One of my dreams, right from the start of my journey with technology, is that one day I could eliminate paper entirely from my job. Pipedream….perhaps, and up to now I’d never quite cracked a method that would allow the dream to become reality.

Recently, I was helping out at a Moodle workshop and I was shown a method that may head me closer toward the paperless classroom. It includes using Moodle, a photocopier that can scan documents into PDF format, and Microsoft OneNote. It’s funny how all these conditions suddenly coalesced one day, not only in my thinking, but also in reality.

One of the biggest spends at my school is the printing of coursework booklets for students. Just about every faculty prints booklets that contain “learning” activities. I could spend a whole blog post discussing the merits (or otherwise) of these booklets, but that’s for another day. A guestimate from my boss was that we spend $20K+ on printing costs each year! Imagine what you could spend that sort of cash on, rather than on “one use” booklets that inevitably get tossed away at the end of each semester.

So what if we could make the use of these booklets electronic in nature? The obvious question was how do you make the electronic version editable to the extent that students could submit work, without having to print out pages, write on them and hand them in? That would just defeat the purpose of trying to go paperless.

So, in a wonderful combination of serendipity and old fashioned professional networking I have a potentially workable solution to play with. I have to thank Pam from Newcastle High for her insights in showing it to me.

Firstly, my target group. In my case, the participants will by our Year 10 (2010) students, who will have their DERvices (netbooks) and will hopefully, by then, will be skilled in the use of them. These netbooks have Adobe PDF readers and creators and OneNote preinstalled, making the whole process possible.

OK..here’s how it works.

Take your paper version of your booklet. Stick it through your photocopier, so it produces a complete PDF copy (in my case 40 pages). Upload the PDF booklet to your Moodle course, and make it available as a resource file. At the same time, create an “Upload one file” assignment activity that is named after the worksheet, or whatever, and put it in the same area as the booklet PDF.

Now, in class, when you want to use a resource or activity that is in the booklet, the kids can open the PDF booklet to the required page. Select the page for printing, but instead of printing it to paper, in the print dialogue window, select “Print to OneNote”. The page selected will now appear in a OneNote notebook. For those that know OneNote well, you know you can click and type anywhere on the page. In this case, the kids can click and type anywhere on the selected page imported from the PDF booklet. The kids can now do their work on the page, and when they finish, save it as a PDF file on their PC.

They head to Moodle, and upload their work as a PDF to the assignment activity. The teacher can open the file, grade the work and feedback to the kids….without touching one piece of paper! Samples of student work can be collected and presented electronically as an ePortfolio, without carting folders, books or paper to your Head Teacher or Principal.

Sure there will probably be limitations that don’t suit everyone’s workplace, but I my humble opinion, it’s a right step in an exciting direction.

Seit einigen Tagen nutze ich nun die Beta des neuen OneNote 2010.

Und mein Fazit fällt…

                             gemischt

aus.

Ich bin ein Fan der Ribbons. Bei Word, PowerPoint und Excel. Bei OneNote hingegen will ich schnell zwischen verschiedenfarbigen Stiften auf einem kleinen TabletPC-Bildschirm wechseln können. Mit minimiertem Ribbon ist das nicht möglich, mit ausgeklapptem habe ich keinen Platz zum Schreiben.

Suboptimal nennt man das heute wohl. Ich werde es sicher noch einige Tage testen und evtl. einen Weg vorschlagen, wie man wieder zurück zum alten Menü kommt.

Auch schwierig: Wo ist der Knopf für “Neu –> Abschnittsgruppe”? Geht das nur noch über Rechtsklick? Ärgerlich!

Dem Gegenüber steht eine deutlich erhöhte Performanz. Durch mein ganzes Schulmaterial sind meine Notizbücher auf einige Gigabyte angewachsen. 2010 geht da noch eine Spur schneller durch, als der Vorgänger.

Schön auch: Wenn mehr Register in einem Notizbuch sind, als auf den Bildschirm passen, werden sie zusammengeklappt. Das ist praktisch und erhöht nochmals die Übersicht.

Eine – vorsichtige – Vermutung darf an dieser Stelle noch geäußert werden:

Vor einiger Zeit berichtete ich über einen LiveSync-Fehler:

“Windows LiveSync: Die neue Datei kann nicht aus dem schreibgeschützten Ordner verschoben werden. Fehler beim Löschen der Datei ‘….onetoc2’ im Papierkorb”

Dieser Fehler ist bei mir, seit ich 2010 nutze, nicht aufgetreten. Das ist – streng genommen – noch kein Beweis dafür, dass er nicht mehr vorkommt. Aber ein erstes Indiz.

