Merlins Tower

Cool Tool: Jott - Now in Open Beta

Posted on March 29th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Computing, Email, Notetaking, Web Service.

I just came across a new online service called Jott.

Jott has to be one of the most useful online web applications I have come across. I know I will be using this service as this solves many issues of being out and about and not being able to jott an (Such as an Idea, Phone Number, Web Address, Email to a Friend or Colleague, Note to Remember)

Basically Jott is the electronic version of the Post-It note on Steroids. This service is better then any PDA or SmartPhone because instead of having to
(1) pull out your PDA -
(2) then turning it on -
(3) pulling out the stylus -
(4) jotting the note down -
(5) saving and
(6) turningthe PDA off -

All you do is
(1) call a toll-free number and
(2) answer who you want to Jott - Such as by saying “Me” and
(3) then you are given a beep and you can record your message (Up to 30 Seconds) that will be transcribed and sent to your email.

What can be simpler.

And it is just as easy to send and email to a friend and or a colleague as well.

Jott is just as easy to setup and get started as well - Visit their site and register - It will take you under 5 mins to signup and verify your email and phone number. During this setup you get a chance to send your first test message to yourself to see how quickly this system works.

I went ahead and used the service to send several messages and several notes to myself today and found that I got the transcribes notes in my inbox under 15 mins. Plus you also get to listen to the original message on your Jott page inbox as well as being able to read the transcribed note.

So if you want to try out a free (Currently) service that will help you send and email, take a note and free up some time for you. Then Jott is for you.

Technorati Tags: jott, notetaking, transcription, trascribe, cellphone, service, beta, testing, email, note, free,

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Backup your thoughts to Floppy Disk and Pencil???

Posted on February 23rd, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Art, Communication, Computing, Hack, Journaling, Notetaking, Office.

Yes, you read the title right. Now you can keep your notes save and secure between two floppies. The people at ThinkGeek.com have done it again and created a pretty cool item. They are calling it a Floppy Disk Journal. What they have done is to take two floppy diskettes and a small stack of paper cut to diskette size and put it all together with a plastic comb binder spine.

So, now you can use the power of the floppy again. They come in three different sizes (Floppy 3 1/2", 5 1/4" & 8") show this to some new computer users and they will not even know what this even is. It really has been a long time since I have used one of these diskettes. Almost everything I have is on cd, dvd, or a external hard drive.

The 3 1/2" was available in DD (Double Density) or a whopping 720k and in HD (High Density not High Def) which would hold about 1.44mb. In case you are interested Wikipedia has the history of Floppy Diskettes. Boy Times sure have changed. Now you can easily get 1GB, 2GB, or Higher in the form of a USB Flash Drive for under $50 and the smaller sizes under $20. I remember in the Late 80's going to a computer club and 3M stopping by to talk to us about their new 5 1/4 inch diskette and gave everyone at the meeting one floppy diskette in a really nice marketing folder. We where in awe as those diskettes cost about $25 to $30 a piece and not everyone even had a floppy drive back then. Many of the users were only using tape drives. Ah, those were the days. The day of black and white screens with colored plexiglass to make the screen easier to read and only 16k of memory in the computer. When you called up a BBS (Bulletin Board System) and waited sometimes hours to get a free line to connect. Just to see the latest ASCII Art and animation.

Technorati Tags: Floppy+Disk, Diskette, Disk, Floppy, HD, DD, DS, Flash, Drive, ASCII, ART, BBS, History, Journal

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Google Apps Keyboard Shortcuts (Free Chart)

Posted on January 22nd, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Computing, Google, Hack, Web Service.

I love using the different Google Apps (Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Maps, Video, Reader) And I have found out that one of the things that makes working with all the different Google Apps that much easier is the use of the Keyboard Shortcuts. Well, Smallwire has a nicely formated chart of all the Keyboard Shortcuts.

Technorati Tags: Google, Apps, Doc, Writely, Gmail, Maps, Shortcut, Key, keys

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Free Research Help - CrossEngine.com

Posted on January 17th, 2007 by Merlin.
Categories: Computing, GTD, Hack, Search Engine, Web Service.

Today I found a real time saver when it comes to searching for information. It is called CrossEngine - Beyond Search.

To use this new search engine is pretty easy type what you are looking for in the search box and press enter - You will have then just searched for your term in google.

Ok, I will wait tell you stop saying "Yeah Whats the Big Deal" - Well here is where the WEB 2.0 / AJAX comes into play - Which is what this search engine uses.

You will notice little tabs across the top:

WEB, Images, Video, News, Blog, Shopping, Reference, Files, Tags, Social

Each of the Tabs list all of the search engines available under the search box.

Example: The Web Tab Has These listed:

Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask, AOL, Exalead, Gigablast, DMOZ, Altavista, UTN, All The Web, Snab, WotBox, Hakia, Clush and Many Many more

There are quite the selection of all the different forms of search - You can instantly at the click of a button best of the best and a few that you may not have heard of.

I really liked the image search - Google, Yahoo, PhotoBucket, Flickr, Getty and again many more.

