MakeUseOf » webnotes

Memonic Lets You Capture Web Content & Make It Accessible To People You Choose

Bakari Chavanu — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 18:30:56 +0000

There are no shortage of web clipping applications, including Evernote, Zoho Notebook, and the read-it later apps, like Instapaper. But the newest solution, Memonic, might well be the all-in-one solution for capturing web content and sharing it between mobile devices, social networks, and your personal online account.

The free web and mobile app and online services is the first product produced a company called Nektoon, founded and incorporated in January 2009. With a free Memonic account, you can save and share up to 100 free notes. While this limitation can’t compete with the unlimited, 60MB/month note upload of Evernote, it does offer some handy features not available to in other web capturing services and apps.

Let’s check them out.

Platforms

Similar to Evernote, Memonic is a cross platform application and service. In addition to being a web application supported by major browsers—Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, IE—Memonic also includes client apps for the Mac, PC, iOS devices (including iPad optimization), and Android. Your web account client, archives and keeps all your Memonic web clippings and screen shots in sync between these platforms.

The dashboard user interface of Memonic is similar in each platform, and its sections—Inbox, Notes, Folders, Tags, Groups, Search, and Settings—are represented by clean icons for quick access.

The default corkboard background design can be customized, except in the mobile apps.

Web Content Features

Depending on which platform you’re working in, the features work differently in Memonic. In the web platform, you use a browser plug-in to bookmark pages, clip selected parts of a page, or save the entire page for “Read Later.”

The clipping features selects individual parts of a web page; there’s no free-hand option for selecting content, like you do when taking desktop screen captures.

In the desktop client, you get options for adding written notes, image files (including screen shots), and links to content in your computer. Image files must be imported into the application; they cannot be dragged and dropped into it. All content can be sorted into folders, tagged, and shared, and set to private.

Another drawback in the free version of Memonic is that you can’t use the “Gathering Mode,” which allows you to save all your clips and notes directly into a preselected folder. It’s a bit of a hassle to select a folder each time you want to save a clip.

The note taking features of Memonic is pretty much like a traditional text editor, including basic tools that you find in Microsoft Word. One little bug that I noticed in text editor is that keyboard shortcut for pasting copied text doesn’t work; instead, I have to click the paste icon in the toolbar.

Notes and image files can be added in the mobile versions of Memonic, but there’s no plug-in for exporting clippings from mobile browsers into the app. As with the other Memonic clients, you can also share your notes and other content directly on Facebook, Twitter, and by email.

All or selected content can be synchronized between each Memonic client, and you get the option for syncing by network or Wi-Fi to save on mobile charges.

Memonic is not quite as robust as Evernote, though it does have potential. While you probably wouldn’t want to switch from Evernote to Memonic, the latter’s app and service could come in handy for specific types of clippings and files that you want to archive and share.

Memonic is worth giving a try. Let us know what you think about it.

Clip Web Page Notes from Firefox to Word with Notesaver!

Danny Stieben — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 16:30:24 +0000

We’ve all probably had to do something like this at one point or another, especially students. Taking notes about information that we find online can be very beneficial, and having a local copy of the exact information that you need can save some time (and possibly your butt).

Some people choose to bookmark all the pages that they find temporarily useful for whatever project they may be working on, while others go through the long, common processes. Going to the page in Firefox, copying it, opening Word, pasting the content into Word, and then saving it.

Instead, there’s a better way to do things, and the first step to that is to install this nifty Firefox add-on called Notesaver.

Getting Started

The said add-on, named “Notesaver!”, can be installed by visiting this page in the Firefox add-ons collection, and will be active once you restart the browser. The page says that the add-on is for Windows only, but I’m not sure if it could be used on other operating systems as well because it doesn’t require the use of Word itself.

Once that completes, you’ll see that there isn’t a special button for Notesaver to be seen anywhere. Instead, you’ll only see it right when you need it. Whenever you right-click while in the browser, you’ll get your usual list of options that Firefox provides along with a new option called “capture”.

