The National Geographic Interactive Magazine for the iPad

A while back I ran across a promotion for the National Geographic magazine on the iPad. You could buy individual issues for $5, or a year's subscription for $20.  I got the year's subscription, and I am so glad I did.  The iPad version of the magazine is incredible!  

It is like exploring an adventure video game.  The cover of the June 2012 magazine is a picture of a solar flare, except it isn't a picture, it's a video.  The story inside the magazine has a whole bunch of other videos of the sun.  


Another article in that issue talks about climbing Mount Everest.  There are pictures, interactive maps, videos, links to other sources, even shots of stories about Mt. Everest taken from earlier editions of National Geographic.  There is one picture inside an ice cave that allows you to look 360º all around you.


The July issue has an article on languages that are disappearing as their speakers die off and their children don't learn the languages. The article has audio of people speaking the language.

You can't go through the magazine page by page.  Rather you go to a page and then have two or three different directions you can go from there depending on what you are most interested in.  It is a lot of fun and it's dazzling to look at and read. If other magazines can match this high standard set by the National Geographic, we are in for some delightful adventures just by reading magazines on our iPads.

I just went back up to the National Geographic web site, and they have reduced the subscription costs. It appears that U.S. and Canadian subscribers can now get a one-year subscription for $15. This also gives you the ability to access all of their archived magazines clear back to 1888. I have never enjoyed reading a magazine so much.

Finally! A solution to my off-site backup needs!

I have been devoting much of this blog to my efforts to backup the files on my laptop to "the cloud". This is in addition to the Time Machine backup that I have on an external drive connected to my laptop. I have two reasons for wanting to do this. One is to provide a backup which is off-site so that if something disastrous happens to my laptop and/or my home, I will still have all of my files. The second is so I can get to my files using my iPad no matter where I am.

As I have noted previously, many companies provide partial solutions, especially those who advertise the ability to collaborate with others. They allow you limited storage of your "important" files. I wanted a complete backup solution.

The solution I had come up with was to use Online Storage Solution (OLS-CS) for my offsite file storage. The back-up program I chose was xTwin because they provided a good, stable, and secure uploading capability. The files created by xTwin are in a special format which required xTwin or another program to reconstitute them as regular files. This meant that in order to get to my files from my iPad, I would need to use GoToMyPC. That required keeping my laptop open and running at all times, but it did allow me to get to my files using my iPad. I therefore had a complete solution.

The solution was not the solution

However things turned out not to work as I hoped. When I went to the OLS-CS storage service and tried to recover a file, it turned out I could not recover it. To make a long story short, after many attempts to get information from the OLS-CS storage service, they could not provide a satisfactory solution or an answer as to why I could not recover the files that I had uploaded. In fact, at one point, all of my back-up files disappeared! So I had to abandon them and try to find another solution for my off-site storage. OLS-CS did provide me a refund of the $39 I had given them for a year's worth of service. Fortunately I finally have a good solution.

I went back to the spreadsheet I put together when I was shopping for a backup program in August. I also did some more research to see if there were other programs out there that I missed.

Based on the information I was looking at, I found five backup solutions that met my requirements. Some services only allow backups of documents and photos, for example, and do not allow applications to be backed up. These five services all said that you are not restricted as to the types of files you can store. They all provide for file sharing, automatic backups, and access to the files using mobile devices. They all provide web access to your files and access using a desktop application. All five of the services provide a free trial period except for OpenDrive.

OpenDrive provides 5 GB of free storage, and up to 100TB of paid storage. They have a daily upload limit of 5 GB. You can tailor your plan based on your needs. They provide a tool on their website which you can use to calculate what your anticipated costs will be based on how much storage you think you will need.

LiveDrive provides up 5 TB of paid storage. The cost is $79.95 per year for limited file types. If you want to store other file types, the cost is an additional $96 per year.

MyPCBackup provides unlimited storage. The cost is $95.40 per year for limited file types. If you want to store other file types, the cost is an additional $100 per year.

ZipCloud and JustCloud both provide unlimited storage. The cost is $83.40 per year for limited file types. If you want to store other file types, the cost is an additional $100 per year.

LiveDrive

I decided to go with LiveDrive because they were slightly less expensive than the other services and I didn't think I would need more than 5 TB of storage since my laptop has a 1 TB hard drive. They only charged me the $79.95 per year fee. I have not been charged extra for backing up unusual file types. Apparently the information I got while doing my research was incorrect. They will charge you an extra $17.95 per year for backing up additional computers.

