iPads and PDFs Part II

Quick post before bed: decided to break down and purchase GoodReader for iPad ($4.99). The main reason – I read a lot of PDFs that are double-page spreads. When I would enlarge the page so I could read one page at a time, iBooks would reshrink the page when I turned to the next. Aargh! GoodReader handles that, and transfers files via USB and wifi. Plus it has a ton of neat features which I will get to later.

Life with an iPad: pdfs

I think I’m back to Tech Blogging… With my new gig coming up as the first Educational Technologist at MJBHA, combined with my vast audience of a dozen Twitter and Google+ followers (pretty much the same crowd), someone might actually read one of these.  ‘אם ירצה ה.

One of the main reasons I bought an iPad 2 was to load pdf documents on to it – I was printing out way too many articles on paper, and as I was packing up the house to declutter it, I had to decide when and whether I was ever going to get to that huge stack of printouts. (The answer – No, never.)

So I have stuck a toe into the waters of pdf readers for iPad. (I was not yet interested in those apps that allow you to annotate pdfs. Maybe later. All I wanted was a non-cumbersome reader.)

Observation #1 – Adobe doesn’t make a reader for the iPad? What the heck?!

Observation #2 – Paying for an app does not always equal getting a superior product. I have wasted too much on $1.99 apps that were useless, or no better than the free stuff out there. So I am ISO quality freebies, because the iPad itself was not chump change. It’s like buying a car and not being able to afford gas.

My recommendation so far is a combo of two products:

FileApp – is great for getting the files off your computer and on to you iPad without using iTunes. I find going through iTunes to be a royal pain. FileApp allows various methods of file transfer, including via usb and most importantly, WiFi. You link your computer to the app and drag files into a folder, and just like on Star Trek, they rematerialize on your iPad. However, I have found its file-reading abilities to be sub-par. It is very slow to respond to touch and to changing orientation. Frustrating. But once the file is transferred onto the iPad, FileApp is kind enough to offer to open it in any of your pdf readers.

iBooks – Who’d a thunk it? The built-in app for iPad is actually pretty good. Not perfect. But it gets out of the way and lets me read.

The Rabbis on Megillat Esther

Achashverosh
The Midrash states that Achashverosh wanted to keep his population, especially the most powerful members of it, including the army, its officers and all the princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, etc., happy. For, the Midrash tells us, Achashverosh was not of “royal blood.” Rather, he came to power through a revolution. Therefore, he was never totally sure of himself in his role as King.

So according to the first chapter of Esther, how does Achashverosh go about making everyone happy?

Esther
From the story, does Esther sound like she’s 40? Believe it or not, there are other opinions that she was 75 or even 80!
Furthermore, The Talmud says another very strange thing about Esther:
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha said, “Esther was called Hadassah, which means myrtle leaf,  because her skin was green-ish in color, but she was given a touch of Divine Grace, which made her beautiful to people.”

Would Achashverosh really want to marry an eighty-year old green woman?
What do you think the rabbis were trying to teach us with these weird stories?

Haman
What did Amalek do to the Jews? Read about it (Verses 8-16)
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/9878/jewish/Chapter-17.htm
Why is Haman considered to be Amalek? See the story in the Book of Samuel, especially verse 8. (Who was supposed to kill the King of Amalek? File that information away for a later question!)
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15844
Now look at how Haman is referred to  in Chapter 3, Verse 1.
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15844

Mordechai
Who is Moredchai descended from? (This is where you unfile that piece of information from Haman!) Why is fitting that the fight in the Book of Esther is between Mordechai and Haman?

Vashti
Rashi (Chapter 1 v. 19)  “that Vashti shall not come before King Achashverosh” – therefore he killed her.
Why did Rashi think she was killed (and not just sent away)? Look at Chapter 2, verses 1-4.
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16475/jewish/Chapter-2.htm

Technology and Torah Study = eHoliness?

I am at YU’s Model UN with 500 high school kids in Stamford CT. Limited internet access. Trying to post from phone. Experiment successful?

