Showing posts with label Evernote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evernote. Show all posts

Friday, April 10, 2015

Evernote Tips and Tricks Series - #12 - Notebooks, Notes, Tags

Evernote Web Clipper graphic

I'm a huge fan and user of Evernote, and lots of people ask me for tips on using it, so I'm starting a series of blog posts on Evernote Tips and Tricks to share some great tips and ideas for using Evernote.

Tip #12 - Notebooks, Notes, Tags

Evernote's notes and notebooks are the main part of the app. There are a lot of different ways to format and organize them.

 
I use notebooks, notebook stacks and tags to organize everything in Evernote. The stacks are by job/function, for example - school, consulting, personal. Then each note is a new area - lesson plans, project plans, receipts, recipes, photos, etc. Tags are used to make searching easier and to allow a note in one notebook to be "cross referenced" for search. I also use links to notes to connect notes in one notebook, into a note in another notebook.

 
In the last tip, Evernote Tips and Tricks Series - #11 - merge notes, create table of contents, create notebook stacks I talk about using notebook stacks to organize the notebooks more. You can also search through your notes to easily to find things and link notes to each other.

When you search, you can search for a term, in different notebooks or by tags. You can also just click on the tag on the left menu. Tagging is a great way to organize your notes.

There are a lot of ways to organize you notebooks and notes and some tips on formatting them.

  1. Group related notes into notebooks (like files into folders) - notebooks can be setup based on work, personal, travel etc. 
  2. Notebook stacks (see above) can be used to group notebooks together. For example, you may have a bunch of notebooks for work that you group together. 
  3. Use tags to connect different notes together - great for having notes that are in different notebooks, but have a common theme or topic. For example, I have SBAC (testing) as a tag in notes that could be in my IT/EdTech notebook or my Academic notebook. 
  4. If you have Evernote Premium, setup offline notebooks in Android and iOS.
  5. Use bold, underline, numbered lists, checklists, tables and bullet points in your notes to better organize your notes for easy reading. 
  6. Use horizontal lines in notebooks to divide sections of content. (Ctrl + Shirt + - will insert a horizontal line)
  7. Attach files into your notes for viewing and retrieval. PDFs and images are directly viewable in the desktop app. Clicking other files will open them with their associated app. Edit and then click save and the file in Evernote is updated (Desktop).
  8. Use a table of contents note to organize the notes in a notebook
  9. Use note links to reference one note in another note. 
  10. Create note templates and forms to save time (great for meeting notes, etc.)
  11. Put frequently accessed notebooks and notes in the Favorites Bar for quick access. 



There are a lot of ways to get organized with Evernote and tons of ways to manage your notes and resources. Hopefully theses tips were helpful.



Related:

Evernote for Education Resources (includes more tips)

Evernote Tips and Tricks Series

Tips on Getting Started with Evernote

Examples of using Evernote as: teacher, student, admin

Monday, March 30, 2015

Paperwork - Evernote Alternative you can Host Yourself

paperwork-logo

Evernote is my go-to app for note taking, organizing files and clipping things off of the web. It is my main organizational tool. It works for me. I also using Google Keep for a lot of notes.

Not everyone likes it or wants to have another company have a hold of all of their data. That's where Paperwork comes in. It isn't as full featured as Evernote, but you can host it yourself and it does have some great features. You use notes, notebooks, tags and can upload multimedia files. There are not any mobile apps, yet, but you can access it on any web enabled device

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Schools could use this to host their own note taking system, or as a tool for students to learn and manage themselves.

There is more info about it here on GitHub.



Related:

Evernote for Education Resources

Tips to Using Google Keep in Education
Lots of Great NoteTaking Apps and Resources





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Friday, March 27, 2015

Using Google Drive as a Course Organizer



I am creating a curriculum for an Aircraft Design course for the high school level. Since it will be shared with many other people, I decided to do the organization in Google Drive, instead of Evernote like I usually do my course organization. I have not created official "lesson plans" yet, this is just the curricular materials and order of instruction.

I started by creating a top level folder for the course and then sub folders for each unit. Inside each folder are the materials - lecture slides, links, assignments and other resources and files.

The really cool thing I did was to create a single Google Doc that has the entire course outline on it and each section/item is a link to a folder/document/file in Google Drive. All the teacher has to do is bookmark that one Doc and everything links from there. To create the links, just go to the item (folder, doc/sheet/slides, or file) in Drive, right click on it and click "get link". Since there is a heirarchy in Drive, you only have to share the top level folder to someone else and they get access to everything in that folder and subfolder.

