Originally Posted by Bw53

Oh really. Please tell me the proper accessory to open an excel spreadsheet from the USB drive. I'm waiting

USB transfer, whilst handy and useful is being overrun by a plethora of cloud based storage options. With these, a piece of cake! You could say USB is so 2010

Originally Posted by dhewson777

USB transfer, whilst handy and useful is being overrun by a plethora of cloud based storage options. With these, a piece of cake! You could say USB is so 2010

Again LOL. you can tell I'm not all caught up in the Apple religion. Set up iCloud what a joke. Where's everything. Oh you can't see it but it's there. Floating up there with Steve

Originally Posted by Bw53

Again LOL. you can tell I'm not all caught up in the Apple religion. Set up iCloud what a joke. Where's everything. Oh you can't see it but it's there. Floating up there with Steve

I don't touch iCloud. I'm talking more practical cloud storage like Dropbox, for example. No tie in with Apple whatsoever and cross format friendly.

Originally Posted by Bw53

LOL. is that what I ask? Even that way is a pain and it better be a very simple spreadsheet

Sorry, I meant to say copy it to your 1.44mb floppy diskette and open it in Lotus 123.

Originally Posted by USBill

Sorry, I meant to say copy it to your 1.44mb floppy diskette and open it in Lotus 123.

Great idea. I'll use my one button mouse while I'm at it

Originally Posted by dhewson777

I don't touch iCloud. I'm talking more practical cloud storage like Dropbox, for example. No tie in with Apple whatsoever and cross format friendly.

Actually I really like my iPad. It's great for reading and watching video, movies and even TV. The display is beautiful. The main reason I bought it. I'm getting used to the operating system but it still seems more difficult than it should be. It can't handle complex spreadsheets and drags down with large PDFs. But that's all okay I'll use it for what it does best.

Originally Posted by Bw53

Actually I really like my iPad. It's great for reading and watching video, movies and even TV. The display is beautiful. The main reason I bought it. I'm getting used to the operating system but it still seems more difficult than it should be. It can't handle complex spreadsheets and drags down with large PDFs. But that's all okay I'll use it for what it does best.

There are definite limitations in file management, but this in my opinion is great, it limits virus infections, offers better security for the individual using the device (normal people) who in most cases are clueless on how to copy and move files on a pc never mind a mobile device, using Dropbox is a great way to manage files from any platform to a mobile device, storing large amounts of data on an iPad is senseless, it was never designed to handle complex spread sheets due to screen size, although I have opened mine with no issues, as for PDF, I actually can do more with PDF management and editing at a lower cost than adobe acrobat on my ipad1, if someone sends me a doc in PDF , I can fill it in extract pages , add pages and even sign the doc or get a client to sign, with a newer iPad you can even scan a page and add it to an existing PDF document, I currently do 98% of all my business admin on the iPad.

i'd suggest an MBA would be the best bet. Highly portable and long battery life and you can hammer out long documents easier.
The return to school offer isn't bad either.

I am about to spring for an air over the next couple of months. I do have an iPad and the external keyboard and whilst it's good, I only use it for meeting notes I this respect.

iPad is great for so many things but as a sole item for student I would say a MacBook is a better bet.

Originally Posted by Bw53

Oh really. Please tell me the proper accessory to open an excel spreadsheet from the USB drive. I'm waiting

CloudFTP

The Archangel

The iPad is rather slow and limited to be your only option. It has its place (I'm using mine now), and love it for the size and "instant on", but it pales in comparison to anything more than a net book.