I posted a short little podcast at SacredTechs.com. I recently recorded a podcast for the SHC with Dan Veltri, co-founder of Weebly.com. He noticed I had a few old Apple machines in my office.

 

The passing of Jobs did not come as a surprise to any who followed the tech news. He had been battling pancreatic cancer, which took a friend of mine in 4 short months, for years. As so often in his life he beat the odds, at least for a time.

So now we eulogize him. That is not inappropriate. He rightly takes his position with such innovators at Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Like both of those men his inventions, or more accurately, his drive to create and bring brilliant minds together to create, transformed our world. When I was in grad school it is true, I was one of the few who used a Mac, a PowerBook 140, but today millions of people use an Apple product. I am not even sure how many iPod devices we have in our house now and almost all of the deans at my university are now using iPads. While the Macintosh operating system made computing far simpler than ever before, opening up its use to the masses of simple folks like myself who didn’t want to know command lines and coding language, the iOS devices have transformed how we interact with the world, do research, consume and produce media and content. It is really impossible to underestimate the impact this one man has had on the world in terms of commerce, culture, education, and … well, in just about every way you can imagine.

But like Ford and Edison Jobs was not a man without his shortcomings. Others will no doubt catalogue such shortcomings, but he was notorious for being prickly to the point of being abusive. When he first started Apple even those closest to him said that he was not fit to be a CEO. In an NPR story last month Sculley, whom Jobs had chosen to become CEO of Apple in 1983, stated that he greatly regretted removing Jobs from their board and leading to Jobs leaving Apple. Yet it was also what Jobs needed in order to become the great CEO that we know remember and celebrate. Jobs’ business practices have been vaguely criticized by many over the years. His passion for secrecy is legend as was his supposed ability to create a “reality distortion field” that kept the masses buying whatever it was he was selling.

He certainly thought differently, jettisoning the floppy drive and making machines in outrageous colors when beige and ports was what computers were all about. As Gateway’s retails stores were dragging that company down into the financial abyss he took Apple into the heart of retail. And into a market cluttered with devices he launched the iPhone so successfully that every smart phone is now compared with it. He and his company may not have created out of whole clothe any specific device they sold, they transformed them all such that the whole was more than the sum of its parts (plus a healthy profit margin).

Steve Jobs has left an incredible legacy, one we will be studying for years to come. At his core though he was a great visionary and a normal human. He had foibles, problems, and shortcomings. He was not the messiah nor the anti-Christ, but like all of us he had the potential to be a bit of both.

Oh, and he changed the world.

 

My PSU colleague Chris Long has written about his “Evolving Digital Research Ecosystem” and has long encourage me to consider Zotero and Mendeley. However, see above. Mendeley in particular strikes me as overwrought. Both, however have the benefit of being free. Clearly what I needed to do was to prioritize my needs and consider the options. Like Chris I wanted to close the circle on my digital research process (see my earlier post regarding using the iPad for research) and I think I have found the solution, albeit not a free one.

Criteria for a solution:

• Available on both Mac and iPad
• Store both bibliographic information and associated files (images, PDFs, etc.)
• Allow annotation of PDFs
• Synchronize between Mac and iPad
• Integrate with Nisus Writer Pro, my word processor of choice

There are, to the best of my knowledge, only two solutions that meet the first criteria, Papers and Sente. Both have an iPad app (Papers has an iPhone app as well) and a desktop app. Papers is a bit cheaper on the iOS, $14.99 as opposed to $19.99, but Sente offers a free Sente Viewer (does not allow markup). Papers desktop app is $42 while Sente is hefty $89.95. Both offer student discounts but Sente allows you to use the license on up to 3 machines (e.g., my office and home machine and my grad assistant’s machine). So as I said, not free. Fortunately both offer the chance to demo the desktop software for free (something that will not be possible with the new Mac App Store, they will have to do “lite” versions, as in the iOS App Store).

I did not get very far in testing Papers because early on I was told that it only supports journals, not books and does not allow you to annotate PDFs. The first sounds dubious to me (how could they possible not include all forms of bibliographic data?) but the second was a deal breaker. As much as I like iAnnotate I want the benefit of a complete ecosystem. That left me with Sente and so far I can say that I am very pleased.

