Virtual Notebooks: Evernote

Today's virtual notebook is Evernote. This is the last virtual notebook I will cover so you can sleep well knowing that we will be on to a new subject soon. (I like to keep some posts grouped by subject so that you can compare them a little more easily.) To use Evernote, you will need an account. You don't have to download the program if you want to just use it online. However, downloading the program and using it online is the best way to get the most out of what Evernote has to offer.

Basic Concept: Evernote merges the "live" concept of document creation with the "native" concept. That means that Evernote is installed on your hard drive and can be used offline. When online, the program syncs with your online account and uploads anything you have created while offline. You can create and edit notebooks both online and offline and the changes are carried over between the two as you work. Why is this a good thing? Well the major disadvantage of Google Notebook is only being able to use it online. OneNote works offline and can be used online but not without a great deal of trouble. Evernote allows you to work offline and online in a way that is both easy and efficient. So lets walk through the basics. Here is a screen shot of the installed program:

• The organization is the same as any virtual notebook program (Notebook > Section > Page) except you don't create sections, you create "tags". Notebooks are seen on the far left, notes are displayed in the middle window, and the specific page is displayed on the main display.

• You will notice that there are not sections to divide the notes. However, you can add tags to notes and organize your note according to the tag. The concept is actually very workeable. To me, the reading panes make it look like an e-mail mailbox (Outlook, Mail, Etc.).

• Here is the web version of the same note:
  

• The web notebook looks like Google Notebook but more polished. You can create notebooks by selecting "edit" (located under the notebook dropdown on the left pane) and selecting "new notebook." New notes are created by selecting "new" on the menu bar. Everything else is pretty straight forward.
  

Features:

• Sync: syncing is performed automatically at a regular interval. You can, however, sync the the notebooks manually using the sync button. Syncing literally uploads and downloads any changes made between the web-based and desktop-based portions of the program.
• Take notes while browsing: similar to Google Notebook, you can take notes while browsing by adding the Evernote add-on to your browser. It shows up as an icon on your browser. By clicking it, a small window appears that will allow you to type notes into any of your notebooks.
• Web-page Capture: One of the image above shoes a wikipedia article on a famous tort case. I wanted the information from the page so I used Evernote to copy the entire page. I did this by pressing Ctrl+a, right clicking on the highlighted text, and selecting "Add to Evernote." This brought up the note window with a small picture of the information I just clipped. This allows you to save almost anything you find on the web. You can also clip pictures by right clicking on the picture and selcting the "Add to Evernote" option.
  
• iSight (Mac): if you want to keep a record of reciepts or other documents that are hard copy, you can use Mac's iSight (web cam) to take a picture of that document. The picture is then placed in your notebook and is even searcheable - Evernote will process the text so that you can search it later.
• Searches: Evernote allows you to search documents for specific words (OneNotes does this as well). This comes in handy when trying to sort through notebooks that may contain a lot of information or even large documents you clipped from the web. Here is what the results look like:

Why I like it: I like that Evernote is free and easy to use. I love the way that it has married the concepts of online and desktop notetaking. Evernote is probably the best free option on the market for virtual notetaking. All you have to do is play with it for about 20 minutes and you will be hooked. I suggest just trying it out and using it to take notes at work, school, or at home.

Why I don't: The text editing is very basic. It really detracts from the overall experience when you can't make outlined lists and edit text in as rich a format as OneNote. However, to me, this is not a good enough reason to not use the program - so get out there and try it.

In fact, try all the notetaking programs I have mentioned. They will truly help you stay organized in whatever capacity you take notes for. Just think of the stuff that you want to remember, and use one of the programs I have mentioned to do it. If you like it - all the better!

Virtual Notebooks: Google Notebook

Yesterday we discussed OneNote, a very good program for native use (you have to install it on your hard drive). Today we are going to talk about Google Notebook, a very good Web-based program that requires access to the internet but no installation.

Basic Concept: Take a look at the home page:

• On the left, you will see a list of the notebooks. Create new notebooks by clicking on "Create a new notebook" link. You can then name your notebook. If you need to rename it later, just click on the title where it shows up above the notebook's contents. You can also you use the "tools" dropdown menu. When you click on a notebook, it opens it and displays its contents. The open notebook displayed is "Cool Sites."
  
• Sections are displayed as blue bar headings. Sections are created by simply clicking the blank space inside a notebook and selecting the "add Section" link. That will place a blue bar dividing your notebook and prompting you to name it. The sections in the picture above are Software, Blogs, and Tech News. These different sections can be made to show and hide their contents. The open section is Blogs and it is displaying its only note.
• Notes are created under each section by selecting "Add Note" from the toolbar or by clicking in the blank space of a section and simply typing. You can type notes and edit the text using the very basic text editing options. The picture below shows the basic toolbar for text editing. You can change the font, bold, italics, underline, color, bullets, numbering, spacing, hyperlinks, undo, redo, and remove formatting. You will also notice the "New Note" button.

Features:

1. Get access to your notes from anywhere: Notebooks are saved online and you can access them anywhere where you have internet access. Simple, straight-forward, easy.
   
