Moving Notebooks to the "cloud"... trying to do this with Evernote

***UPDATES AT THE BOTTOM OF POST***

I have been an Evernote user for a little over a year now, but I never really used it to its full potential. This may have been in part due to the fact that I had a BlackBerry for a while and there was no Evernote application for the BlackBerry (there is now of course). I recently bought an iPhone, and there is a pretty solid Evernote client for the iPhone. I also have been feeling the need lately for better organizing and mobilizing (is that even a word? - looked it up... it's a word, but not the definition I am using here) my notes. I suppose I have simply used email in the recent past, but that's not a great solution and is too cluttered (in my opinion), so searches tend to have a lot of junk I'm not interested in sifting through and wastes time. I have also used Microsoft OneNote for some things, but it's SOOO limited to a PC (or Windows Mobile device which I don't own any longer... and even that mobile app is lame for mobile notes access IMO). My main concern, similar to my Task Management Solution concerns, is that the solution needs to be ubiquitous and work on all of my devices... which dictates some form of web-based backend and syncing.

Evernote seems to fit that bill, and since I have an account and notes already in it, I am deciding to experiment more with it and see if I can make it work better for me. I am trying to

Appigo Todo and Toodledo… a dynamic duo!

I recently purchased both Appigo's "Todo" iPhone app (for $9.99) and Toodledo's Pro account (for $14.95/yr) which offers advanced features over the free account that were important to me. However, the free account itself is pretty spectacular, in the sense that every other web-based backend that works with an iPhone app charge you a yearly fee, and generally over $24.99/yr (which is what Remember The Milk charges for the account that works with its iPhone app or Appigo's Todo)! You, personally, may never need anything more than the free account from Toodledo, but I like what the Pro account offers in conjunction with what Appigo's Todo application offers with such grace and ease in their iPhone app. The most important to me being subtasks to create "projects" and "checklists", both which *require* sub-tasks (in all honesty, Toodledo can still handle this in the free version, but the subtasks show up as regular tasks. For you, it may not matter, but I like seeing where they are associated and also be able to hide them to remove the clutter). To demonstrate this, I suggest that you visit Appigo's site and watch some of the screencasts. It helped me better understand what the capabilities are, and is partially what sold me on this iPhone app over others. I also first downloaded the Appigo Todo Lite app, which is free, signed up for the free account at Toodledo and upgraded to the free 7 day trial of the Toodledo Pro account to check it all out together. The Todo Lite app only allows 10 tasks total, but it was enough for me to see the benefits over other solutions out there. By the way, checklists and projects seem to be considered 1 task for the limitation, but there is also a limit of about 5 subtasks for these in the lite version (NOT in the full version).

I suppose I should give a little background on my situation regarding task management so you can better understand what I was looking for in a system. I've read

Fell off the grid for a bit... but got my new iPhone 3GS!!

Hey All,

Sorry I sort of fell off the grid for a bit. I've had a bunch of things going on that really didn't allow me to easily blog... but I've had things I've wanted to discuss. First of all, I got the new iPhone 3GS on June 19th!! WooHoo! I new this model was coming out before my first 30 days was up with AT&T, and I made sure I would be able to exchange my 3G for the 3GS when it came out. I only had to pay a $20 "restocking" fee to do it. I am EXTREMELY impatient, so I couldn't just sit it out and wait for the new model to release. I'm actually glad I did, because it allowed me to experience just HOW different and better the 3GS is to the 3G. I'm also glad that I upgraded my 3G to OS 3.0 before turning it back in. This allowed me to see that OS 3.0 most definitely had some performance improvements on the 3G, let alone the new feature set.

Most recently, I have been trying to find a solid task management system that I could use on both my iPhone and my PC (Windows, not Mac... but my wife has a Mac and I wanted something that was universal for the desktop). I'm pretty sure I finally found the right solution for this, so I will have a post on this specifically (hopefully over the weekend). In the meantime, there is a box on the top right of my main blog page that lists what I am using, with a link that has my referral number in it. If you decide to sign up for it, I'd sure appreciate you using my link so I get the benefits. ;-) I honestly would be happy paying for the service either way, so that should tell you how much I like it. I tried some others, and none of them had everything I was looking for, or were too expensive... or a combination of the two. I will discuss my findings and thoughts on these other services/apps in my review.

I want to get back to my app review series because I have found a lot of apps that are worth their price. So look for more in that area soon as well. Hopefully my Task Management System will help me along in this area! ;-D

iPhone App Review Series

Being that I bought an iPhone recently (5/22/09 to be exact), I have been trying out and buying applications based on finding reviews from other various sites. I will attempt to share some of those sites as I determine them to be worth it (some I haven't found very helpful, or I disagree with the reviews).