The best way to offer this review is simply to describe h0w events transpired. Eric (my GA) took the Bookends¹ database that a previous GA had prepared with about 170 entries and we had a folder (shared on Dropbox) of about 90 PDFs. Eric exported the Bookends file into an Endnote format and the imported it into Sente desktop app. Perfect! Everything came right in with no troubles. He then associated the PDFs with the relevant citation/entry. (You can have Sente store these all in a bundle or as a folder that it will automatically organize for you. I chose to have it import the PDFs and organize them for me and I will later delete the original folder of PDFs.)

At this point we were sharing one database file via Dropbox. This works but you need to be careful not to have it open in two places at one. Fortunately Sente has a solution for this: Sente 6 Synchronized Libraries!

Work on your library on any of your computers and always have up-to-date information everywhere. Or, share one library with any number of colleagues, and give each person the appropriate level of access to your data.

I won’t bore you with the details of the process, but suffice to say that I have the main DB on my office Mac (all are actually backed up via Dropbox) and open the synchronized library on my machine at home, as does Eric. I take notes on a PDF, either in Sente app on the desktop or on the iPad and all copies of the PDF update. One major caveat: you must markup the PDF only in a Sente app. You can open them in other apps but the changes will not be synchronized. As Eric adds new bibliography and PDFs all copies of the database update and the various “smart folders” like “recent changes” make it easy to see what my collaborator has been working on. You can also create status tags (and sort by them) so he can flag something as “follow up” and I will see it immediately.

Once you have set up the Sente iPad app you have access to all of your bibliographic material, attachments and all, automatically synced. (You use the iTunes interface to initially add the synced library file and from then on the updates occur over the air, no hardware syncing required.) Inside the iPad app you can highlight, quote, and annotate your PDFs. They obviously have to be OCRd before you add them to Sente to be able to use the quote feature, but even if they are not OCRd or simply are graphics you can use a box tool to lasso the relevant portion (which is then saved as an image in the note) and you can add your annotation as you see fit. You can then send the notes, bibliographic data, and quoted text to someone via an email. I have included a number of screenshots below from the iPad app. I should add that the app can be slow to respond when reading and annotating a PDF. Since iAnnotatePDF regularly warns its users about sluggishness due to large PDFs I am assuming it is a memory issue. It is certainly usable, but does merit some patience at times.

Both the desktop and iPad app make it very simple to add both references and PDFs from within the app using their integrated browser and database searches.

I have not yet tried to use Sente within a paper for citation and bibliography creation. All accounts on the user groups are that it works fine with NWP and is built right in to Mellel. It also integrates well (so I read) with Word.

Everyone has their own work habits and patterns so Sente may not be for you and some will always only insist on using free options. So far I have found it to not only be incredibly solid but a great tool for collaboration. While I am reading an article I can highlight a footnote and send it in an email to my GA asking him to follow up on the references. All from within Sente. (And because Eric is so good, the next day I had a half a dozen new entries in my library with their PDFs!) This is some pretty tight integration and has certainly helped me in my research. YMMV.

 

1. Apparently they too are working on an iOS app.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/software-update/

 

Cases
I started out with Apple iPad Case which I found to be very nice. It is a soft microfiber that is completely form fitting, which is very nice since it does not add any substantial bulk to the device. The best part, and what was initially lacking in all other leather case offerings, is the ability to prop the iPad at an angle perfect for typing. Eventually I discovered the Marware Eco-Vue for iPad. At the moment you can get it for $4 less than the $39 Apple case. The Mareware is a beautiful leather case that has a prop for the ideal typing angle I mentioned a moment ago, a hand strap in the back for those times you are wandering around holding the iPad (perhaps in an industrial or hospital setting? perhaps library?), and an elastic strap to close it, similar to a Moleskin notebook. The interior is a very nice gray suede. My top pick for an iPad case.

Apps
In an early post about using the iPad on the road I mentioned the excellent BibleReader and iAnnotatePDF. Both apps have gone from strength to strength. I would add to your must have list DropBox. If you do not have this, you should get it now. DropBox is a cloud storage service that will give you a free 2GB account and software for your Windows or Mac desktop and all your mobile devices, including iOS, Android, and soon BlackBerry. The iPad app is fantastic, allowing you to view your files and, where it is an appropriate file type, open them in another iPad app for the purpose of editing or viewing such as Pages or iAnnotatePDF or GoodReader. We are still lacking a good “round trip” solution that allows you to download, edit, and upload a file, but DropBox is close and their programmers tell me they are working on it very diligently.

