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Posted by Tom S.
May 23, 2010 at 03:51 PM
quant wrote:
>why do you mention you are scientist?
>
>does your “scientific job” entails so much
>browsing that you find ipad useful? in my case, browsing (for research papers) takes
>usually 10-20 minutes, and then i spend a good week reading the download paper
>(math).
I mentioned it because Jim did. But, as you point out, there are special problems associated with the profession. You spend the rest of your week reading a paper that I would contend is more easily read on this device. That means it could be particularly useful to you.
Tom S.
Posted by jamesofford
May 25, 2010 at 02:17 PM
To answer quant; no I have no interest in browsing on the Ipad. I use a browser on my PC at work to do searches through Pubmed because that is where I have access to most of the journals that I read. As things go now, I might search for anywhere from a few minutes if I am looking for something specific, say a single paper, to longer if I am looking to try to find a large amount of literature. The papers that I find I usually download as PDF files. These I then store on my computer and print out to read.
What I would like to do is to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for proposals that I have written. I don’t need to carry around all of these, but I would like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller, hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.
Jim
Posted by quant
May 25, 2010 at 02:42 PM
that’s exactly what I already do, on Samsung Q1 Ultra with combination of pdf-xchange viewer/archivarius/UR where X61 tablet would be too big to use/carry around. The clear advantage of using Q1 over say ebook reader or ipad is full operating system, the same I use on X61, so that I can run the same apps with same setting etc ...
Jim wrote:
>To answer quant; no I have no interest in browsing on the Ipad. I use a browser on my PC at
>work to do searches through Pubmed because that is where I have access to most of the
>journals that I read. As things go now, I might search for anywhere from a few minutes if
>I am looking for something specific, say a single paper, to longer if I am looking to try
>to find a large amount of literature. The papers that I find I usually download as PDF
>files. These I then store on my computer and print out to read.
>What I would like to do is
>to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with
>me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and
>refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF
>files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are
>references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for
>proposals that I have written. I don’t need to carry around all of these, but I would
>like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would
>keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller,
>hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.
>
>Jim
Posted by Ken
May 25, 2010 at 03:17 PM
Jim wrote:
>What I would like to do is
>to be able to copy the PDF files over to a reader like the Ipad so that I can carry them with
>me, read them, and annotate them. This way I would have the papers that I need to read and
>refer to handy without carrying around a lot of paper. I currently have about 1600 PDF
>files on my computer. Of these there is a core that I refer to frequently. Some are
>references that I have used for papers that I have written, some are references for
>proposals that I have written. I don’t need to carry around all of these, but I would
>like to carry around the ones that I am trying to get through on a current basis. It would
>keep the amount of paper that I carry with me from place to place much smaller,
>hoperully my bag would be lighter, and my desk would be neater as well.
>
>Jim
Jim,
Have you considered Dropbox? You could have access to your PDF files on your PC and a device like the iPad, and Dropbox will keep them in sync.
—Ken
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 10, 2011 at 02:23 PM
Jim wrote:
>Greetings folks:
>Not exactly part of the mainstream discussions, but I am curious if
>anyone out there has bought an Ipad, and managed to integrate it into their
>information management workflow? I find the tablet formfactor quite intriguing,
>and have tried out the Ipad a couple of times in Apple stores.
>As I have mentioned
>before, I have a large number of PDF files that are integral to my work.
Now that some time has passed since this discussion, has any of you managed to come up with a satisfactory workflow involving a tablet (iPad or any other tablet) for the reading and annotating of PDFs (especially books and scientific journal articles)? There is obviously a lot of buzz right now about tablets and I’m wondering if anyone has managed to come up with an interesting workflow that involves the synchronisation of PDF files between a PC and a tablet, reading and annotating PDFs and possibly taking notes outside of the PDFs as well.
I have heard of people syncing their Macs with iPad using PadSynch, then using GoodReader to read and annotate, as well as using a stylus with Penultimate to take handwritten notes (though I imagine one can’t yet do both at the same time, as the last I heard iPad couldn’t do multitasking). I have around 1600 PDF files (mostly journal articles around 20-30 pages, but also some books with 100s of pages) and I have been dreaming of being able to at least read and annotate them on a tablet and synch them back with the desktop PC.
I have considered Kindle DX but apparently it’s still very cumbersome. So far I haven’t heard of any decent Android PDF annotating software. I did try GoodReader on my iPod Touch and I was very impressed, so iPad could be a good candidate, if it can indeed handle 1600 files (4-5 GB). The other interesting option is the new Dell Inspiron Duo (a hybrid netbook/tablet) that runs Windows 7, which of course could do everything I wanted it to do, but I’m reluctant to do the plunge until I actually see one and am convinced that the tablet mode can handle PDF reading and annotation. I’ve seen that some other pretty good looking Windows 7 tablets are coming out in the next few months, but some of these will cost multiples of what the iPad costs.
Anyway, I would be curious to know if anyone has managed to crack this and has been using a tablet for reading and annotating PDFs as part of their regular work. It seems to me that many of these tablets are positioned as consumer electronics, and generally very little thought seems to go into productivity software for business professionals and the education market.
doctorandus