Menu Options

Going further into this menu will lead you to two options:

If you don’t have anything highlighted when you right-click, the first one is CREATE_FILE, which will create a new, empty Word document.

The second option will be File Options, which will let you change the order of the most recent files created that are shown (more on that later).

If you did have something highlighted when you right-clicked, you’ll only see one option named DEFAULT_FILE. If you haven’t done so already, clicking on DEFAULT_FILE will result in the add-on asking you to set the default path of your Word documents, along with options to change the number of recent files that should be be shown, and whether or not the date and time should be appended to the end of whatever you’re saving.

Useful Tips

If you keep saving content by clicking on DEFAULT_FILE, you’ll see everything you saved in the default.doc file.

However, you can right-click when nothing is highlighted, and choose the CREATE_FILE option to create a new one, and then when you try to save content again you’ll see two options, the default file and the newly-created file.

The number of files shown that you could adjust earlier is talking about this list right here. Whenever you highlight something and then right-click, you’ll see up to the number of files chosen in the settings. Note that these settings can also be changed via the Firefox button –> Add-ons –> Extensions –> Notesaver! –> Options.

Conclusion

There’s really not much else about this add-on, which is good because there won’t be any extra fat that you’ll have to ignore when you use it. It’s simplistic, and works great for when you need it. Saving highlighted content to a Word document can be a major plus for some people, who may need to work with Word anyways, and having the content already saved to a local file would be the best option.

For some people it might be beneficial simply because they would rather not use cloud services like Google Docs or Evernote to store their clipped content. Whatever the reason, this add-on definitely enables you to work as efficiently as you wish. If Notesaver isn’t quite what you’d like, you can also check out other recommendations such as Scribbly, or choose one by looking through this list.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Tell Your Own Media-Rich Web Story With Storify [Unlimited Invites]

Jeffry Thurana — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 17:31:46 +0000

I did my first newspaper clipping back in my elementary school years. I don’t remember what the topic was, but I remember that it was a great way to focus on a story out of everything else that filled the newspapers in those days. It was like arranging pieces of a puzzle to form a complete image.

Now with the Internet at our disposal, we are constantly bombarded by stories and news from all over the world. It’s becoming harder and harder to make sense of everything. There are too many sources with too many elements that compiling them into one big picture is really difficult. Storify tries to change that. It’s is a web tool that will help you collect texts, photos, videos, and everything else from the web, into your own versions of media-rich stories. Storify will also help you share your stories to your friends and families.

In The Beginning, There’s The Sign Up

When you arrive at the site, you could start by looking at stories created by others. There are the “Featured Stories” and “Popular Stories Today” sections. After looking at those stories, you will learn what Storify is all about and be ready to create your own web story.

Currently, Storify is in private beta. To sign up, you will need an invite key. Luckily, the developer of Storify has been kind enough to provide MakeUseOf readers with the key (Thanks Burt!). Go to the site and enter sxsw.

There’s no limit to the number of invites, but it might expire in the future. Even though the developer has promised to keep the invite key alive long enough for us, you might want to sign up as soon as possible.

After entering the code, you will need to sign in using your Twitter account.

Then you are ready to create your first story.

Start Building The Stories

Just like newspaper clippings, you are going to find similar news from different newspapers, then clip and collect them into one binder. The differences are, we are using the web and social media as sources instead of physical printed newspapers – and there are no scissors and glue involved.

Write down some keywords of the topic for your story in the search field. Clicking the “Search” button will bring you results from many kinds of sources. We are not talking about traditional kinds of sources here. Aside from web, news and images from within Google search and RSS Feeds, there is also Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and many more.

Drag and drop the “clips” from the search results into the clipboard to build your story. You can further enhance it by adding texts between clips. You can also give your story a title, a short general description, and a heading image.

Keep your story as a draft if you still want to tinker with it later, or hit the “Publish Story” button if you are done with the building process.

Your published stories will appear on the main page of your Storify account. You can edit or remove them if you want to.

