I spent a lot of time poking around at various options for on-line note taking. I was looking for something that would allow me to quickly clip web content and dump it into a folder/category structure for later retrieval.

As it has evolved its features, Evernote is the tool best suited to my workstyle. With web-based, desktop-client and iPhone versions, Evernote makes it easy to clip and retrieve notes anywhere.

If Evernote is not to your style, here is a list of Fifty Ways to Take Notes, compiled by Brian Benzinger.

Quick Public Pages
Using a quick public page service, as I call it, is my favorite method of saving notes on the go. Some are simply a text field on a page that you fill and in click save, others allow you to record notes to a service directly through Instant Messaging with AIM, and some are full planners for creating well outlined documents.

• ShortText - Fill in your text, click save, and you’ve got yourself a permanent url to a text note. Includes private pages as well.
• YourDraft - Create and share content using a rich text editor (WYSIWYG) instantly without registration.
• Cl1p.net - The Internet Clipboard. Copy and paste between computers.
• Sabifoo - (Personal favorite) Simply use an Instant Message client (ie: AIM), message “sabifoo”, and your message is recorded online to a permanent link and RSS feed.
• Deusto - A new service for the creation of small web pages (digital books) in a simple and fast manner.
• Backpack - Organize to do lists, notes, images, photos and share.
• BareWiki - Build your own website and easily allow others to edit it.
• Infogami - Build good-looking, easily-editable web sites.
• Zoho Planner - An online organizer to Plan & Organize yourself.
• Change To Link - Easily create a page of information to bookmark or share with friends.
• PasteHere - Make pastes from screenshots of your desktop, code from your clipboard, or any other image/text. Pages last for 15 days unregistered user / 30 days registered user.

Basic Note Taking
Quick public pages aren’t really made for note-taking, although they work really well for it. Here are a few services and applications that are meant for note taking.

• Pianist - Simple memo manager helping you save your ideas.
• JotCloud - Jot down notes in a cloud of sticky notes online.
• Web Note - Quickly takes notes with an online post-it like interface.
• Performancing Firefox - Meant for blogging, although it has a section for saving notes and drafts that works rather well.
• Forty Internet Notebook - (Note: Service sadly may not be live much longer) Simple and categorized place for you to keep notes saved hierarchically.
• Backpack - Organize to do lists, notes, images, photos and share.
• JotSpot Live - JotSpot Live allows you, your colleagues or clients to take notes together on the same web page at the same time.
• TaskToy - More for to-do lists, but also features searchable notes and memos.
• Zoho Planner - An online organizer to Plan & Organize yourself.
• Campfire - Although meant for chatting, Campfire also works great for taking notes! Read this How-To.
• SyncNotes - “Your notes. Anywhere. Anyhow.”
• Yahoo! Notepad - Yahoo! Notepad is very simple, especially when using this handyNotepad Bookmarklet.
• Google Desktop Scratch Pad - Although Scratch Pad requires the Google Desktop software, I find myself using this little plugin all the time. Just type and it saves automatically.

Development
I’m a programmer and when I’ve got an idea on my mind for a script or code snippet, I want to get it down ASAP. I find that collaborative programming services, like Pastebin, or just a service that lets you save a script and share works perfectly. These are like quick public pages, but for programmers.

• Pastebin - Collaborate on debugging code snippets and receive permanent links to code snippets.
• TNX - “Simple web service for temporary text storage. A unique URL is generated, that can be easily pasted in a message, but is hard to guess.”
• TextSnippets - Public source code repository in that you can tag and categorize code. You may also set snippets as private.
• PasteHere - Make pastes from screenshots of your desktop, code from your clipboard, or any other image/text. Pages last for 15 days unregistered user / 30 days registered user.
• Nopaste - Pastebin with Syntax Highlighting for PHP Programming.

Online Documents
I found that there are times that simple text notes just don’t always fit my needs. There may be a note or part of a document that I need to save with text formatting, colors, and headings, but most note-taking services are text-only. In time, I started using services like Writeboard more and more because I can just down notes with it during a conference adding headings and lists making reading my notes a lot more organized. Makes sense, so I decided to make a list of a few.

• Writeboard - (I find I use this often because of Basecamp integration for work) Collaborative writing software online. Write, share, revise, compare. You can share by email invitation only.
• Writely - Writely allows you to edit documents online with whomever you choose, and then publish and blog them online.
• Rallypoint - (I use this for project notes often) Rallypoint combines the powerful features of your favorite desktop word processor with the collaborative abilities of a secure hosted wiki, giving you the best of both worlds.
• Zoho Writer - Online tool to create a document, edit in your way, and share with anyone.
• WideWord - Write and share documents easily, quickly and privately!
• YourDraft - Create and share content instantly without registration. The WYSIWYG editor allows fast and flexible drafting.
• gOffice Word Processing - gOffice has a nice Word Processor that I’ve only used once before, but worked well then.

