WebedtecH

• 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology

  “The modern American school faces rough challenges. Budget cuts have caused ballooning class sizes, many teachers struggle with poorly motivated students, and in many schools a war is being waged on distracting technologies. In response, innovative educators are embracing social media to fight back against the onslaught of problems. Technologies such as Twitter and Skype offer ideal solutions as inexpensive tools of team-based education.”

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• Barnes & Noble Saves Students Money with New Textbook Rental Service – Textbooks – Lifehacker

  “Now the popular bookstore Barnes & Noble has joined in the fray with a rental program integrated with 25 colleges in the U.S.—allowing students to rent textbooks from participating college bookstores, online, or from B&N stores on campus. “

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• The Definitive Guide to Making the Most of Your Netbook – NetBooks – Lifehacker

  Excellent collection of resources for those dedicated to the netbook way of life…just like me.

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• Evernote Review : Productivity501

  Very detailed review of Evernote…one of my favorite applications.

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• Productive Geek Forums

  Forum site for geeks seeking to be more productive.

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• Netflix streaming finally coming to the Wii | The Digital Home – CNET News

  “The Nintendo Wii is finally getting Netflix’s streaming service, which is already available on competing game consoles.”

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

GTD and other systems have leveraged the concept of contexts for a long time. These are the places that actions should be taken, for example @home, @computer, or @phone. It makes it simple to find things to take off your to-do list in groups when you can filter them by where you are.

Evernote Mobile gives you the ability to add tags to your captured items and then search for those tags. If you are using Windows Mobile as I am and capture a text note you can tap on:

Then add a title by selecting Options and Edit Title.

Once you have added a title select Options and Assign tags to add your context to your note.

Now when you create your note and synchronize it with Evernote the context will be pushed up as a tag and can be reference from the desktop, searched from the web, or used to locate all the related notes while mobile as you see below:

You can see that by searching for the context “@grocery” I can find all the notes applicable to that location.  Yet another way Evernote Mobile can help you keep your information organized quickly and easily.  Love this tool.

Note – when searching from your mobile device the system won’t filter on the “@” so you will get back any notes containing the text part of your context.  Not perfect but way better than nothing.

When someone asks you, “What’s the best way to capture and organize my notes?”  I answer with a question: how do you want to use them in the future?  You see, capturing notes is a very personal process not only assisting in memory retention but requiring a method that matches the recorder’s way of thinking for easy recall.  Every major personal productivity guru on the planet dictates that one of the linchpins of success is the capture of information quickly, accurately, and efficiently.  This always raises the battle, “paper or computer?”  I do not believe the two are mutually exclusive and with a little introspection you can find a balance between the written and the typed.

As you can tell from some of my other posts I have been a long time pen and notebook fan.  Additionally I have used PDAs for years.  The shift back and forth between the two platforms has taken me to both extremes:  all paper to all digital and in-between.  Where I find myself now is in-between both solutions but this time I have done it on purpose.  Using Evernote I have found the way to write my notes and retrieve them too.

Here’s the dilemma.  Keeping your notes in wonderful notebooks like a Moleskine causes a problem with retrieving them when you need them, especially if you go through a lot of notebooks like I do.  So the question is how do I take prolific notes yet  keep them all at my fingertips?  That’s where Evernote comes in.  I use my home scanner to scan each relevant page in my notebook into Evernote and then tag and mark the record accordingly.  Having done that I can recall the information from my phone or desktop at any time without having to keep all the notebooks with me.  The added bonus is the notebooks act as a permanent record and backup of the information.

This model is pushing me towards the direction of notebooks with removable pages like the Rollabind line or ones small enough to fit two pages on an 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of paper.  In either case, I feel free to write as much as I want knowing I will be able to store and retrieve as I see fit.  This is liberating in the sense that creation of content on the computer can be transitive and linear, whereas pen on paper feels permanent yet fluid.

Would I choose between them?  If I were forced…I would have to go the paper route.  Beyond my own personal preferences it is easy enough to set up an organizational system on paper and retain the records as long as you need to.  Yes digital can do the same but paper never runs out of power.  With the right ink and paper they can be forgiving to water in ways bits and bytes cannot.

I have been a strong advocate of Evernote for quite some time now and the addition of Evernote Mobile as an extension of the web solution makes it that much more a vital part of my organizational toolbox. Evernote Mobile can capture text, pictures, and voice notes and synchronize them with the web account and the desktop. Using this you can capture whatever is necessary and send it right to your inbox without giving it a second thought. Now combine those functions will the option to search your posted notes and retrieve them anywhere and you have a one-two punch.

You can read all the details about how the application works at the Evernote web site, so how about I give you some ideas as to how I put it to use. Here’s a normal day of Evernote Mobile usage for me:

Start of the day:

Each morning I’ll pop open my Evernote Mobile and jot down anything that has occured to me during the night or over coffee that needs to be addressed. A simple text note takes care of this. (I know, GTD says handle everything only once so it should be going into my Task List right away…but it takes way less time this way.) Finish the morning routine (other steps I’ll describe in future articles) and I’m out the door.

Morning commute:

I have an hour commute each way so I have plenty of time to think. It’s not safe to text while you drive (I’d never do that ) so I frequently use the audio capture function to record short and long notes to myself and store them in Evernote. Blog ideas, discussion topics, problem solutions, research topics, whatever comes to mind.

Listing to my satellite radio there are many times when I will hear an artist I haven’t heard before and want to track down their works when I get to my computer. I tried using the audio recorder on Evernote, but that proved unreliable for this aspect (though I could probably just record the artist name and song title). Instead I use the photo capture to take a snapshot of the radio display to get the artist name and song name quickly.

At work:

This is where Evernote Mobile really shines. I’m in and out of conference rooms and buildings all day long, many of which have questionable cellular coverage. By switching my Evernote Mobile to “pause” I can capture information without any connection at all. If I have a connection it’s that much better since then I can search for information just as easily as I can capture it.

Evening commute:

See “Morning commute”

Back home:

Grocery lists, to do lists, snapshots of birthday party invitations, event schedules, you name it…it goes into Evernote. I use the mobile app to speed up the capture and move onto the next item. No reason to waste time, just capture and go.

As you can see, my main input into my system is Evernote and Evernote Mobile. Mind you, they are not the only way into the system, but they have proven their worth time and time again in capturing and holding all the random information I would normally be writing down and struggling to retrieve.

Application Number 2 – Keeping things in sync

My organizational methods focus around two tools:  my Samsung Blackjack II and a Rollabind (or other brand) notebook.  Looking over the system I am amazed by the amount of work I can accomplish using just these two tools.

The core applications I use on a daily basis are (in no specific order):

1. Evernote Mobile
2. GooSync
3. eWallet
4. Palringo
5. Skyfire
6. Twikini
7. Viigo
8. My-Cast Weather
9. SBSH Calendar
10. SMS Bubbles
11. and an honorable mention to Google Calendar Sync

As part of a system review I thought I should detail how each of these applications fit into the organizational mix of my system.  Each of these applications serve a purpose in the daily capture and management of events, tasks, and information as I live and work.  I have a fairly mobile life between work and home with several core areas to manage.  Tightly integrating all of them while avoiding repeat entries and work is the key to this working well.  It’s not perfect yet, but it’s getting closer.