Norman MacEwan:

“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Start sharing whatever you can using OneNote.  For some, this may be a great piece of advice, the visionary thoughts from a leader to a team, or a fantastic recipe.  Your thoughts and musings can be shared in the following formats to others:

By Email:

Choose Share on the top menu options.  You will see the option of selecting “E-mail Page”

This will email the page that you are currently working on using your email program, such as Outlook.  The bonus to sharing by this method is that is does not require the recipient to have OneNote themselves.

Share the Entire Notebook:

Choose Share on the top menu options. In the drop-down list, click Send Shared Notebook Link to Others. An email will pop up that includes a link to the notebook.

Want to just try it out? Microsoft advertises a Free 60-day trial online here.

Do you have questions about using OneNote or tips for sharing your OneNote.  Want to tell us what you share with your OneNote?  Leave a comment.

I am excited about our recent release of the MobileNoter. Technically, it is an update for our iPhone app. However, it is a really major update, AND we offer a paid subscription now. Previous version was free, and “free” doesn’t count when we talk about product’s viability. Apple approved our update a few hours ago and we are already have paying customers – this is a good sign!

So it’s time to become serious about marketing. I don’t think our app will make into the Top 10 in its category any time soon, because it’s kinda niche app. On the other hand it’s not a throw-away app either, that is when an app is downloaded, run once, and happily forgotten or removed altogether. We’ll see how it goes and I will post about interesting discoveries we are sure to make.

Today in class, we will try out some more applications that can help us in presenting information.

• We will try CamStudio again to capture our desktop.
• Use Picasa to manipulate images
• Use OneNote to capture images
• Use PowerPoint to insert images, text and use animation

Next day we will try our hand at Movie Maker to put things together.  Remember to look at the list of presentation topics and let Mr Richard know which one you would like to do.

You can work in pairs or by yourself.  Your presentation should be self-contained.  In other words, you do not have to speak in front of the class when you present.  Your presentation should be self-explanatory.

Now OneNote is a really cool tool from Microsoft. For some reason it has been tucked away in the Microsoft Office suite and not promoted by anyone apart from avid users, of which there are many. I use it mainly to plan my lessons and in conjunction with the Smartboard in the classroom to record everything I teach. My students also use it as a way to store all the work in one convenient, easily-navigable location. If I was to recommend one ed tech tool to my colleagues, it would be OneNote. Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Click on the links below to see what other people think about OneNote.

OneNote demo
OneNote online community

Students will present information and ideas throughout their school years and beyond.  To help build our repertoire of presentations tools, we will explore some applications in class.   Students will then be given an assigned topic to research and present to the class.

So far, we know how to publish on the web to get ideas across (check out our class websites on the link list).  It is possible to run a web server on a USB drive and present information through a web interface if the internet connection is slow.  We will explore screen capture tools (CamStudio, OneNote).  Use Picasa to edit and manipulate images and use presentation software to help us put together our information.

Presentation Topics:

• The Internet (history)
• Components of a System Unit (computer)
• Communication
• Computer Security
• Computer Careers
• Social Networking
• Computer Technology and Daily Life

Students may work in pairs, or individually.  Choose a topic, check with Mr Richard, and make a plan on how you will research and present your topic to the class.

On your computers, there is an eBook called Computers 2008. It is in two parts.  You may refer to this book for information.  Please do research on the internet as well.  Be sure to keep track of where you get your information so you can reference your sources.

Students are encouraged to be creative in their presentations.  Explore different ways to get your ideas across.

When I was reading Bill Bells’s book, Total Recall: How the e-memory revolution will change everything, over the past weeks, I found myself constantly wondering, “how strange is it really to imagine Total Recall (what he constantly terms a “revolution”, a “new era”, something so alien to us now ” as the first automobiles must have felt to the horseback riders they roared past (174)) – how much of a leap of imagination is it really that Bell asks us to perform? I was continuously taken with the number of things we are already doing in terms of preserving and retrieving well-archived digital materials from our PCs or from the web, but I wasn’t really gasping with wonder. there was no “my God, that is just too strange or hard to imagine (I also doubt that horseback riders were really that shocked when they saw a car for the first time, I mean, it wasn’t exactly the first motorised vehicle).