Voice Recording
Don’t think your stuck with typing all your notes on a computer when it comes to note taking. Sometimes it’s just simpler to speak something out loud rather then writing and although the following services aren’t meant for taking notes specifically, they seem to work quite well. Sure, they are for emailing and podcasting, but that’s not stopping me!

• Evoca - Evoca is excellent for recording podcasts, but it also seems to work for notes as well because when you record, it simply saves it to a list in that you can listen to at any time. They are private until published.
• Odeo - For podcasting as well, but as does Evoca, Odeo’s podcast recorder also works well and saves your recordings as podcasts which you can easily listen to at any time. They are also private until published.
• Springdoo - Springdoo allows you to send voice email, as does Slawesome. When you make a recording with Springdoo, it will allow you to preview the recording and send the address to others. Simple bookmark the address or send it to yourself.
• Slawesome - Meant for emailing voice recordings, but I simply email myself and mark it in my email client as an important note in my memo folder. (Update: Voice recording does not appear to be working as of now, although the emails still send along with your note. It will save, but won’t play it seems.)

Start Pages
What better place to write notes then a start page that opens every time you open your web browser? As I mentioned the other day, I now have Netvibes as my homepage for my browser and I found that I use the Webnote module quite often. Most start pages include note functionality, but I’ll list a few favorites with note modules.

• Netvibes - My start page of choice which has a simple Webnote module with auto-saving and multi-color selection.
• PageFlakes - Personalized start page with notes and many “flakes” bringing the web to your fingertips.
• Protopage - A very neat start page allowing for notes and drag and drop containers for just about anything. Also allows for making multiple pages and setting pages public.
• Fold - Allows for adding of multiple Notepad Containers which you can drag and drop any where in your Fold Start Page.
• Google Personalized - Google’s Personalized start page works great for notes when using the Google Notes Module that saves your notes automatically.

Online Databases
Online database services can also be used for managing notes. I’ve made a system in Dabble DB and Zoho Creator for notes which I have made to my liking because I choose what is recorded. Any of the following will allow you to create your own database application for recording your notes.

• Dabble DB - (Private Beta) Dabble DB is the most powerful service of the bunch with large customization options and application flexibility. Can’t wait for it to go public so everyone can experience it’s power.
• TracksLife - “Your Friendly, Personal, Online Spread-abase.” Very simple system that works very well. Also allows for public tracks and rss feeds.
• Zoho Creator - Free online service to create and share web applications with just a few mouse clicks. Very customizable.
• FlexLists - Create your own online sharable lists with this database like service allowing for custom fields and values.
• Lazybase - Lazybase allows anyone to design, create and share a database of whatever they like.

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Today is Canada Day. Here are the principle ways to determine if you are a Canadian.

1. You understand the phrase “Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine on the chesterfield.”
2. You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
3. You drink Pop, not Soda.
4. You know that a Mickey and 2-4’s mean, “party at the camp, eh!”
5. You don’t care about the fuss with Cuba. It’s a cheap place to go for your holidays, with good cigars and no Americans.
6. You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway.
7. You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
8. You know that Casey and Finnegan were not part of a Celtic musical group.
9. You brag to Americans that: Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion, Michael J. Fox, John Candy, William Shatner, Tom Green, Matthew Perry, Mike Myers, Neve Campbell and Pamela Anderson are all Canadians.
10. You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
11. You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is pronounced “Zed”.
12. Your local newspaper covers national news on 2 pages, but requires 6 pages for hockey.
13. You know that when it’s 25 degrees outside, it’s a warm day.
14. You know how to pronounce and spell “Saskatchewan”.
15. You perk up when you hear the theme song from ‘Hockey Night in Canada’. (Alas, no longer. ;-( )
16. “Eh?” is a very important part of your vocabulary, and is more polite than, “Huh?”
17. Your Beer Case handles Are Big Enough To Fit Your Mitts
18. You know that we don’t all live in igloos and ride polar bears to work.
19. Every murder is reported.
20. You froze your tongue to something metal and survived to tell about it.

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Today is Canada Day. This marks the joining of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada into a federation of four provinces (the Province of Canada being divided, in the process, into Ontario and Quebec) on July 1, 1867.

So, what does it mean to be a Canadian? At least, from the perspective of Canadians.

Picture this: Pierre Trudeau standing with his back to Niagara Falls, clutching a red maple leaf in his hand, on Canada Day. Can you imagine a more Canadian scene? Only if the robotic space Canadarm somehow made it into the scene, according to a 2008 poll.

The Ipsos-Reid survey, on behalf of the Dominion Institute and the federal Department of Citizenship and Immigration, asked Canadians what best defines their country.

