Techinch » How-To Geek

How I Use Evernote

Matthew Guay — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:05:06 +0000

Remembering information from day to day can be a strain on even the smartest. From your license plate number to the song you heard on the radio a moment ago, we’re constantly struggling to remember and recall information. Evernote is a very useful free tool to help your, in their words, Remember Everything. Although there are many apps and services today designed to help you store and keep up with notes, Evernote has recently won me over with its almost perfect combination of mobile, desktop, and web apps, and flawless synchronization between them all.

I was not always sold out to Evernote as my favorite notetaking application. I went back and forth from keeping notes, links, and more scattered around in Word documents, random browser bookmarks, jotted notes in random notebooks, and more. I had a slightly better system of keeping up with college notes, as I kept them in OneNote and synced them with my netbook via Live Sync. I’d given Evernote a try, but it doesn’t have as rich of formatting options as OneNote, and seemed less good at taking structured notes from college.

The one thing that kept me using Evernote from time to time was its mobile app. I have an aging Windows Mobile phone, a non-touchscreen device with a full, blackberry-style keyboard. Windows Mobile may not have the greatest number of apps avilable today, but it does have 3 very useful ones: Opera Mobile/Mini, Facebook, and Evernote. Evernote is great to jot down quick thoughts anywhere: the kitchen, the car, or the dresser where I leave my phone at night. I can sync over WiFi, and then see what I wrote from my computer or online. I can even add pictures to Evernote, which is one of the easiest ways to upload them to my computer. It’s simple, seamless, and made my phone keep me in touch with myself as much as with others

Then, I began using Evernote even more when I integrated it with my browser. Evernote has released a new Evernote addon for Chrome, and it is both beautiful and useful. I’ve been using Google Chrome as my default browser, and suddenly now Evernote was only one click away. It was dead simple to take a note about a site or app I came across, and since I could tag and annotate the note, and then view it later online or in Evernote on my computer, it was the ideal bookmarking solution. I’m now using it as my primary bookmarking system, and it’s working great. I recently reviewed the new Evernote Chrome addon at How-to Geek and showed how great it is for keeping up with websites, so check out the article for more info:

Beginner Geek: Remember Everything You See Online With Evernote for Chrome

Another recent discovery I’ve made is sometimes you don’t need rich formatting for notes. When you want to remember something, whether a webapp or a favorite quote, what’s really important is the text itself, along with links and/or images that go along with it. Most programs try to do too much, and they make the task more difficult. With Evernote, the killer app is helping your remember stuff, and it works great for that!

Other Favorite Note Apps

And you know what, there may never be the perfect, all encompassing notetaking application. Evernote is great for small, short notes, and even works quite good for longer notes. But, there are several other note apps that I use regularly. These include:

Backpack

I’m a fan of Backpack from 37signals, and use it to collaborate on shared notes with friends and colleagues and to occasionally throw together a quick webpage when I need some info online temporarily. I also keep a list of all the things I plan to write on my blogs in Backpack, which works great along with Campfire for collaboration. It’s one of the nicest webapps I’ve used, and I recommend it fully for the things I mentioned and more. However, it’s still not as simple to just store all of your thoughts in Backpack; it’s more like saving info on specific web pages.
OneNote

Office 2010 has added OneNote to the ranks of the standard Office Applications as it is included in all Office 2010 suites along with Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. OneNote gives much richer editing capacities than most other notetaking apps, and can sync your notebooks with the new Office Web apps. It’s also very useful as an OCR tool; Evernote lets you search text in pictures, but OneNote actually lets you copy the text out of pictures! Still, though, for simply keeping up with all your small (and large) notes, I find Evernote much easier to use; you don’t have to configure it, it just works.
Sticky Notes in Windows 7

Sometimes you just need to remember something for a moment, and this is where the Stick Notes app in Windows 7 (or the Notes sidebar gadget in Vista … or the countless number of sticky notes gadgets available for other platforms) comes in handy. In the true spirit of Post-it notes, you can just jot something down on your desktop and delete it when you’re finished with the task. Since it’s right there in front of you, this can often be a great way to make sure you don’t forget something. Just make sure you don’t need to remember it forever, or Evernote would be a much better option.

