YOUR IPAD 2 AT WORK.

By Jason Rich. Publisher: Quepublishing.com. Price: £16.99

THE iPad is a fantastic way to fritter away your day. When I had one, all I did for the first couple of days was play the air hockey game. These days it’s more likely to be Angry Birds. Sad but true, I’m afraid.

Of course, most blokes who convince their wives or girlfriends to splash out on such an expense gift this Christmas will do so with the well-worn explanation: “It’ll come in really handy for work.”

But here’s the rub: with a little bit of training the iPad really can change the way you work for the better.

And that’s where this book comes in handy. It provides easy step-by-step instructions, plus hundreds of tips and strategies for incorporating Apple’s tablet device into your professional life whether that be something as straightforward as setting up your email accounts, creating a digital slideshow presentation or using it as a means to process credit card transactions.

Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy so, naturally, there’s a chapter discussing the best games (after all, every hard-working executive needs a way to let off steam, right?). There’s also a section dedicated to ebooks, although the author misses a trick here by not mentioning the superb freeware Calibre ebook convertor app which opens up a world of new literary possibilities for iPad owners.

There is also a handy chapter devoted to ways of keeping your iPad safe both from physical damage and theft plus some useful recommendations for accessories that will make you even more productive.

Illustrated throughout, this 400 page paperback is small enough to put in a briefcase or bag so it’s always available when you need to find an answer to an iPad problem.

BEGINNING OPENOFFICE CALC. By Jacek Artymiak. Publisher: Apress. Price: £31.49.

OPENOFFICE is a fantastic free office suite but, like it’s far more expensive rival Microsoft Office, most users only scratch the surface of what it can do.

Nowhere is that more true than in the suite’s spreadsheet application, Calc, for where many users fight shy of a full blown database plenty are prepared to dabble with a spreadsheet.

The key to making any spreadsheet work for you is a mastery of functions and formulas. Calc has a vast array of functions that can help you quickly analyse huge amounts of data or build interactive models that can run various scenarios - saving time and, more importantly, money.

If you want to work out when your mortgage will be paid off, compare prices on a new car purchase or balance your bank accounts you should be using Calc’s enormous computing power to your best advantage.

Beginning OpenOffice Calc starts with the basics - how to open and enter data - before progressing to formulas, functions, formatting, statistical analysis and working with financial models.

As you’ve probably guessed it’s not exactly light reading, and it's not exactly cheap at £31.49, but it is a great way to really get the best out of a very powerful application.