Here are some screenshots of the Drive layout and the main file. Try it out yourself.


Course Outline File:
(the links to files and folders will not work as they are private, but this is just for example use)



Related:

Google for Education Resources

Examples of using Evernote as: teacher, student, admin
Evernote for Education Resources




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Thursday, March 26, 2015

Google Keep note taking app gets labels for easier organizing and recurring reminders

Google Keep

Google Keep, Google's easy to use note taking app, is a great resource for students and teachers. It just received a new feature that helps with organizing your notes, labels, and recurring reminders.

This makes organizing your notes/tasks/reminders easier. You can add as many labels as you like to a note to track it by tasks, project, category, etc. Along with color coding, you can really organize your notes better.

You can also now set recurring reminders. Reminders can be set by location (great for reminding you to do something when you get to a certain place, if you don't know what time you will get there) and by day/time. You can also set recurring reminders as daily, weekly, monthly or yearly or even create your own interval.

Keep also has the ability to share notes, create tasks lists, and even audio notes.






I use Evernote for most things, but also use Keep for quick notes on the go and for shopping lists, along with voice notes, and then I can share the notes to other apps, or just access them as needed. It's quicker than Evernote, but has less features. It is useful for students and teachers.




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Friday, March 20, 2015

Rocketbook - cloud integrated notebook you microwave to erase



Rocketbook is a cool new product. It is similar to Livescribe notebooks in that it has micro-dot paper that uses a special pen and captures what you write to the cloud. The difference is that you can reuse the notebook - put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and the special ink (Pilot FriXion pen) is erased. The company says you can reuse the notebooks about 25 times, which is very nice. One pen is included.

The notebook and app work together and there are 7 icons on the bottom of each page that you assign to the app of your choice, including Dropbox, Evernote, Google Docs or even your email.

Paper notebooks appeal to a lot of people and are easier, at least in my opinion, to take math, science, engineering notes (equations) and draw sketches.






Paper notebooks are a great resource and appeal to many users. Having a paper notebook that also works with digital resources is even better.

It is scheduled to release in June 2015 - they have already surpassed their initial funding goal by over 1000% so it is happening. You can go to the site and contribute to it for early access to products too.




Related:

Analog (ie paper) resources that work with digital
Evernote for Education Resources

Livescribe Pens and Notebooks

Tips and Resources for Getting Organized

Getting Students and Teachers Organized - includes some tips for paper based systems





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Thursday, March 19, 2015

Droptask announces integration with Evernote




DropTask is a free visual task management app that is web based and available on iOS and Android that I reviewed two weeks ago.  They have just announced that DropTask now integrates with Evernote. To celebrate, they are offering two months free of the Pro version of DropTask, which is needed for this integration.

Integration with Evernote allows you to send your notes from Evernote into DropTask where you can organize and manage your to-dos. Alternatively, if you have a task already in DropTask, you can send it to Evernote and create a new note where you will have the space to write down all your ideas and information related to that task.


Read more about it below:
Create, plan, and do
Whether you’re writing the week’s agenda, taking minutes from a meeting or just jotting down flashes of inspiration, syncing Evernote with DropTask will let you transform life’s all-important notes into finished projects.

Simply add the ‘droptask’ tag to your notes to seamlessly sync them to your DropTask PRO inbox - where they will wait for you until you’re ready to get to action!
FEATURE FACT: The name of your notes will become the task title and the body of the notes will become the task description.

Take Note
You know what tasks you need to do, now it’s time to get them done! Whether it’s a small note you need to make or some lengthy research you want to carry out; utilize the two-way sync and view existing tasks from DropTask in Evernote to really make use of the extended workspace.

On the Go
Enhance your productivity and use DropTask with Evernote across multiple devices. Syncing between both tools on the go means you can plan, organize and complete your tasks wherever you are, whenever you like!


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Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Two Apps for Scanning Documents with your Smartphone

 

I'm one of those people who loves to be paperless and scan in any paper documents I have. I have an Evernote scanner in my office, but what about when I'm out-and-about? I scan documents, posters, memos, receipts, business cards and more. Here are two apps that you can use for document scanning on your Smartphone, and they are both free. 



