Edit a master spreadsheet remotely with a Droid over Bluetooth?

January 13, 2011 6:54 AM

What's the best way to edit a spreadsheet on my PC from across the room, using a Droid over Bluetooth (not WiFi)?

I am a teacher and I would like to circulate around the room and grade student work on my Android phone--and have the grades automatically update my gradebook spreadsheet. Complications:

1.) The computer is on a wired network that I cannot access with my phone, but I can access it through Bluetooth.

2.) My gradebook spreadsheet is very large and has a lot of customized formulas and macros which I am afraid will not be retained if I edit/save the spreadhseet directly on my Droid.

Ideas I'm batting around:
- Is there a VNC / Remote desktop app that will work over Bluetooth? This would probably be the simplest way but I haven't had much luck finding something. (I have found mouse/keyboard and media remotes, but nothing that allows me to see my desktop's screen remotely)

- Use a simplified spreadsheet for data entry on the droid and sync it through dropbox / FTP / Google Docs / something. Then use this spreadsheet as a data source for the appropriate cells in my master gradebook. If this is the best option, I could use some suggestions on the logistics to make the it as seamless and automated as possible.

(Ideally I'd like the master spreadsheet and the smaller 'data entry' spreadsheet to sync both ways -- so that student names and assignments are automatically updated on the android, and remotely entered grades are automatically updated in the master spreadsheet)

- Other ideas?

Thanks

posted by Alabaster to computers & internet (3 answers total)

Yes, there are vnc apps for droid that work over bluetooth, allegedly...I've never tried. I do VNC over 3g and wifi all the time w/ my GalaxyS.

Alternatively, you can just VNC over wireless data. Here's the VNC app I use:
PocketCloud

I have also used this one with success, Android VNC Viewer

If you don't use AppBrain, you need to. Here's the search results for VNC, and here they are for RDP.

Here's a video I found about android VNC over BT, not sure if it would work for all phones, video is for a G1.

I can't especially imagine that what you're trying to do will be more convenient than just nifty, but it is what it is. The Dolphin browser does well with GoogleDocs on my Galaxy S, for what it's worth.
posted by TomMelee at 7:38 AM on January 13, 2011

Google Docs has a pretty decent mobile interface, and allows you to import XLS files and export spreadsheets as XLS. (You didn't say what you're using, but it also supports OpenOffice's ods format.)

That won't auto-sync with a file on your desktop, although supposedly Syncplicity can do GDocs-to-computer syncing.
posted by Plutor at 7:59 AM on January 13, 2011

If you can install a program on the computer, you can use LogMeIn. It's not free, but it will get around any and all firewalls.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:11 AM on January 13, 2011