This first post in this series will be a quick summary of some of the apps I've come to like/love. I hope to do much more in-depth reviews of specific apps as I use them and my phone more. So look for more in this series.

Games:
I want to lead this category by saying that I don't have a ton of time to game on my phone. Because of that, games that I find to be challenging and offer some life may not provide this to someone who has hours at a time to game on their phone. I've read some reviews from people saying they beat the game in 2 hours or whatever... If you are one of those people, my reviews may not be the best for you.

Real Racing, by Firemint (genre = Racing) - This came out a few days ago and looks to be the best racing sim game so far. I haven't had a chance to play it much yet, but the graphics and depth of the game appear to be second to none. I will review this in more depth at a later date.

Fieldrunners, by Subatomic Studios (genre = Tower Defense) - This is a more classic style Tower Defense gameplay model where there is a blank canvas for you to layout the path to force the AI to follow to their doom. ;-) This style of Tower Defense is a LOT of fun, and can play different based on how you lay out your towers. Tower Defense has become one of my favorite genres lately, and this game does NOT dissappoint. I started off on Medium and failed the first level. I like that, because it tells me it will challenge me and stay interesting! I should say that what I am calling level 1 has (I believe) 100 waves of "runners". These included helicopters that didn't have to follow my path of death, and it also included tanks which can take a LOT of firepower before dying. I got defeated by wave 40. Obviously, I need a better strategy for the choppers and tanks, since they are the only things that got through. One EXTREMELY nice feature of Fieldrunners is the ability to pause your game, even exit and resume a pauses game. This is a must have for any phone based game, but I don't believe most have it.

Star Defense, by Ngmoco (genre = Tower Defense) - This game has some beautiful graphics and great gameplay. You are at a 3D planet with a path that the alien invaders will follow, and in certain areas the path will loop and come near to the other side of it, so placing one tower can get both sides. I only played one world and on Easy, and I got through it easily... But I've been playing Tower Defense games for a bit and understand the strategy, so I should probably never play them on easy.

I think I'll stop here for my first post in this series. I will talk about other types of apps besides games... Like the app I'm using to post this to my blogger account, BlogPress. So far I really like it, but I want to use it more before reviewing it.

-- Post From My iPhone

Roku - STILL loving it to death!!! Honestly

I am still completely in love with my Roku player... maybe even MORE so than when I bought it! I literally use it almost every single day.

From what I can tell these days, the XBOX 360 is as good a player as the Roku, and actually will be better shortly as they release some better feature set for the 360 and Netflix... but I am hopeful they also bring this to the Roku player as well. The feature I am referring to is the ability to browse the Netflix instant play library and add to your queue DIRECTLY FROM THE 360!!! That's huge! I actually bought an app for my iPhone to be able to add to my queue without having to visit a PC... but I'd much rather do it from my device when I'm ready to watch.

At any rate, if you are looking for a device like this and do not already have an XBOX 360 in the room you want this feature, the Roku for $99.99 is a KILLER DEAL! I highly recommend it to anyone, and am very happy I spent the money on it.

Gizmodo - Palm Pre Review - Palm pre review

Gizmodo - Palm Pre Review - Palm pre review:
"It's here.

One last effort. A slow, but firm, shove of the chips. All in. Palm's only hope to save a company once synonymous with smart handheld devices: the Pre. Their eyebrow raised, daring you to call. They flip. Full house. Respectable. Decent. Impressive even. But not the highest hand.

That's not to say that the phone isn't good, because it is. The software has quite a few interesting innovations that push the concepts of what people can do with smartphones, like Google Android when it debuted—only better. The market needs this. The industry needs this. We need this. But the hardware? Cheap. Flimsy. Dangerous even."

Before the actual launch of the Pre, this is a WONDERFULLY complete review, I think. I also think the Pre will be a decent phone, especially in its next release of hardware, but I'm VERY glad I bought an iPhone instead.

iPhone 3G Review - Part 1

I want to preface this review with the fact that I am coming from T-Mobile where I had a BlackBerry Curve 8320. So much of my review will consist of comparisons because it's foremost in my mind. The devices are VERY different (in my mind) and I would say are directed at very different audiences. The BlackBerry models and software is more utilitarian and targets the enterprise user with a HEAVY focus on email, and in my opinion it is the best here hands down... no question. I don't think there is a close competitor for business type applications and usage.

