Chemical Reaction Engineering Group

Working on a dissertation or any other major paper or article means lots of research, usually from lots of sources. Having remote means of research and remote ways of capturing information you might find inadvertently can be a tremendous help when you’re in the midst of a big paper or business project. Most of us find that we use our remote wireless devices to great advantage when they can help us capture ideas or information that might have been lost or forgotten had we waited until we returned to home or office to capture then. Here are some ways you can use your Iphone to help you research and capture information you find when you’re on the go.

1. Whiteboard Capture – This application allows you to capture the contents of a whiteboard screen easily and in high resolution, so it’s actually readable later. You’ll get a clean digital image every time. It’s a great way to capture classroom notes or assignment requirements.

2. Ishare – Allows you to share documents with other via a Virtual Private Network. Using a Pin, you can access and share documents. It’s useful for business people who travel and for groups working together on documents or research.

3. Dragon Dictation – Talk right to your phone to capture thoughts, ideas and other important information you might use in your work. Once you’ve finished dictating, you can save your dictation, email it or send it as a text message too. Want punctuation? Simply say “period” or other punctuation commands and they will be inserted. Whether you send the information to a colleague or just insert it into a paper you’re working on, having the ability to convert speech to text so easily and with such grammatical accuracy can save lots of time.

4. Aji Annotate PDF – This app allows you to mark up and annotate PDF documents. You can create bookmarks or even draw freeform with your fingers. This is a great way to edit documents or make notes as you read something while waiting in line or on a plane.

5. Googalyer – This web research tool an open-source, tabbed web browser with built-in note-taking, web-clipping, outlining and bibliographic tools. The idea is to consolidate these different aspects of web research into one application. This way you can have multiple research projects with all the relevant information kept in one place, without getting information from different projects mixed up. If you do a lot of research online, and want to be able to do it remotely, this is a good app.

New apps for the Iphone are constantly being developed, both by Apple and by other developers. As time goes on, there will be more and more open source, free applications you can download to your Iphone. Keep on the lookout for more good research and business tools. Using your Iphone to help keep track of your thoughts, ideas and research while you’re out and about is a great way to keep working on that most important project – even when you’re not supposed to be working.

This article was guess blog by my friend Phyllis Zerkle who blogs about how to choose among the best masters degree programs.