The following guest post is from CofC Math Department’s Stephane Lafortune. As hinted at in the post, his research is highly technical; his most recent work through the NSF is RUI: Stability analysis for soliton solutions of the Vortex Filament Equation and beyond
I recently acquired an iPad and then was awarded an Ungrant for the purchase of a Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard and the Tex Writer app to perform latex on the iPad.
Latex (sometimes pronounced la-tek) is a program used to write and typeset technical articles. The app enables me to use Latex on the iPad. More precisely, it works in conjunction with Dropbox. Dropbox is a free service on the internet that lets you bring your photos, documents, and videos anywhere and share them easily. When I open a latex file from Dropbox, the Tex Writer app take over and I am able to edit and compile the file as if I was doing this from an ordinary computer.
The keyboard enables me to provide a good protective case and at the same time it provides me with a stand on which the iPad sits at an angle perfect for typing. See the accompanying photos.
All in all, these two purchases enable me to use the iPad as my laptop when traveling to conferences. In the past, I travelled to conferences with a laptop that I would use simply to check my email, edit my files and give my presentation. I now have a much lighter iPad that can do all those things.