Conclusion

No matter what you need to keep up with, Evernote is a handy tool that can help you make sure to not forget it. The new Chrome addon has made it much more useful for me, and I now find myself using Evernote daily. Evernote’s CEO repeatedly says that Evernote becomes more valuable to users the longer they use it, and I’ve definitely found that to be true. Sound off in the comments, and let us know how you use Evernote (or another notetaking application, or a string around your finger, or whatever) to remember everything.

Because sometimes, our memories aren’t good enough!

Download and Signup for Evernote today!

Weeks and Weeks of Geek

Matthew Guay — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:17:05 +0000

I haven’t added my recent articles to Techinch lately, so here’s a whole load of them. I’m trying to figure out a better way to share links; I would like to do Tumblr-style link posts, and need to see if I can hack that into my theme. Anyhow, for now, here’s everything I’ve written since my last How-to Geek update:

Wow, that was a lot, and covered just about every spectrum of tech . I’m going to try posting daily updates or so, but we’ll have to see. At any rate, enjoy!

April Showers … of Articles!

Matthew Guay — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 04:08:55 +0000

I’ve been writing up a storm, but unfortunately it hasn’t brought any rain to my town Tak, Thailand. We’ve had average daily temperatures of 110F, so consider all of these articles well-roasted!

Experience your music in a whole new way with Zune for PC

Tired of the standard Media Player look and feel, and want something new and innovative? Zune for Windows offers a fresh, new way to enjoy your music, videos, pictures, and podcasts, whether or not you own a Zune device.

Increase the size of Taskbar Preview Thumbnails in Windows 7

Taskbar thumbnail previews are incredibly useful in Windows 7, but for some users they may be too small. Here’s a tool to help you make your taskbar thumbnail previews just like you want them.

This article was even share by Microsoft on the Windows Facebook page!

Change The Windows 7 Start Orb the Easy Way

Want to make your Windows 7 PC even more unique and personalized? Then check out this easy guide on how to change your start orb in Windows 7.

OCR anything with OneNote 2007 and 2010

Quality OCR software can often be very expensive, but you may have one already installed on your computer that you didn’t know about. Here’s how you can use OneNote to OCR anything on your computer.

Jolicloud is a Nifty New OS for Your Netbook

Want to breathe new life into your netbook? Here’s a quick look at Jolicloud, a unique new Linux based OS that lets you use your netbook in a whole new way.

Experience the iPad UI On Your PC

Want to test drive iPad without heading over to an Apple store? Here’s a way you can experience some of the iPad UI straight from your browser!

Perform Unit Conversions with the Windows 7 Calculator

Want to easily convert area, volume, temperature, and many other units? With the Calculator in Windows 7, it’s easy to convert most any unit into another.

Change the Default Font Size in Word

Are you frustrated by always having to change the font size before you create a document it Word? Here’s how you can end that frustration and set your favorite default font size for once and for all!

How to Upgrade Your Netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium

Would you like more features and flash in Windows on your netbook? Here’s how you can easily upgrade your netbook to Windows 7 Home Premium the easy way.

This works great, by the way,…

And my Samsung N150 runs Aero great; oddly, it gets a better Experience Index on the Video Card than the processor!

Sync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs with Dropbox

Pidgin is definitely our favorite universal chat client, but adding all of your chat accounts to multiple computers can be frustrating. Here’s how you can easily transfer your Pidgin settings to other computers and keep them in sync using Dropbox.

This article was featured on Lifehacker, too!

Use Dropbox to Sync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs

And, if you don’t aready have a Dropbox account, signup with this link … it’ll give both of us an extra 250Mb of storage for free. Thanks!

Signup for Dropbox today!

Check back soon for more How-To Geek Goodness, including more Dropbox coverage and a new series on blogging with WordPress!

Goodbye, March!

