Why I’m using Evernote

 

Evenote is a web based service that allows your to store notes using text, photos, audio clips, and web content. There are both Mac and Windows clients as well as the web application accessible through their website. I wasn’t sure of the implications of having a web based service store notes for me. Honestly, it took me a while to understand the greatness of Evernote, but after just a week of using it to its fullest potential there is no doubt it is making its way into my mainstream, day to day web browsing experience. The video below shows off a few of Evernote’s note taking abilities but the true brilliance of Evernote will be in it’s ability to catalog important information from different arenas that you search for on the web. You can basically build your own textbook for whatever you want using your own notes as well as other people’s websites. For example, I’ve been slowly collecting photoshop tips from various websites dedicated to helping people learn photoshop. Want to learn how to create that snazzy reflection effect that Apple uses on ALL of their product ads? Find the tutorial, highlight the portion you want, and copy it to your Evernote using the browser plugin in just a matter of seconds. Keep adding the tutorials to Evernote whenever you find them and eventually you will have compiled a huge notebook full of photoshop tips for quick and easy access. Evernote is perfect for gathering information for projects and, in my case, has been great for learning a new hobby.  Installation is easy on both Macs and PC’s as well as iPhones. Watch the video below for more information. Let us know what you think.

[Evernote]

 

Streamline your bookmarks toolbar

Here is a quick tip to streamline your firefox bookmarks toolbar:  Just about all websites these days use easily identifiable favicons (the tiny pictures to the left of the site name). You can take advantage of this fact by deleting the text from all of the bookmarks on your toolbar, freeing up a ton of space while improving the look, and functionality of the bookmarks toolbar.

The quickest way to do this is to right-click a bookmark on the toolbar, then press i, then backspace, then enter.  Repeat for each of your bookmarks.

To achieve the centered look I have above, right-click the empty space between the Home button and the address bar.  Choose "Customize…" from the drop down menu.  Now drag the "Flexible Space" from the newly opened window, to the very left of your bookmarks toolbar.  This will appear to insert a large space next to your bookmarks.  Press done and you are finished.  This flexible space will automatically center your bookmarks from now on. Enjoy.

Let Dropbox Host your Site

Here at the …the end user we love Dropbox . It’s great for sharing files with friends, keeping files synced between your computers and storing important documents for access anywhere with an internet connection. The service is great for all different types of uses , but I’ve just stumbled across one in the Dropbox Wiki that caught my eye and looks to be very useful. By storing your website files in the public folder of your dropbox you can actually use Dropbox as a host for your site. Basically, you just move all of your website files into the public folder, right-click on your homepage (usually home.htm or index.html) and copy the link location. This URL will give you access to your homepage. It’s simple enough and with the few tests that I ran it seemed to work great. I even published one of my iWeb sites to a folder and dragged it into my dropbox public folder and it worked flawlessly. Unless you upgrade to the 50 gb of storage for $99/year you are limited to 2 gb of space. However, these days with the ability to embed photo albums and videos using host services like Picasa and Youtube it isn’t necessary to have a whole lot of storage space in order to maintain a website full of rich media content. Never used Dropbox? Check out their tour here.

[Dropbox Wiki]

Bring Gmail features to Outlook

Do you use Gmail at home but are stuck with Outlook at work? Well, by creating your own All Mail folder, grouping by conversation, and using search folders (to emulate Quick Links) you can create a system that is similar to that of Google’s mail client and makes working with Outlook a little more bearable. If you’ve been looking for a way to keep your Outlook organized with minimal effort this may be the system for you.

First create a folder and name it All Mail. Move every piece of mail you have including all incoming and outgoing mail. If you have a lot of folders like I did this may take a while. Once every message you’ve received and every message you’ve sent are safely in your All Mail folder you can delete all your other folders. Don’t worry, search folders will make your life easier.

Next create your rules for all messages going forward. Setup a rule to send a copy of all incoming messages into your All Mail folder. Now set one up for all outgoing messages. Once this is done every message you send and receive will be automatically archived in your All Mail folder. You never again have to worry about deleting something out of your inbox because it will always be backed up in your All Mail folder. Having all of your messages in one place makes for the ultimate search repository. I also like to use the Automatic Formatting tool to make messages that I’ve sent show up green so that I can easily differentiate between received and sent messages.

Next you must tweak your conversation view so that everything you send and receive will automatically be grouped with previous related messages in your All Mail folder. This works just like Gmail. When a reply comes into your mailbox you will no longer have to search your sent messages to see what your original message was. Just switch over to your All Mail folder and all of the related messages will be grouped at the top. Here’s how your view settings should look.

From here, you can create your search folders. I have mine setup to pull all messages from and to specific people and then I group them in the same Conversation view pictured above, but each search folder can have it’s own separate view depending on whats most efficient. This limits the constant dragging and dropping of emails into designated folders and allows search folders to do the work for you.

Best part about this is that you never have to worry about your inbox filling up and having to quickly delete random messages or file them away in order to clear up room. You can always leave your inbox skimpy because your messages will always be backed up. Of course, where you place your All Mail folder is dependent on how much space you have available on your server. This works well if you have limited server space and don’t really need access to all of your mail away from the office.

Use Gmail and Google Docs to Track Spending

If you’re like us and need a way to quickly track your spending across different banks and credit cards you may want to pay attention to this little trick utilizing Gmail and Google Docs. For those who know me well you know that I’m pretty fond of Google and the products that they freely offer us. I spend a lot of my time trying to convince my friends to use Google products, so much in fact that I should probably be receiving a check from them in the mail pretty soon (at least that’s what I keep telling myself). Anyways, back to our finances. If you use Gmail and are accustomed to Google Docs already this will be fairly simple to setup. If you’re not than it may take a little more tweaking on your part but should work nonetheless.

If you don’t have a Google account already you can sign up for Google Docs here.

First step: Create a new spreadsheet in your Google Docs and name it something like Spending Report 2009.

Step 2: Create a form that you will use to submit your transactions to your new spreadsheet. With your spreadsheet open click on Form> Create Form.

Next, add questions to your form. In this case you will be adding important fields such as date, charge amount, payment method, spending category, and description. You can mess around with it and add anything that you feel is important.

Step 3: Save form and email it to your gmail account (other emails should work also). Make sure when you email it to keep the “Include form in the email” box checked.

Step 4 (for Gmail users only): Enable Quick Links for easy access to your newly created form. Click on the Labs button on the top right corner of your gmail screen, find Quick Links in the list of Labs features and click enable.

Step 5: If you aren’t using Gmail you can save the email containing the form into an easily accessible folder and you are done. Whenever you buy something, pay a bill, or go out to dinner pull up that email and submit the charge. It will immediately update your spreadsheet with the transaction. You can also add a link to the form to your bookmarks.

If you are using Gmail go back to your inbox and open up the email containing the form. The form is now ready to be used to submit transactions, however, to easily access the form click on the Add Quick Link button on the left sidebar while the email is open. Your form email is now added to your quick links list on the left sidebar.

You are now set. You now have a quick and easy way to track your spending. Whenever you pay for anything open up your email, click on your Quick Link containing the form and quickly fill out the short form. The information will automatically be posted to your spending spreadsheet. From here you can play around with the spreadsheet and formulas to calculate your “True” bankroll and monitor your monthly cash flow. You can setup filters by category and even change your form to add deposits. The possibilities are endless so tweak it to your own hearts desires.

Oh, and if you enable the Google Docs lab feature you can easily access your documents including your spending report straight from Gmail. (see bottom left of above pic)