On the top right corner of every story, there’s the option to share it via Twitter or email. You can also embed the story to any webpage or blog after generating the embed code.

You can connect Storify with other sites to enable auto-publish. Click the “edit” button to add the sites. You can access this option from the settings.

Similar social functions are available at the bottom of every story.

Clicking on the “Settings” on the top right corner of the page will give you several options. One of them is the ability to choose story “Sources“. Adding or removing sources is only a matter of dragging and dropping items to or from the sources box.

Another option under “Settings” is “Publishing“. If you want to quickly publish your stories to your blogs or websites, you can add them here.

For example, if you want to add your WordPress blog as one of the publishing locations, enter your blog information, and click “Save“.

Then the blog (and other publishing locations) will appear as quick publish options next to every story.

If you want to add the ability to quickly “storify” any webpage that you encounter, you could install the “Storify This” bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark bar. This bookmarklet is available on the lower part of the main page of your Storify account.

Storify is a great way to quickly create a web story from every imaginable source. So far it has already helped many traditional journalists in their research, and it could also be a great tool for common bloggers like you and me. What do you think of Storify? Share your thoughts in the comment below.

SharedCopy Lets You Bookmark & Annotate Websites With Style

Jessica Cam Wong — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 23:30:45 +0000

While you may be used to sharing websites without much as a blink, annotating these web pages with useful comments may be more efficient for future reference and better bookmarking. There are fully-featured bookmark-managing tools, such as my favorite, Diigo, which has evolved into an information management tool for individuals and groups.

Although Diigo is more complete than regular social bookmarking sites and I truly like the toolbar, introducing it to my friends doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be blown away by it. I know some of them don’t even use Delicious, or have any way to back up their bookmarks so they still keep them in long folders on their browsers. In other words, a full client like Diigo is just too much for them. For simpler annotating, I’ve found SharedCopy to be light and simple, particularly because all of its features are presented in no more than a bookmarklet.

I was really glad to discover SharedCopy a few years back, when I was looking for a way to integrate my comments on an article that I had to share with a project team mate. I was finding it difficult to share my comments on a Wikipedia article with her via email, especially when an article was extremely lengthy and thus, made it harder to keep track of all the main points. SharedCopy helped me point out what I wanted to tell her in really simple ways. All you have to do is get the bookmarklet from this page, click on it (or set a keyword for instant launching) to start using and annotating away with the SharedCopy toolbar.

You can highlight, type text, draw circles, boxes and lines. There are more buttons you can add if you get an account but no registration is required. An account will mainly provide you with a library of annotated websites for future reference. Without an account, you still get easy access to your comments on that annotated page, which are available for you to copy in plain text and as embeddable code for your website when you’re done annotating.

All annotations are private unless you share the links to the annotated websites. You can change this in the final page with the sharing links to change privacy settings for a single page, or visit your Account preferences to set all annotations to private or public by default. If you do choose to share your annotation page, which includes a thumbnail of the page you annotated, you can send the link to social sites, email, your blog, etc.

Two neat features are the additional buttons (think of them as extensions) for the bookmarklet.

You can add more functionality to the basic toolbar. I’ve added here the PDF button, which turns a website along with my annotations into a PDF file, and the Arrow button.

Another cool feature is that you can get an RSS feed of the comments on a website you’ve annotated, which is useful if you shared the page with someone and want to see his/her thoughts on the same.

SharedCopy also has a read-it-later bookmarklet that lets you add random interesting articles in full to an RSS feed (and then close the tabs for you!) so you can read those items even when you are offline on your favorite RSS reader. It can definitely be a better and more efficient practice than say, adding even more bookmarks to an already-very-populated list of unread links/browser bookmarks, which I’m totally guilty of, or even emailing yourself things to read when your inbox shouldn’t be a repository of bookmarks, but of messages.

While SharedCopy has some very useful ways to integrate how you process (find a bookmarkable site) and refine (annotate) information on the web, it’d be nice to see integration with browsers so every time you visit a bookmarked page, you’ll see the annotations right away.