Well, am I a lifelogger then? Surely Bell has been doing and is doing a heroic effort in making lifelogging easier, more intuitive, and less time-consuming. For this good software is definately needed – and nobody has a better sense of the myriad of ways in which we can use a variety of software to log the more or less important aspects of our daily lives. His big effort as I see it, is to develop practices and software that can help us, possibly with one piece of software only, to easily store and retrieve information abour ourselves and sometimes created by ourselves.

I am lifelogging a great deal, I realized while reading Bell’s book – and sometimes due to conscious decisions. My digital photos are an absolute mess, and I haven’t paid attention to giving individual photos good metadata for easy retrieval. However, after I started using Picasa, so I could share my family’s migrant life with the rest of my family. I started giving good metadata and sound folder structure, at least to the images I have chosen to share, which are many. Here my family in Denmark and Sicily, my friends in the states and all over Europe has been able to follow weddings, births, holidays, the construction of our house etc. Great.

As a researcher I decided early on (five years ago when I started my phd in English literature, that I needed a good system for recording notes for easy retrieval. I decided to use the then quite new OneNote programme, which now has turned into thousans of pages with more or less extensive notes on things I might find important in the future, today, or never. At least I can now search in full-text for key words shoudl I wonder if I ever read something about that. What I still would like to have is more intuitive integration of the many folders of pdf files and word files  I have with articles, books etc that I have either read or written myself, so I could search everything on my laptop maybe even including web-resources such as Google Books and the electronic journals I have access to through my library, and be able to narrow down my search to find what I need for a lecture or a new article or book. Bell talks about these possibilities as central to his work, and his confidence in their being made available in the near future is reassuring.

So lifelogger I am in parts, I guess, like so many of us already working and living with digital information. And it is not that alien to point to the need and to imagine that this need will be satisfied sooner rather than later.

This is part 5 of a short story of personal exploration and development by one new to the daily employment of Gmail, long resisted, long desired, and eventually brought to conversion by an Android.

Part 5: To Resist

Recently our journey began. From the humble origins of Outlook to the portable synchronicity of the Windows Mobile platform, I did travel, did evolve, as needs, desires, and demands of communication and productivity so evolved and changed. Through the darkness of masked potential so emerged new and exciting opportunities. But, to fully grasp this fortune, these new degrees of productivity, it is important to pause, take measure of, and understand the crux at the heart at the core of the resistance to Gmail.

I am often asked, more so in the days since my recent conversion to Gmail, what is was, specifically, precisely, that caused me to build up such a strong aversion to a product such as this. And, the final piece, pieces, that made whole, almost immutable, my resistance to this conversion were the slowness, and the abundance of the little things.

Slow Play

The slow ticking, deafening to one waiting for the anticipated. Uncomfortable, the overbearing beating experienced, slowly. For far too often, especially when compared with its (Gmail’s) client-based counterparts, the tortuous drip of the less than instant search…

…as well as the much lamented loading and screen transitions …

…that seem, even to this day, to reassert themselves and do cause the reluctant reassessment, of reversion from this conversion. And, impediments enough prior to that, too fostered, bolstered the overall aversion.

Thus Be Slow

This product, whose existence in my heart was a duality of contradiction, both courted and simultaneously resisted, placed further strains on this relationship that was still yet to be through its exhibition of yet another form of slow, adding unnecessary ballast to an already firmly cemented resistance.

This flame, with whom I oft flirted and fled, constantly tempted me, showing me a directional inclination to meet my needs and address my concerns. Such innovations were Gmail’s enchantments.

Dressed in exciting and alluring features befitting many a niche market and wanton suitor, myself not excluded, Gmail showed off such items as inline Netflix — great for that quick, one-time thrill; directionally appealing, but not enough upon which to build a long term relationship.

My family is a small one, but with everyone having their role and doing their part, up to now always getting along. Sure, there’s the occasional spat. But, in the end the family has always come together, harmony reached, OneNote sharing with Outlook, email and notes kindly cooperating and linking up with calendar, etc.

Gmail looked like it may someday get along with the whole family. However and again, its slowness came into play. Oh, sure, it worked hard in demonstrating the desire to improve and move in this direction, but lacking in facility, and those of which to bring home to and boast about.