I am also cross posting this to my other Blog Dr-T.com - Dr Tech Check it out for more technical blog entries.

Technorati Tags: AJAX, Web, 2.0, Search, Mashup, Hack, GTD, Technorati, IceRocket, Kinja, Live, Blog, Findory, Digger, Merlins, Tower

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Stikkit - A New Way to Organize Online

Posted on December 3rd, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Computing, Consulting, Email, Freeware, GTD, Hack, Notetaking, Web Service.

Stikkit.com - A new online organizer in Beta testing.

First a little Blurb from Stikkit:

Stikkit gives you the digital equivalent of a sticky note: the easiest thing you can grab to jot down an idea or reminder. As you type, Stikkit watches for appointments, to-dos, people, bookmarks and more, magically extracting and organizing the important details. It's like having a personal assistant following along after you.

What does this mean to you? Well after taking the 2 mins that it took to signup and activate your account you can start using it right away - Press the Shift-ALT-N and you get a nice blank note to type something in?

Meeting with Vet for Java for Shots on Jan 22 2007 3pm @VET @JAVA @APPOINTMENT

This created a Appointment (1-22-2007 @ 3pm) And Tagged the note with 3 different TAGS VET, JAVA, Appointment  

Whats nice it that it integrated the Notes with Appointments and  Tagging System

BOB SMITH 212-555-1212 bobsmith@yeahright.com 

This Created a Peep (Contact) with his contact info in there.

You can also visit the setting page for your Stikkit Account and they will give you a Secret Email address that you can add to your cellphone and then when out on the road you can Text an Apointment, Note, etc to your account.

Plus say you are visiting a webpage and wanted to jot a note about something you saw? Well if you already created a shortcut on your bookmark toolbar  you can press it and it will automatically note the page/time and Whatever notes you want to store on stikkit page.

Each Section of your stikkit has its own RSS feed. So you can read your contacts, appointments or general Notes in your RSS Reader.

Plus if you turned on the SMS feature of Stikkit it can sent you an SMS message when you have an appointment. 

TAGS: STIKKIT stickit note todo calendar organizer online sms email organization

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Ultralingua - English Dictionary - Great PC/Mac/Palm with Definations

Posted on October 27th, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Computing, Hack.

I have been playing with some software a friend recommended to me to try out - It is the Ultralingua English Dictionary of Definitions. What I really like about this product is that is it very easy to use. Want to look up a word click on it (their guide says it will work in most any application) I have not found any that I have tried that it didn't work is so far. Just Press the control key and right click on the word and up pops up the definition on your screen. Great for the times that you would like to make sure what you are saying is the correct word. This program recognizes conjugated verbs, plurals etc… making find the correct word that much easier.

The translations are very good (extremely complete) - Their dictionary has up to 350,000 indexed translations - including idiomatic expressions (which are expressions whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of the words that make it up), Technical Terms and slang.

It was quite interesting playing around with this and learning their meanings and the etymology of the words. Some of the other features are:

The Verb Conjugator: Allows you conjugate verbs into every tense.
The Number-to-Text Converter:  19,782,007 is nineteen million seven hundred eighty-two thousand (and) seven
PowerSearch mode with Wild cards:
Automatic Translation of blocks of text (needs the Internet) Uses google to translate.
Examples of Usage (need the internet) uses google to find examples.

I tried throwing a few curve balls into it and was suprised. I typed in White Oak - I was not sure what It would tell me. Ultralingua told me that it is a Borough in Pennsylvania Population 8761 zip code 15131 - plus other cities across the US. Then it went on to tell me about the Arizona white oak (A Semi-Evergreen Shrub or small tree of Arizona and New Mexico having acorns with hemispherical cups also called Quercus Arizonica.) Ultralingua listed 9 different white oaks and various info about them.

The best part is that this program is only $29 to register.

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Taking Notes - A Few NON Analog Suggestions

Posted on October 25th, 2006 by Merlin.
Categories: Communication, Computing, Consulting, GTD, Hack, Web Service.

As most of you know I like using analog tools for most of my notetaking. I am constantly writing notes and Ideas for things I am currently working on. Even though analog (Pencil and Paper Journals) are good, there definately is a time and place for all technologies even online digital ones.

But which ones are the best to use? This started a small quest to see how many online notetaking services there are. Well let me tell you there are quite a few out there to choose from. Let me start this by asking everyone to please post in the comments section your favorite to use and I will take a look and write up some reviews on them. But more importantly I would like to see your take on some of these services. Why do you use the ones that you use - Ease of Use - Storage space? - Pretty Looking? Tell me I would like to know.

One of the ones I use is Google Notebook - www.Google.com/notebook - I like this one as I can clip interesting notes to it by using the add-on for firefox also available for IE as well. Or you can just start typing in a note on that page. Google Notebook also alows for sections in the notebook and the ability to use google search to search the notes that you wrote. A pretty plain jane easy to use notebook.

See you next time with another online notebook selection. - And The Previous link is now fixed. - Thanks Sunkman

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