Installing an extension to QuickFox Notes is not quite as straightforward as installing a browser add-on. You’ll firstly need to download the extension script, which is found here (right-click, and save it as a .js file). To install the script, open QuickFox Notes and then click on Tools->Add-ons->Open add-ons folder, then move the .js file you downloaded into that folder. You’ll need to restart QuickFox Notes for the change to take effect.

Once restarted, you’ll find that you now have an extra button in your QuickFox Notes window for uploading the note to Google Docs, as shown in the screenshot above. Hitting that button will pop up a window asking for your username and password before saving the note to Google Docs. Note that notes are only saved to Google Docs — this extension does not provide a two-way sync.

(Via Addictive Tips)

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With the rollout of Livescribe Connect, the company has now added sharing features to the gadget that should be useful for collaboration.  The system can turn the notes recorded by the pen into interactive “pencasts” that can be shared with anyone who has Adobe Reader. Files containing both handwritten notes and recorded audio can be sent to a number of applications and online services, including email, Google Docs, Facebook, Evernote, and the MyLivescribe service that offers 500MB of cloud storage to any Livescribe owner. Pencast files can also be sent to mobile devices, including the iPad and iPhone.

You can download a demo pencast from the Livescribe site. The files are modified PDFs with embedded Flash elements to provide the interactivity. Thus, you’ll need Adobe Reader 10 or higher to play back and interact with a pencast. Other PDF readers, such as Preview on the Mac, can only view the first page of the document.

The Echo Smartpen, accessories and apps are available from the Livescribe store and various retailers. The base pen includes 4GB of storage, and costs $149.95. Pens with more storage and features are also available.

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The idea behind yaM is to replace more traditional tools, such as an emailed agenda and notes, with a collaborative online tool that provides a centralized place to capture and share all of the information pertaining to the meeting. yaM is designed to be used before, during and after the meeting. Prior to the meeting, the organizer can set up a schedule and agenda and distribute that to the attendees. Each meeting set up on yaM can have a number of pages added to it, with each page containing different tools, including:

• Agenda, minutes, action items and notes. Notes and action items pages can be added to take notes during the meeting, while agenda and minutes pages can be generated automatically.
• Documents and drawings. Documents can be uploaded and shared prior to and during the meeting
• Whiteboard. A collaborative virtual whiteboard to sketch out ideas.
• Analysis and discussion. yaM provides a range of collaborative analysis tools to help  decision-making during the meting, including SWOT, cost-benefit analysis and brainstorming tools.
• Voting. Meeting participants can vote on ideas using the consensus development tool.

Pages can be added on the fly, and all the pages from the meting are archived in the tool, keeping a handy record of meeting outcomes.

yaM is free; you can sign up here.

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Simplified Sharing

Glass’ major benefit lies in how quickly and easily you can comment on a site and share it. There are plugins available for both Firefox and Chrome, letting you add your own thoughts to a website with a click of a button. Those thoughts can include links, images and video.

The messaging system built into Glass makes collaboration convenient. Not only can you send along your comments to other users, but Glass has built-in messaging features. Users receive real-time notifications and can effectively chat about the sites they share.

There are a few pleasant surprises if you signed up for Glass early on in the private beta but haven’t spent a lot of time on it since. There is a mobile version, available for the iPhone, along with plenty of bells and whistles geared toward sharing information. You can create well-designed slides through Glass’ interface, making your comments something truly worth sharing. You can also organize the users you follow and your own information through the use of interest groups and lists.

The Mechanics

There’s a layer of security built into Glass that can make it a more useful option for teams interested in sharing information that closely ties into what they’re working on. The use of SSL encryption creates a tool that organizations can feel confident in using. Glass also takes care to reassure users that the owners of those sites that you may comment on can’t actually see your comments — unless, of course, you share them.

Glass remains free and appears to have further developments in the pipeline; right after coming out of beta, the site has already announced a new slide theme as a “thank you” to the users who came through beta with the application. 

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Catch’s web interface is pretty bare-bones, but it’s easy to use while offering more options than Paprika. Catch notes can include text, images, links, map locations, and Twitter-style #hashtags. The interface includes full-text search of notes, plus sorting by date and tag.

Specific notes can be made public if you wish to share them, and other Catch users can comment on shared items.