Matthew Guay — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:02:51 +0000

Time flies when you’re having fun, but it has this bad habit of flying no matter what’s happening. 2010 is already fleeting by, and although I haven’t been writing much here I definitely haven’t stopped writing . I’ve been writing almost every day at How-to Geek, and here are my latest articles there for Techinch readers (oldest articles first … if you want the absolute latest articles, read on ):

The Windows Browser Ballot Screen Offers Web Browser Choice to European Users

Since March, our friends across the pond in Europe get to decide which browser they want to install with their Windows OS. Today we thought we would take a look at the ballot choices, some are well known, and others you may not have heard of.

Center Pictures and Other Objects in Office 2007 & 2010

Sometimes it can be difficult to center a picture in a document just by dragging it dragging it around. Today we show you how to center pictures, images, and other objects perfectly in Word and PowerPoint.

Add the Recycle Bin to Start Menu in Windows 7

Have you ever tried to open the Recycle Bin by searching for “recycle bin” in the Start menu search, only to find nothing? Here’s a quick trick that will let you find the Recycle Bin directly from your Windows Start menu search.

Help Prevent Carpal Tunnel Problems with Workrave

Whether for work or leisure, many of us spend entirely too much time on the computer everyday. This puts us at risk of having or aggravating Carpal Tunnel problems, but thanks to Workrave you can help to divert these problems.

Use Advanced Font Ligatures in Office 2010

Fonts can help your documents stand out and be easier to read, and Office 2010 helps you take your fonts even further with support for OpenType ligatures, stylistic sets, and more. Here’s a quick look at these new font features in Office 2010.

Create Chemistry Equations and Diagrams in Word

Microsoft Word is a great tool for formatting text, but what if you want to insert a chemistry formula or diagram? Thanks to a new free add-in for Word, you can now insert high-quality chemistry formulas and diagrams directly from the Ribbon in Word.

Keep a Window on top with a handy AutoHotkey script

Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows to get your work done? Here’s a handy tool that lets you keep any window always on top when you need it.

Test Drive Windows 7 Online with Virtual Labs

Did you miss out on the Windows 7 public beta and want to try it out before you actually make the leap and upgrade? Maybe you want to learn how to deploy new features in a business environment. Here’s how you can test drive Windows 7 directly from your browser.

Multitask Like a Pro with AquaSnap

Are you tired of shuffling back and forth between windows? Here’s a handy app that can help you keep all of your windows organized and accessible.

Remove Office 2010 Beta and Reinstall Office 2007

Have you tried out the Office 2010 beta, but want to go back to Office 2007? Here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how to remove your Office 2010 beta and reinstall your Office 2007.

Make Your PC Look Like Windows Phone 7

Windows Phone 7 offers a unique and exciting UI that displays lots of information efficiently on the screen. And with a simple Rainmeter theme, you can have the same UI and content directly on your Windows 7 desktop.

Make Your 64 bit Computer Look like a Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 was one of the bestselling home computers ever, and many geeks got their first computing experience on one of these early personal computers. Here’s an easy way to revisit the early years of personal computing with a theme for Windows 7.

Enjoy, and check back for more soon!

Get ready for Windows Phone 7!

Matthew Guay — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:39:48 +0000

Mobile devices have become the most interesting sector of computing in recent years. The iPhone has brought smartphones to the masses, and now everyone around the world expects their phone to be as fast and capable. Microsoft was an early leader in the mobile devices market with Windows Mobile, which has powered millions of PDAs and phones from numerous manufacturers around the globe. However, innovation lagged in recent years, and newer devices and mobile operating systems made Windows Mobile look stale in comparison. Last year Microsoft released Windows Mobile 6.5 to address some of the problems and update the user interface, but even this was not enough to keep even their own employees from switching to competing mobile platforms, usually the iPhone.