Drive logo
Google Drive (Android) - most people don't even know that Google Drive has a scanning feature. Google Drive's apps for Android allows you to scan documents and even perform OCR (optical character recognition) on text in the documents you're scanning. Open Drive, tap "Add New," and select "Scan." It then is saved into your Drive account. This feature is not in the iOS version yet.





Evernote (Android/iOS) - There is a separate app, called Scanable, available on iOS, but Evernote has scanning built in to the native app. On the mobile app, click on new note, then Camera and select Document, Camera, Post-It or Business Card. Get the item you want to scan in the box on the screen, click capture and you are all set.

The All New Evernote 6 for Android Is Here

I wrote more about scanning in Evernote here: Evernote Tips and Tricks Series - #10 - scanning documents and business cards


With these apps you can make going paperless even easier. I hate lugging things around so I love making all of my documents and resources digital. That way, I only need my smartphone to access materials. 



Related:

Great Tips, Resources and Ideas for Going Paperless

Friday, March 13, 2015

Centrallo productivity app announces some great updates



Centrallo is a productivity app with some really nice features that I wrote about last year. You can create lists within lists and inside store links, photos, video,voice notes, important dates, contacts, Dropbox links and more.Priorities are brought front and center so you don't loose track of them and it now has location based reminders, similar to Google Now.



They just announced some great updates to their app:


  1. Shared Checklists - multiple people can add and edit real time.
  2. Updated their web version.
  3. Improved their iPhone, iPad and Android versions, including the ability to publish lists containing rich media.


Centrallo is a great app with some great features to get you organized.







Related:

Evernote - super productivity, organization and note taking app

Asana - free teamwork and productivity app

kanban2go - free visual task management and organization

Monday, March 9, 2015

Tips to Using Google Keep in Education

Google Keep

Google Keep, Google's easy to use note taking app, is a great resource for students and teachers. Here are some of the features:

• Easily, quickly, Create notes, lists, and audio notes
• Add photos to any note
• Hide and show checkboxes to turn notes into checkable lists
• View and create notes from homescreen and lockscreen widgets
• Selectable color for notes
• Safely sync notes to Google Drive and other devices
• Notes can also be used from http://drive.google.com/keep

I use Evernote for most things, but also use Keep for quick notes on the go and for shopping lists, along with voice notes, and then I can share the notes to other apps, or just access them as needed. It's quicker than Evernote, but has less features. It is useful for students and teachers. 


Here are some tips for using Google Keep in Education: (click link or image for full article). It has a nice intro to Google Keep and some great tips for students and educators. 





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Friday, March 6, 2015

PDFs - lots of tools and resources for working with them



PDF, or Portable Document Format, files are ubiquitous these days. The format is a great way to share files since every operating system, including mobile devices, has free software available to read the files. Creating these files, manipulating them, marking them up, editing them, and converting them to other formats are all needed activities for many people. Here are some great resources to use with PDF files.


Some PDF Readers:

Adobe Acrobat Reader - http://get.adobe.com/reader/ - read pdf files.

Foxit Reader - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php - read pdf files.


Evernote Logo
Evernote - PDF files that are attached to notes in Evernote are viewable directly in the note. You can also annotate them using Evernote. This is my favorite way to handle PDF files because I can view them directly in the note, add my own notes, comments and other attachments in the note, and I can annotate the PDF file.


Google Apps and Google Chrome can also display PDF files and you can download Docs, Sheets, and Slides files as PDF.




Google Apps, the free service from Google, can view PDF files. Another nice feature, is that if you upload a PDF file to Google Docs, you can have it convert text from a PDF into a Google Doc. It will extract the text but not individual images.





Creating the PDF file is very simple. I create the original file using a word processor or presentation program and then convert it to a PDF file using CutePDF Writer. CutePDF Writer is a free utility that installs onto your computer like a printer. You create your original file and then “print” it. Instead of selecting your printer, you select “CutePDF.” The software will convert the file to PDF form and ask you were you would like to save it. You can also use it to “print” any file, including web pages, to a PDF file. I use this often to save web articles for reading later.

There is also a free application available that allows you to merge multiple PDF files into one PDF file.





Quick PDF tools is a great resource. The software is easy to install and very easy to use and the website has easy to follow instructions. You simply select the PDF files you want to merge in Windows Explorer, right click, select QuickPDF tools, and select merge. You can then order them in the window in the order you want them merged, and then select merge. It is really that easy.




