Free Office Apps

It has been over a year since I actively blogged.  I have begun writing the 6th edition of the Informatics and Nursing textbook, so will blog news as I learn.  The most amazing change in the horizon is the advent of free office apps other than Google Drive.

Microsoft now provides access to free versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote with Office.com.  Microsoft also has a free version of Outlook and provides email, calendar, and people (contacts).  Create a user name and password to access the resources.

The free Microsoft apps allow you to download the files you create or save them to your Dropbox account.

Apple also provides free apps for users and 1 GB of file.  You create a free login to iCloud first at http://www.icloud.com.  When you open you iCloud site, you will see Contacts, Notes, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and Settings.

Enjoy exploring these new features! 

Reasons to Use iCloud if You have an iPad and/or iPhone

iCloud just got better!  There are several reasons to use the cloud storage site if you have an iPhone or iPad.

• From a security perspective, I suggest having your location finder turned on on the remote devices (yes, it does require additional battery use). The advantage is that you can use iCloud to find your iPad or iPhone.  Whether you have misplaced the device or it was stolen - if the device is turned on - you will be able to see on a map where it is located.
• New iCloud beta apps have promise!  You can drag and drop files including those created with Excel and PowerPoint.
• Pages
• Numbers
• Keynote

EndNote Reference Manager and Apple iWork Pages - Lessons Learned

A student in one of the classes I am teaching is using Pages on the Mac. I encourage all of the students to use a personal reference manager, such as EndNote (our university has a site license for the software).  What I learned is that EndNote has limited menu features in Pages in comparison to those available in Microsoft Word. 

• There is no clear (have not found it yet) way to refresh the citations in a Pages document when changes were made to the citation in EndNote.  
• Even if the citation output style is noted as APA 6th, EndNote names the reference page as Bibliography in bold font face. 
• You cannot use Cite While You Write from within EndNote because it works only with Microsoft Word.  When you insert a citation using the Pages Insert menu, you are able to search multiple EndNote libraries.

When I installed EndNote on my Mac, it installed correctly.  The install did not work on the student's computer.  We did a Google search and found a plug-in to enable the install.  

The bottom line is that it is possible to do Cite While You Write using EndNote and Pages, but the function is within Pages, not EndNote. There are online resources to assist with the use of the install and use of EndNote for Pages.