One can capture data by sending it to your account through email or by importing a TXT or CSV file. The service can accept HTML text, but the interface doesn’t really render HTML as one would expect on a web page.

Catch is available on Android, iPhone, and iPad. The mobile apps can use location data to show maps, and to “show notes nearby” a location. The apps have offline access to notes, and are password-protected.

If you prefer a desktop app, you can turn Catch.com into a desktop app for Mac using Fluid. There’s also a Google Chrome extension, and Catch synchronizes with the cloud and mobile devices over a 256-bit SSL encryption.

The service offers an open API, so developers can create their own apps to sync with Catch. Catch itself offers no less than four Android apps: AK Notepad, Catch Notes, and the specialized Catch Health Tracker. Compass takes advantage of Catch’s location awareness to power a navigation app. All are free, and show what can be done with the platform, but there aren’t nearly as many apps for Ctach as are available through Evernote’s Trunk.

Catch is currently ad-free, and does not limit how much data you can capture; currently there is no information as to whether the company plans to charge for the service.

On the whole, I don’t find Catch to be compelling enough to make me switch from Evernote, but it may be of interest to those who like Catch’s location features, or don’t like Evernote’s freemium model.

What do you use for note-taking?

That’s pretty much all there is to it, but Shrib does have a couple of useful additional features (available via the “advanced options” link). Firstly, you can store backups or copies of notes (backup stores the previous version of the note, copy stores the current version). It’s important to use this feature when saving notes you want to keep, because otherwise, someone else could use the same name for their notes as you and overwrite your notes. Secondly, because notes are stored at a public URL, anyone could guess that URL and find your notes. If that bothers you, you can encrypt your notes with a password by clicking the “lock these notes” link. Anyone viewing the notes without the password will just see a garbled page.

Shrib’s certainly not groundbreaking, but it’s a very simple (and free) way to store and share notes with other people that doesn’t require anyone to sign up for anything.

What apps do you use for storing notes online?

(via One Thing Well)

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But how can you focus on note taking when you have other things on your mind such as networking, the other sessions you have to attend, and possibly some additional work you have to do? Here are three things you should keep in mind:

• Remember that being present and attentive is your priority. This means actively listening, looking at visual aids, and paying attention to the lecture itself. While you can record audio, video, or view live tweets, these must be for reference only and not a substitute for the real thing. It makes no sense to sit in an auditorium for an hour only to repeat that hour via a recording because you were too busy taking notes or getting to know the person beside you to digest the finer details.
• Know why you’re taking down notes. Is it for faster recall or to record your own insight? Will you be using your notes to write a blog post or make a presentation at work? The reasons behind your note-taking will help you determine the best approach and tools to use.
• Get as much information as you can about the tech specs of the event beforehand. Will there be free internet access available? How reliable is it and will be be available throughout the entire venue? Will you be able to plug or charge your devices easily? This information can help you choose your tools accordingly.

With that out of the way, it’s only a matter of getting your notes down as efficiently as possible.

Using Tools to Improve Note-taking

According to a research paper on note taking, in an academic setting the average note-taking speed for students is 0.3 to 0.4 words per second, while lecturers speak at around 2 to 3 words per second. With this speed discrepancy it’s no wonder that most people find it hard to jot down concise yet complete notes. Still, there are ways to work around this:

• Don’t rely solely on text-based notes. While many of us are used to pen-and-paper note-taking methods, the difference in speech and writing speed means that we can’t rely on them alone. This is why we should look beyond written notes. We could include mindmaps, photos (of important slides, for example), or audio recording. Some apps that allow you to record in a variety of formats include Evernote, Springpad, FolderBoy (which Charles reviewed here), and Notepub.
• Use fast tools. Don’t just look for fast loading time or responsiveness, but note your own speed when using the tool. This means that some options aren’t ideal for many people, such as alphanumeric keypads and apps for handwriting or speech recognition. You can even use SMS abbreviations, shorthand, macros, and word completion apps to increase speed further.
• Process your notes. Directly after the lecture is the best time to enter the second phase of note-taking: information processing. This is where you’ll start to consult external sources for additional information and make connections among the things you’ve learned. You could do this by organizing all the material you’ve gathered and by making annotations. Some handy annotation tools include Apollo and A.nnotate.

