Blog Archives

3Banana Keep Notes Tidy with Hash Tags [Notes]

Posted on June 8, 2009
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If you’re looking for a simple way to take, store, and share notes in the cloud, 3Banana makes organizing your notes easy with notes based on in-text hashtags.

You can sign up for an account at 3Banana or use your existing Google credentials to jump right in and try it out. You can create basic notes simply by typing in the dialogue box, or enhance the note taking process by including HTML tags and images. 3Banana automatically recognizes pasted links and common formatting like phone numbers. You can categorize your notes by using hash tags like #tasks to tag your notes.

You can also easily share your notes by publishing them to your Facebook and Twitter account, or more traditionally by emailing or pasting the URL. There are currently apps available for both the iPhone and Android phones. For more great note-taking tools, check out the Hive Five on the topic.





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WebNotes Highlights, Sticky-Notes, and Organizes Web Research [Research]

Posted on May 29, 2009
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WebNotes, a research tool developed by, and for, serious researchers, allows anyone to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages and have those notes instantly added to a web-based research file. For anyone flying through HTML pages like so much paper, it could be really handy.

At first glance, long-time Firefox users might recognize certain similarities to Scrapbook, an award-winning Firefox extension previously featured here. The main competitive advantages WebNotes has against its predecessor is that it syncs everything to an online account rather than a local database, offers an easily exportable “report” of all your highlights and notes, and, in the paid “Pro” and “Group” solutions, offers annotation of PDFs that are uploaded and converted through WebNotes’ site. The main difference, which is really a user preference, is that WebNotes operates through a (hide-able, optional) toolbar or a bookmarklet that works on all browsers, while Scrapbook, a dedicated Firefox project, pops out from a sidebar.

Signing up at WebNotes nets any new user a 14-day Pro account trial, which includes the PDF annotation powers, so college students working on a big project (or, more likely, working on one when they return this fall) should keep that little freebie offering in mind. WebNotes is free to use with a sign-up.





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Kludgets Runs (Some) OS X Widgets on Windows [Downloads]

Posted on May 12, 2009
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Windows only: The creator of Kludgets, a new open-source widget engine, admits it’s not quite as pretty, but it can run some OS X Widget packages on a Windows desktop.

Kludgets—an acronym (backronym?) for Klumsy, Lame, Ugly, Dumb, but Good Enough—is, at the moment, a kind of proof-of-concept on getting widgets based on Webkit, the QT framework, and standard JavaScript, HTML, and other web languages running on your Windows desktop. The basic beta download does just that, with a few install-able sample widgets, and seemingly does it without a lot of system drain or lag.

But the real power of Kludgets comes from the web, where sources like WidgetWorld and Apple’s own Dashboard downloads can provide a wealth of intriguing desktop tools to work with. Some OS X widgets worked just fine with Kludgets—download the ZIP file, right-click Kludgets' system tray icon, and open the package to get started. Others, especially those that relied on Mac system information or complex web information, were non-starters.

In other words, you'll have to experiment a bit to see what works and what doesn't. Just seeing Mac Tips and Tricks running on Windows 7, however, is a gleeful little juxtaposition possibly worth it alone for the small download. Kludgets can auto-run your widgets at start-up, and you can manually hide and show them, but there's no Mac-style keyboard shortcut to bring up a "shade" with all your widgets—not yet, anyways.

Kludgets is a free, beta download for Windows systems only.





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Create a Note Card Task Board on the Cheap [DIY]

Posted on May 10, 2009
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If note cards are crucial to your organization system, you may have entertained the idea of getting a task board for them—and been shut down by the cost. Scratch that idea and make your own.

Brian, a programmer for organization blog Unclutterer, uses note cards for his work flow. He shopped around for a task board only to be surprised at how pricey they were. Could a board designed to do nothing more than hold 3×5 cards really be worth $40 or more? He opted to get crafty and create his own super-simple but effective display board for his 3×5 cards. Brian built his using nothing more than a piece of white artist’s board from an art store, some heavy duty rubber bands, and an inexpensive acrylic picture easel. A little label maker magic made it easy to see which rubber band holds which type of cards, and then he was done. It may not be made of exotic woods or hand-stitched leather, but it was a fraction of the price and does the job just fine. For more details about his project, check out the link below. If you’ve come up with your own ingenious way of managing your note cards, share the might of your 3×5-fu in the comments below.





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QuotePad is a Tiny, Portable Note Manager [Downloads]

Posted on April 16, 2009
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Windows only: Portable note-taking application QuotePad creates searchable notes from any text on your screen, and even saves the original link if it’s from a web page.

QuotePad works like most other note-taking applications—you simply select some text and use the Shift+Ctrl+Q shortcut key combination to create a new note, which automatically adds a link referencing the source page. You can pin the application to the side of the screen, or easily filter through the notes with the included search feature—there's even a feature to export the notes as a plain text file, making this an interesting alternative if you want to quickly save bits of information but aren't in the market for a full-featured solution like previously mentioned Evernote.

QuotePad is a free download for Windows only. For more alternatives, see our five best note-taking solutions, or learn how to expand your brain with Evernote.





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The Guide is a Portable, Open-Source Hierarchical Note Organizer [Featured Windows Download]

Posted on January 20, 2009
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Windows only: Portable note-taking and outlining application The Guide organizes your notes and projects complete with rich text in a hierarchical view.

The Guide has a similar feature set to previously mentioned ActionOutline Lite, lacking the ability to use tabs but making up for it with lighter resource usage, no restrictions on sub-items and the great price tag of free. Once installed, the preferences panel has a setting for switching the application into portable mode, which stores all settings in an INI file instead of the registry so you can copy the entire folder to a USB drive.

Enabling icons and checkboxes can be done in the preferences pane, and icons for nodes can be changed through the context menu. The Guide is a free download for Windows systems only. Thanks MarsalaAnteater!






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Import the Entirety of Your Google Notebook to UberNote [Note Taking]

Posted on January 16, 2009
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Previously mentioned web-based note-taking tool UberNote has just released a Google Notebook Import tool to move your Google Notebook notes into an app with a future. It’s a good bet that every note-taking tool looking to grab new users will create a similar tool (we’re looking at you, Evernote) now that Google Notebook has stopped active development, but UberNote looks like the first. Not keen on UberNote? Check out our suggestions for where to go when Google Notebook goes down.






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