The past two months, however, have entirely turned around the tech industry’s perspective of Microsoft’s mobile platform. In February during the Mobile World Congress, Microsoft unveiled their new Windows Phone 7. Borrowing heavily from the Zune HD’s UI, Windows Phone 7 offers a simple and elegant way to compute and communicate on the go. Then, during the recent Mix’10 conference, Microsoft unveiled more information about Windows Phone 7 and its development ecosystem. This includes a free development kit containing Visual Studio Express for Windows Phone, XNA Game Studio, and a Windows Phone 7 emulator. This means you can run a pre-release version of Windows Phone 7 on your PC right now!

Want to try it out for yourself? Check out my article at How-to Geek about the free Development tools for Windows 7 at:

Try out Windows Phone 7 on your PC today

But, unfortunately, the default emulator doesn’t include all of the features of Windows Phone 7; in fact, it only contains the Internet Explorer Mobile browser, and can run any apps you develop for it. Enterprising developers discovered, however, that the emulator did contain all of the features, but they simply weren’t unlocked. Thanks to developer Dan Ardelean, now we can all try out all of the pre-release features in Windows Phone 7 today! Check it out, and my How-to Geek article about it at:

Test All Features of Windows Phone 7 On Your PC

Now, what if you actually want to develop, too?

Playing around with the emulator is fun, but if you’d like to actually get a head-start on developing for the new platform, Microsoft’s got lots of resources for you. Not only the developer tools we just looked at, but how about a free ebook? Microsoft Press is offering a free draft edition of their upcoming “Programming Windows Phone 7 Series” book for download on their blog today! So what are you waiting for? Head over to the blog post and check it out, or just download it directly in PDF or XPS versions along with code samples.

Also, check out the Windows Phone 7 Training Kit from MSDN’s Channel 9. It contains step-by-step tutorials on how to get started with your first Windows Phone 7 app. Check it out at the link below:

Windows Phone 7 Training Kit

Extra Languages, Pidgin, and more!

Matthew Guay — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:42:02 +0000

This past week, I’ve covered a wide range of topics at How-to Geek. Check out the descriptions, and read the articles you find interesting!

Getting Work Done

Here’s my most recent articles from How-to Geek that help you use your computer better and get more done.

Convert a Row to a Column in Excel the Easy Way

Sometimes we’ve entered data in a column in Excel, only to realize later that it would be better to have this data in a row, or vise-versa. Here’s a simple trick to convert any row or set of rows into a column, or vise-versa, in Excel.

Add keyboard languages to XP, Vista, and Windows 7

Do you regularly need to type in multiple languages in Windows? Here we’ll show you the easy way to add and change input languages to your keyboard in XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

View Mobile Websites in Windows with Safari 4 Developer Tools

Want to try out mobile websites designed for the iPhone and other mobile devices on your PC? Safari 4 for Windows lets you do this easily with their developer tools.

…and staying in touch

Facebook is the most popular way to keep up with your friends and family today, so what better way to stay in touch than to be accessible on Facebook chat throughout the day? Warning: this may not help your productivity

Easily Add Facebook Chat to Pidgin

Want to keep in touch with your Facebook friends throughout the day? Here we’ll show you how to easily add Facebook chat to the popular multi-protocol chat client Pidgin.

Just for Fun

All work and no play… Check these out when you’ve got a few minutes to spare

Play Your Favorite DOS Games in XP, Vista, and Windows 7

Want to take a trip down memory lane with old school DOS games? Check out how to easily run DOS games in modern versions of Windows with D-Fend Reloaded!

Geek Fun: Virtualized Old School Windows – Windows 95

Last week we enjoyed looking at Windows 3.1 running in VMware Player on Windows 7. Today, let’s upgrade our 3.1 to 95, and get a look at how most of us remember Windows from the 90’s.

Update: I just noticed that the links I posted were entirely unusable. Sorry about that; they should all be corrected now!

Outlook and UAC and VirtualBox, oh my!

Matthew Guay — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:53:46 +0000

It’s been a busy week between finals at Florida Tech and a major problem with an article I wrote on running XP Mode in Virtual Box, so here’s your chance to catch up my How-to Geek articles if you’ve been waiting for me to post them here.

