Tracy wants to know how her husband can do voice dictation on his Mac. Leo says to go to the System Preferences pane for keyboard settings and enable voice dictation on the Dictation tab. Then he can tap the function key twice on his iMac, and that will trigger voice dictation. It's pretty accurate. It won't be perfect, but it'll be 80% there. He can even do voice editing.
Benny wants to be able to work on his documents no matter where he's at. How can he set that up? Leo says that Benny's already ahead of the game using Gmail. That also means he has access to Google Docs. He can also check everything from his laptop on his mobile phone and desktop.
Deborah wants needs a database and wants to be able to have a limited number of people in the company to share it. Microsoft Office can do it, but it usually uses a locally run Exchange server.
Leo suggests looking at this tech note from community.office365.com. Leo suggests creating a spreadsheet and then see if it can break. Leo did it with Google Docs and they got 150 current users before it started to refuse connections. So Google Docs would work as well.
Stacey wants to know if a Chromebook can run Microsoft Office functions. Leo says that it can run Google Docs, but it won't run Windows apps like Office. Google Docs has a spreadsheet program that's almost as good as Excel, though. She's also having trouble using the trackpad. Leo says to just buy a mouse, plug it in via USB, and it'll be just like a desktop.
Bob would like to create a master drive that he can put in a safe deposit box that has all his private information on it. Leo says that's a good idea, but he doesn't really have to go to that extreme. One option is Google Docs, which would be sharable to his attorney.
Paul's business uses iPads for his employees and he needs an app to enter data in the field. Leo says that Filemaker has a great app called Filemaker Go that enables users to create custom data forms to enter and then sync to the desktop. He'll also need the desktop app as well. The chatroom says Google Docs will also do the job.
Pat has four macs in various locations and wants to know if they will all be synced with iCloud like DropBox does. Leo says yes and no. It will sync, but not via a folder. The key is all the same Macs running the same shared Apple ID. Can she go work on different macs simultaneously? Leo says that could be problematic. To do team operations, a good third party app is GitHub.
Earl has an old iMac and can't transfer his files to his new iMac. He wants to move the program from the old to the new, but he doesn't have any disks. Leo says that Microsoft Word for the Web, which is free, or Google Docs, would work great. He doesn't need new software. He can just backup his data with a USB key and then bring it to the new Mac and use Office for the Web or docs.google.com to open it.
Brad is a student and he's thinking about buying a Chromebook for college. Leo says it's a perfect option for a student. Many schools are using Google Docs now and he can log in to access his data no matter where he is. Leo likes the Acer C720. It's $200! But if he can wait, the second generation will be even better.
Steve has Google Drive but he doesn't think it's organized very well for backup. Leo says it's not ideal as a backup solution. It's more of a temporary repository. Steve is having problems syncing to it, because it just keeps creating multiple copies. Leo says he could turn on Versioning in Google Docs, so that may help.