Taking a cue from student life, don’t be afraid to borrow the notes of other attendees. You can borrow notes directly from people you have a strong rapport with, or wait for bloggers to post their own notes or articles summarizing the talk. They might include some points you’ve missed or make connections that you didn’t think of. Just be sure to offer to share your own notes and express that you’re looking for something supplementary. You don’t want to leave the impression that you’re asking them to do all your work for you.

It may take a lot of practice to become very effective at note-taking, but the important thing is to get better each time.

Share your note-taking tips below.

Photo by stock.xchng user christgr

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As you might expect from the name, FolderBoy encourages users to create folders to organize notes. You can even create folders within folders, and move notes and folders using drag and drop. You can create tags, too, and can even tag your tags. FolderBoy says “trust us, tagging your tags is useful!” although I’m not entirely sure why. But even without using tags, it’s easy to find information quickly with FolderBoy’s “find-as-you-type” full-text search.

Similar to Evernote, FolderBoy allows you to upload text, files and links. But, once saved, the links aren’t clickable, and FolderBoy’s notes are in plain text only.

FolderBoy has some useful features, although some will take getting used to. It will create events when you type phrases like “aug 31″ or “next thursday.” It didn’t parse “a week from friday” correctly, though, and it tends to assign a time of 5pm to events created this way. You’ll need to be careful about deleting folders, too, since any notes within a folder will be deleted along with the folder.

FolderBoy is web-only, and does not have any mobile apps, although the website seems to work well on my iPod touch. The service also doesn’t have an import or export function.

FolderBoy has a free version that allows allows you to upload up to 500MB of data and create up to 1,000 notes. Premium accounts will soon be available for $45 per year and will allow users to upload up to 50GB of data. You can try FolderBoy’s demo account without signing up, or enter your email address to get your own account.

If you like the idea of using folders to organize notes, and you need an app that helps you to find notes fast, FolderBoy may be for you. But if you need rich text, desktop and mobile apps, plus import and export, you’ll need to look elsewhere.

What features do you need in a note-taking app?

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When you log in, you are presented with a very simple, almost stark, interface. All of your content is displayed under “Projects.” Don’t let the “project” name fool you — Paprika is not a project management system in the way that Basecamp and its many competitors are. Each “project” is just a text document.

In fact, Paprika doesn’t have a WYSIWYG editor. You can do some formatting of documents using Textile. This markup language may be familiar, as some of its conventions, like underscores for italics and asterisks for bold, have made their way into general use.

Paprika doesn’t offer full-text searching. You can only search for certain elements, such as Twitter-style #hashtags, dates, and to-do items (which are created by entering a dash at the beginning of a line).

Projects can be shared with others; the app creates short links when requested. However, anyone who has the link can edit — there is no way to assign different permission levels.

Paprika is web-only. It doesn’t sync to other platforms, and it doesn’t have a desktop or smartphone app. It doesn’t even have an export function, although it does interact with Jumpchart and Staction, both of which are produced by the same company as Paprika.

The free version of Paprika allows creation of up to ten projects, and includes 5MB of storage. For $5 per month, upgraded accounts are available that allow 25 active projects and 250MB of storage. Some web workers may like Paprika’s simple text-based interface, but I find other, more robust, alternatives to be more useful.

How do you manage notes, dates, and to-dos?

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Note taking can be a personal exercise. Look around any conference table today and you’ll see a wide spectrum of note taking techniques, ranging from people writing on paper to folks tapping away at laptop keyboards.

But the notes themselves are also often quite personal. For example, when I go into a client meeting, I am there from a technical documentation standpoint, and my notes reflect that. Likewise, I would expect not to get much from the notes of a programmer. The result is that “knowledge islands” can form as everyone hoards their own notes.

Applications like OneNote, Evernote and WikiTouch offer collaborative note taking features, enabling teams to access each others’ notes for collaboration, and help distribute that knowledge within an organization by capturing meeting, research and project notes in a centrally accessible location.