With that said, the BlackBerry kind of sucks for internet and other personal goodness. Don't get me wrong, it is hanging in there with apps like Facebook and other things... and the Storm (as well as the Bold and Curve 8900 I believe) have a MUCH improved internet experience... but I don't think they are as good or as slick as the iPhone in this regard (or the Pre from the videos I've seen... the Pre is using the webkit, same as the iPhone, so the web experience should be identical... signal strength aside... more on that later). I had contemplated buying a NetBook or cheap laptop just to have around for web browsing so I had a larger screen, etc. I didn't really like this idea because I think I would eventually stop using it or it would become cumbersome (it CERTAINLY doesn't fit in your pocket).

My recent decision to go with an iPhone consisted of quite a bit of research that encompassed: AT&T as the carrier, so their signal strength in my area since that's where I am most of the time; The iPhone itself compared to other phones that I could buy (understanding a LARGE portion of what is getting fixed in the 3.0 software release for the iPhone and what that fixes); and finally the applications available to any phone I might purchase.

The Palm Pre:
The Pre shows promise because it has the ability to multi-task well (though it remains to be seen what the performance will be with multi-tasking... so let's assume it will be adequate... AND, there is rumor that Apple will be starting to utilize multi-tasking with the new model of iPhone because it will have a faster CPU and more RAM... but that's rumor at this point). Not only that, it is also using the WebKit for its browser (like the iPhone), and from what I can see the browser experience is pretty much identical to the iPhone (cellular carriers and signal strength aside). I, personally, like the idea of the slide out keyboard for several reasons: 1) I am coming from a line of keyboard phones (Palm Treo w/Palm OS, Palm Treo w/ Windows Mobile, finally BlackBerry), so I am more comfortable with a physical keyboard; 2) This allows the screen to display more info since it is not being filled with the keyboard on-screen (this is not a *huge* deal, but I personally think it would be nicer and have found the lack of screen real estate when the keyboard is up to be somewhat limiting on the iPhone... but not a big deal); 3) I always fear that the "touch" portion of the touchscreen will stop being responsive (this has happened to me on several touch only devices, some older Palm devices included). Some of the videos of its capabilities are impressive (here's a 26 minute video that provides GREAT coverage of it's features... at least what they'll tell us) ... but SO much is still unknown because Palm and Sprint are keeping very tight lips on capabilities, etc. They don't want any bad press before the launch is my guess. Not only that... this is a COMPLETELY new phone and operating system from the ground up, so it has NO proven track record (other than Palm's track record, and I've always been a fan of Palm). This also means that accessories and software (applications) for the OS will be very limited for quite a while I would think. Developers are going to have to get ramped up on this OS, and are they *really* going to spend on this phone/OS unless it takes off like gangbusters?? Me thinks not... not until it gets some presence in the market and proves it can hang with the iPhone. This finally brings me to Sprint. Sprint has some good things about it, but they are bleeding and the Pre is pretty much its last effort to gain back some ground in the market. So who knows what will happen to Sprint in the meantime... but I doubt they will be investing in new towers for a bit. And that brings me to the lack of coverage where I live. It's not EVERYWHERE around me that is a problem... but my house and the neighborhood I live in basically are not even on Sprint's coverage map (it's listed as "Roaming"). That pretty much clinched it for me... and the fact that AT&T's signal strength at my house is now stellar (as good as Verizon in my area, which is saying something).

As far as the iPhone goes, I am still struggling with getting all of my email accounts, calendars and contacts squared away. Don't get me wrong... if you have one email/calendar account and one set of contacts to sync up, you should be golden. I have several, and it seems you can't have them all doing updates at the same time... so I have to make some decisions on what to do. Don't worry, I will share my experience with everyone in case someone else is in the same boat. That will all be in Part 2 most likely, since that is currently my main focus.

One quick thing I found that bugs me. You can't create an appointment and invite someone else to it. This is what prompted my current project to get me and my wife on the same calendar and also simplify my workflow... more later.

Hell froze over...

I'm still in shock, but I actually went and got an iPhone 3G 8GB from my local AT&T shop.

This wasn't an easy decision, and I *DO* have 30 days to return it, but some of the key features it has were just too compelling. AND, one of the biggest deciding factors of going with AT&T over Sprint was signal strength in my area. The other phone I was *seriously* considering was the Palm Pre, which I think looks like a great phone, and even has some better features than the iPhone... but the AppStore and the apps for the iPhone trump the Pre. I mean... they have a frickin' Kindle app for the iPhone!! So you get access to all the Kindle library and pricing!!!! That's killer! I used to read books on my BlackBerry (read Angels & Demons on it) and found it to be great... but the library was limited and pricing was nearly identical to physical books.