PDFtoWord is a free site that converts PDF files into Word documents.

This comes in handy when you have a PDF file that you need to edit and change and you don't have the proper, and expensive, software.

It's very easy to use. Go to the site, select a file from your computer to upload and convert, and enter an email address where you want the Word document sent. That's it.

I used it to convert a 9 page, 3MB PDF file and it took about 15 seconds to upload. The converted file did not show up in my email inbox until later that evening. (it was graphic intensive too).

The converted file was pretty accurate with almost no errors, which I manually fixed in a few minutes. The quality of the conversion was really good.

Remember also that it will not be able to convert a file that was only an image, like a file that was scanned. It will simply put that image as an image in a Word file.

This is really handy for taking files that were created with a print conversion (like CutePDF) or from Acrobat and making them editable in Word. If someone created the PDF file by scanning a document, this will not convert it back since the scanning process converts everything into one image.

It's not bad for free. You definitely don't want to use this if you need the file converted immediately. You will want to plan ahead due to the delay in getting the file converted and the fact that you may have to do some manual editing of errors.




PDF Online is an online service that has both fee and FREE services relating to PDF files.

One of the free services is "Doc2PDF" that will convert a document to a PDF file. You can only convert files up to 2GB (to convert files up to 10GB you need to subscribe to the premium version).

This is good for people who don't convert many files to PDF. If you want to convert a lot of files to PDF, I suggest CutePDF.

The other free service is "PDF to Word" which converts your PDF documents to RTF Documents for viewing and editing Word. It works very well and fast. After uploading your file, it will convert it and then leave a link for you to download with the converted file.

Another way to do this is with PDF2Word.






Free My PDF is a very useful site for those of us that deal with PDF files a lot. Many PDF files that are unlocked (you can open and read them) sometimes have restrictions on printing or copying text from the file. Free My PDF can remove those restrictions.

It is very easy to use. Go to the site, select the file you want modified, and click "Do It". You will then be able to download the unlocked file.

If you need a password to view the PDF file, you can not use this service. It also can not be used for illegal or immoral uses. In other words, you can't use this to violate copyright laws or take someone else's work.

Sometimes, these copy and print restrictions are in a file completely by accident because the person creating the file forgot to change the settings. Other times, you simply need to print or copy something for your own use. For example, a PDF file from a financial institution to me, with information about my account, would not let me copy or print. I wanted to copy part of it for my own records and print a hard copy for easy reference. I used Free My PDF to do that. No laws or ethics violated.

Here is the legal info at the bottom of the page:

An important note: There are many valid reasons to want to remove a password from a PDF (Ask your favorite lawyer about copyright and fair use, or Google it), but there are also many bad and illegal reasons. YOU MAY NOT USE THIS SERVICE FOR ILLEGAL PURPOSES. You also should not use this service for immoral puposes (it's not always the same). The owner of this site takes NO RESPONSIBILITY for the files processed on the site or generated by it, or anything else related to your usage (legal, technical or otherwise). Use it at your own risk.
The writer of this blog also takes no responsibility for your use of Free My PDF.



So, there are a lot of great resources for creating and utilizing PDF files. PDF files are great to use because anyone can read them without needing any special software.

And here are lots more PDF Resources.



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Wednesday, March 4, 2015

DropTask - Visual Task Management app


DropTask Logo

DropTask is a free visual task management app that is web based and available on iOS and Android. It is easy to use and lets you create a visual to do list that is color coded and with lots of features. You can take notes, chat with others, attach files, set reminders, work with others, and more. It is a very beautiful interface with drag and drop functionality.


DropTask - Access everything in one place
It also works with other apps, like Google Apps and Dropbox, with Evernote and Outlook integration in Beta versions now.

The Evernote integration is slated to go public very soon and looks pretty cool. Integration with Evernote allows you to send your notes from Evernote into DropTask where you can organize and manage your to-dos. Alternatively, if you have a task already in DropTask, you can send it to Evernote and create a new note where you will have the space to write down all your ideas and information related to that task.


DropTask Integrations: GMail, Google Tasks, Google Calendar, Dropbox, iMindMap




The free version has tons of features with the Pro version, at $6.50/month, adding more features, including more syncing with other apps and more collaboration tools. You can compare features between the two here.