Here are some tips for implementing collaborative note taking on your project team:

• Define the benefits. Moving your team to a collaborative note taking platform shouldn’t be a cause for more work, especially if note taking is already an integral element in your work. It is important to communicate the benefits of the move to the entire team. Is it to capture important project information like requirements? Is it to better document decisions? Is meeting and research information falling through gaps?
• Choose the appropriate application. Moving your team to a standard platform for note taking shouldn’t be a daunting task. However, you need to factor in team member note taking styles and security considerations into the decision. If your organization is hesitant about keeping private notes in the cloud then I suggest taking a look at OneNote, which enables you to keep your note taking and collaboration inside the firewall. If the cloud is OK, then Evernote or Evernote Premium (with its SSL security encryption) would also be an option.
• Set note taking guidelines. Moving note taking to a collaborative app may require some initial guidelines to enable a seamless transition. Depending on your needs, your note taking guidelines may include templates to use (OneNote includes note taking templates), and directions about things like the use of fonts, numbering and bullet points. The aim of your guidelines should be to ensure some consistency across the notes your team takes. The end goal is to have a repository of notes that is accessible and understandable to all those on the project team.
• Set note taking roles. While collaborative note taking removes the need for a single “scribe” to take meeting notes, I might recommend that you still pay some attention to note taking roles when moving to a collaborative note taking environment. For example, you may want to make sure that project related notes are recorded by the project manager.

Do you use collaborative note taking on any of your projects? Share your experience below.

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• Threats Loom Large for Microsoft’s Email and Collaboration Platforms

Yesterday, Evernote 3.5 for Windows became available for download. I covered the beta release back in September and was happy with the direction it took the client, especially since its user interface began to look more like its Mac cousin. Since I use Evernote across Windows, Mac and iPhone I welcome the emphasis on uniformity that Evernote is taking for us cross-platform users.

This new version of the Evernote client boasts some speed and performance upgrades (which I can confirm with my informal tests on Windows 7 and Windows XP) and a host of  new features and improvements across the application that should impress longtime users and attract new converts.  I had to resync Evernote and update the client database once I installed the new release — which took a bit of time — but it was worth the wait.

Improved Viewing

The first thing I checked out in the new Evernote was the new viewing options, because I am always looking for better ways to slice and dice the way I view the notes that I take on  my iPhone, Mac, Windows PC or via Twitter. The Thumbnail view enables you to quickly see the contents of the notes, images and PDFs:

The List view provides a multi-column view enabling you to sort on any column. There is also a mixed view combining the thumbnail and list views, which is where I spend the most of my time when sorting through my Evernote notes.

Improved Note Editing

Evernote 3.5 includes auto-complete tagging and easier tag creation when compared to previous versions. As I try to become more faithful at tagging my notes, these improvements should prove useful.

While I am not a fan of spell checking while you type (I prefer to run a spell check), it is new in this version for those of you who like it. You can also create tables within notes, which is a welcome feature for me, since I often deal with tabular data during the course of my technical writing work.

Evernote 3.5  also offers better handling of longer text notes, which is a boon for me as I stash large amounts of information in Evernote, especially when I am in research mode.

Improved Searching

As I add more notes to Evernote, I am finding myself using search a lot more when I want to dig through the archives, and the improved search filter with support for extended search capabilities and grammar performs well.

Have you upgraded to Evernote 3.5?

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Capturx for Microsoft OneNote 2007 2.0 is a digital pen product from Adapx that offers tight integration with OneNote 2007, with a suggested retail price of $349. The pen includes a docking station with a USB cable and software. Adapx kindly loaned me a trial unit so I’ve had the opportunity to spend some quality time with the product, putting it through its paces in various note-taking scenarios, and came away impressed with it. The pen is a bit chunkier than normal ink pens but still felt comfortable in my hand. It runs on a lithium-ion battery which you can recharge by placing it in its docking station.

OneNote is a great integration choice for this product, because of the searching and organizational tools it provides for your notes. You can also use it as a jumping-off point for transferring your notes into Microsoft Word 2007 or PowerPoint 2007.

Using the Capturx Digital Pen and Notebook

Capturx requires OneNote 2007, and either 32-bit Windows Vista or Windows 7. Like other digital pens out on the market, Capturx works with a special paper that you can purchase directly from Adapx or print out yourself. The software enables you to print the paper directly from Capturx to a four-color PostScript laser printer.