But, for sealing the deal, a broader, some more whole approach, more generally appealing would be needed.

Separations

Passionate reunions were, over this long courtship, ignited…

I waited, just outside, for what seemed, maybe even was, an eternity, to be able to take Gmail out and offline. But, while the time did eventually come, and did go a long way in wearing down my long established resistance, freeing myself and Gmail in our travels, enjoying our time in the park, on the plane, in far off places, places where WiFi had yet to reach.

… but, each and every time ending in disappointment, each subsequent breakup more disheartening than the last.

And, while dazzling, this flame, with whom I flirted, was a slow burning one. The evidence of aforementioned inclinations dwindled, giving rise to apprehensions of illusions, concerns of progress in ways most fitting to the needs most relevant, most pertinent to my resistance.

Little Things & The Resistance

But, what of the other reasons for my resistance, which managed to be sustained from the early days of the private Gmail beta to the most recent of but few weeks passed? What sort of little things could have kept me apart from Gmail for so long a time? For surely there must be more to such a stalwart position as has been held by me, and I am sure many others still, for, for them, the resistance most definitely continues. And, indeed there are. In addition to…

Exiguous Encouragement,
Inescapable IO (Information Overload), and
Suffersome Slowness

… there too are the staunch galvanizers of resistance …

Tiny Things.

The Next

And, these propellants of reluctance, delayers of adoption, the fundamental causes of my resistance to what would eventually be overshadowed and forced aside, through the coercion of an Android to my conversion to the ways of Gmail, will, my friends, have to wait until next week.

Subscribe now (click here) to make sure you don’t miss any part of this series exploring the eventual adoption of Gmail in one’s daily life, by one once thoroughly addicted to, dependent on, the primarily client-based solution of Microsoft’s Outlook,

what brought about this conversion, (1) (2)
why it took so long, and (3) (4) (5) (6) (7)
what should be done to encourage greater Gmail adoption. (8)

Enjoy & Tweet!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Add to Social Bookmarks:

This week we will look at how Tags in OneNote will help you find information more efficiently.

When you are typing away in OneNote, as you go, mark it up with tags that are easily searched for at a later date.  See the list of possible tags below:

Some great ways to use this:

You are writing your notes during your business meeting when you come across a really great idea someone in the group mentions, mark it as “Idea”

A website that you are using right now but could use in the future to reference could be marked “Web site to visit”.  This could be really useful when you are brainstorming while writing a paper for school.

Make your master household task list to share with the family.  Mark items  as “To Do priority 1″ to let everyone else see where to start from.

Begin your “Bucket List” and tag something as “Book to read”

Then when you need to look for your tagged items, choose Find Tags

Additional Tag Option: Tasks

You can also tag the item to be marked as a task.  This will put a red flag in your OneNote beside the item plus the task is added to your Outlook.

Have you tried this?  Do you have a tip to add for how to use tags?  Want some help?  Leave us a comment or give us a call.

Our next Tuesday series will feature the Microsoft application called OneNote.  Today we will answer what is OneNote and how can I use it on a daily basis?

Let me first begin by saying that OneNote is definitely one of my favourite applications I use.  If you can picture one massive coiled notebook that has all different coloured dividers and sections in it, but digitized, you have OneNote.  You can have as many sections to a single notebook as you would like, and you can create as many notebooks as you would need.  All of the information is stored in one place.  For example, I have a notebook in OneNote for my SureFire information.  I have a section for my blog entries, meeting notes, newsletters, specific clients, and just random thoughts.  Within each of these sections, I have as many pages as needed.  Then next to the SureFire Notebook, I have a notebook dedicated to any vacations or trips we have taken.

Some Great Features of OneNote:

• All information is stored in one location
• You can type anywhere you want on the page
• You can draw on the page
• You can link other documents or items to the OneNote
• If you cut and paste an article from a website, the hyperlink comes with it
• Tasks for your Outlook can be created from OneNote
• Easy to find the notes you have created
• You can share OneNotes with others

For more information on OneNote, check out Microsoft’s Product Overview  Want to learn more about OneNote from a person?  Leave a comment or question here or contact the SureFire office at 780.490.6705.

I am finding an interesting use for Twitter at a conference. Normally I would be taking notes during the sessions. Instead, I am just tweeting the interesting points. Then, back in my room, I can pull up all my tweets for the day, and POOF – there are my notes for the day.