A few other apps I recommend are the Guardian Eyewitness, a daily update of their best news photo with pro tips, NPR news app, IMDb for movies, and AirVideo (recommended by my brother) which allows you to stream movies from your computers hard-drive to your iOS device from anywhere! Not bad for $2.99. The other apps are free.

iPhone 4
I upgraded to the iPhone 4 not long after it launched, receiving prompt shipping just 2 days after making my order at the local AT&T store. It is a gorgeous device, the screen, the physical form, the new iOS, it is all very well executed. The front glass is amazing. I have not put any screen protector on it and yet no smudges and not even a hint of scratches. The back is not the same “gorilla glass” but so far has held up very well.

You have no doubt heard about “antennagate,” well I seem to be fairly lucky since I saw now such problems and could not even reproduce the loss of signal, even with my beefy hands. I did pick up the Apple bumper case at the 5th Ave Apple Store (and have since been reimbursed for it by Apple) for protection. It is very nice, just covering the sides and apparently it protects the phone very well. Since the back is not covered I may get a custom ZAGGskin. They make the best screen protector, the ZAGG invisibleSHIELD, and with the skin they will imprint an image of your choice (make it tasteful). So I think I may get a thin case that will protect the back glass as well, the Griffin Reveal Etch is my likely choice.

One note about the bumper. In typical Apple fashion the case is made to very precise specifications. That means that while the Apple headphone jack and USB cable fit with the bumper on, any other version does not. I use and love the Griffin AutoPilot Charger, it allows you to simply plug right into the iPhone port, charge the phone and even control the iPod from the adapter (the auxiliary cable comes off the adapter rather than the iPhone headphone jack). The problem is that the connector is just too big for the bumper case. Being who I am I decided to hack it. The connector has a black shield around it which I removed, but that required just a touch of superglue to keep the gray cover from sliding off the connector itself. Now it fits perfectly. Of course you could always just remove the bumper or choose another case.

BTW the “best iPhone clock radio” that I blogged about before, the Griffin AirCurve, works just fine with the phone in the bumper, just remove any adapter that you might have placed in the base.

All the old apps are working fine and many have been updated to take advantage of iOS 4. Again, I have been fortunate, where others have had problems upgrading their 3GS or 3G we have been fine in our family. As always, YMMV…

 

1. I periodically share about what electronic products I use, just as I do books I am reading. I often link to the products on Amazon. In the interest of full discloser (but most of you no doubt already realize this), I do receive a small amount if you buy something at Amazon having followed one of those links. I greatly appreciate and it does help to fuel this blogging habit of mine. Many thanks!

I have mentioned before some of what I am looking for and what I am not interested in with a portable tablet device. This is clearly a portable device, so I want something that will replace, or at least be an “alternative” (as Andy Ihnatko phrased it on MBW), my MacBook Pro. And that has me thinking about how I travel.

I take two types of trips. For example, I will miss the big announcement next week because I will be in NYC for college business. Most of my time will be spent meeting with friends of the college, board members, and so on. When in the hotel I am usually not doing more than replying to emails and the odd blog post. In those circumstances the Tablet would likely be fine. In fact, on planes, it would be perfect. Able to read all my articles in PDF, text, ebooks, etc. Less bulk and awkwardness of a notebook and a backlight making it easier to read in low light situations. As good as a Kindle and more.

But two or three times a year I travel to conferences or libraries to do research. Without a keyboard (discerning pundits think it unlikely that Mr. Jobs will allow an external keyboard, I would say it is even money) and, more importantly, without being able to run “real” OSX apps like Accordance and NisusWriter Pro would make the Tablet next to useless for me. On those trips I need to do real work and, if rumors are correct, the Tablet will simply be running a form of the iPhone OS. OliveTree’s BibleReader 4 is tremendous and would replace much of what I use Accordance for, but not everything. And I need a serious text editor that allows right-to-left language support. Would the iPhone OS based Tablet? Probably not.

Finally, there is an emerging consensus that this device will be like the Kindle, always on network connection allowing immediate download of books, magazines, movies, music, etc. The Kindle uses “Whispernet” which is paid for (apparently, I don’t know for sure) through the cost of the content rather than with a monthly subscription. If Apple takes that route, all well and good. If, on the other hand, one has to have a separate data plan then that will be a deal breaker. (If, on the third hand, it is optional then we are no worse off than with a MacBook equipped with WiFi.)

Will I buy the Tablet? Whom am I kidding, I probably will. Although it would actually be a first for me, I usually do not buy first editions of any product, particularly Apple products. They are known to have 1st rev glitches. So maybe not.