Notebook Software: Evernote, Part 2 of ?, Notebooks and organizing notebooks.

(This post is a continuation of a previous post http://www.techgeekandmore.com/2011/07/15/notebook-software-evernote-part-1-of/)

The reason to store something is that you might have a use for it later, and the reason to organize anything is so that we can use it later. Storage and organization are the two important features notebook software should focus on. To put it another way; What information am I looking to store and use later on? And, how can I best structure that information for quick and effective retrieval?

And while I don’t think you can think about one without the other I want to focus on the tools Evernote (Evernote.com (http://www NULL.evernote NULL.com)) gives you to organizing your information.

Evernote employs two methods of organization, the first being Notebooks. Notebooks are where your going to be storing your notes. I like to create my Notebooks around subject matter. This may mean different things to different people, and no two people are going to organize their notes in the same manner. For an example, a sales person might create a notebook for each of their clients, or they might organize by document type, or by project. A student my choose to organize his/her notes by subject, or by day entered in.

You might want to organize each of those Notebooks with a sub-Notebook, or a notebook within a notebook. In that case you can create what is called a Stacked Notebook. For an example: The student that has a notebook for each subject, might open up a Notebook in side their Science notebook for an upcoming project. Or for the sales person while each of their clients might get a different notebook, he might have a products stacked notebook with an individual notebook for all the products that he sells.

The choice is yours. Once the Notebook is created you can then add and create your notes to the appropriate notebook.

I use a few different notebook programs (OneNote, NoteCase, and Evernote), and to be honest I think that Evernote falls short on the stacked notebook feature. For one reason you can’t turn an existing notebook into a stacked notebook, you have to create a stacked notebook and add your existing notebooks to it. Second you aren’t allowed to create stacked notebook inside a stacked notebook. OneNote and NoteCase do a much better job with this feature, but that is for another post.

The second is with Tags and that is for next week.

Notebook Software: Evernote, Part 1 of ?

Sometimes I want to scream “Hey Microsoft, I don’t always have access to my PC.” Also I want to scream “Hey Google, I don’t always have access to the Internet.” I did this once in an old folks home and was asked to leave. This always seems to be my problem, (the PC and internet thing, not screaming in old folks homes) there are times where I don’t have access to my laptop, or it’s too much hassle to get it out, and for whatever reason I don’t always have access to the Internet. Mind you it is rarely at the same time. I’ll usually have one or the other.

That is why I really like applications such as Evernote (evernote.com) (I’m using it to write this article now). It’s a solid Notebook software (just like Microsoft OneNote) that keeps a copy of your notes on your PC and a copy in the cloud that can be accessed via a web app. Along with that I have several PCs, each can access the same web account, and synchronize the notes with each other. You can also access your notes on your Smart-phone, however I’m not as thrilled with using my Smart-phone (I use a Blackberry) with Evernote. I have to access the notes on the web, there is not local storage of files. This is a good feature to have in a pinch, but be warned the bigger the notebook the more bandwidth you’ll spend getting your notes.

Feature wise it’s pretty comparable with Microsoft OneNote and to Evernote’s credit they are continuously adding features to it. If you aren’t familiar with notebook software, the quick answer to “What is Notebook software?” is “Word processing software on Steroids”. All of the ones I’ve used all have basic Word processing capabilities, like formatting, plus some extras. For example creating Tables, and numbered and bulleted lists. Then you can use the Clip features, to capture Web pages, screen shots, and e-mails. In addition you can upload PDF files into Evernote. The captured items are then easily organized with in the software in different Notebooks that you create.

Oh yeah did I mention it’s free. You are limited to 60MB of data. If you need more and can afford $5 a month (or save $15 and pay $45 for the year) you can store up to Upload 1GB a month in notes. I found that the first month was the closest I came to reaching the 60MB of data, but I was uploading several PDF files at the time which took up a lot of Bandwidth.

Part 2 (LINK)

Software: Google+ App for Android–Battery Drain Issue

With the release of the (Invite Only) Google+ in the past couple of days, Google has been able to create a lot of Buzz (No pun intended to another one of the Google Projects). Google+ is the latest attempt to go head-to-head with Facebook.

Tonight’s post concerns the 1st issue I’ve run into while playing with Google+. I have an HTC Evo 4G that since I moved to an extended life battery (3.7V / 3500 mAh) lasts me 2 full days between charges. That was until I installed the Google+ App on my phone the other day (It was the only app that I had installed in the past 2 weeks), and suddenly my phone lasted 5 hours on a charge. So not realizing what was happening, I charged my phone, and again only 5 hours and I was out of charge again.

During the initial install, I didn’t make any changes, and installed using the default settings. So with the sudden and massive cut in battery life, I started digging and figured out the following

- There are 2 settings in the Google+ app that directly affect your battery life.

Once I made the following changes my phone’s battery life went back to what I was accustomed to.

1 – Open your Google+ App

2 – When you start your Google+ app, click on the Menu button on your phone. This will open the settings button. Click on settings

3 – Once you are in the settings section, scroll toward the bottom and Uncheck the “Instant Upload” choice. Once that is uncheck, click on the “Instant Upload Settings”…..

4 – This will open an additional Instant Upload Settings Options screen. On here scroll toward the bottom again, and click and put a check on “Battery Uploads” choice.