After tallying the results, Trudeau was revealed as the person who most defines Canada. Niagara Falls was the defining place, Canada Day the defining event, Canadarm the defining accomplishment and the maple leaf was the defining symbol.

The top-ten results in each of the five categories are…

People:

1. Pierre Trudeau
2. Wayne Gretzky
3. Terry Fox
4. Céline Dion
5. John A. Macdonald
6. David Suzuki
7. Tommy Douglas
8. Stephen Harper
9. Lester Pearson
10. Maurice Richard

Places:

1. Niagara Falls
2. The Rockies
3. Parliament Hill
4. Ottawa
5. CN Tower
6. Quebec City/Old Quebec City
7. Toronto
8. Montreal
9. Province of Quebec
10. Vancouver

Events:

1. Canada Day
2. Confederation
3. First and Second World Wars
4. Calgary Stampede
5. Vimy Ridge
6. Plains of Abraham
7. Grey Cup
8. Olympics
9. Expo 67
10. Quebec Winter Carnival

Accomplishments:

1. Canadarm
2. Peacekeeping
3. Universal health care
4. Fredrick Banting - Insulin
5. Alexander Graham Bell - Telephone
6. Diversity, Multiculturalism
7. Canadian Constitution, Charter of Rights and Freedoms
8. Canadian national railway/railroad
9. Freedom
10. Avro Arrow project

Symbols:

1. Maple leaf
2. Hockey
3. Canadian flag
4. Beaver
5. RCMP, Mounties
6. Stanley Cup
7. Wilderness (includes scenery)
8. Loonie
9. Maple syrup
10. Moose, caribou

How about non-Canadians, do any of the above conjure up images of Canada or is it something else?

Trudeau, Niagara Falls among top Canadian icons, poll finds.

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Most of us work towards some type of personal achievement. We all have a desire to improve our lives in some way. Despite the desire we’re not always sure what steps are needed to improve our personal achievement. Here are three areas where we can invest effort that will bring positive results:

Enthusiasm

• “There is a direct relationship between joy and effort. The joy of success is in ratio to the amount of effort expended to achieve it.” —Denis Waitley
• “I can’t imagine a person becoming a success who doesn’t give this game of life everything he’s got.” —Walter Cronkite
• “In things pertaining to enthusiasm, no man is sane who does not know how to be insane on proper occasions.” —Doug Firebaugh
• “There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.” —Norman Vincent Peale

Excellence

• “The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential… these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.” —Eddie Robinson
• “Striving for perfection is the greatest stopper there is… It’s your excuse to yourself for not doing anything. Instead, strive for excellence, doing you best.” —Sir Laurence Olivier
• “The next time a customer in your store needs to know where something is — pick yourself up and show them. Walk them there — WOW them, sell them what they want, then sell them something extra. Rule — Show, don’t tell.” —Jeffrey Gitomer
• “Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.” — Pat Riley

Expectation

1. “Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.” —Denis Waitley
2. “The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.” —Theodore Rubin
3. “The Truest help we can render an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best energy, that he may be able to bear the burden.” —Phillips Brooks
4. “You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.” —Bette Davis

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We’re heading into vacation season in this part of the world. It’s time to get away from the office, kick back and relax. However, if you spend your well-deserved break worrying about your work load on return to the office, it’s going to affect your ability to relax.

A little bit of preparation before you leave will ensure less to worry about on return. A good out-of-office message is a must. A well-prepared message can go a long way to decrease the backlog of messages waiting for you when you get back to work.

A good out of office message has three parts:

1. Dates of your absence. Let the contact know when you are out of the office. It helps them decide what their next step is going to be; whether to wait for your return or to direct their request elsewhere.
2. Reason for absence. I like to let my contacts know whether I am on a business trip or vacation. A business trip means I am connected to the office in some way and might be able to respond to a message. If I’m on vacation, I’m out of contact range.
3. Who to contact in your absence. I try and leave contact information for alternate contacts when I am out of the office; a minimum of one up to as many as are needed.

Just because you leave an out-of-office message, it doesn’t mean that you have communicated to the sender. There are three things you should keep in mind when composing the message. It should be:

• Complete: give all the detail necessary. Don’t say, “I’m out of the office” or “I’m gone for two weeks.” Make it precise. “I am away from the office starting July 1 and will be back July 15. The same applies to your alternate contacts. Let the sender know who to contact and how to get a hold of them.
• Concise: keep it as short as possible while still making it complete. Use short, bulleted phrases. People don’t want to read a novel in your out-of-office reply.
• Clear: make sure it’s easy to understand. Don’t use abbreviations, job titles or internal jargon that will not be understood by everyone sending you a message.

Rather that coming back to a packed e-mail in-box and a full voice-mail box, spend a few minutes crafting a useful out-of-office message and people will be able to redirect or park tasks appropriately.

