I’ve been chipping away at David Sparks’ most excellent book, iPad at Work, and thoroughly enjoying it. It’s so chock full of useful information, about how to use an iPad to get stuff done, that I’m moving slower than with most books.
Sometimes I skip around when I have a problem that needs immediate solving. For instance, just now I was trying to figure out how to get OmniOutliner to work with Dropbox. The iPad version of OmniOutliner doesn’t seem to hook into DropBox.
That’s strange, I thought to myself. I know David uses OmniOutliner and Dropbox, so he must have figured out a way to make this happen. I searched his book (I have the Apple iBook version) for “omnioutliner” and BINGO! There on page 98 is the explanation I was looking for: use a service called DropDAV (since OmniOutliner on the iPad supports WebDAV servers) which costs $5 per month.
Ordinarily I would be hesitant to pay $5 for a service that I don’t really know much about. But David Sparks said “Mixing Dropbox with WebDAV is something like mixing peanut butter with chocolate. Everything just gets better.” That simple little passage of text tells me that he vetted this process carefully and found it indispensable. That’s all I need to know.
I signed up for the free 14 day trial of DropDAV and I’m sure I’ll keep using it. Creating a seamless workflow between my iPad and my regular computers is mission critical. Not having to figure out the optimal workflow (because David has figured it out for me) is priceless.
There are lots of books out there that will tell you about the iPad’s features, but there’s only one that will help you figure out quickly how to get work done in the most efficient way possible, and at the lowest cost. iPad at Work is for anyone who has an iPad and uses it to do any kind of work, but if you’re a lawyer you should know that David Sparks is too. His workflow is pretty intricate, so if he can use the iPad to do his work then you’d be wise to pay attention to his workflow recommendations.
David’s book is available at Amazon and other fine booksellers. If you have an iPad and you want to get more out of it get a copy of David’s book.
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