I think I may write a OneNote add-in to import my tweets to save them as my notes

Gestern schrieb ich über mögliche Probleme, wenn OneNote 2007 und 2010 in einem Netzwerk auf gemeindesame Notizbücher zugreifen.

Die Schwierigkeiten sind nicht ganz von der Hand zu weisen, allerdings gibt es Lösungswege: OneNote 2010 kann in einem Kompatibilitätsmodus arbeiten. Als Folge davon muss man allerdings auf einige Features verzichten: Der Formeleditor ist nur eines davon.

Allerdings ist es dann möglich, die Notizbücher mit OneNote 2007 zu öffnen und zu bearbeiten.

Wie geht das?

• Rechtsklick auf das betreffende Notizbuch in der Navigationsleiste links.
• Klick auf “Eigenschaften”
• Klick um das Notizbuch in welches Format auch immer zu konvertieren.

Wenn man dies beachtet, sollte einem synchronisieren zwischen den verschiedenen OneNote Versionen nichts mehr im Wege stehen.

Seit gestern ist ist die Beta vom neuen Microsoft Office 2010 als kostenloser Download verfügbar. Mit der Beta kann man bis zum 31.10.2010 die Testversion des neuen Office-Pakets ausprobieren.

Einen ausführlichen Test finden Interessierte unter anderem hier. Ich möchte mich hier ausschließlich auf das neue OneNote 2010 konzentrieren und einen Bezug zu meinem OneNote-Projekt herstellen.

Die wichtigste Nachricht zuerst:

OneNote 2010 und OneNote 2007 sind begrenzt zueinander kompatibel!

Das heißt, Notizbücher, Register und Seiten, die mit ON 2010 erstellt wurden, können nur bedingt mit ON 2007 geöffnet werden. Wann ist das der Fall und warum ist das von Bedeutung?

Wenn ich mit OneNote 2010 Dokumente öffne, die unter 2007 erstellt wurden, dann ist das kein Problem. Das Dokument bleibt kompatibel, bis ich auf die eingeblendete Schaltfläche “Dokument in 2010 upgraden” klicke. Ab dann wirds schwierig. Dokumente, die unter 2010 erstellt wurden, sind nicht ohne Umstand unter 2007 zu öffnen, mehr dazu hier.

Durch Windows LiveSync werden die OneNote-Dateien verschiedener Rechner miteinander verbunden. Um sicherzustellen, dass alle Teilnehmer auch alle Daten öffnen können, ist die Kompatibilität von entscheidender Bedeutung. (Nutzer von OneNote 2003 sind nämlich definitiv außen vor. Sie können weder Notizbücher/Register/Seiten von ON 2007, noch von ON 2010 öffnen.)

Was sind die Unterschiede zwischen ON 2007 und ON 2010? In erster Linie natürlich die Ribbons: Statt altbekannter Menüs findet man nun die gleiche Oberfläche vor, die man schon von Word 2007 etc. gewohnt ist. Wem die Ribbons zu viel Platz wegnehmen, der kann sie durch einen Doppelklick auf den Reiternamen (Start/Einfügen/Freigeben/…) minimieren.

Ebenfalls neu ist der integrierte Formeleditor. Damit lassen sich nun ganz einfach Formeln in OneNote darstellen. Insbesondere für Mathematiker sicher ein lang ersehntes Feature.

Eine wirkliche Verbesserung ist die Möglichkeit, Unterseiten nun ein- bzw. auszuklappen. Der Vorteil wird anhand des zweiten Screenshots offensichtlich . OneNote 2010 bietet damit noch mehr Übersicht: Ich kann mich auf die Stundenüberschriften konzentrieren, habe mehr Stunden im Blick und bei Bedarf kann ich alles an Material zur betreffenden Stunde ausklappen.

Auch schön: Über den Reiter “Freigeben” kann ich mir mit Klick auf “Letzte Änderungen” all jene Seiten anzeigen lassen, die in den letzten Stunden/Tagen/Wochen eine Änderung erfahren haben.

Für Lehrer bzw. Referendare innerhalb des Projekts ist das eine sehr nützliche Funktion: Mit einem Mausklick kann ich sehen, ob und wann welcher Lehrer was neu zu seinem Material hinzugefügt hat.