Try it out and see if it can help you get organized. https://www.droptask.com/ 

Here is a video about it:





Related:


Get Organized - tips and resources for students, teachers, admin and more

kanban2go - free visual task management and organization

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Evernote Tips and Tricks Series - #11 - merge notes, create table of contents, create notebook stacks

Evernote Web Clipper graphic

I'm a huge fan and user of Evernote, and lots of people ask me for tips on using it, so I'm starting a series of blog posts on Evernote Tips and Tricks to share some great tips and ideas for using Evernote.


Tip #11 - merge notes, create table of contents, notebook stacks

Evernote's layout of notebooks and notes is great for organizing, but there are some more great features too.

1. Merge Notes - Simply select the notes you want to merge together (hold CTRL or SHIFT as you select each one) and then click "Merge". This merge's the notes together into one note with the first note you select as the top note. Each note title is shaded providing a sort of page break between each note. This is a great way to consolidate multiple notes into one - very useful when you are adding/creating notes from different sources into Evernote or for cleaning up completed projects.




Please note: If you make a mistake merging notes or would like to retain the original notes, restore each individual note from your trash.

2. Create a Table of Contents - This creates a note with a list of all of the notes you selected (hold CTRL or SHIFT to select notes) with the title of each note being a hyperlink to the actual note. This is great for project management so you have a list of all projects/tasks on one note, as a unit plan with a list to each lesson plan and resource, or for writing with a list of each chapter.





3. Create Notebook Stacks - you can organize a bunch of notebooks into a "stack" where they are all organized. For example, I have a notebook stack for my consulting projects which has different notebooks underneath including clients, project files, resources and more.

In Evernote for Windows and Mac, select the notebooks from the left side menu, drag and drop one notebook into another notebook and it will create a new stack containing both notebooks. You can add more notebooks by simply dragging them into the stack.



Evernote for iOS
1. Navigate to your notebook list view.
2. Tap Edit in the upper right screen.
3. Select the information icon (“i”) next to the notebook you would like to move to your stack.
4. Tap Stack. 
Evernote for Android
Adding notebooks to a stack with Android is a one-step process!
1. Press and hold a notebook and select ‘Move to stack’ or ‘Move to new stack’

More great features from Evernote that allow you to be more organized and efficient.


Related:

Evernote for Education Resources (includes more tips)

Great Tips, Resources and Ideas for Going Paperless

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Evernote Tips and Tricks Series - #10 - scanning documents and business cards

Evernote Web Clipper graphic

I'm a huge fan and user of Evernote, and lots of people ask me for tips on using it, so I'm starting a series of blog posts on Evernote Tips and Tricks to share some great tips and ideas for using Evernote.

Tip #10 - Scanning Documents and Business Cards

Another great feature of Evernote is the ability to scan and then easily organize and search documents and business cards.

You can capture documents easily by either scanning them with a scanner, taking a photo with a camera, or using the Evernote mobile app and your device's camera. Once captured, text in the document is searchable. I scan important documents, older paper-based resources, and even photos into Evernote to save them and better organize them. Plus, you can add tags and notes for better organization. You can even annotate them in Evernote.


The All New Evernote 6 for Android Is Here

On the mobile app, click on new note, then Camera and select Document, Camera, Post-It or Business Card. Get the item you want to scan in the box on the screen, click capture and you are all set.

You can even take pictures of posters or notes on a board to save.

Untitled-2

You can even scan and capture business cards easily and Evernote will create a contact type note for you. If you link your Evernote account with your LinkedIn account, it will even grab the person's profile info from LinkedIn and put it in your note. I like to do this with a business card as soon as I get it using the Evernote mobile app on my phone. Then I hand back the card to the person so they can use it again. I then link the contact note to any other notes from our meeting.



You can use any scanner to scan a document and then upload that file to Evernote. Or, you can use Fujitsu scanners, which have software that allows you to scan directly into Evernote. Even better is the Evernote scanner, which scans directly into Evernote and lets you automatically have it put scanned items into notebooks based on their type: document, photo, business card, etc. It also scans both sides of document at the same time. I've been able to digitize every document, photo and even old books, magazines, guidebooks and more using it.


evernotescreens2 Evernote updates its Android app with a new camera mode, shortcuts menu and Smart Notebook support

Scanning/Camera Capture - Easy, quick and a great tool for using Evernote to go paperless and organize yourself.



Related:

Evernote for Education Resources (includes more tips)

Great Tips, Resources and Ideas for Going Paperless

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