My ‘Bookmark’ Brain

In part 3 of the ‘ Brain’ series I want to share how I manage my bookmarks on my computers. I bookmark the web sites I visit most on the navigation toolbar of my browser. Depending on the task I am using Firefox (general web browsing), Google Chrome Beta (for faster execution of Flash applications like Flickr and Mafia Wars, Farmville, Cafe World on Facebook) and Internet Explorer (when the web site does not render correctly in Firefox or Google Chrome).

On all browsers I would like to have my navigation toolbar the same. Luckily XMarks solves this problem for me.

XMarks is installed on all browsers you use and keeps all bookmark collections in sync. When you change something in your bookmark collection in one of the browsers, the changes are copied to the other browsers. These browsers can be installed on the same computer or on different computers. Furthermore, your bookmark collections can be accessed through the XMarks web site. This also serves as a backup, in case you accidently delete something.

For an overview of the features see https://www.xmarks.com/about/features

My external ‘bulk data’ brain

In a previous post you can read how I store, organize and retrieve important data. In this post you can read how I store and retrieve data files which I use on multiple computers and locations.

The most simple solution is to store your data on an USB stick. This works very well, provided you remember to store the latest version of your data file on the USB stick. When you forget to carry the stick with you, or you make a mistake, you do not have access to the latest information.

For more mission critical files (the latest version of the file must be available on my PC, laptop and every place I work) I have a special solution: Dropbox.

I store my mission critical files in the Dropbox folder. Dropbox makes sure that the folder is copied to every other PC where Dropbox is installed. If I cannot install Dropbox, I can always access my file through the Dropbox web site. I only have to make sure that each PC is connected long enough to the Internet to exchange the files with the Dropbox server.

I also use Dropbox to share large files with other Internet users. These users do not have to install Dropbox. Instead, I can ask Dropbox to generate a special link which I sent to the other Internet user. Everyone which clicks on that link can download that particular file.

Sharing files with other Dropbox users is even easier. You setup a special folder where you and the other Dropbox user have access to. When you put a file in that shared folder, it is automatically copied to the other Dropbox user. This is all done in the background. The receiving user does not have to do anything.

How do you know when another Dropbox user has shared something with you? You could check the shared folder every now and then to see if anything pops up. But Dropbox has a trick for this. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of your Dropbox folder. In this RSS feed Dropbox feed tells you of anything it does for you. I use this feed to monitor if all of my files are transferred correctly. And when someone shares a file with me I will get notified instantly (how I use RSS feeds will be a topic in an upcoming blog post).

When you want to try Dropbox, please use this link: https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTEzNTM3NzQ5

You and I will get an extra 250MB free space!

My Second Brain

It is true the Internet contains all the information you might ever need. The problem is finding the relevant information and remembering where it is located. Also, in the ‘real world’ you collect information which might be useful in the future, if only you remember where you stored that piece of paper…

Saving web page addresses (URLs)
While surfing I want to store the web site addresses of web pages which contain interesting information. I have used sites like http://www.myhq.com and http://delicious.com to collect the URLs. This works OK but saving the URL is not the important part. Many times I revisited the web page only to find out that the important info disappeared because the page contents changed.

Saving real world information
With real world information I mean stuff like receipts (for warranty claims), recipes, useful information from magazines. Scanning and converting to PDF or JPG format seems a good idea, but how do you know which file contains the desired information?

My second brain
I found a software application which helps me enormously with organizing and maintaining this ‘information overload’: Evernote

Evernote
At first glance Evernote looks like a digital version of a notebook.  But it is much more than that. Let me explain.

Making notes
The first step is that you make a note in Evernote.  You can do in various ways like entering a note directly in Evernote, clipping a web page, sending a photo or grabbing a screenshot. If you want you can tag the note for easier retrieval in the future. Now your information is stored in information. But as you know, finding the information is perhaps the most important part!

Finding notes
You can search for (key)words which occur in the title or body text of the note and of course for tags which can be attached to the note. The most interesting part (and hidden treasure) of Evernote is that all words inside your images (like photos and screenshots) are recognized by optical character recognition (OCR). Even handwriting can be recognized (up until a certain point  of course). At the moment only English is supported, but Evernote is already being translated into other languages (including Dutch). The beauty of OCR is that note taking is more than typing in text into Evernote. Do you want to store the results of a brainstorm session? Take a photo of the whiteboard! Save an interesting article? Scan it!
Afraid you lose that business card? Take a photo with your smartphone and upload it to Evernote. The OCR capability will make sure that you will find back the business card when you need it.

Information at your fingertips from multiple points
The best thing is that your information is accessible in several ways:

• a Windows client with a local database so no online access is needed to have access to your data.  And when the Evernote servers are not accessible, you still have access to your data.
• a web site to search your data which is also stored on the Evernote servers.
• various mobile clients (Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone) to get to your information on the go.

So I don’t have to worry about how I get access to my data. It is always available!

How I use Evernote
Besides the simple note taking, you can do so much more. The Evernote web site contains extensive examples. I use it to store (and successfully retrieve!) the following:

• parts of web pages including the URL
• scans of receipts so I can find it in case of warranty returns
• manuals of every device I use
• configuration details of equipment
• recipes with the ingredient list as text inside the note for easy access from my HTC Touch HD
• scans from magazine articles
• screen prints from Windows error messages I am investigating
• scans of packaging with instructions / explanations
• photos of whiteboard sessions
• coupons
• reservation tickets for holidays, hotel rooms, cars etc.