Evernote fell to the side primarily because I couldn’t find a good way to work it into my workflow but now that I’ve been writing for WalletPop.com and trying to line up some other writing projects I really felt the need to get back on the elephant (get it? their logo is an elephant! Elephants never forget…Ok Ok.).

Here’s how I had been doing things for the past year. I kept a variety of notes and digital stickies if you will in the following locations; sometimes related sometime not.

• Gmail
• Starred items in Google Reader
• notepad files saved to Dropbox
• notes in Moleskin
• notes tucked into a Moleskin
• drafts in Blogsmith
• del.ico.us links
• snapshots on my smartphone
• several other random places where I’m sure my million dollar idea rests unaccounted for

The fact that I use 3 computers, and a smartphone on a daily basis coupled with trying to write a solid post for WalletPop.com and stay on top of a new directive at my day job aptly named “Big ideas” made this system difficult to use and worse inefficient even if I managed it well. If there’s one thing I learned from Tim Ferriss, doing something well doesn’t make it important, so I set out to find a better way.

Now that I’ve dusted off my Evernote notebooks and installed some version of it on my computers and my smartphone I’ve condensed the above system into this.

• Start a new note in Evernote.

That’s it; have an idea, enter it in Evernote. Find a cool story for WalletPop; enter it in Evernote until I can write about it. Have a millionaire infomercial idea while reading an issue of Esquire; enter it in Evernote with a picture of the page. Come up with 5 questions I want to ask Obama; well you get the idea!

I know there are several other ways that I could accomplish the same one place to rule all my ideas result I get from Evernote but the many ways I can start or add to an idea are what really seal the deal. You see, most of my ideas come to me away from the keyboard, whether that’s on a walk, driving with the windows down, having dinner, taking a shower etc. Trying to capture these ideas on a Windows Mobile phone without Evernote is a pain due to the poor note’s app and the fact that syncing notes inside OneNote to 3 computers without a magician is best described as futile.

With Evernote installed on my phone and computers I can enter new information by:

• Evernote Desktop
• Evernote Mobile
• A Firefox extension
• Twittering
• Emailing
• Uploading a picture
• Uploading a pdf

Putting an idea into Evernote using any of these ideas, from any computer, from any location assures me that I won’t lose track of a story or idea. When I need to find an interesting link or notes for a post I just have to go into Evernote and it’s right there; searchable by tags and in text so it’s easy to find.

Here’s a look at the latest version of Evernote:

The base version of Evernote is available for free and for now meets all of my needs; there is also a $5 a month premium version which unlocks better security, more file upload options and other bonuses.

You can use Evernote at your desk or on the go on the following systems:

• Mac OS X Leopard
• Windows
• iPhone / iPod Touch
• BlackBerry
• Palm Pre
• Android
• Windows Mobile
• Web Clippers
• SanDisk U3

For more info on Evernote check out the Evernote Blog as well as Ron’s Evernote Tips blog which is full of tips to get the most out of your Evernote notebook. It will be interesting to see how Evernote evolves over the next year to meet the competition that will come from OneNote which will be included in all versions of Office 2010 and include some form of online syncing.

Have any questions about Evernote or how I use it to stay on top of my life? Ask away!

Unfortunately the video is not embedding correctly so without further technical adu, Mario Batali on Restaurant Playlists.

These videos aren’t going to make you a gourmet chef, but they are very enjoyable and give some food for thought. Yep I went there.

The Dumb Little Man blog has a nice posting on how to get out of a crabby mood. The list has some good ones on it and includes my sure fire way to beat a crabby mood.

6. Make Someone Else Happy. Who could you cheer up today? Who could you thank or compliment? Who could you send a quick handwritten note to? You can really have fun with this, so go ahead and do it!

Whenever I am in a crappy mood other than listening to some good music, buying flowers or a card for my wife helps me get back into a happier state.  Try it next time, it works!

via lifehacker

One of the best improvements which Google could make is to better integrate Adsense and Analytics. Currently the two applications are linked in manner that lets site owners track how Adsense words they have purchased drive traffic to their site. This works well if you are trying to birng in visitors through Adwords but Google analytics is severely lacking in ways to track the value of your site through advertising.

