Holiday Gift Ideas

Some of you are thinking about holiday gift ideas right now.  My first recommendation is to buy local if possible, and to consider some handmade gift items.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

• Mountain Spirit Flutes – Handmade Native American Indian art items, such as Flutes, craved Shell Necklaces, and craved Gourds.  Art by Daniel Bigay.
• Thoseshoes – Handmade shoes, purses, and chaps.  Awesome and colorful work.  Artwork by Mik Wright.
• With the Spirit of the Horse – Handmade horse hair jewelry by Barbara Volk.
• Back to Earth Products – Handmade soaps, salves, and lotions by Bobbi Rae Moose. 
• Two Suns Bronze – Amazing bronzes sculptures by Ray Moose.

But this is a computer learning blog, so some of you may be looking for a technical gift for that special someone or for yourself.  If your budget is $200.00 or less, you may want to consider the Echo Smartpen.  It is great for work and personal use.  I have one and I just love it.  I use it for note taking, writing letters and then emailing them, for drawing, and creating wireframes for new website designs I’m creating. This works just like a regular pen or pencil and I’m very happy with mine.

If you have a larger budget, you may want to consider an IPad 2.  I love mine (I bought it on time and just paid it off).  I had wanted something I could use for reading ebooks on and I came close to getting a Kindle and I’m sure I would have been very happy with a Kindle, but the IPad offers so much more than just reading ebooks and it is so convenient. 

I use it for reading ebooks, email, surfing the internet (I love the Dolphin browser and its gestures features), the tons of Apps (I love my Starwalk App – it shows me the star constellations real time for my sky) you can download and use, music, videos, and many more tasks. 

I have been a Windows users for 25 years and I love windows and I still use it extensively and it is how I make my living, but I have to say that I love the IPad and I find that I’m read more with it, because it is so convenient for me and I’m not lugging around a bunch of books with all my other stuff.  I’m on the go a lot, and it is much easier dragging out my IPad at meetings than it is to drag out my laptop for note taking or a quick demo of websites. 

The hardest thing for me was not having a mouse and a real keyboard.  The IPad comes with a virtual keyboard and I’m learning to use it, but I love the tactical feel of a keyboard.  You can purchase an external keyboard for the IPad, and maybe I will down the road, but for now I want to learn to use it as is. 

I did recently purchase a Bamboo stylus for it.  I use if for some of my drawings and note taking.  It is quicker and easier for me to use than using my fingers for drawings and for certain note taking that I’m doing. 

I would highly recommend a smart cover for the IPad.  This will help to protect the display and it can be used to stand up your IPad.  

The other thing I would mention, it is a good idea to purchase a microfiber cleaning cloth – one that is lint free and soft (click here for Apple’s recommendation).  This will keep your display clean and free of oily finger prints.  The IPad display quickly gets covered with finger prints and can make it harder to view.  A stylus will help to reduce oily finger prints on the display, but I find it is quicker to use my fingers for a lot of task, so keep your cleaning cloth close. 

If you or someone you know purchases an IPad, let us know what you think about it. 

Enjoy!

Early Fall on our Mountain

Echo Smartpen

I recently purchased an Echo Smartpen, and I love it!  What a useful tool for work, personal use, and just plain old fun. 

The Echo Smartpen (Echo for short) allows me to handwrite notes, draw out web site designs, and record audio.  I can then download my notes and audio right to my computer using the USB cable that comes the Echo.

Once my notes are downloaded to my computer, I can create images of them, email them, post them on Facebook, post them to Google Docs, create a .PDF of my notes, and even store them online. 

Check out this short video review of the Echo:  CNET's review of the Echo Smartpen.

I still handwrite a lot of things, so the Echo was definitely a must for me.  I usually handwrite my meeting notes, work related phone conversations, sketch out web site designs, writing new custom code for web sites and SharePoint projects that I’m working on.  For notes that I need to keep for a while, I would type them up on my computer. 

Now, I can use my Echo and I have only have to write my notes once, and I don’t even have to retype them.  There is an additional piece of software, “MyScript for Lightscribe” by Vision Objects, that converts my handwritten notes into typed text.  I tested this briefly, and it worked pretty well.  It only miss-interpreted a couple of words.  I was impressed.

The “MyScript for Lightscribe” software cost $29.95.  I felt it was worth the price, since it allows me to save time by only handwriting my notes once.

I actually handwrote a letter to my granddaughter, and I drew her picture in the letter.   I really like the design of the Echo.  It feel good in my hand, and its flat design on side, prevents it from rolling off a table. 

I turned on the audio recording feature (by tapping the pen on the REC icon at the bottom of the special paper for Echo) of Echo so that my voice would be recorded as I wrote the letter to my granddaughter.  I spoke each word out loud as I wrote them.

I then downloaded the letter to my computer and exported it out to a “Pencast PDF” file (this is basically a PDF file with audio and audio controls).   Next I emailed it to my granddaughter.  What a cool way to continue to handwrite letters, and for those of you trying to reduce your paper use, this is another great way to accomplish that, whether you are at work or home. 