For similar annotating bookmarklets, check out BounceApp (check out the quick Directory review) and MarkUp.io, which is another slick app that’s been featured on the Directory. While none of these let you color-code your comments, you can try the DrawHere bookmarklet that lets you add layers (check out the free PDF manual on Photoshop to learn more), select brush size and colors.

What do you use to share comments in your bookmarks?

Attach Sticky Notes To Any Website Or Document with GumNotes

Ryan Dube — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:31:45 +0000

I’ve never been much of a “notes” type. Every time I try out a new notes management system, I usually give up using it within just a few weeks. I found Mark’s article on Evernote’s integration with Android pretty compelling, so I had to give it a shot for a short time. We’ve also covered a lot of other note-taking apps including Firefox plugins and all sorts of other tools.

After testing out five or six different apps, I eventually gave up on the whole online note-taking thing. Maybe it just wasn’t my style, and I found it very hard to remember to go back and check my notes.

This is why I was pleasantly surprised to discover GumNotes.

GumNotes is a new desktop application that goes beyond note-taking and actually reminds you about your notes when you need it most. The name reveals the purpose of the app. It’s like taking a note, slapping gum on the back of it, and attaching that note to your document, website, application or anywhere else you need to jot down a quick note.

Attaching Notes To Any Document

The concept is pretty simple. Whether you’re using email, Microsoft Word, Excel or even just about any other application on your PC, you can instantly open up a note box, jot down some ideas or reminders for later, and then save the note. The note gets “attached” to the document or email that you were working on.

You can do the same thing if you’re typing up a Word document and you come up with an idea for future research efforts. Instead of letting the idea slip away – open up GumNotes and jot down your ideas before they disappear.

The beauty of this app is that you don’t ever have to remember where you stored the note, and you don’t have to remind yourself to go back and review your notes. Whenever you come back to the document, email, spreadsheet or whatever else you were working on – the GumNote app that’s running in your system tray issues a pop-up with your attached note, as a gentle reminder.

There is really no configuration or work involved in getting GumNotes to work. Once it’s running in the task tray, all you have to do is right click on the GumNotes icon to save a note, or attach one to whatever you’re working on.

More Than Just Email & Documents

I thought that the ability to “attach” notes to MS Office documents or spreadsheets is pretty cool, but just how flexible is this software? What if I’m working on something a little more obscure? As a test, I decided to open up an audio file of a guitar song I’ve been working on using Audacity. Hypothetically, let’s say that I wanted to remind myself of some of the edits I wanted to make the next time I open up the file.

The GumNotes app appeared to recognize the file that I had open (see “workingclasshero” at the bottom of the note?), and let me type up and save a quick message to myself. I exited Audacity, then opened it back up and was pleased to see that the note didn’t pop-up (if it did, it would be attached to the application, not the file). But when I opened up that specific audio file, sure enough my note appeared.

If you right click on the icon and select “Manage Annotations,” you’ll see all of the notes you’ve saved to the system.

Now, you’re probably thinking, what good is it to have all of these notes stored only on the PC where you have GumNotes installed? This would have been the clincher for me. Luckily, if you explore the Options settings in GumNotes you’ll see that you can enter the credentials for your Simplenote account, and then sync up your desktop notes with that online system.

Additional Features

GumNotes actually has features that extend beyond just attaching simple notes to documents. If you right-click on the pushpin at the bottom of the note, you have the option to set a Timer for the note. This works like a reminder pop-up.

Another cool feature is if you add a new, unattached note, you can click on the link at the bottom of the note and enter keywords into the following window.

Those keywords will serve as a “filter” – and any document, web page or email that you open that features those keywords will trigger your note to open. This is a very cool way to remind yourself about information that’s important to you and that you’ll want to save or otherwise respond to with a specific action.

In other words, GumNotes isn’t just an annotation tool. It’s a way for you to create a customized system of reminders so that no matter how busy you get, you’ll never forget anything again.

