Tag: iPad

Writers' Tools of the Trade

Tools of My Trade: Day 7 iPad 2

I probably sound like a broken record since my final tool of the series has been mentioned in almost every post this week. Last July my first generation WiFi-only iPad without a camera was one of my favorite tools. It was the thing you never knew you needed until you got it. And even then, it’s not really a necessity, but it’s something you find you don’t want to live without once you get used to having it. Over a year later, I’m still in love with the iPad but I’ve upgraded. Last August (for my birthday) I bought the newer version with the 3G connection as well as WiFi, and with the camera and video, Skype and FaceTime capabilities. I love it even more than the first generation I have. I’ve found it invaluable for travel. When I go to a convention and the hotel wants to charge us $10 or more a day for WiFi in our room, or when I’m away on a beach vacation and internet is no where to be found, I switch on my AT&T 3G for $15 for the entire month. When the month is up, I cancel. No penalty. No fee. No […]

Writers' Tools of the Trade

Tool of My Trade: Day 2 CloudOn

Last year in my Tools of My Trade series, the #1 Tool was Dropbox. I still love it. I still use it every single day for every document, file and picture on my computer. It’s cloud storage that keeps your files safe and synced between all of your devices (PC, Mac, laptop, desktop, iPad, iPhone). Dropbox saved my 80,000 word Work in Progress when I turned on my Mac one morning and got the horrifying message “no files detected” because my hard drive crashed. I especially love DropBox now with the auto upload of any photo I take with the iPad. Those pics now appear on my computer in the Camera Upload folder without my having to email them to myself. But there was one issue I had with using Dropbox on the iPad when I didn’t have my laptop with my Office Word and Excel available. I could see my files, but I couldn’t edit them. BUT guess what?  I discovered I could edit both Word and Excel documents on the iPad with this free app CloudOn. And there’s more! There’s an Android version. CloudOn is very useful, but there is one limitation. You can’t work on files while off line. […]