For purposes of my review, I used one of Adapx’s digital notebooks with the pen. The notebooks resemble a loose leaf binder but the paper inside is a bit thicker and glossier than normal notebook paper. I brought my poor penmanship along and started taking notes in the provided notebook and on some of the paper printed from my printer. Downloading my notes was as simple as docking the pen in the included dock.

Once you dock your pen to download your notes, Capturx prompts you to name the notebook, or choose a notebook for your notes. Your notes then appear in OneNote:

Choose Tools -> Convert Handwriting to Text and your handwriting is converted to text:

While I’m not going to say that the conversion was always perfect during my testing, even with my poor penmanship the conversion left me with enough to work with. I could easily see myself taking the Capturx digital pen to a client meeting for taking notes and getting enough out of the conversion to start a technical document after making some edits to the converted text. My handwritten notes have become a bit chunkier and boxier over the years, so I don’t write using cursive script, but I still found myself paying a little more attention to how I formed my letters, which seemed to help in how the software understood my handwritten notes.

While you can’t convert your hand-drawn diagrams for use in a tool like Visio, I did like the way I could archive the diagrams in OneNote for searching later. This would help me stay more organized and give me another reason to move past the old-school yellow legal pads that I use for taking notes.

If you’re like me and looking to better bridge the gap between your handwritten notes and your PC but have been hesitant about digital pen technologies, I recommend checking out Capturx for Microsoft OneNote 2007 2.0.

I give it high marks for its tight integration with OneNote and handwriting recognition that even worked with my poor penmanship. I can envision myself using this tool to digitize my own notes from client meetings and doing away with unnecessary transcription of my handwritten notes or having to retain paper notes, and avoiding the ever-embarrassing situation of not understanding my own notes a week or two after the call or meeting.

Have you tried out Capturx for Microsoft OneNote 2007 2.0, or other digital pen? How did it work for you?

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With the rise of services such as AudioBoo, voice memos and voice notes are increasingly becoming a useful mobile productivity and publishing tool (see Aliza’s post, “How to Use Audio Microblogging for Your Work” for a roundup), and are beginning to outpace Apple’s in-house app in usefulness and features.

The latest to join this space is YiqYaq’s Soundbiter for iPhone, a free “rolling recorder” that’s constantly capturing your sonic environment, enabling users to “bite” the last minute of recorded audio for editing or publication. Indeed, Soundbiter actually seems ideally pitched at roving journalists wishing to capture soundbites for later publication.

As well as the continuous recording mode, other features include:

• A sound editor with waveform cropping and previewing.
• Uploading to the Yiqyaq’s companion RadioWeave “personal radio” publishing service.
• Tools to add metadata, such as tags, images and location data
• Automatic sharing of a clip with a user’s Twitter followers.

The relationship with RadioWeave is an curious one; though pitched at “bloggers, bird-watchers, concert-goers, life-streamers and journalists,” the company is blending user-submitted clips with professional audio content as a kind of personalized radio stream.

Constantly Recording Your Context

Regardless of the RadioWeave integration, the constant recording concept is interesting in of itself, and suggests a useful precedent for any number of mobile applications. Rather than having to load task-specific applications, what if your device was constantly recording its location, camera data, audio environment and applications simply dipped into that pool of data to edit, share or annotate? A little like the conceptual “blind camera” that records context rather than images.

In any case, Soundbiter is a richer and more useful alternative to the iPhone’s voice recording app. iPod touch users will need to use an external microphone — a perfect excuse to get hook up that pro XLR microphone!

Download Soundbiter for free at the iTunes App Store.

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Idea Organizer is an app for the iPhone that I recently discovered that makes logging those ideas incredibly easy. There are other ways to do what it does, some via built-in tools offered by Apple itself, but no other solution brings all the features and functionality together in the same place.

Idea Organizer combines an audio recorder, a text notebook and an image capture tool to help make sure that you can not only keep track of any ideas that pop into your head, but also the ones you get from the world around you. You can create an idea using any type of media mentioned, and then add other types of content later to provide context.

The other reason I prefer this app to any other is that it keeps thing simple and has an intelligently designed user interface. The app opens directly to a screen that presents you with a button that gives you access to your most recent idea, and three big buttons that allow you create a new idea based on text input, photo or audio. Idea Organizer’s developers were clearly thinking about the fleeting nature of good ideas when they designed the app.

