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Monthly Archives: April 2011

Scan and directly Edit Text with OCR

“You mean all this time I didn’t have to retype my document?”

Correct.

OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, which most scanners on the market today have built right in to the software take a document that has text on it and converts it to editable text in Microsoft Word or RTF programs like notepad.

It is usually just the click of a button and then a scan option.  It means going from here.

…to here:

 
 

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iPad3, 4 and beyond predictions (requests)

I love my iPad2.  That said, I have a few ideas for the developers.  So listen up.

Here we go:

  • Thinner and Lighter – most obviously
  • Screen completely to the edges – I expect
  • Unlimited battery life (I can see this not being an issue one day.  What is going on with wireless energy transfer anyway? Read more here and here) or built-in extendable plug
  • Unlimited hard-drive space (I bet one day in the near future we will laugh at the days ‘when people used to run out of space on their drives’.  The notion of Cloud Computing is taking us leaps and bounds, but it is still in its infancy)
  • Super-flipping fast because of terabytes and more of RAM and super wicked processors
  • Two flashes built-in on the front and the back
  • Magnetic electric cord – Macbooks have them.  Why don’t the iPods, iPads, and iPhones?
  • Ability to make phone calls with it – Hey! We thought phones were just getting smaller, but since maybe you only want to carry around the one device for that moment, why not?
  • Biometric or fingerprint scans to turn the devices on or login – Other computers are doing this, why isn’t Apple?
  • Water Proof
  • USB slots.  We all want them.  Give em to us?  Or is there a screaming new attachment slot that is better?  Actually, why not magnetic USB?  We can do it with the power cord.  Let’s do it with the USB or whatever we want to call the Magnetic Universal Connecting Cord (MUCC – Trademark Thomas Adam Johnson 2011 – hehe)
  • Auto-focus on the cameras and possibly even built-in OCR
  • The incorporation of Adobe with Apple – Like WTF? (Why the Face? am I not allowed to view Flash content on my iPad without serious tweaks?  let’s get out schnizzle together and make it work for the peeps)

I should work for Apple, but then the new device would be called the iTom.  Yeah!

Some other ideas I read about were a stylus pen attachment and a holographic, interactive imagery (think Star Wars).

 

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iPad2 best apps

I bought my iPad2 the other day. I am wowed by it constantly. I am using it for:

  • fitness
  • an alarm clock
  • reading books
  • social networking
  • taking and editing video
  • weather forcasts
  • stocks
  • syncing and updating my calendar on the go
  • translating
  • so much more

Already, two teachers today mentioned they wanted one as well and then they asked me the question:

“What apps should I get for it?”

So, here’s my initial list:

  • Pages -$9.99 Mac Word Processing
  • Numbers -$9.99 Mac Spreadsheet
  • Keynote -$9.99 Mac PowerPoint
  • iMovie – $4.99 Mac Video Editing
  • Calendars – $6.99 Sync Google Calendar – Pocket InformantHD – $14.99 seems like a more slick app actually
  • Quickoffice – $14.99 (on sale) Simple Office Quite
  • Kobo – FREE Document Reader
  • iTranslate – FREE Translator
  • Fitness – FREE Fitness Organizer
  • iHome+Sleep – FREE Alarm Clock plays music, shows weather, more
  • Skype – FREE Video Conferencing
  • Friendly – FREE Facebook App
  • iLoadLite – FREE Uploading videos to Facebook
  • pdf-Notes – FREE PDF Reader
  • Tweetdeck – FREE Twitter Organizer
  • Bloomberg – FREE Stock Market Reader – Market Scan – Stock Technical Analysis $19.99 a good addition for serious users
  • Scan – FREE QR Code Scanner
  • TED – FREE Link to TED talks
  • Shazaam – FREE Program to Recognize music
  • Adobe Photoshop Express – FREE Program to crop and edit photos
  • Adobe Ideas – FREE Drawing Program
  • IMDB – FREE Link to International Movie Database
  • Ebay – FREE Link to Ebay
  • Flipboard – FREE Social Media Organizer
  • Accuweather – FREE Weather Forcasts
  • Social Stats – FREE Quick Statistics of Country Populations
  • Photobucket – FREE
  • Transport Maps – FREE
  • Compass – FREE
  • Calculator Pro – FREE
  • Dictionary – FREE

I don’t play games, so ask your students which are the best ones out there.

Two recommendations to me:

  • Whatsapp $.99 Chatting
  • Viber FREE phone calls
 

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