Give GumNotes a try and report back how well it worked for you. Do you like it better than other systems you’ve tried? Share your feedback and thoughts in the comments section below.

Springpadit – A Web-based Notebook App To Store Your Notes

Bakari Chavanu — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:31:31 +0000

There’s no shortage of web-based applications to create notes, make lists, set reminders, and share things with our friends and contacts. Springpadit is the latest web notebook and social networking service that is much like Evernote, a web notebook or junk box to store stuff quickly, via the web and mobile devices, e.g. the iPhone and Android.

What makes Springpadit different is that it is set up to help you organize content as you add to it. Whereas Evernote uses generic folders to manage content, Springpadit uses unique icons to categorize items, such as Notes, Recipes, Products, Bookmarks, Tasks, and Events.

However, unlike Evernote, Springpadit is a web notebook application, not a desktop-based app. You can’t say add entire text files to your account, although you can upload and add images from your computer to your product posts, bookmarks,recipes, etc.

After signing up for a free Springpadit account, you are presented with a welcome screencast, providing an overview of its features.

Adding Stuff

The best way to add content to your account is to use Springpadit”˜s search field. It performs a Google-like search delivering links and a photo associated with your topic. So far I’ve found the search feature a little buggy. When I paste in a URL or topic I often get an error message, but when I type in the content, the search is better.

This could have something to do with the web browser, Safari, I’m using. But basically, the idea of the search field is save you a little time by not having to do a Google search for an item and then come back and plug the results into Springpadit.

Also, when you type something into the content field, Springpadit will attempt to help you categorize what you’re adding. So if you’re adding a URL, it will categorize it as a Bookmark. If the correct category is not presented, simply click on the little triangle under the green plus button, and then select the category (folder) you want the item to go in.

Another way to add stuff is browse what other Springpadit members have added and made public on their account. (when you first sign-up on the site, Springpartners will automatically be added to your following list). When viewing public items, you simply click the Add button for items you want added to your list.

Like many other social networking sites, public items you add to your list can be shared on your Facebook and Twitter account or emailed. Springpadit will automatically assign some things public, such as movies, products, and recipes. But you can select to lock any item for private viewing only.

Your Springpadit account page works pretty much like the Finder on your computer. On the right side of the page, you see your stuff categorized so if you only want to view say all your recipes, you simply click on that folder to access that content.

You can also, of course, add custom folders to your list. Springpadit includes a bookmarklet that you can add to your web browser, so that when you’re browsing a website, you can bookmark a page or item without having to navigate to your Springpadit account.

Springpadit Apps

Springpadit already has a free iPhone and Android app that syncs with your web account. On my test, the sync was a tad slow, but otherwise Springpadit works well as a mobile application.

Overall, Springpadit is a pretty useful web notebook application. It might be a little too much for some users, but as a web and mobile application it could probably replace a couple of existing apps that perform similar functions.

Let us know what you think of Springpadit. Do you think it will replace some existing notebook services you already use?

Ditching Evernote? Check Out 5 Free Web Clipping Alternatives

Saikat Basu — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:31:04 +0000

Perish the thought. Why would you ditch Evernote? The one de facto tool that can take care of capturing, annotating, tagging, and organizing all the information that’s out there. If I am sounding too gung ho about this software, I am definitely not alone. Evernote has lots of uses to crow about.

But then the web space of web clipping tools and information managers is not Evernote’s alone. There are many more information chunking tools that are trying to grab a slice of the pie. For us users, it’s all the better because we get many more web clipping tools to play around with.

Online note-taking, web clipping tools are must have tools to keep in our browser toolset. The one advantage that some of these tools bestow is offline access to the saved pages. A bookmark may fail as the link changes, but if you have an offline facsimile stored in your hard drive, then that’s information you can use.

The five web clipping alternatives have their own good points in the way they catch and keep the information for us. Try them out and see if they can serve as good stand-ins as Evernote alternatives.

Clipmarks

Clipmarks allows you to clip just the things you want instead of saving the entire thing as a complete file. You can select sections of a webpage, pictures, text, and even videos and save them with their original links.