Ein Traum!

Weitere gravierende Unterschiede habe ich auf die Schnelle nicht feststellen können, obwohl ich den Entwicklern damit sicher Unrecht tue. Das Wichtigste, die Kompatibilität, ist genannt.

Wem also das Geld fehlt, um sich OneNote 2007 zu leisten aber trotzdem Interesse an dem Projekt hat, dem bietet sich hiermit eine fantastische Möglichkeit. Bis Oktober des kommenden Jahres kann man nun völlig kostenlos ausprobieren und testen!

Aber Vorsicht: Das Office 2010-Paket ist offiziell noch immer im Beta-Status. Das bedeutet, Fehler und Abstürze können vorkommen.

Microsoft Office OneNote, usually referred to as Microsoft OneNote, is a tool for notetaking, information gathering, and multi-user collaboration by Microsoft. While many earlier systems relied on linear text flow (simple lists), OneNote visualizes notes as a two-dimensional page. OneNote also adds modern features such as drawings, pictures, multimedia audio, video, and ink as well as multi-user sharing of notes.

In response, members spontaneously offered the following thoughts about OneNote:

Really useful for students (hence me using it) and anyone that need to take notes, loads of notes, with loads of options and features that allow you to manage that data in a good way.

I love this darn thing. Makes taking notes on my tablet PC a great experience. Helps me organize all of my notes, interviews and work. Live as a journalist would be a lot tougher without this.

Probably the best note taking program out there, especially if you have a tablet pc. New features such as graphic to text ocr and the old audio key notes to tie the audio to notes make the utility great for lectures, meetings or seminars.

I have tried several notetaking tools but I ended up using OneNote because it simply has the most features and the easiest to use.
I’ve got all my work and personal notes organized in it. It’s the best app from Microsoft’s Office suite.

Brilliant tool, I use it daily for all my note taking,
then copying info elsewhere to publish, great filing and organisation system. Well worth trying out, definitely one of microsofts most useful applications, needs a lot more publicity.

OneNote is my favorite Office program, primarily because it instantly saves everything that is entered without having to set AutoSave time or repeatedly click save–everything is automatically written to disk. When this is added to Live Mesh, which instantly synchronizes, it becomes incredibly powerful for backup and sharing. OneNote allows for handwriting, text, images, links, and many different input/formatting options for anything you can imagine. It is the digital scrapbook of your computing needs.

I use OneNote most for work-related business. Using it to register all my installation notes, project related information. Connected using my Outlook 2007 it is easy to track back what ive done on which day.
Second handy thing is (windows key + S) to catch a screenshot. Better than installing another peace of software.
Last feature is the task connection to outlook, to keep track of my tasks. When completing tasks this reflects back in my OneNote information. Very usefull.

As a student in college being one of the few to use a tablet, I cant image using any other program besides OneNote. I have NO notebooks besides my little X61 that I bring to every class and take far better notes then anyone else.

I can honestly say that I would have failed out of school long ago if it wasn’t for this program. I also can imagine how many trees I have saved by not using notebooks or paper over the past three years!

I absolutely love OneNote! It keeps me organized for all of my classes, it makes it easier so now I don’t have to always write notes on pencil and paper. It’s clear to read and it’s easier than trying to read my rushed handwriting.

I use this program for personal and for business. I write treatments and scripts in it (later i xfer to final draft)
I do pre production notes/pictures/video audio/ links
I do tasks and lists in it
It’s great! Word? I could live without and go gooogle docs, but One Note rocks.

You can also have multiple people edit one page, so people im working with can check of tasks and add information to select pages via the local network or the greater internet via IP.

amazing.

Love it. Paste anything from anywhere and place it anywhere you like. Great sorting facility. Password security, multiple people working together, transporting of projects to different PC’s. Everything is great about it.

It’s a great program to be able to take notes, especially hand written. Organizing and sharing notebooks are easy and intuitive which is important if using multiple computers.

The bad part is that the print driver for x64 based machines does not function in the 2007 version and will not be fixed until the next major version release (2010?)

The more you use it, the more you’ll love it. Note taking software isn’t for everyone, obviously. It has helped me in navigating my career a great deal. I am frequently tempted by Evernote, I will admit, but the two applications are very different in the way they store your notes, and I have ultimately found myself preferring the structure of OneNote. I envy the blackberry support of Evernote, however, and appreciate it’s simplicity by comparison. OneNote can be daunting at first. Regardless, one of Microsoft’s lesser-known applications but also one of their best.