Installing LiveDrive and getting it up and running was very simple. You just go to their website, http://www.livedrive.com. There are four packages to choose from, "Backup", "Briefcase", "Pro Suite", and "Business". For my purposes, I chose "Backup". The other solutions are for businesses and people with more requirements than I have. You fill out a web form to sign up and create an account. You then have 14 days to give it a trial run.

You will want to download the application which runs on your computer (both Windows and Mac OS are supported). Once you are up and running, you also have the ability to work from within your web browser. I also downloaded the app for my iPad.

When you run the application on your computer, you will see the LiveDrive icon in your system menu bar. One of the choices on the drop down menu is "Manage Backups". Here you see in the left pane of the window that opens all of the folders on your computer. By clicking on the arrows to the left, you will see the subfolders contained within the folder. You simply check the folders you want backed up, and LiveDrive immediately begins backing up the folders and files within that folder to your account on their servers.

For my trial run, I checked just the "Desktop" folder. It contains about 5500 items. The backup went very smoothly with no problems. After it was done, I was able to see all the files using the web browser after logging in to my account on the LiveDrive site. I was also able to see all the files using the LiveDrive application on my iPad.

I can not tell you how thrilled and excited I was. After all the struggles I had gone through to find a solution for backing up my files off-site (see previous blogs), I finally found a solution that worked and with absolutely no hassle.

The next test was to see if I was going to have any problems backing up my Documents folder, which contains about 55,000 files. Backing up that folder took a bit longer. And I did notice that LiveDrive seemed to have a problem with one of my files. It kept trying over and over to backup the file, but didn't appear to be succeeding. I could see this when I looked at the status and clicked on "Detailed Status".

It turns out this was an old Apple IIgs spreadsheet file that had a forward slash in its name. LiveDrive converted the forward slash to a colon, but it was still having problems. So I went into that folder of spreadsheets and manually changed all the names, converting the forward slashes to colons. After I did that, the backup proceeded with no further problems. It was so satisfying to see "Your Backup is up-to-date" in the status window.

It is so cool to be able to go to my iPad and get to all of the documents on my laptop. Of course, as far as I can tell the files can't be opened on the iPad. You wouldn't want to go changing a backup file. Trying to then keep the files in sync would be a whole different ballgame.

I give GoToMyPC a try

In my last blog, it seemed that I had finally found a back-up program that would back up the files on my laptop to an off-site server “in the Cloud”.  The solution was a program called xTwin.  However, the problem was that the program broke the files into “chunks” that were saved to the off-site server.  You could not look at one of the chunks and get any information from it.  You had to use xTwin to restore the file back to its original state.  So this did not satisfy my need of being able to access my files from my iPad or iPod Touch.

In this installment of my quest, I rethink how I will get to my files from my iPad or my iPod Touch.

Since I wouldn't be able to get to my files by connecting to the off-site service using my iPad or iPod Touch, it finally dawned on me, “What if I could just leave my laptop running and access the files from the iPad by going to my laptop instead of an off-site server?”  I would still use the off-site server to backup my laptop.  But I would get to my files on the laptop rather than get to the backups that are stored on the off-site server.

One of the podcasts I enjoy listening to is The Nerdist.  I was listening to one of their podcasts which was being sponsored by GoToMyPC.  I thought, that might be a solution.  GoToMyPC is a product of Citrix, which has been producing networking products for years.

What about GoToMyPC?

I got the App from the App store.  Then I went to the website because you also have to load software on your Mac (or PC).  You have to establish an account with GoToMyPC.  You get a 30-day free trial, but you have to give them your credit card information up front.  The cheapest plan for one user and one computer costs $9.95 per month or $99.00 per year. (See their pricing plans here: GoToMyPC Pricing Plans

The installation didn’t go smoothly because the installation window was hidden behind the browser window.  I had three installation windows open on my desktop and was seeing the same panels a second time before I realized what was going on.  After I figured that out and finished the installation of GoToMyPC on my MacBook Pro, I was ready to try it out.

You have two passwords to create and remember.  One gets you into your account with GoToMyPC.  They other gets you connected to your Mac from your iPad.