2. Take Notes while browsing: Many browsers (especially Firefox) allow for a Google Notebook Add-on which enables you to take notes while browsing. Lets say that I am looking up information on the Fourth Amendment and the Exclusionary rule. If I find a site or information that I like, I can click on bottom right corner of my browser and type notes as I am reading. I can also create a hyperlink in my notes for future reference. If I find a quote I like, I can highlight it, right click and select "Note This" and it will go into my notes. Here is an examplel:
3. Easy Sharing and Collaboration: You can click the "Share" link and collaborators to the notebook. Say you are in class and want to take notes collectively with a study group - or perhaps you are working on a project at work and need to collaborate with coworkers. Either way, Google Notebook makes sharing easy to accomplish.

Why I like it and Why I don't: Google Notebook is not a whole lot different than Mircrosoft's OneNote on a basic level. However, if you were to use OneNote for a while then switch to Google Notebook, you will likely find that Google Notebook is a little different conceptually and may even feel like it is harder to use. If you were to switch from using Google Notebook to OneNote, you would find that OneNote offers a lot more in the way of features and functionality. Google uses the same structure (notebook > Section > Page), it does it differently and perhaps a little less cleanly. This is mostly because Google Notebook is a purely a web-based application while OneNote is installed on your operating system. Applications on the web take away fundamentals like the functionality of a right click. However, Google Notebook may be exactly what you are looking for in a notebook application, especially if you are always online.

Google Notebooks is perfect for simple note taking. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles that OneNote has and it certainly does not have the rich text editing. That may be a problem for users that are looking to take extensive, quality notes for school or work. OneNote is the more effective option for the virtual notebook "power user". However, if you are just looking to take notes at school, research, work on the web, websites you like, make simple shopping lists, to-do lists, or whatever - Google Notebook is a great option and its FREE.

Tomorrow I will discuss Evernote. It combines the two approaches we have discussed, allowing you to install the software AND use it online... and its free.

Virtual Notebooks - OneNote

We already covered free and live web-based office applications. Now lets talk about another novel concept: live notebooks. Virtual notebooks enable you to make notes in a highly customizable way. You can use notebooks to make your own notes for school, shopping lists, in a meeting, or literally whatever you want. You can paste in documents from outside sources, share the notebooks on the web, and a host of other things. Personally, I use virtual notebook software for notetaking and productivity at school. I am likely to continue to use one as long as I can in work, at home, wherever. We will cover 3 of these notebooks over the next 3 days.

OneNote: First, this program costs money. I don't usually talk about programs that cost money but OneNote is a pretty good one and most people have it and don't know a thing about it. So I will cover the basics of what you can do with it. I suggest simply experimenting with it to learn the most. While I am mentioning OneNote first, I don't necessarily think its the best at everything - over the next two days I will be explaining two other free programs that are pretty awesome.

Basic Concept: To understand the basic concept of how OneNote works just think of any normal, physical notebook. You buy a binder or notebook at the store, divide it into sections (school subject, work projects, home tasks, or whatever), put paper in each section, and even hole punch other papers and place them in. OneNote has the same basic structure. Take a look:

click for larger image

• Okay, first look at the left side of the screenshot. You will notice that there are two tabs representing the two notebooks I have open. I am in the "2d Semester" notebook.
  
• Now look along the top, below the tool bar. You will notice 4 different tabs. Those are basically the dividers in the notebook, seperating it according to subject.
  
• Now look to the right hand side of the screen. Those are the pages in the notebook. The beauty here is that each page can be as long or as short as you want and can even include subpages. The tabs that look longer are main pages while the tabs that look shorter are subpages.
  

That is the basic concpet of the OneNote notebook. You can do all kinds of things on each page: make shapes, type text on literally any portion of the notebook, and insert pictures, pdf's, word docs, presnetations, etc.

OneNote Printer: If you have OneNote installed on your computer, you may have noticed that when you go to print a word document, for example, that a printer shows up called the OneNote printer. The OneNote printer prints documents into OneNote, as if you had scanned the document and pasted the picture into your notebook. Take a look:


Notice that I have pasted a teacher's PowerPoint presentation into my notes. The benefit of this is that you can maintain the look of a document and edit over the top of it at will. You cannot, however, edit the document once you have "printed" it to OneNote. You can also insert documents as text only, which will allow you to edit the text later but basically strips it out of the original format into a somewhat unmanageable one. Either way, being able to print documents directly into a virtual notebook comes in handy.

Extra Features: OneNote allows you to make Notebooks public. Bascially this means that you can share your Notebook and work on it "live" with another person at anytime. When you set up a new notebook, you will be prompted with the question of whether or not to make it a shareable notebook. Even if you select no, you can still share the notebook later by clicking "Share" on the menu bar. This will allow you and a co-worker, friend, whatever to edit the notebook together and OneNote will sync changes live so that you don't undue the work of another. Its pretty great.

