Periodic Ramblings

Are you looking for something different to read?  Maybe a classic that you remember from school or have been meaning to read?  Want something that is not going to cost you any money?

Well, Project Gutenberg can help.

Project Gutenberg aims to digitize books where the copyrights have expired here in the United States, providing these digitized versions to the Internet community.  Shakespeare, Homer, Doyle, Twain and Carroll are all there.  Read the original versions of Sherlock Holmes, Peter Pan and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

They are all there and ready to be downloaded to your computer or portable device.

If you are looking for a way to backup your on-line presence, well Backupify can assist in that regard.  For many of us, we spend a good portion of our time online and have a good portion of information that is important to us stored online.  Have you ever thought of “what happens if Flickr goes out of business and I lose all my pictures”?  Well, I have.  I have a lot of information that is only present online.  How many of your friends do you only have a Twitter or Facebook contact for?  How many documents do you have in Google Docs or Zoho Office?  If the answer pertains to data that is important, then you really should look at backing this data up.  We spend time thinking about backing up our laptop or desktop, but very little time is spent on our online presence.

This where Backupify can help.

Currently Backupify will backup the following services:

There is an interesting article over at Mashable about a possible decline in Twitter traffic and what could be the cause.  The article leads to pointing to a possible concern that Twitter is losing it’s edge and may need to reinvent itself.  I disagree.

I think that Twitter is starting to mature and refine it’s usage within the technology space.  Whereas it started as a simple notification/update tool, allowing one to post “I ate corn flakes this morning”, it has now changed.

I think Twitter is taking on two personae, both serving different audiences.

1. News Source

I look at Twitter as a modern day equivalent to the Town Crier.  Usually you can find information on some event either locally or globally on Twitter first before a mainstream news source has picked up on it.  Twitter has the ability through its unique user body to have an almost untapped potential for news gathering.  We tend to think of news gathering as something that needs to be done by a reporter working a beat, interviewing people and writing a story around the experiences of other people.  Twitter allows the everyday person to determine that story.  News does not need to be in the form of a 500 word New York Times article, sometimes the most efficient form of communication is a simple post/update, and if the person reading wants more information they can make the decision whether or not to do the additional research.

2. Marketing

I have seen a tremendous increase in the amount of non-people accounts on Twitter over the last year.  Almost all major consumer focused companies with a web presence, now have  a Twitter account.  They use this Twitter account to broadcast out a quick message to their customers about a particular event.  Think of the cost savings with this and the ability to reach a group of potential customers quickly.  One company that I follow is Geeks.com.  They continually send out “tweets” regarding sales and specials.  They are reaching a large number of people quickly and saving me time in that I do not have remember each day to visit their website or check my email to see what the special of the day is.

So, while Mashable thinks there is problem in the decline, I am not sure this is the case.  I think Twitter is maturing and usage is changing.  What Twitter needs to do, is continue to work on how to attract users and how to provide a service that serves the needs of an ever changing user base.

I found this article on the Tidbits website today that does a good job of giving an overview of WIFI options that are out there.  It is the best overview that I have seen of the options that WIFI surfers have when away from their primary connection.

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia will begin in about 44 days.  I remember as a kid having to watch events either on tape delay or at odd hours when they were in countries around the world, but as the Bejing Games showed, the Internet makes the games more accessible for all.

I ventured over to the Olympics site for NBC and can see already that a number of events will be online and there are links to a number of Twitter and Blogs for the athletes that are competing.  No longer will the fan of the Olympics need to wait for the evening news or the next day’s newspaper.  This is one of the benefits of the Internet that is overlooked a lot.

Lifehacker posted a link to a web page by Tom Scott that will display a Star Wars location based on the current weather conditions of any location that you put in.

According to the site, here in Racine, Wisconsin, it is currently Hoth like.  Hopefully, the Empire will not find me in my secret hideout.

One of the biggest problems that I have had in my life is finding an easy system for remembering thoughts/ideas/tasks.  I have tried paper lists, simple text documents and a myriad of other online systems, with little success.  Here are the issues that I have run into with each of the three options I have tried.

Paper Lists – I end up with a lot of lists in a lot of different places and there is no automatic reminder that I have something that needs to be taken care of.

Text Documents – These end up being forgotten as I start one and then forget where it is, because again there is no automatic reminder for what is in those multiple documents.

Computerized Tools – Most of the tools that I have used are dependent on having the computer/PDA/phone with you with an elaborate if even exists syncing mechanism to keep multiple versions in sync.  Others are complex and require you to categorize, prioritize, colorize, etc., which is just too much work for me.

