App World and Research

Research. That seems to be the story of my life lately, which is fine with me because I actually really like research! Tomorrow begins my journey into phase II of III in my PhD program. It feels good to actually feel like I am making some progress! Tomorrow begins the research courses for my dissertation. There are 4 classes and they end with the semester long comprehensive exam that moves me into phase III - actually conducting research for my dissertation. I am excited and terrified since I feel like I still really have no clue what I am doing. Hopefully, these next four classes will help me feel much more prepared for the dissertation phase. Guess I better nail down a topic, eh?

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because my good friend Cristi told me (and all of you!) about something that is going to make my research classes oh so much easier! She put a few apps for her new iPad on her blog a few weeks ago and one of them was called "Goodreader". It is an app for reading PDFs. Big deal, right? Well, since I read so many PDFs (research articles) I decided to give it a try because I really hate reading these on the computer, they aren't very easy to organize and I can't manipulate them at all.

Enter Goodreader. At first, it seemed pretty overwhelming BUT, after reading a few directions (silly, I know) I had it up and running and was uploading research articles and categorizing them. But the BEST part? I can highlight, make notes, free draw and all kinds of stuff IN the PDF!!!! I am in heaven. Seriously, it does not take much to excite me. Hellooooooo.............perfect for patterns too! You can even sync it with your Ravelry patterns in your library somehow but I haven't quite figured that part out yet.

I knew that I was going to have to be printing out a ton of articles for my research classes so that I could highlight on them and make notes. Now I don't have to waste one single sheet of paper for that!!!! I can do all of that in my iPad AND be able to carry all my articles and research (and knitting patterns) with me all the time! YAY!!!!

In addition to that, I also purchased "Pages", "Numbers" and "Keynote" from iTunes so that I can open and upload Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents to my iPad and work on them. These programs have some amazing capabilities and I have only scratched the surface. They are kind of pricey at $9.99 each but as much as I use these programs and travel around, I think it will be worth it.

I was using HD Notetaker (another pretty cool app) to take notes at meetings and such. I was doing this with a wireless keyboard or my iPad stylus. Now, I can type notes directly into a Word document though and don't have to do any converting and can also work on the same document on my computer.

All of this, in addition to my much coveted Kindle app, make my iPad WELL worth the money. I also uploaded Vavoova, which is an awesome app for creating your own zen/meditation music! It's only $2.99. My good friends Bob and Sandy (hockeymomknits) wrote that one. I couldn't even tell you where to begin with writing an app! More power too them!

So, do you have an iPad/iPhone? What kind of apps make your life easier?