A few weeks with the iPad - a traveler's tale

I mentioned that in my first post - but there is a webservice called dropdav.
DropDAV - access your Dropbox via the WebDAV standard
This will allow you to use mobile iwork with dropbox. Either that or use mobileme idisk or iwork.com. I like keeping stuff on dropbox so I went with dropdav.

Here's another +1 for making an Airport Express part of your travel gear. Would you believe my $300/night room in the waterside Tampa Marriott doesn't have WiFi in the rooms?!!! I couldn't believe it. Anyway - it prompted me to do something I had been meaning to anyway - which was head to the Apple store and pick up an AE. Fantastic. Now I'm sitting here on the hotel bed - with both iPads (just got the work iPad 2 today ) and my MBP connected and working beautifully. Highly recommended.

BrianLachoreVPI said:

Here's another +1 for making an Airport Express part of your travel gear. Would you believe my $300/night room in the waterside Tampa Marriott doesn't have WiFi in the rooms?!!! I couldn't believe it. Anyway - it prompted me to do something I had been meaning to anyway - which was head to the Apple store and pick up an AE. Fantastic. Now I'm sitting here on the hotel bed - with both iPads (just got the work iPad 2 today ) and my MBP connected and working beautifully. Highly recommended.

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The only way to travel! Plus you don't get that annoying startup page every 24 hours on every single device (usually).

Brian, do you have any kind of security running on your iPad when connected via your Airport Express? My only concern when you use a setup like that is that other rooms in the area can jump on your impromptu network and see your data. Also did you have to configure the AE on your MBP to be able to use it with your iPads or were you able to plug it in and go?

Ivan, one more question about DropDAV. How secure is the information during the transfer? I like to keep daily figures on a worksheet in Excel and would love to be able to transfer those between the iPad and the Mac using Dropbox/DropboxDAV, but I'm hesitant to put another link in the chain that could compromise security

Yep, I know I'm being paranoid;D, but thanks for the information

class77 said:

Brian, do you have any kind of security running on your iPad when connected via your Airport Express? My only concern when you use a setup like that is that other rooms in the area can jump on your impromptu network and see your data.

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Yes - I set the AE up for WPA2.

BrianLachoreVPI said:

Yes - I set the AE up for WPA2.

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So you had to set the AE up using the MBP before you could use it with the iPad? I wonder if you could do it at home, but if you did, it might not work with the hotel's system.

class77 said:

So you had to set the AE up using the MBP before you could use it with the iPad? I wonder if you could do it at home, but if you did, it might not work with the hotel's system.

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Yes - I have my MBP with me and set it up using Airport Utility. I think it would probably work if you set it up at home but of course - there's always that chance you would need to tweak something which you couldn't do just from the iPad (yet) - which is the point Ivan made earlier.

It's great though. Definitely a part of my travel kit from now on.

If you go to the Dropdav site - you do see that they transfer files to their servers - so that they can serve it to you. It is another chain but if the material is sensitive you probably shouldn't have it on dropbox anyway. See the FAQ at the bottom of the dropdav webpage. Everything is encrypted but you are using another web service.

Again you could go with iwork.com or sign up for mobileme to get webdav.

My Airport Express is setup with WPA2 and MAC filtering so it should be pretty secure.

I mentioned that I didn't use it much because I got a Mifi. I should also mention that I was using a Cradlepoint battery powered router before I got the Mifi. This may be another choice for those wanting to carry only an iPad - as the configuration is web based.
This is their portable router
Wireless N Portable Router (CTR35) | Cradlepoint Technology
This is the battery operated one I have - but it doesn't have a WAN/Ethernet interface so it is only good for USB modems and such.
PHS300 Personal WiFi Hotspot - 3G/4G | Cradlepoint Technology

I've had Mobile Me for a couple of years, but I didn't like how iDisk worked. Dropbox was the easiest and that's what I gravitated to, but I need to research iWork.com and webDAV. Not really up on how they work or how I could use them.

Thanks for all your help. class77

Excellent post!

File Management Update

It seems that dropdav is now requiring $5/month from all users. That is unfortunate - but I found a workaround. The problem I was having is that if you try to initiate anything from the iWork apps themselves - the iWork Apps are looking for a webdav client. The good news is that the client for Dropbox now has a "Open In" option -> it is that box/right arrow on the top right if you have a document open.

The app version is 1.4.1 -> this may have been there all along but when I was playing around I was trying to get to my presentation directly from Keynote.

In Dropbox - To save a file offline -> mark it as a favorite. Once you open that file in another application - it looks like the file is now in the App. The down side is you loose the cloud aspect when using your files this way with the iWork suite. You'd have to send it back to yourself somehow if you edited anything with an iWork tool. (At least from what I can tell - if someone has a workaround I'd love to hear it.)

Also - if anyone has any comments on iDisk I would like to hear about it as well. I am going to sign up for the free trial of MobileMe just to check it out.

It seems some apps allow direct access to your cloud file manager. I bought documents to go premium and it has integration to dropbox, sugarsync, googldocs, idisk, and box.net -> but the compatibility isn't as good as Keynote. (Some of my bullets are showing up as the letter n - for example)

Ultimately - I would like to find a good workflow for keeping my data on something like Dropbox and at least viewing it, with minor editing in the iWork suite - but I haven't found anything great yet.

I use iDisk - as a supplement to Dropbox - and largely because I can still access it here at work. (I can't get to Dropbox) On the weekends I've been doing research for a technical paper - and iDisk helps me keep everything where I can get to it from any of my computers. iDisk/Dropbox and Evernote are key parts of that equation, as is Zotero, which also syncs documents.