So with GoToMyPC running on your Mac, which is indicated by an icon in the Menu Bar at the top of your screen, you start up the GoToMyPC on the iPad.  You first enter the password that you previously set up for your GoToMyPC account.  Then you enter the second password that you set up to be used to connect to your Mac.  You are immediately presented with a help panel which shows how to use a mouse icon that appears on top of the screen.  After dismissing the panel, you see the same thing you would see on your Mac if you were sitting right in front of it.

You move the mouse icon around on the screen along with its associated pointer, and click on things just as you would if you were moving the pointer around on the screen on the Mac.  The response time is relatively slow because, after all, you are going out on the web and then back.  When I was sitting right beside the computer working on the iPad, the delay was something like one to five seconds.  So you have to be patient as the cursor moves over a menu item, for example, because you experience a delay before the menu item is highlighted.

I have chosen to have the Dock hidden on the right edge of my screen on my Mac.  I couldn’t figure out how to get the Doc to show up on the iPad.  So I had to unhide it on my Mac so it was always visible.

If you are using Spaces or Mission Control, you will see the Space that was active when you started up GoToMyPC.  To navigate to another Space, you can drag a window while working on your iPad to the other Space, and that will take you there.  The problem is that the delay factor means that you could have jumped two Spaces before you iPad screen shows that you have jumped one, so you could end up in a Space other than the one you were heading for.

I also ended up with the menu for Mail at the top of the screen, when I was actually working on another application called Bean.  The drop down menu was for Bean, not for Mail.  But the top Menu was for Mail.  (See screenshots).  I was able to get back to normal operation by switching to Mail and then back to Bean.

So before leaving my Mac sitting open when I leave to go off-site with my iPad, I would need to just leave the Finder open.  I would want to close everything else.  That way I will avoid conflicts between running applications when working on my iPad, and I won’t have to deal with Spaces.

Maybe I've found the solution

So the bottom line is, you do not go to a file on your Mac or an off-site server and get it to your iPad and work with it in an iPad App.  Rather you go to a file on your Mac, and open it on your Mac and work with it in a program on your Mac, doing all of this while looking at your iPad.  You don’t need an App on the iPad which is capable of opening and reading and writing to a file stored on your Mac.  Rather, working from your iPad, you open the file which is stored on your Mac and work with it in the program that you would ordinarily use to work on the file on your Mac.

GoToMyPC on the iPad has a drop-down menu at the top of the screen which allows you to close the App on your iPad,  use arrow keys overlaid on the screen, use the iPad keyboard customized to provide the other Apple keys such as Control, Alt, Option, Escape, etc., set your preferences, and help.

This seemed to maybe be the solution I was looking for to be able to backup my files to an off-site server and be able to work with my files while I was away from my laptop but still had my iPad with me.

Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for the iPad

James Kendrick has a blog called "Mobile News" on ZDNet.

On April 22, he reviewed a keyboard for the iPad that he called, "the best I’ve tried so far."  It is the Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover , which combines the Apple Smart Cover with a full keyboard.  It works with the iPad 2 and the New iPad, but not the first iPad, and costs $99.


You can read his full report here:  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-news/hands-on-with-the-logitech-ultrathin-keyboard-cover-video/7567?tag=nl.e539 

When wearing polarized sunglasses, all iPads go black in Portrait mode. Other displays go black in Landscape mode. 

This is dicussed in a blog posting April 6 by Jason D. Grady, which you can see here: ZDNet Apple Blog

Sending an email to a group from an iPad

The way you send an email to a group of people from an iDevice is not that obvious. I tried a lot of different ways that didn't work. I'll describe here the way I found to do it that does work.

 Create a text document with nothing but the email addresses separated by commas and nothing else.

It should look something like this:  person1@email.com,person2@email.com,person3@email.com

 Copy the text and paste it into the To: box.

When you leave the box, it will say "1 recipient".  But if you save the email as a draft and come back to it, it will say the correct number of recipients, and you can "click" or touch the description and the list of the recipients will appear as separate buttons as you would expect they should.

Blogging Apps for the iPad

If I'm going to get serious about blogging once again, I would like to have a way to do it while on my iPad.  Having my iPad nearby is often more convenient than getting on my laptop.

There were surprisingly few apps available for the iPad.  I saw Blogger, written specifically for this blog site, but it is only written for the iPhone or iPod Touch at this time.

I only saw three which seemed worth considering:

• BloggerPlus - $2.99
• Blogsy - $4.99
• BlogDocs - $1.99

Since none of them are free, I'll make a decision once I see if I'm really going to be doing this.