UPDATE: Apparently not. This post was saved as a draft, even though I thought I published it. Oh well. I’ve got a computer for a little bit (I didn’t get back to my hotel room last night until 1:15 AM)

Torah Study has always adapted to changes in society and technology. Until the redaction of the Mishnah in the early 3rd century, Torah study consisted of memorizing the Oral Law. Once the Mishnah was put together (I’m not going to get into the scholarly debate of whether it was actually written down then) the goal of Torah study shifted from rote memorization to analysis of the Mishnah. This led to the creation of the Talmud. At some point the switch-over from scroll to codex (bound-book) allowed people to access material faster. (If you haven’t seen the very amusing video about the Medieval Book Support Desk, treat yourself.)

Once people could get to dimly-recalled information by flipping through a book, the book took center stage, freeing up scholars from having to retain the bulk of their knowledge in their heads and using the written material as a last resort. This led to a period of great creativity. Once the printing press became available (and Jews were very fast to jump on that bandwagon) scholars no longer had to copy their own texts. This freed up time to study many more books which were previously unobtainable. The invention of offset printing in the 20th ce. gave the average bar mitzvah boy a library that would rival that of a rosh yeshiva in a previous generation.

The digitization of rabbinic literature that has taken place in the last 25 years (especially the Bar Ilan Database) has given people access to material that they never knew existed. Information formerly tucked away in hidden nooks or obscure publications is now findable at the click of a mouse.

My point (I know it took me a long time to get there) is that every technological advance has in some ways democratized Torah study by making it available to more people, and has encouraged new paths of Torah study and greater scholarship. So fear not the iPhone revolution. The fact that I can listen to an advanced Daf Yomi shiur on my Droid is just another step in the evolution of Torah Study. (Of course, Orthodox Jews will probably always need paper-based books for Shabbat; see the recent piece in The Atlantic.)

Taking one for the TeamBoard

I am gently dipping my toe back into the piranha-infested blog waters.

I stopped posting on this blog because no one was reading it; certainly not anyone at work, and my co-workers were my target audience.

You know what they say: You can lead a teacher to technology, but when you beat them over the head with a keyboard because they never seem to listen to you, they say you have a problem. I mean, is that fair?

Bu they just installed a TeamBoard in my room and I am as excited as a kid who just got a new pair of socks and some chocolate coins for Chanukah.

Next post: What the hell is a TeamBoard?

Nasty Adware

My wife got panicked by a phony virus warning and clicked on it and installed a nasty piece of adware that keeps popping up with bogus warnings of horrible Trojans and viruses. Its purpose was to con us into buying their product, Personal AV.

If you have an anti-virus program on your computer (and if you don’t, you’re asking for trouble) then the only warnings that should be popping up are from that program, not from “Windows.” If you get such a message, just close your browser fast, and stop going to sites that have these tricky programs.

What made the program particularly nasty was that although the windows had buttons that said “Close” and the program folder in the Start menu had an “Uninstall” command, they  were bogus. In fact, the program installs itself in such a way that you cannot remove it manually. And these stupid “warnings” were popping up every few seconds!

More frustrating, it slipped right past Norton Internet Security. Boo!

A Google search revealed what I was dealing with, and also the program that helped root it out:
MalwareBytes (Get a free version here). Once downloaded, click on it to install and follow the directions. Be aware that the Quick Scan took over an hour.

The difference between the free version and the commercial version is that the commercial version has real-time updates and works in the background, while the free version only works when you click on it and is not monitoring your system constantly.

Finding Freeware / Shareware

Where do I find much of the stuff I post here?

The Freeware Genius Blog

And Lifehacker.

Check them both out. Frequently.

Find Free Software Alernatives

The site AlternativeTo gives you freeware alternatives to commercial software packages.

Need a word-processor but don’t want to shell out for Microsoft Word? Need a free version of  Photoshop? Search by applications, types, etc.

Hebrew Spell Checking for Firefox

Sorry for the lack of posts; the baby is more time-consuming than I imagined.

Useful for e-mails and Google docs.

Click here