IPad¶

The Design Lab has acquired iPad's to aid in the teaching process. This page will describe some of the experiments and configuration guidance for the most productive use of the devices.

Overall Requirements¶

A gathering of the various requirements and/or use cases for the iPad in the Design Lab. We will not generally be addressing personal usage.

• read RPI email from the Exchange Server
• access this project management website
• download Redmine attachments
  • read (required)
  • edit (nice to have)
  • annotate (nice to have)
• be able to make use of documents created on the iPad on a PC

Configuring Microsoft Exchange Email¶

To access an RPI Exchange server based email account you must configure it as if it's a regular IMAP style account. Do NOT use the Microsoft Exchange email configuration on the iPad!

• Settings > Mail > Add Account > Other > Add Mail Account

• Enter the following:
  

  Name -> your name!
  Address -> RCSID@rpi.edu
  Password -> your email password
  Description -> whatever!
  

• Then SAVE.
• The next screen is "Enter your account information". Be sure it's on the IMAP setting (not POP). Fill in the blanks with the host name being "exchange.rpi.edu" in both places. Enter user name and password in both places.
• Then SAVE.

You should be all set!

Configuring a standard RPI email account¶

Apps Being Evaluated¶

This section covers the apps we are trying, both free or for fee, with observations and recommendations.

Application Name	Description	Reporter	Cost	Observations
Mocha Remote Desktop Lite	A way to access your Windows PC from the iPad	Mark	Free	Requires that you know the IP or node name of your target which may be changing with a dynamic campus address
Mocha VNC Lite	A way to connect to any PC as long as it's running a VNC server. This allows support for both Linux & Windows hosts	Mark	Free	Requires that you know the IP or node name of your target which may be changing with a dynamic campus address
exDesktop	re desktop access.	Mark	Free to try but time limited. Can upgrade for ?	Looks like a nice remote desktop application.
Tablet Journal	Create dated journal entries.	Mark	free	Nice look, can create multiple journals. To be really useful needs a matching PC package otherwise you can't do anything with the journal copy on your PC. Backs up via iTunes. Exports to Facebook, Twitter or email.
DraftPad	A simple plain text editor.	Mark	free	Essentially just a giant sheet of paper. No organization. Does not manage documents or pages. What you type can used as the search string on Google or Yahoo. Exports to email too.
UYH	Use Your Handwriting	Mark	free	Just lets you use the iPad as a REAL pad, writing with your fingertip. Does NOT do OCR on it. Nice interface. Handy with you just want to "write" rather than type your notes. Can add a checkmark or dim things to show items on a list as being "done". Can't really draw / doodle though. Exports - NONE.
Jot!Free	A "whiteboard" tool.	Mark	free	Lets you draw / doodle, has a few colors, text can be typed in. Acts similar to the whiteboard in some chat programs and the drawing tools available when playing back a Powerpoint slide show. Exports as image, it's "jot" file and can be saved as a photo. Free version only has a single board. Doesn't support text.
Whiteboard	A classic whiteboard tool.	Mark	free - ad supported. Upgrade for more than the single red marker.	Not bad but not as good as Jot!Free. Exports to email or sent to Facebook / Tumblr / Twitter or placed in photo album. Seems to be a single whiteboard, no board management. Each save to the photo library saves another copy of the whiteboard - generated junk!
Documents2Free	Used for creating some simple typical document types.	Mark	free, ad supported	Can save and/or export to Google, email. Supports creating a folder structure like My Documents on a PC. Docs include plain text, spreadsheet, paint, photo. Photo seems to mean album - but unclear. Paint lets you draw with a few colors but nothing else (no shapes, text, etc.). Not sure how docs transfer to/from PC.
Dropbox	The app for accessing your Dropbox, a cloud storage service.	Mark	free	Dropbox is now fairly ubiquitous and is one of a handful of services. A reasonable amount of space is included free (currently 2GB as of 9/2010) but more can be had for a monthly cost. Interfaces to/from Dropbox exist for Windows and Linux.
Cloudreaders	For reading PDF's and some other formats.	Mark	free	Does a reasonable job of displaying PDF's. Files can be uploaded to the iPad without needing iTunes via an internal webserver. Books can be organized via tagging.
iBooks	A bookreader for PDF format books	Mark	free	A different book reader that supports its book format and PDF documents. Has a store for purchasing more ebooks. The iPad must be connected to the PC using iTunes to transfer documents to this app.
Easy Note		Mark	free
Outliner Free		Mark	free
OmniGraffle	Diagramming & Flowcharting software	Casey	$49.99	Untried by us. Became aware of it via Mike Krein, chemistry PhD student, who uses the full version of OmniGraffle on his mac for diagramming in academic research.
TeamViewer	a remote desktop package	Junichi / Mark	free	Allows you to remotely access your PC
Adobe Ideas	A sketching package	Junich / Mark	free	A package for capturing sketches, doodles, etc. Has some reasonable tools like multiple pens, an eraser.
PCCalc Lite	A LARGE full iPad sized calculator	Junichi	free	REALLY large buttons, good for those of us with glasses or for showing another person the math you are working on.
SmartNote	Comprehensive note taking tool	Mark	free	This one seems pretty good! Ad supported, pay to remove ads. Supports multiple notebooks, each with multiple pages. Tools include text and drawing plus "widgets", essentially predrawn handy graphic items. Can do limited handwriting recognition. Exports well to PDF and syncs without iTunes to PC using built in server. I believe it may support Dropbox too - need to double check. This seems better than Whiteboard, Jot, UYH.