So, where has this left me?  Well, I found out about Reqall and decided to give it a try.  Since trying it about a month ago, I have bought a Pro subscription and find myself using it everyday for my professional and personal engagements.  The tool is easy to use, is online (so no syncing) and allows me to setup reminders on tasks that need to be completed.

I use the web version and the iPhone version to enter tasks and reminders.  The online tool offers a simple interface with very little bells and whistles.  Basically, it asks what you want to remember and then stores it for you.  You can add a category or due date, but are not required to.  The iPhone application offers an added feature of allowing the user to record a voice record that it will translate, with a pretty good success rate into your entry.

Overall, I have found Reqall to answer all my needs.  It is easy to use, does not impose a number of requirements on me and reminds me to tasks that need to be completed.  I heartily recommend this tool to anyone looking for a straightforward reminder/task system.

As a dad of a six year old girl and a two year old boy, Christmas time takes on a whole new level of excitement than it did before children.

A number of years ago, I was turned on to a website supported by NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) which “tracked” Santa has he left the North Pole through his trip around the world to deliver presents.

As the San Jose Mercury News points out, this tradition actually started in 1955 due to a printing mistake that caused people to call the Continental Air Defense Command (NORAD’s predecessor) instead of Sears.  Over the years, the Santa Tracker has gone form a telephone call-in line to an online experience that utilizes Google Earth and on-line games to entertain all ages.

So, whether you have children or are a child yourself, head over to the NORAD Santa Tracker and Track Santa yourself this year.

I have been reading and listening to a number of discussions on the EU decision that Microsoft needs to provide users a choice of what web browser to install and set as default upon installing or upgrading Windows.  What surprised me though, was the number of choices.  I was figuring the usual suspects, IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and maybe Opera, but I was unaware that there was going to be another 7.

12 browsers to choose from, how many in the Read Write Web article on this do you recognize?

Over the past few years, I have tried to find a tool  that allows me to become more organized in my professional and personal life.  I currently have a full-time job, do some computer support on the side and have a wife and two kids (ages 2 and 6).  I tend to have a briefcase with two computers and countless notebooks, pieces of mail and other odds and ends in regards to this.

I find that I will make a note about something one place and forget where it is, or print something out and then forget about it and find it months down the line when I no longer needed.  While I was able to utilize Google Contacts/Mail/Calendar for the scheduling aspect along with Reqall and Remember the Milk for Tasks, what I was missing was a tool to organize the notes.

This is where Evernote comes to the rescue.  I had tried One Note and Google Notebook, but One Note was cumbersome and lacked a web component and Google Notebook was too simple and ultimately canceled by Google.  Evernote on the other hand provided me the tool that I had been looking for.

I wanted the following features to be present in my notes tool:

1. Ability to store multiple types of data (images, PDFs, documents, text).

2. Needed it to be encrypted.

3. Multiple tags/categories.

4. Search capability.

5. Easily accessible from any computer/browser and from either my iPhone or Blackberry.

Evernote provided all this and more.  I currently have multiple notebooks setup for work, freelancing, miscellaneous and personal.  These notebooks are used for blog ideas, code snippets, bookmarks, personal information, work projects and anything else that I have found that I want to keep track of.  I use Evernote from a browser, from my phone and have both the Windows/OS X client and even have the Windows client running under Wine on my Linux netbook.

I no longer worry about where that piece of information is, as I have started to train myself to put it into Evernote if I want to remember it.  This is where I think Evernote shines.  There are a number of different ways to get information into Evernote.  I can snap a photo on my iPhone, web clip in IE or Firefox, or copy/paste utilizing the web app or client app.

I originally was using the free account, but upgraded almost immediately, to show my appreciation to the developers for such a fine piece of software.  The application is powerful enough, but remains simplistic in its approach, which sometimes is not the case with applications on the web.  It understands that the majority of people who will be using the application just want an easy way to enter information and categorize it.

So, what is wrong with the application?  Well, I am not sure I would classify the following as wrong, but rather annoyances to me.  Some of these may just be the way it is today, and I am sure Evernote is working on some of them also.

1. What is with the advertising on a Premium account?  This is one item that bothers me about applications across the web.  If I sign-up for your premium account, remove the advertisements.

2. Mass export ability into a format that is application agnostic.  Not that I am thinking of leaving, but just in case Evernote gets bought out by some evil congolmerate, I want my data. 

3. Native Linux version.  I know there are not many of us, but running it under Wine is frustrating at times.

4. On the iPhone app, is there a way to show only the notebooks and not a listing of notebooks and items.  Maybe I am just missing this feature.

All in all though,  kudos to the developers of Evernote and keep up with the good work.  I encourage everyone who wants to organize