January must be "Let's put Office on the iPad" month, unless you are Microsoft. Last week I wrote about CloudOn, a new iPad app that lets you use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel on your iPad. Well, at risk of sounding like a broken record, OnLive Desktop hit the App Store this week and it lets you use full Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel on your iPad.Both of these apps have a full Windows experience

 In my day job I teach music students how to use music notation software to create professional quality sheet music. We use the two leading software packages for notation, Finale and Sibelius. These two apps make it possible to notate virtually any musical symbol that one can imagine. Until now there has not been a significant musical notation creation app for the iPad. I am pleased to announce

UPDATE: And...It is back. (1/6/12)UPDATE: Too bad, CloudOn has already been removed from the App Store. According to their site, they have sold out. An interesting development happened today in the world of productivity apps for the iPad. A new competitor arose in the Microsoft Office space, and it was not Microsoft. A company called CloudOn has arrived on the App Store with a free app for iPad.

Last summer I redesigned my websites. With the arrival of iCloud came the disappearance of MobileMe hosted websites. I chose to replace iWeb with RapidWeaver, which I described in a post last July. When I have some free time, like the time this past week for the holiday, I enjoy enhancing my sites. This past week I chose to change the look of Life Tips Blog. I have wanted a site that automatically

I have enjoyed using Skitch for some time, it is an easy to use screenshot tool with simple annotations. I mentioned awhile back that it was acquired by Evernote and is now free. Well, now it is an iPad app and is available for free through the App Store. It sports the same easy to use features as its Mac counterpart.Import from camera roll, websites, or make blank diagrams from scratch.Use annotation

Head over to David Spark's blog MacSparky and read about how to use iThoughts on your iPhone to MindMap with your voice via Siri. http://www.macsparky.com/blog/2011/12/16/mind-map-with-your-voice.html

iCal has had some major improvements in Lion and iOS 5 (yes, I know you don't like the leather look). One area that has gotten better is entering new events with natural language. Before Lion, I had started to use a great little app called QuickCal to enter events with natural language. Even with Lion's improvements I think that I will still use QuickCal for the following reasons:System-Wide Access.

Hey Lion users, there is a new app out called Yoink, which promises to streamline your drag-and-drop in Lion. I have not played with it yet but will get back with you on what I think. Until then check out this short post on why you may want Yoink.

When I first got my iPad, over a year ago, I was excited to switch to the iOS version of Keynote so that I could leave my MacBook behind and instead teach using my iPad. For the most part, Keynote on the iPad served me well; however; there were some glaring omissions in version one.No presenter notesNo embedded audio examplesI am pleased to say that these two areas have been addressed in the most recent

Skitch has been around for a while and is an easy-to-use screen capture tool. It excels at:Quick screen shot capture (full screen and crosshair)Snapping web pagesUse of framesPerhaps its greatest feature is its ability to markup and edit your screenshots with text, arrows, and shapes. It has a style all of its own and is a joy to use for creating quick and fun images. Skitch has been available in a