mine, I think.

In my hand it felt too wide, and I was always conscious of the edges of the mouse. For now, I’ll stick with my little Logitech M305, which is a better size for me.

Have You Tried It?

Have you used the Arc Touch mouse? Did you like it and stick with it?

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Help! Would you please try to add a comment here, and let me know if you have any problems?

[Update] Thanks for the help — things seem to be working better now.

Flooded With Comment Spam

Over on the Contextures Blog, I’ve been flooded with spam comments. The Akismet plugin catches some of the comments, and puts them into the Spam list. However, there is still a long list of comments in the Moderation queue every day.

Most of those Moderation comments are spam, but I don’t want to accidentally delete any of the valid comments. I appreciate it when someone takes the time to add a comment, and don’t want to lose those.

I accidentally deleted one of Dick Kusleika’s comments yesterday, because something in his comment was on the “banned words” list. No, not his name – I had blocked “SEO” because of all the spam on that topic, and Dick’s blog is dailydoseofexcel.com.  Oops!

So, it takes a while to check through them, approving the real comments, and trashing the rest (carefully!)

Growmap Anti Spam Plugin

Today I installed the Growmap Anti Spam Plugin, which might prevent some of those fake comments from being posted.

It adds a check box below the comment form, and the comment is not accepted unless you check that box. That sounds easy enough, but sometimes things don’t work exactly as expected.

If you add a comment here, and have any problems, please let me know. ddalgleish AT contextures.com

Thanks!

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Last week, on a very snowy day, my sister, Nancy Nelson, drove to a nearby town, to do a presentation at an Electronics Day for grade 8 girls. One of the tech teachers at the school is trying to get young people interested in engineering and technology.

Nancy is an electrical engineer, and a professor at Conestoga College in Cambridge. Her program, that she talks about in the video, is “Integrated Telecommunication and Computer Technologies”.

The event was shown on the 6 o’clock news in London, and you can see Nancy in the video below. She starts talking around the 1:00 minute mark in the video.

At the end of the video, a couple of the girls are interviewed, and one seems interested in a technology career. The other girl has something more traditional in mind. I wonder if the split was really 50-50, or if the reporter looked for two girls with opposite views. Maybe they should all consider working with Excel!

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