Clipmarks installs itself as a button in Firefox and Internet Explorer. Discrete sections of a webpage can be “˜clipped’ with orange boxes or text can be selected and clipped. A press of the Clip Button and your selected text, images, video and other types of information becomes a Clipmarks Clip for online storage on your Cliplog.

You can add your own tags and a title to each Clipmarks Clip. Clips can be kept private or shared through social media and email. A new Amplify It service also allows you to post it optionally on Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and Clipmarks.com (Clipmarks’ own community site).

Clipmarks keeps count of your clips with a character meter. Each clip is limited to 1000 characters.

Read our past coverage on Clipmarks here and here.

Marro (Beta)

Marro is another web clipping/social bookmarking web application that follows the Firefox and IE browser extension route. But in contrast to Clipmarks, Marro also provides bookmarklets for other browsers like Opera, Chrome and Safari.

The Marro add-on for Firefox isn’t updated to the latest version of Firefox but you can make do with the bookmarklet. IE8′s accelerator from Marro works fine. The process is simple ““ select the section of the webpage (images and other media included), click on the Marro web clipping tool and you get a box as shown in the screenshot above. Add a tag and a URL alias which will be the pointer for the web clip.

The web clip is saved in your online account. You can choose to share it or keep it private.

To annotate the web clip, a text editor is also conveniently provided. The one distinct feature to like about Marro is that it allows the user to download the saved webpage as PDF, HTML, TXT, or as a DOC file.

Scrapbook

Scrapbook is a Firefox add-on that lets you save snippets from webpages or a webpage or an entire website and manage all that in collections. Scrapbook operates as a browser sidebar with the collections arranged in a tree view (or a list view).

Scrapbook also has a lot of other tools that are quite handy at annotating the webpage or highlighting specific segments. You can choose to annotate a page before or after capture. Scrapbook also supports in-depth capture. One unique feature allows it to capture page with its linked media files.

All internal and external hyperlinks are retained in the capture. The filtered search also makes getting to all that stored information a lot easier.

Scrapbook is a great web clipping tool to have right in your browser. I won’t go into too much detail here, but direct you to our past coverage on this essential Firefox add-on that can be read here and here.

Zoho Notebook (Beta)

As a free Office and productivity suite, the set of applications from Zoho doesn’t lag behind. Zoho Notebook deserves a look as a great way to collect snippets of information as you browse the web. What makes Zoho Notebook is that it comes with browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome.

You can log into Zoho Notebook using your Google account. The browser plugins are one touch tools to collect information as you browse from one webpage to the other. The plugin installs on the right side of the status bar. On any webpage, select the text and right click. From the context menu, choose Add to Zoho Notebook. You can also drag and drop images into the notebook window that’s opened on the right corner of the browser window.

All the information can be bunched up in notebooks and pages. Zoho has integrated search which helps you to search in one notebook or across multiple notebooks. For smoother organization, you can also move information across the created pages and notebooks.

Zoho Notebook has a useful new found ability to export a single notebook page or an entire notebook as an HTML page. Using this you can easily export all the information to an application like Microsoft OneNote.

And Give A Thought To”¦

Microsoft OneNote

It’s right there as perhaps the most neglected of apps in the Microsoft Suite (though it’s not technically a free tool, in the sense of the word). Quite an injustice, when you consider that it has powerful web clipping functions. Microsoft Office Online has a great instructional on how to use Microsoft OneNote for web research.

OneNote itself has a Clip tool that can clip any part of the screen. Though the clip is pasted as an image only, a link to that page is added to the screen clipping.

To supplement OneNote’s tools, you can try out the experimental Mozilla Addon – Clip to OneNote. Though the results are not that clean cut, but the add-on makes sending of text and images a bit easier from Firefox to OneNote.

Managing information is a bulwark against information overload. Using plain and simple bookmarks is a basic way. Power users look for solutions beyond the click and go of bookmarks. Evernote is one of the better ones.