Google should mash up the reporting from Analytics with the earning reports from Adsense. In doing so they could allow site owners to determine and track which ad keywords are getting the most clicks from thier current audience. This would also allow site owners to view the posts which bring in the most clicks and ad revenue in order to make decisions about future content.

I would be ecstatic if I could view my most popular posts, search engine keywords, and most monetized posts in one application in an easily understandable format. Google, under appreciated programmers, anyone…can you make this a reality?

Another feature Google can implement which is sorely lacking is a Search function in Google Reader. Sure you can go all DIY and add your own search to Google Reader but you need to update it each time you add a feed, which is horrid. Luckily Download Squad reports that Google may be adding a search function to the Google Reader soon.

The use of RFID tags at Bluffton could drastically change the way students interact with the entire environment. These RFID tags could be used to monitor their class attendance and could be used as an identifier when checking grades or scheduling classes. This is similar to an initiative which started in California to monitor classroom attendance in order to cut down on teacher administrative time (Greenfield, 2006 p. 56). The program did not succeed due to privacy concerns, which raises an important point. Privacy is an important part of our everyday lives however if the information stored on the RFID chip is protected adequately and it is a unique identifier but not one that can be used to access other student information in the primary campus system by an individual then some fears can be put down. For example each student has an RFID tag which ties to the campus system, however the access to the system is only allowed when a trusted reader reads an RFID tag. The RFID tag would not contain the student’s ID or the student’s Social Security Number. Other additional steps would be taken to safeguard the individual’s information. The other concern is that students could be tracked across campus (pg 56). This is a harder problem to solve, in that to fully utilize the RFID solution it would be not only linked to classroom attendance but to student meal plans, their door locks, and campus vending machines. This would blanket the campus in RFID readers raising privacy concerns. This is loss of privacy as we currently know it is also discussed in Everyware by Adam Greenfield (2). The question is, whether we will give up this privacy and whether an institution should ask its employees and students to do so. Overall the benefits far outweigh the negatives in this instance form my experience as a student, this relies greatly on the trust one has in the system using an RFID system though, and could not easily be transferred from Bluffton to a random organizational body and retain the same level of trust. An added bonus to implementing such a system is that RFID’s use in the University setting at this early stage is that manufacturers and backers of RFID could be convinced to cover implementation costs in order to study the system and use it as a showcase of RFID on a campus.

This is my personal vision of how RFID tags could change the university experience.

When you arrive for your freshman year at Bluffton you are handed your ID card which is equipped with an RFID tag, you are also given the option of implanting one on yourself. This tag is linked securely to a central serer and it can perform many functions. First off it is how you get into your dorm, and how you get into your dorm room(no more lost keys), after your first week the dorm room has gathered a significant amount of metadata on your in interactions with the “smart” in room technology form the phone to the wall mounted television, the server even knows not to auto on the lights when your roommate is fast asleep and you just got back from all you can eat Pizza at Luke’s. Now when you are in a friends room your tag tells the room phone you can be reached there and the switchboard automatically routes your calls with a personalized ringer to that room. This can happen on any campus phone, though you have the option of disabling certain phones or blocks of phones from having your calls routed to them.

Its lunchtime now and you and your newfound friends head over to Marbeck to get something to eat, you are really thirsty so you stop in the lobby and use your tag to purchase a bottle of water with your “Beaver Bucks”. Once you get to Marbeck you are “swiped in” by simply walking through line, your RFID chip did all the work, and soon you are on your way to enjoying some “fresh” pizza.

After lunch you head to Bob’s Place the student union on campus to get a Edy’s Ice cream sundae with your RFID tag once again and sit down at one of the computers. Your are automatically loged into the network with a mirror image of your desktop, this is available on any campus computer with your info being stored on the network. You check out your classmates for Intro to C, and realize you better get to class, with the RFID tags being used for attendance even your busy professor knows who is late.

These are just a few of the conveniences I could think up off the top of my head relating the use of an RFID tag or similar ubiquitous computing solution on a University Campus.