Here is a simple to letter note that I have created that contains some audio:

• Simple Pencast PDF Example

Handwritten letters could become treasured family documents in a whole new way, and they could be passed down to future generations.  Think about how cool it would be for your great, great, great grandchildren to see an old letter written in your own hand and your actual voice speaking the words.  I think this would something that some family members would really treasure. 

However you choose to use your Echo Smartpen, it certainly feels more like the natural way of writing and drawing; outside using a standard pencil, pen, etc.. - at least for me.  I love handwriting notes and sketching things out, so the Echo Smartpen has quickly become one of my favorites new technology toys.  I mean tools..

Enjoy!

Post Links:

• CNET's review of the Echo Smartpen
• Lightscribe's Web Site
• MyScript for Lightscribe

A Cool Desktop Tool

I make my living as a web site developer.  When I’m busy working on a web site project, I have the habit of dropping items onto my desktop.  When I have finished the bulk of the project, I go back and clean up my desktop.  My desktop is my work space area. 

Some of the items that get dropped onto my desktop, I will want to keep, but most everything else I will delete. 

However you use your desktop, if you find that you store items (icons, files, folders, etc..) on your desktop and it is difficult finding them, clean up what you don’t need and consider using a desktop tool, like  “Fences” by Stardock.

I ran across Fences not long ago.  It is a neat little desktop tool for organizing icons, folders, and other items on your desktop.  Stardock offers a free version (which I’m using) and a paid version. 

Basically, the Fences tool allows you to group items together on your desktop, which helps me to find them quicker.  Here is a snap shot of some Fences I setup on my desktop:

To see a video demo on how Fences works and to download your version of Fences, go to Stardock’s web site.

Enjoy!

IPad 2

Apple has released the next version of its IPad, IPad 2.  The video on Apple’s web site looks pretty cool.  Here is a link to  the video: 

• IPad 2 Video

I don’t have an IPad 2, but I would love to.  Just not in the budget at the moment.  If anyone has and IPad 2 and you have thoughts about it, consider leaving a comment and let us know how you like it.

Enjoy

How do I search all of Craigslist?

My partner, Danny is just starting to learn how to use a computer.  He is learning how to use email and how to surf the internet for things he is interested in.  I’m showing him the ropes. 

This morning he wanted to search for campers (ours was recently totaled.  For more information, click here) on Craigslist, but he wanted to search for campers on all of Craigslist.  He asked me how he could do this.  Well, I must confess, I don’t use Craigslist very much, and so I didn’t know how to do this. 

I went out to Craigslist (CL) and looked around and didn’t find a way to do this (that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way, I just didn’t find it this morning), that was obvious to me. 

So, I did what I usually do in a situation like this, I performed a Google Search. I found a way to search all of CL in a matter of seconds using Google’s Search Engine.  I love Google. Here is the link I found, in case you are interested:  http://www.dime-co.com/business/How-to-Search-All-of-Craigslist-at-Once.shtml. 

It really wasn’t that hard.  I’ll outline the steps for you here. 

• First, open up a browser window (Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, etc..).
• Type in “Google.com” in the address bar.  Google’s home page should appear.

• Now you will need to type the following into the Google search box:

site:craigslist.org “replace this text with your search keywords”.

• For my example, I decided to search all of CL for “Honda Cars”.  Here is what I type into the Google Search box:

site:craigslist.org “Honda Cars”.

• Press the Enter key or click on the Google Search button. 
• Next, I was presented with a list of links to Honda cars on Craigslist. 

Pretty cool. 

For more details on how you can search for something on all of Craigslist, you can perform your own Google Search and/or check out the link I found, by visiting this site:  http://www.dime-co.com/business/How-to-Search-All-of-Craigslist-at-Once.shtml. 

Enjoy!

Windows 7 Cool New Feature, Snap

I’m working on a SharePoint project.  Part of this project involved migrating SharePoint 2007 Publishing web sites over to SharePoint 2010 Publishing web sites.  After the migration program was run, we needed to perform a comparison between the SharePoint 2007 sites and the newly created SharePoint 2010 sites. 

To help make this process less tedious and to make the comparison easier, I tried the new Snap feature that is part of Windows 7.  This worked great and was a big help with the comparison process.  I love this cool new feature. 

Snap is easy to use.  To see a video on how to use snap, visit this link:  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Arrange-windows-side-by-side-on-the-desktop-using-Snap. 

Let me know how you use snap to help get your projects done or how you may use it just for fun. 

Enjoy!

I’m Published–How Cool

I’m snowed in this morning.  It is truly beautiful, but very cold.  I’m sitting in my living room near the woodstove, so I stay toasty warm.  I love it! 

I work as an consultant at the University of Tennessee (UT) in Knoxville.  I’m a SharePoint Specialist.  I’m working on SharePoint publishing sites.  I’m doing custom branding, creating sites, adding new content, and creating training material.  In regards to training material, I recently got published for some training material that I help to create and update.  How cool. 

I really enjoy working at UT and working with SharePoint 2010.  Working on this SharePoint project has been filled with lots learning, creativity, some frustration at times, exciting at other times, but mostly fun.  I’m enjoying my experience at UT. 

Enjoy!