So, back to Sprint and the Palm Pre... my wife and kids are on Sprint for their phones, so I was thinking maybe it would be better to all be on the same account... and the Palm Pre was about to be released and it looks like a really slick phone. However, I've known for a long time that Sprint hasn't been very good where we live, and T-Mobile was in the same boat... but at least with T-Mobile and the ability to use WiFi for my phone was pretty killer. AT&T was never great in my area in the past... but that's a long time ago that I had them, so I decided to compare AT&T with Sprint as far as coverage. AT&T was showing full strength signal and 3G in my area, and Sprint was showing *Roaming*... seriously... not even 1 bar in the surrounding area of where we live... roaming.

There was NO way I could deal with that, and I think it may actually get the rest of my family out of their contracts without paying the fees to cancel (this is what got me out of T-Mobile and they were at least showing 1-3 bars for my area.

So, between the signal strength (and it IS good for me, by the way) and the iPhone AppStore... it won. I'm sure I will find things I dislike and can't work around... but I think I'm finally okay with that. And with the 3.0 update right around the corner (June 8th, 2009) which fixes a LOT of my initial complaints, I think I will be happy.

Roku Digital Video Player: First Impressions (Review)

My Roku Digital Video Player arrived via FedEx yesterday (on a Saturday no less)! I have to say I am VERY impressed with this pint sized device. It is VERY small (as you can see by the picture of a hand holding it), contains output for HDMI, Component, S-Video and even composite. For audio out, it has HDMI, optical and plain old RCA R+L.

The TV that I hooked it up to is only an SDTV, so no HDMI for me yet. In fact, the TV is quite old (all things considered) and doesn't even have component inputs. Thankfully, it at least has S-Video input, so I went with that. The picture, I would say, is at least as good as my DVD player, and there are even HD videos through Netflix that look better than DVD (trust me, even though it's an SDTV, you *can* see a difference... even if it is slight. I first noticed the difference when playing HD channels from my Verizon FiOS TV set-top-box).

The Roku Digital Video Player was designed to work with a Netflix account and it's digital streaming videos. I've been a member of Netflix for a VERY long time, and have been a huge fan of the delivery model (mail-order video rentals; you pay a monthly fee and can have a certain number of videos out at a time; turn-around for exchanging videos has been 2 days for me). I hate having to leave the house, or worry about returning a video on time. The streaming video service from Netflix wasn't stellar at first, in my opinion, but since it's startup it has gotten MUCH better. And with faster home-based internet connections, and I'm sure storage costs coming down considerably since it's launch, the quality that I am experiencing is VERY good. I have Verizon FiOS internet at 15mbps down, 2mbps up. I test my connection fairly regularly and I get a pertty consistent 12+mbps. It all depends on where you are testing against, and the available throughput of the routes you take... but my connection has been very good.

The device has wireless built-in!! I actually wasn't even thinking about this when I bought it because I have network cable to many different areas of my house... but I set it up using the wireless and have to say that it is providing excellent quality with absolutely no stutter or apparent latency issues. So, for now anyway, I am skipping the wire.

The remote it comes with is very simplistic, and works just fine. I may be getting a Logitech Harmony 550 refurbished to control everything... but for now I'll use multiple remotes. Again, I am really impressed with the fit and finish of this device.

Once I hooked it up and turned it on, it starts up with a setup wizard that is VERY easy to follow and use. Once I got it hooked up to my wireless network, it downloaded and applied a firmware update (very quickly too). This update provides the ability to play Amazon Video On-Demand. I haven't messed with this yet, but from what I can tell, this provides you the ability to either rent or buy movies to be watched "on-demand" via the Roku player or your PC/Mac. This is a neat idea, and I could see renting a movie from here that isn't available via Netflix streaming, or that is a "long wait" through Netflix DVD, but I'm not sure I would "buy" a movie from this format... at least, not yet. Rental prices seem to be $1.99, however I'm not sure at this point what that gives you (e.g., do you only get to watch the movie once? Do you get to watch it as many times as you can over a 3 day period? etc).