Paul Rademacher made housingmaps.com by merging two freely available sets of data and Google Maps’ API to create a simple interface for browsing craigslist home listings on a map for ease in finding a home you want, in a location you want (Tapscott, 2006 p. 184). Bluffton University could leverage the open API of Google Maps to show alumni where they can find other alumni in order to meet new people in an area they recently moved to or to reconnect. This would need to be done on an opt-in basis for alumni to respect privacy wishes. Bluffton could also use Flickr’s open API to create a photo sharing site for alumni and students of Bluffton. This would be a low cost way of providing a popular service to our constituency. The low cost of this option makes it even more attractive.

Bluffton could also make use of a internal wiki as a policies and procedures manual. This wiki would allow for several super users to edit the main content but would allow any faculty staff to add to the page in order to transfer knowledge regarding specific situations and or procedures. This practice is similar to the eureka database developed at Xerox to share information. Departments can also use wikis to document the set up their own policies and procedures manual to track tasks which require a specific set of actions in order to be accomplished correctly. I plan to begin using a wiki to document how certain mailings and activities are performed, not only for myself but for others who do similar work and for someone who will eventually do my job.

These are only a few of the ideas Bluffton can initiate and benefit from. The ideas range from easily implemented and cheap to pricier and more involved editions. In any case Bluffton should pursue the use of open APIs to create better services for the students and alumni it serves.

References:

Greenfield, Adam Everyware, The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing, New Riders Press, 2006

Tapscott, Don, Wikinomics, Portfolio (Penguin Press), New York 2006

These ideas are currently only at Bluffton University in my head, we don’t plan on implanting students with RFID tags or attaching them to ID cards, though I think that under the right circumstances they could drastically improve the college experience.

I also found that you can insert a del.icio.us toolbar into the Firefox browser and use it rather than the default bookmark toolbar and group your tags on the toolbar resulting in an efficient bookmark system which is easily replicated on other systems as well.

• Use a ~ before a word to search for synonyms of the word. This can greatly increase your chances of finding what you want if there are many words that are similar to your keyword. You use it by typing “~University” which could bring you back results including colleges, etc.
• Text Google from your Cell Phone at 46645 ie GOOGL, You can ask for a specific restaurant type, weather, movies, etc with your zip code or city, state. For example “pizza 90210″.
• Used the Advanced Search page, which has a plethora of optins allwoing you to search for pages edited within a time frame, results of only a certain file typoe, or not a certain filestype and more.
• Utilize the specific searches. At the bottom of the Advanced Search Page on Google you can also view the numerous searches for Public Source Code, Government, Microsoft, Universities, scholarly searches, and Books.
• Have Results you click on open in a new tab, or window depending on your browser settings. You make this change by clicking preferences next to the search button. In firefox my results open in a new tab, which saves me form using CTRL for each click.
• While you are in the preferences you can also set the number of results you want shown per page, I bumped mine ip to 20.
• Froogle.com, not really a Google tip or trick but a cool tool for finding low prices, powered by Google.

Thats all I have for now, the synonym search and the open in a new tab/window tip will be especially useful to myself in the future. What are your best Google Tips, Tricks, or Services?

Check out this awesome dishmaker, that can form dishes to your needs and store them as a flat disc when you are done with them. If they can shrink it down and add in a cleaning stage this thing could really take off.

Jello: GTD Outlook Plugin via lifehacker img – lifehacker
Previous Outlook Tips

Lookout Search and Conversation Grouping in Outlook

I believe the schools can also use the system to get in touch with parents for other necessary mass announcements which could come up. The Schooldelay site also shows school statistics for each school in your area making it a good resource for determining a school or school district to move into.

Schooldelay.com also features an online store which offers some great toys for younger children and Stikfas action figures for older kids like me. They offer an option to set up a spirit store to the schools which will let them receive a portion of proceeds for their use. If you want to pick up a cool Christmas present the owner has provided this code for free shipping: R01K-9517-Q4V2 which is good until December 20th. I recommend the Stikfas or the Automoblox Cars but those are just for the kid in me. There are also educational toys as well as toys for children of all ages.

Finally after talking to the owner and to my Mom(who is a teacher) the price for a school to use SchoolDelay.com is more affordable than similar offerings. You can use a form on thier site to request that yoru school start using the service as well.

Disclaimer: I know the owner of this awesome product.