Why I like it: I love the structure and interface of OneNote. It is certainly a polished application. Microsoft has combined the power of Word with the concept of a notebook in such a way that you feel like you can literally use it for whatever you want. If you have a scanner, you could even organize your personal records with OneNote and make the document password protected. Its very powerful, the text editing is quite rich, and the interface is sleek. These features are most certainly OneNote's bread and butter.

mmm, bread and butter

Why I don't: It costs money and there are very strong alternatives. You can get a lot of the features you like about OneNote in programs like Google Notebooks and Evernote (coming tomorrow and the next day). OneNote lacks in its ability to sync notebooks quickly and easily to the internet as well as share the notebooks with others. While the sharing feature in OneNote is pretty cool, its not as intuitive as it could be and indeed should be. In the coming days, I will be featuring two other applications that do a lot of things much better than OneNote. What OneNote does extremely well with its interface and rich text editing, it lacks in other areas that may be more important to the end user... That's YOU!

Free Office Apps

Free and live office applications are the wave of the future. You pay (either directly or indirectly) for office applications like Microsoft Office and Apple iWork. These are great applications and they definitely are used by the majority of users. But, they aren't free and they aren't yet live. Free and live office applications are the wave of the future - so what does that mean?

Free Office Applications: I will only be talking about free office applications from here on out. They are free because they are typically open source and because the organizations that developed them make them free. Star Office and Open Office are great examples of such applications. They are free and contain many of the same applications that Office and iWork contain. These applications provide very good free alternatives to software packages that cost around $80. However, they aren't live either. So let's get to what a live office application is.

Live Office Applications: Live means online. Thats the clearest definition. An online office application is one that uses web applications to create files (documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc). That means that you can write a paper, for example, using your web browser and an online application. You can then save your document on your hard drive or online. Saving the document online will enables access to that file from anywhere where the internet is available (which is almost everywhere). These live web applications are available for free through sites like Google Docs. That is where these two concepts come together.

In the next 2 posts I will introduce 2 ways to make office files (documents, presentations, and spreadsheets) for free and online. Sorry this was a blah blah blah post. I probably could have just stopped writing after the first paragraph and just put blah blah blah and no one would have been able to tell the difference because they would have stopped reading by then.

Open Office

Most of us use word processors, presentation software, and spreadsheets on a regular basis. These important software are a basic part of our everyday lives. Most of us "grew up on" Microsoft Office. Microsoft always makes such a sleek user interface for their software packages and they make it so darn likable. The new Office 2007 for the PC (love it or hate it) is by far the best and most intuitive office suite software package created by Microsoft thus far. But, let's dispatch with the niceties...

The big problem with Microsoft is that you have to sell body parts on the black market in order to afford the software packages. So why do people buy the software? Unfortunately, the world is entrenched in the mindset that only Microsoft produces good office programs and that if we were to try one of the the less expensive programs, we wouldn't be able to communicate with the rest of the world. Another explanation is that Microsoft was the first to create a really good software suite and streamline it. Other software packages like WordPerfect provided an excellent word processor, but failed to gain the large market share that Microsoft did. They made it available, by default, with their popular operating systems as well as through partnerships with various Microsoft distributors like HP, Dell, Gateway, etc. "Ohhh the tyranny of monopoly... when will you release us from your clutches?"

May I present to you a beautiful alternative... A software package created by the superheroes of the technology sector: Open Office. Let's learn a little about this package from the makers themselves:

"The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Sun Microsystems, which is the primary contributor of code to the Project. Our other major corporate contributors include Novell, RedHat, RedFlag CH2000, IBM, and Google. Additonally over 450,000 people from nearly every curve of the globe have joined this Project with the idea of creating the best possible office suite that all can use. This is the essence of an "open source." community!"

"But," you plea, "if the superheroes of the technology sector made this software package, it must cost a lot of money." Fear not! This software package comes at a very reasonable price: ABSOLUTELY FREE! "But," you cry, "I won't be able to use it with Microsoft Office documents. Especially since they recently changed their file formats to .docx, .xlsx, etc. in effort to further oppress us and keep us down" Fear not! Open Office 3 Beta is completely compatible with these file formats. They have broken evil Bill's grasp on the office suite market share. "BUT," you exclaim with your last breath, "I won't know how to use this magical "open source" software as well as Microsoft Office." Fear not! The software is very intuitive and user friendly. Dare I say, more intuitive than Microsoft Office because it was made by us, for us (think FUBU).

Enough drama. Open Office contains a word processor, a database wizard, a spreadsheet creator (or whatever you call it), a paint-like program, and presentation software. Here is the link so that you can download a version for yourself and test out the wonder that is Open Office. They have a version for Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X, and the many various Linux distros. Keep in mind, the Open Office 3 Beta is a work in progress so it might be better for you to start with Open Office 2.4. Here is the link: Download it free here.

Below are some screen shots. Notice that the appearance is akin to Office 2003. In the new version 3 the design format is much the same. User experience is the same as what one would expect from Office. You have to try it to really know how similar it is. I don't think that you should switch from Microsoft Office. I use Office (on my mac) and its great. But, I still think that Office costs too much. I think that if I had to purchase Office, I would just use Open Office. Try it and Enjoy it!