Outlook:

I wrote two articles about my favorite plugins for Outlook: Forgotten Attachment Detector and the Drop.io plugin.

Never Forget to Send an Email Attachment in Outlook

Send up to 100MB attachments with Outlook and drop.io

Windows:

Is IE 8 any good for web developers? Check out a fun trick you can do with IE8 at:

Edit Text in a Webpage with Internet Explorer 8

And then, Find your computer’s location with Windows 7 and Geosense

UAC is often unloved and misunderstood, which is why I wrote Understanding User Account Control in Windows 7

All work and no play …. well, let’s look at Window’s ancient ancestors! Geek Fun: Virtualized old school Windows 3.11

And then, to continue my series on running XP Mode in extreme and unusual ways, I wrote an article on how to run XP Mode in VirtualBox. Windows XP didn’t appear to activate correctly when users started trying to follow my directions, so we quickly went back to the drawing board. Thankfully, MysticGeek at How-to Geek dug up a great way to still get XP Mode to work in Virtual Box via the VMLite plugin. This integrates XP Mode with Windows 7 very nicely, including showing XP programs directly in your Windows 7 Start menu just like the official XP Mode. Check this method out at Install XP Mode with VirtualBox Using the VMLite Plugin, and you can even still see my original infamous article if you’d like at How To Run XP Mode in VirtualBox on Windows 7 (though remember, you won’t actually be able to activate XP Mode this way).

Books, books, and more books!

Microsoft press has the good habit of giving away free ebooks periodically, and they recently released a new on on their blog for free. This book, Own Your Future: Update Your Skills with Resources and Career Ideas from Microsoft, offers some unique and interesting pointers to make your career more successful in any field. Check out their blog post for more info, and download the book for free in PDF or XPS formats.

One more thing!

The neatest new download of the week was the new Opera 10.50. It brings a sleek Aero UI and great Windows 7 integration to the most popular browser that no one uses (on the desktop anyhow). This new version should help change that; it’s fast, pretty, and easy to use with streamlined menus. But this wasn’t Opera’s only new release of the week; they also released a beta version of Opera Mini 5 for Windows Mobile. Unlike previous versions that ran in Java, this version is a native Windows Mobile browser, includes tabbed browsing, and is amazingly fast. Opera Mini was already my favorite browser on Windows Mobile (Chrome and IE8 tie on the desktop for me ), and this just made it even better. Check them both out when you have a chance; you’ll enjoy it!

Linux in Windows the Easy Way

Matthew Guay — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:49:42 +0000

Would you like to try out Ubuntu (or any other popular distribution of Linux) from the comfort of your Windows 7 (or Vista or XP) desktop? With a quick download of the Ubuntu ISO and VMware Player, you can do this easily. And, you can even run Linux apps side by side with your Windows Apps, and even see their icons in your taskbar! This article is my latest on Virtualization, so check it out on How-To Geek to see how easy it is to run Ubuntu right inside Windows!

How To Run Ubuntu in Windows 7 with VMware Player

Customize Windows 7 Starter

Matthew Guay — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:44:23 +0000

Want to make Windows 7 Starter look and work just like you want it to? Check out my post at How-to Geek for tips and tricks on how to change your screensaver, sounds, theme, icons, and even customize your desktop! Once again, I’ve been presently surprised that Windows 7 Starter is more capable than one would assume at first glance. Continue reading at How-to Geek:

How To Personalize Windows 7 Starter

Find your System Specs with Speccy

Matthew Guay — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:46:28 +0000

Speccy is a new, great little system tool that gives you detailed information about all the hardware on your computer. It is even available in a portable version so you can run it on a computer at a store, friend’s house, or anywhere else you need to check detailed stats. My favorite features is that it shows the model, speed, latency, and more from your Ram; this is really helpful if you’re wanting to add more RAM to your computer. Check out my whole overview of this tool at How-to Geek:

Find Detailed Hardware Information with Speccy

Lifehacker also found this useful, and linked to my How-to Geek article!