These changes so far have not had any affect on my ability to use the majority of the features in Google+. The only 2 things is that I now have to manually upload my pics to Google+ (Instant Upload setting) and I can only upload photos when the phone is plugged in and charging (Battery Uploads). Of course, you can always uncheck the Battery Uploads choice, upload your pictures, and then check it again. If you choose to only check the “Instant Upload” setting, you get some of your battery life back but not all. In my case, it was 1 full day + 6 hours (approx.).

Of course this is a new App, for a project that was just released and is still in early beta and changes we can all expect that Google will be making changes to fix issues.

Call Timer on BlackBerry Curve

If your like me, you like to know how much time you spend on a call after you end it. This is particularly useful for business people who need to know how much time they spend on a support call, etc for time logging purposes. Up until now, on Blackberry Curves, you have to navigate your way through the menus, go to call history, find the call you were just on, go to the menu again and show details… All to just see how much time you spent on the last call.

There is a new software update for Blackberry Curves that now show an active call timer on the screen during and after the call.

To update your Blackberry, go to www.blackberry.com (http://www NULL.blackberry NULL.com) and download the "Blackberry Desktop Manager" tool. Once you download and install, connect your Blackberry to your PC via the USB cable provided with your phone. If you have password protection on your phone, you will be prompted when running the software.

Choose "Application Loader" from the main menu and choose "Update Software". Proceed through the wizard to update your phone’s software (this can typically take anywhere from 5-30 minutes depending on how old your software is).

You should update your phone’s software at least once a month to apply any updates/fixes to your Blackberry. This increases performance, reliability, and sometimes you’ll see new features here & there..

Enjoy…

Software: Loudtalks Push to talk (For pc’s and Windows Mobile)

Loudtalks (LINK: http://loudtalks.com/products_loudtalks_lite/ (http://loudtalks NULL.com/products_loudtalks_lite/)) is a free push-to-talk for Windows Mobile. It utilizes Wi-Fi or your data connection and works between mobile operators and cross borders.
Unlike some of alternatives the communication is real-time and direct (peer-to-peer). Your messages are never stored to the server. There is a free Windows PC client software too so you can talk mobile to mobile, PC to mobile or PC to PC.
Features:

Push-to-talk
Contact list with online status
Voice history
Sound notifications
Works over Wi-Fi, 3G, EDGE or GPRS
Compatible with Windows Mobile 5.0 / 6.0 and on the PC side Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Linux using WINE

Software: Must Have Software….Free PT1

The advantage of computers these days is that when someone comes up with a Great idea, then 1000 others copy and release a product that can do basically the same functions as the original. That gives the average user a choice. The same way that in your car, you do NOT need to keep the factory radio, or at the Pharmacy you can generic over name brand medications, computer software has its own “alternative” choices to virtually all software. Of course not all alternatives are good alternatives, today we will cover some of the good ones.

WinDirStat ( http://windirstat.info/ (http://windirstat NULL.info/) )

WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows. It allows you to see how much space each file is taking up and see what files are eating up your hard drive space. It can do this either via size-ordered directory view, or as a color coded treemap.

As soon as you find the files that are taking up to much space, you can remove them with the built-in cleanup operations. This is like looking at your hard drive via the My Computer icon on your pc, except for the fact that you get way more detail here.

Foxit PDF Reader ( http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ (http://www NULL.foxitsoftware NULL.com/pdf/reader/) )

Everyone is familiar with either the term PDF or with the name Adobe Reader, which is the program designed by Adobe for PDF. The Adobe program is the most common, because it is what 95% of sites that require you to view or download PDF point you to. However, the Adobe Acrobat program is not the only choice out there. A much better choice would be the Foxit PDF reader. What are the main differences with Foxit vs… Adobe.

- Foxit starts almost at an instant. Adobe is a slow annoying wait of 2 to 5 minutes depending on the age of your pc, where all you will do is watch the Adobe “Splash” (Opening) screen load.

- Adobe takes up a considerable more hard drive and memory than Foxit.

- On older systems that is something especially important to consider.

**Notes on installing Foxit

I would uninstall Adobe Acrobat 1st (all copies – as some people will find when they go to add / remove programs they will have Acrobat v4 and Acrobat v5, and sometimes even more) prior to installing Foxit, as Acrobat will keep fighting to be your default PDF program and continue to try and run. If were replacing it, then lets get rid of the old.
During the Foxit install you may see a prompted for a toolbar install (as of now its for the Ask.com or EBay toolbars), just make sure you uncheck the box that says “Do you want to install any toolbar, you just don’t need them.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware ( http://malwarebytes.org/ (http://malwarebytes NULL.org/) )

Eventually all users of a PC will get some form of an infection (Virus, Trojan, Worm), no matter how careful they are. Its like getting a cold, even if you take your Vitamin C and cover up and do all those things mom said to do growing up, you will get a cold eventually.

For all the programs that I’ve used for my own use and to recover infected systems for clients, Malwarebytes has been the most able to get all the germs out of a pc.

(From the Malwarebytes website) Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is an anti-malware application that can thoroughly remove even the most advanced malware. It includes a number of features, including a built in protection monitor that blocks malicious processes before they even start.

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