Which web clipping tools out of these five do you think could be an alternative?

Image Credit: metamerist

3 Cool Ways To Use Sticky Notes Online

Tina Sieber — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:30:40 +0000

Back in the 1960s Dr. Spencer Silver, a scientist at 3M, accidentally developed a weak adhesive instead of a super glue. Rather than writing it off as a failure, he promoted his invention as a “low-tack, reusable pressure sensitive adhesive.”

Several years later, Art Fry, a colleague of Dr. Silver, used the weak adhesive to stick a bookmark into his hymnbook. Subsequently, he went on to develop what we now know as Post-It notes. The product didn’t break through until the 1980s, but is probably 3M’s most popular item today.

Meanwhile, the handy stickers have found their way onto computer desktops and into the world wide web. In this article, I will review three online tools that allow you to keep and share sticky notes online.

Listhings – collaborate

On Listhings you can create online canvases for your online sticky notes. They can be used to keep track of personal notes or you can share single canvases to work on a project with others.

When you share a canvas, it appears in the list of canvases of your partner. Now, whenever you post a note to the shared canvas, it is instantly replicated on the canvas your partner is viewing. You can also drag and drop notes from one canvas to another. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to attach files to Listhings notes.

Within the settings, there is a hint that it will soon be possible to “take notes from outside Listhings”, i.e. send notes to Listhings. You can already define, which canvas those notes should be sent to per default.

Postica – share files

Postica lets you attach files to your online sticky notes. You can even share the note and the attached file with a friend by sending the note to their sticky board. All you have to know is their eMail address.

While this may not be the best way to quickly share personal files, it’s a great way to backup documents online and add a note to them. I mean, how long can a file name be? It’s easier to tag a note to the document. The file size limit is 5MB. However, there doesn’t seem to be a total limit. Unfortunately, you can only add one file per note.

Another cool feature of Postica is its integration with Twitter. You can add Postica as a friend and subsequently stick notes via Twitter direct messages.

Stickr – comment websites

Stickr is different from all the other tools because it’s almost like a social network. You can use it on any website, either to leave a note for yourself (private) or to share thoughts and ideas with the world (public). There is a 140 character limit for each sticker and you can hit a “Follow Me” button on each sticker, so you can follow the person who posted this sticker.

After signing up, you have to extend your browser to work with Stickr. You can either install a plugin or drag and drop a bookmarklet into your browser’s Bookmarks toolbar. I decided for the bookmarklet.

Notes are not visible until you click on the bookmarklet to launch the Stickr menu. The menu lets you select which stickers to view, for example popular ones (you can like or dislike stickers), your own notes, or the ones from people you follow. The menu also allows you to close all stickers or create a new one. On your Stickr homepage / profile you’ll see a list of stickers you have posted and some more statistics.

Stickr also receives a thumbs up from me for supporting OpenID, as well as login via Google, Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed accounts.

For desktop sticky notes, check out these articles:

Stick This On Your PC by Karl
Make Your Own Sticky Notes with Notepad by Saikat
Organise your life with digital Post-It Notes by Mark
5 Little Useful Sticky Notes For Linux by Damien

So have you retired your post-it notes, yet?

Image credits: nornir

The Commentor- A Visual Online Collaboration & Annotation Tool

Bakari Chavanu — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 23:30:27 +0000

There are several tools on the net for written online collaboration. For example, MUO recently published an article about TypeWith.me for writing collaboration. But for those working on and seeking feedback on visual media projects, The Commentor might be a useful online collaboration tool.

This site is useful for web designers, photographers, advertising agencies, and freelancers in general who work in the visual communication fields. Tools like The Commentor enable users to get beyond writing endless emails to provide feedback; and instead, it provides ways to give feedback on visual documents themselves.

The Commentor’s free plan allows for 100MB of image uploads, two projects, and three collaborators. Other plans are a monthly fee, providing more storage space, collaborators, and projects. The free plan, however, is great for say, students and home users who might not need the month-to-month service. The site owners also point out that, “If you are using your free account regularly””there are no time limits. If your free account hasn’t been active for three months, it will be removed automatically after three notifications to your email.”