All in all, I have to say this device is killer for me and my usage and only costs $99.99. A quick tip for you folks looking to buy one: If you go to Roku's web site and click "Buy Now", it will take you to an order page where there is a "Shipping Cost" listed. What I realized in discussing this with my friend is that this "cost" is not a static cost. For instance, mine was showing up as $14.99 for shipping, but his was showing up as $4.99 for shipping! At first I couldn't believe it... I thought he was messing with my head, but he sent me a screenshot of it. Then he gave me the idea of clearing my cache and cookies in my browser and trying again. I then started to see different shipping costs each time. The first time I did it, it came up as $9.99, then finally it came up as $0.00!!!! I stopped on that one and actually bought it! So, I paid $99.99, with no tax and paid nothing for shipping! They use FedEx and it actually arrived on Saturday around 1:30pm (shipped from California, and I live in PA... almost as far as you can get from CA. So, if you live closer, I imagine it would arrive sooner than 5 days).

For me, the ability to watch all kinds of classic TV shows and a bunch of movies, all without having to change discs in my DVD player, AND the fact that you get to see the box art as well as a description is pretty killer. I have a 400 disc DVD changer, but I have to say that it became more of a pain in the ass than beneficial. In fact, I've resorted to using my XBOX 360 as my DVD player in that room, and have a single DVD player in my other main TV room. Part of the problem with that beast is that any DVD movie data you put into it gets lost if there is a power loss (I didn't know this up front). So, originally, I thought it was great... there is a menu to browse your DVDs, and I hooked up a keyboard and spent hours inputting the movie titles and actors, genres, etc... then we lost power and all of that hard work was gone. I was furious and never did it again... so I had to keep a separate notebook of what DVD was in what slot. Needless to say, it didn't turn out to be all that it was cracked up to be. :-(

The Roku, on the other hand, gets all that data from Netflix and pulls info from my account. I only wish it could stream music and videos from my PC on TOP of Netflix and Amazon... but I'm okay with it not doing that.

The pain I'm finding for Linux, and why Apple is successful (so to speak)

Well, it has not been long into my "30 day challenge" to use only Linux (not even a week) and I'm already feeling some pain. Basically, the pain I'm feeling seems stupid... it ALL revolves around PC hardware and driver issues. Well... not ALL of it... I still have some pain around apps I used on Windows and haven't found replacements I like yet, or, and this is another big one I'll try to tackle at some point, you have to compile the application from source to work on your distribution of Linux (I know there are "unsupported" packages for a lot of distros out there and they are great, but they aren't "in your face available" and you have to search around for them!). Like I said, I'll try to discuss my thoughts on the software subject in this post, but my first priority, that which relates directly to the title of this post, is around hardware drivers and stability because of this.

"Hardware Choices" and why that sucks for non-technical people trying to use Linux:
Hopefully I don't piss any *NIX loyalists off here, but I am trying to approach this from as neutral a ground as possible, thinking about a non-technical user's experience with Linux... someone new to Linux or not very well-versed in operating systems in general, let alone ever going to a command line. Let's face it, the command line is for geeks only. While I myself am a geek, I understand the complexities and lack of help that a command line brings users... just having a cursor sitting there blinking at you waiting for input, without it saying "type this to do that" can be intimidating. That is why GUI is SO important for regular users. It gives them things to click on... choices that they may not have known about.

So, my beef is that, as far as PC hardware is concerned, there are SO many hardware choices and configurations that it is basically endless. It doesn't help that Windows is the mainstream OS and that hardware manufacturers normally don't do a good job (or anything at all) in the way of producing drivers for Linux.

********************* 6/6/09
The above was as far as I got into this post in past... I don't remember exactly where I was headed with this, so I don't think I will finish it. I have since moved back to Windows almost exclusively and have really not had ANY issues. I have even been running Vista 64 for quite a while now and gaming a lot... NO PROBLEMS AT ALL!!!! That's saying something!

I think where I was headed is the fact that Linux trying to remain ambiguous and neutral is hurting it. Apple has an autonomous environment, and I think that's why it does as well as it does trying to compete with Windows... but Apple is FAR from perfect, and they actually annoy me (even though I willing decided to buy an iPhone 3G know all the things I know about Apple... it's the apps people).

Anyway, I personally think MS is doing most things right these days and am happy with using Windows. Seriously, things just work for me. I NEVER have BSOD's or viruses and I don't even run Anti-Virus software (I just make sure to backup my system every night in case... it's faster). I will even go as far as to say that things work better on my Vista 64 then they do on my wife's iMac 20" G5. This may be because she is still on a G5 and not Leopard... but I was having the same problems with that model when it was mainstream! I'll expand that statement by saying, "If you are using Apple and stay 100% inside Apple's world as far as software and hardware, then you should be just fine."