My favourite replacement for hundreds of notes made with Notepad and kept in chaos in different folders around PC. However I still look forward to some enhancement in 2010 version, especially the ribbon UI, which I like quite much.

What do you think? Share your thoughts or use the links below to share this with your OneNote non-believing friends

This week we will look at 2 really great ways to make your OneNotes look great and reflect your personality.

While some may say that it really doesn’t matter what your OneNotes look like, I think that colour and design help your notes reflect you. Those who use pen and paper notebooks take great pride and fun in selecting just the right book to muse in. They may wander through various shops picking up many different books before they decide that one is what they want to look at everytime they have something to say.

OneNote gives you stylist freedom through Page Templates and assigning colours to the Tabs.

A. Page Templates:

When adding a new page to your notebook, choose what theme or style you want for it by choosing the drop-down arrow beside New Page on the side bar.
From the menu that appears, select Page Templates …
You will find a whole variety of templates amongst the categories of Academic, Blank, Business, Decorative, and Planners.

Example, for students, under the Academic category, there are templates to use for taking lecture notes.

Need to know how to create your own template or to select a default template all the time? Leave a comment and let me know?

B. Customized Tab Colours:

At any point, you can adjust the colour of the tabs to match your fancy or design vision. Simply right-click on the tab. From the menu that appears, select Section Color. A range of colours for your choosing will appear.

Have another great way you customize your OneNote? Have question? Leave a comment or phone the SureFire office at 780.490.6705.

OneNote is a powerful tool all professionals should use, especially lawyers.

For those unfamiliar, OneNote is a Microsoft office program for note-taking, outlines, and so much more.  Today’s savvy student uses the program instead of Word or the conventional pen and pad.  However, I find that few lawyers, use the program.  This is a shame, and I’ll tell you why.

Just take a look at one trial lawyer’s experience with the program:

My opposing counsel kept looking at me with obvious envy as I made my argument to the judge why certain key evidence should be excluded from the trial we were involved in. I could tell from the look on the attorney’s face that he was puzzled how I could refer to portions of the record, prior witness testimony, exhibits, case law, and a brief that I had previously submitted, all without a single piece of paper in front of me. The only thing I used was my laptop and a mouse. He sat at a table with loose papers piled haphazardly, manila folders strewn about, and a Bankers Box on the floor, stuffed to overflowing.

When my opponent was speaking, he spent as much time shuffling through his papers and folders as he did addressing the court. Eventually, his disorganization began to annoy the judge. At one point he simply could not find the case he was looking for. He begged the court’s indulgence and promised he would provide the case reference later, after he’d had an opportunity to reorganize his file during a break. The judge was not amused, was not willing to wait, and ruled against him.

from an article by Bruce Olson.

By using OneNote, this trial lawyer was able to stay more organized than his opponent, and it had a direct effect on the outcome of his case.  I use the program almost everyday, and I have found the most siginificant benefits to include:

• Search feature – you can search an individual page, notebook section, or entire notebook.  The search feature is more powerful than Word’s “ctrl+f.”  OneNote’s search is more analogous to Google’s search power.  The search will display hits for your search in chronological order, and can be cycled through with ease.
• Import print feature – any document you can print on your computer can be sent to OneNote.  The document will be shown as it would had it been printed on paper, but will be on a new OneNote page ready to be added to your notebook.  *What is more, you can search printed documents.  That’s right, OneNote will comb through the document making the document subject to searches.
• Clip art feature – You can clip any section from your screen and quickly add it into OneNote.  It works just as well as a way to capture selected portions of a document when you do not want to print the whole thing.
• Simple and adaptable - Above all, OneNote is so simple to use, anyone should be able to use these techniques with a minimum of time invested in learning how to use the program.  After you have the basics down, you can adapt the ways you use the program to fit your style. Keep in mind that it’s just as useful at depositions or motion hearings as it is at trial. In a sense, wherever you use a legal pad, you should consider using OneNote.

I firmly believe OneNote is a great tool that would benefit any lawyer.  Whether in trial or in the office, OneNote is a fantastic way to keep everything organized and ready to be used.  I’m glad to hear it was at an ABA TechShow.  Perhaps the rage will catch on soon enough.