After signing up for an account, you begin by adding a project folder. It works similarly to how you gather visual media together for a client or instructor, who in turn provides written comments, sticky notes, and other annotations to items in the project.

Add Sketch

After the project is created, you start adding “sketches,” e.g. visual images, designs, art work, photos.

Annotation Tool

Once projects are uploaded, you can invite others to give you, well, comments. When you sign up for an account, you are given a custom URL so that others can link to your account. However, to add comments on projects, commentators must also join the site.

The heart of the site is the Projects page or module. It consists of a toolbar for making annotations and comments. It works similarly to the tools you find in say, Photoshop. It has tools for drawing squares and circles, for creating comment boxes, and a pen tool for freehand marks and sketches.

Annotations made on project items are non-destructive. The original files are always kept in tact. The purpose of these tools is to actually give feedback on the project pieces themselves. There’s also a nifty zoom tool and ruler, very useful for designers.

The colors of the shape tools can be changed, but unfortunately, the font size in the comment box cannot be increased.

Although The Commentor is about making annotations and feedback on visual files, there still should be a place to provide written feedback beyond the comment boxes.

All project items can be downloaded or locked, and there’s also a feature for approving projects items, which again is another cool feature.

Overall, The Commentor is a useful online collaboration tool and an online feedback tool. However, I think it could provide more as it grows and expands. It would be useful, for instance, to include a way for commentors or collaborators to give recorded audio feedback as part of projects. An audio recording too would another way of cutting down on back and forth written emails concerning project items.

I can’t any other sites like The Commentor, but I”˜m sure there a few others out there. Let us know what similar online tools you use or have tried.

Make Online Shareable Notes With Ketchup

Karl L. Gechlik — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 15:31:11 +0000

Do you have a job? Or maybe you are a student. Either way you are both sitting through some sort of lecture. It may be a meeting or a class and you need to take notes in an easy to input, easy to understand manner.

When I was in school (yeah you young whippersnappers I said when I was in school!) we took notes on paper with a pen. When I tried to use my laptop or Palm Vx I would get in trouble and be told to put my toys away. Nowadays these “˜toys’ are welcome in most situations.

Taking notes at a meeting with your laptop or handheld is super simple with Tomato. Yes you read that correctly, the application is called Tomato for no good reason. But Ketchup is for meetings”¦

You will need to sign up for an account to use Ketchup to take notes. To read someone else’s notes you do not need a login – they just have to share the URL with you in order to share notes online. And that eludes to Ketchup’s sharing feature which we will get to in a bit. Keep on reading. Use Ketchup is the URL to get you to the application.

After you sign up you will automatically be logged in and ready to take notes. Click on the get started button at the bottom of the Here’s how it works section.

Ah ha! We are in and ready to take notes. We will need to add a title to your project / meeting notes. Simply click the title field and fill it in. You can fill in the date and attendees as well. Click get organized when you are ready to enter your notes.

I entered January 14th 2010 at 6:12pm, and the name of the event is “test meeting” ““ I know how original! This could be a class name or specific project you are working on. Next we click on the “+” sign below the agenda to add an event.

I left the default called First Appt. Then you can click on the add note link as you see below to enter details or notes.

Go ahead, populate your notes and then get ready to share notes online with classmates or colleagues. Below you will see a checkbox to make the notes public. This is another way of saying that Ketchup will make the site live with the URL next to the checkbox.

When navigating to that URL - http://useketchup.com/meetings/0pv7Wx)L – this is what I see:

All my data but no way to edit it. Very nice indeed. Especially for those of you who have lent your notes to someone, only to discover that they dropped the class and now you are stuck without your notes for a test. Ha! Take that Sharon from my English Lit class! I will find you some day and get my notes back!

Do you have another favorite free notetaking application where you can also share notes online? Online or off we would love to hear about it in the comments. If there are some interesting suggestions maybe it will warrant another post!