Evernote

Do you have trouble remembering the passwords to those websites you rarely visit?

Did you want to keep those pdf instruction manuals in a place where you can always get them?

What about a recipe you’d like to try later?

Would you like to access this information from your work PC, your home MAC, your iPhone, PalmPre, Android, or Blackberry?

And here’s the coolest thing – would you like to search text from anything you entered even a photo, pdf, or web page?

If you are overloaded with information and looking for a place to put it that’s searchable, then you should try Evernote.  I happened across this site October 2008 but didn’t realize it’s usefulness until about a year ago.

Evernote is available for free, has a nice feature set, and the ads that financially support the site are not obnoxious.

-Searchable text:  I am not an especially organized person, so being able to upload just about anything and instantly recall it with a simple text search is huge!  Even with the free version you can search text inside images.  Using a smartphone with a good camera, you can take a picture of a business card, upload it to Evernote, and the text on the card is searchable!  My wife clips recipes out of magazines and hands them to me.  I scan them and put them on Evernote.   Then, I can find every recipe that has “salmon” in an instant.  (As a byproduct, I’ll also find anyone’s business card or a photo of us standing in front of a restaurant that has the word “salmon”).

-Premium version:

• For $45/year, Evernote will allow you to upload and more file types including Microsoft Office documents and video.  The premium version also searches text in pdf documents – a big help when I’m trying to check a feature from an uploaded manual.  Many equipment manuals are available as pdf’s these days, so when I have a question about my Canon Vixia HF S100, or my htc Evo phone I go to Evernote.  I can type a search string such as “HDMI” and learn how to connect my camera or phone to my widescreen TV.
• Collaboration:  the premium version also allows users to allow others to edit notes.
• More upload capacity:  premium users have 500MB/month in uploads versus 40MB for free.  I was fine with the free version until I started my Evernote collection of recipes.

As a somewhat forgetful and disorganized person when it comes to random scraps of paper and/or thoughts, (just ask my wife and co-workers), Evernote helps make me into the smart person I aspire to be.  And having all the information searchable from any computer on the web, or using their application on my laptop and phone is huge!

Do you use Evernote or other sites like it?  We’d love to hear your tips, tricks, and opinions.  Please comment below or email me at chiefgeek@gadgetreviewworld.com.

iFixit.com

iFixit.com is a great site for the person who is not too afraid to open their computer, ipod, or other gadget and fix it. This is an Apple centric site primarily to fix your ailing Apple computer, iPhone, and iPod. You can also witness first time tear downs of the latest products. In fact, only a couple days after they released the new generation Nano, they had a tear-down for it.

Having said that, you should always have a healthy respect opening a complex gadget. Also, you should never be pressured by time. So, if you have a fair degree of mechanical aptitude you could save yourself a ton of money and have some fun to boot!

iFixit.com sells the tools and parts and provides free instructions. Considering tools, what’s the difference between a $2 and a $20 dollar 00 Phillips head? Plenty! Buy high quality tools. Cheap ones fail (especially Phillips head drivers). A cheap Phillips head won’t survive the first tough screw it encounters.

I have repaired two PowerBook G4’s. I replaced the hard drive on mine with a larger one. On a friend’s Apple PowerBook 15″, I replaced the DC sound card. This card is in the bottom of the computer so I had to take most everything out of the case to get to the card. i also had to disconnect every wire attached to the logic board.

Tip: use an eggcrate or iFixit’s useful screw map to keep straight which screws belong with which step.

Challenges:
With both laptops, I managed to strip a screw. In both cases, the screw was not critical to fastening a part and there were other redundant screws to carry the burden. A small screw extractor can extract the screw.

To recap:
1.) Have plenty of time and be patient. I could fix my problems because I could approach them fresh and with different tools (like the screw extractor) the next day.

2.) Buy good tools. What’s an extra $20 when your saving $50/hour for labor?

3.) Have fun. It’s amazing what you’ll find in there. How many can say they fixed their laptop, iPhone, iPod themselves?

I wish I had a site like this when I was a child taking apart retractable ball-point pens…

-Remember, technology is your friend!
John (aka Founding Geek)