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The Steven Covey classic, “The 7 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” has been required reading for personal and professional development for some years now. If you’ve not yet read it and want a taste or you’re looking for a quick recap, Michael Gray takes 300 plus pages and condenses it to a few dozen paragraphs.

• From Dependence to Interdependence
• Personality vs. Character Ethics
• Proactive, Personal Vision
• Beginning with the End in Mind
• Personal Management
• Paradigms of Interdependence
• Think Win-Win
• Seek to Understand, Then Be Understood
• Principles of Creative Cooperation
• Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal
• Conclusion

Seven Habits Condensed Summaries

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Do you know anyone who is successful? Have you spent time talking with them about their success? Chances are, they credit setting goals as a major step in their success, and continues to be important as they look for new ways to challenge themselves.

Surprisingly, many people drift through life with no goals or only vague dreams, hopes and wishes. No wonder we achieve less than we could. Here are four simple steps to keep in mind when setting goals:

1. Clarify your values. Too often, people choose goals that are inconsistent with their priorities and daily behaviors. Do you value health, or comfort? Is financial independence a priority, or merely a wish? In a clash between your values and your wishes, your values will win every time. Be certain your goals are consistent with your values.
2. Decide what you want to accomplish. Do you want money in the bank or would you rather have new car. Choose the life you prefer. You can’t have everything, but you can have achieve those things you choose, if you focus, pay the price, and pursue them with all your heart.
3. Put your goals on paper. Using your own words, describe your goals in detail. When will you achieve them? What will success look like? Write down the details and review every day; take a moment to summarize them every morning. Stay focused.
4. Get started. To run a marathon, you must jog every day. Building a business requires making sales, every day. A loving marriage or happy kids require your time, your attention and your love, every day. Your daily actions don’t need to be large and spectacular, but they do need be regular and persistent.

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Audiences place more value information that requires effort to absorb. Make them work to understand what you are talking about and why it’s important.

Don’t waste time planning and organizing your speech. Assume your speech will seem fresh and spontaneous, even if it wanders, includes irrelevant material and doesn’t have a conclusion.

If that approach makes you nervous, write out your speech and read it verbatim. This works particularly well if you have a PowerPoint presentation with the full text you are reading.

Speaking of presentations: the points of your slides shouldn’t be too obvious. Try and get as much text as possible on each slide. Include at least one ‘I know you can’t read this, but…’ slide.

Try to use a different color scheme on each slide. Look for combinations of text/background colors that are invisible to color-blind viewers, or lurid enough to cause physical pain.

Face the screen and read from your slides. Avoid looking at your audience.

Assume it’s the sheer volume of data that impresses your audience. Include tables with plenty of rows and columns to show how much work you did.

Flip through a series of information-dense slides faster than they can be read and comprehended.

Don’t make ideas more important that the data. You can’t argue with facts.

Try to avoid conclusions or speculating about why the facts are significant.

You are ’speaking’, so use language to your best advantage.

Speak just loudly enough to be heard under ideal conditions. You want the audience on the edge of their seats. Make them strain to hear.

Try and avoid eye contact. If you must make eye contact, stare at one person in the front row.

Demonstrate your vocal variety by starting each sentence loud, then getting softer to the end of the sentence.

The the most of verbal pauses such as, ‘um’ or ‘you know’, ’so’ or ‘and’.

Don’t leave time for questions. This just implies you did not do an adequate job of covering the material.

Never practice your speech ahead of time. You are confident in your ability to communicate, so practice would just waste your valuable time.

Stick to these guidelines and your audience -at least those who remain- will be quiet and non-disruptive. Also, your coffee break won’t be disrupted by people wanting to discuss your speech.

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We spend a lot of time in the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is a great thing, but can be subjective, based on circumstances. Joy brings a deeper sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Joy is foundational; a sense that all will work out, even when the immediate circumstances aren’t going the way we would like.

Richard Wagner said, “Joy is not in things; it is in us.” We chase happiness, but we build joy. There are many ways to develop a joy-full attitude; here a three simple daily activities anyone can try:

Start each day with a pleasant word – When the alarm sounds in the morning, the first words I say to my wife are, “I love you”. Start the day with a positive thought or word, even if —or especially if— you’re not a “morning person”. If the first thought in your head as you wake up, involves grumbling, you can bet the rest of the day is going to feel lousy.

Smile more – You don’t have to spend the day grinning like an idiot, but there is nothing quite as infectious as sharing a smile. It’s impossible to remain miserable or angry while smiling. People who develop a sense of joy can smile even through the deepest loss.

Encourage someone everyday – One of the quickest ways to build joy is to shift the focus from yourself to others; and an easy way to shift that focus is to encourage someone. This is active behaviour. It’s not good enough to think positive thoughts about some else. Take the time to communicate the encouragement.

Joy is infectious. Not only can we share it with those around us, but as we share joy, it continues to grow within us. Get out there and share some joy.

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