Finally, you can email any ideas to yourself at any time, for easier editing on an actual computer. You can also batch email all your ideas at once, which is a terrific convenience feature.

For $1.99, Idea Organizer (iTunes link) is great bargain for a very handy little app. Sure, you can approximate its function for free, but in many more steps and with a lot more hassle.

How do you make sure you don’t lose track of great ideas you have while out of the office?

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The sketchbook is a free space for your ideas to play, unbound by lines and ruled margins. It’s a laboratory, a playground, a testing facility and a sounding board. And perhaps best of all, it requires no batteries and can go pretty much anywhere you do. Here’s why I love mine so much, and why any web worker would do well to have their own on hand.

Idea Log

You know the feeling of getting hit with innovation lightning? The one you get when you come up with something great, something you’re terrified will fly out of your head before you get to a computer. That kind of idea, to my mind, is best captured by the sketchbook, in as close an approximation to the unprocessed original as absolutely possible.

The nature of our brains is such that as we think about an idea, we tend to process and refine it while we keep it in our heads. I much prefer to capture the really good ideas raw, before I’ve had a chance to rationalize and massage them into something more manageable, but possibly much less potent, too.

With a sketchbook, I find that I can capture the idea in its essence, unhindered by editing and page constraints. I’m a very visual person, so it helps that I can use words and images easily thanks to the clean, blank unlined pages. It also makes it easier to add to or scan later on. Plus, even ideas that turn out to be not-so-great could transform into something really useful just through the absent-minded doodling I do on a regular basis on top of existing sketches and concepts.

Collaborative Tool

Describing what you want to do or want to have done can be very hard. Project disappointments, in fact, are often due to confusion regarding expectations, rather than any real failure on the part of anyone involved in the process.

Having a sketchbook on-hand, depending on your comfort level and relationship with the individual you’re working with, can be a great way to spitball ideas using non-traditional means. Even if design has nothing to do with your project, you can use the space to rough out workflows and processes, draw mind maps and illuminate key project concepts in a way that verbal communication simply doesn’t allow for.

Passing a sketchbook back and forth, and taking turns writing, sketching and thinking out loud has produced some of the best collaborative work I’ve ever produced.

Stress Relief

Doodling has always been one of my favorite pastimes. Ever since my early school days, when I used to idly doodle in the margins of my primary workbooks, I’ve enjoyed sketching and drawing as a means to relax. With all that practice, you’d think I’d be better sketcher than I am.

Skill aside, a sketchbook to which I can turn at any moment to work off a little stress through therapeutic doodling is a must-have for my professional health. It’s always close to hand, it doesn’t cost anything, and it isn’t bad for my health. There are few other stress relievers for which all of the above is also true. Best of all, it’s a leisure activity that I can actually do while I’m working, which is invaluable.

Even if you’ve never tried sketching or doodling before, give it a shot and see how it makes you feel. The key is to master being able to draw with a complete absence of self-conscious thought, so that you truly get lost in the activity.

So do yourself a favor and get a sketchbook. It will become a constant companion, and possibly one of your most trusted advisors.

Do you tote a sketchbook?

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Over on the OStatic blog

Like many other wiki tools, Luminotes collects a series of linked notes, each with a unique title. To make a new note, you just click on the “+” button (at the top of the toolbar, at left in the screenshot above). You can link notes to each other using the “Link” button on the toolbar, and then there are standard formatting buttons that let you do everything from bolding text to creating bulleted and numbered lists within notes. Wikis are searchable, and you can import and export content to and from them.

There is a complete user guide for Luminotes found here, but I doubt that many users will need the guide. Everything is implemented through a WYSIWYG interface in the application, so that it feels like using Word or any other common word processor. There is no tricky markup language to or wrestle with.

Luminotes also has a blog, which discusses new features and the like. There is a Windows version and a Linux version, but Luminotes doesn’t work with every browser. I couldn’t get it to work in Opera, for example. It supports Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. You can do the download and installation in about two minutes.

You can either work online or offline with Luminotes, and can store it and run it from a USB thumb drive. If you decide to stop using Luminotes but want to keep your content, you can export your notes to a web page or to a CSV file to store in a spreadsheet. This application is very straightforward and could be a good way to manage projects among collaborators, or personal projects.

What note-taking tool do you use?

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