All of these methods work, success greatly varies depending on your work and thought style however. With this in mind I will say that Journler isn’t going to be for everyone… or maybe it is!

Price:
journler right from the get go won me over with it’s price … FREE! (as in beer. for now). This is a “feature” pretty much non-existent in this software market with some apps/suites costing up to $130! Now you probably noticed I said “(for now)” above, this is because the developers are moving the application over to a shareware model… everyone’s gotta make ends meet.

Features:
The feature set is what sold me (as it should be when using an App.) it can be as cut dry and simple or as needlessly complex as you desire. This is something we don’t usually see. From most of the “personal productivity” software I’ve used you’re given a series of tools and a set idea as to how they are going to be used. Not the case with journler.

Notes:
Keep your thoughts stored just how you had them. Attach files, record your own video or audio clip. Insert HTML elements … make a todo list with HTML checkboxes. Toss pre-fixes on list items or high light a line out of a copy and pasted paragraph. I would go so far as to say that the interface for composing and organizing your ideas inside your notes rivals Word or Open Office.

Organization:
Labels, Tags, and Folders on my! Corny I know, but seriously you’ve the ability to organize your notes any given way… even multiple ways! Using Labels and Folders would be enough to keep a veteran personal productivity app user happy. When you consider Tagging and Smart Folders along with this the way you organize your ideas almost becomes blaring obvious.

Smart Folders: (my favorite feature)
It’s like real time message filtering for your notes. You’ll create a Smart Folder that doesn’t actually contain anything, nor will it ever per-say. Smart Folders are more like a logic location, any give item can span multiple Smart Folders based on that items characteristics. I’ll give you a simple example.

I’m a web developer by choice and trade, I love it. With that said at any given time I’m usually juggling work, freelance, and my own projects simultaneously. This means I have serious collisions of time and ideas. I might have 50 separate tasks from 3 different projects 13 of which are Urgent. Now rather than look over notes from a 3 projects and find the ones I’ve labeled as “Urgent” I could simply create a smart folder. Using the stupid simple interface I could add a “requirement” or “exclusion” for items that should appear in this folder. In my example I’ll say I want “all” notes with a “label” or Urgent. The smart folder would instantly populate with my 13 labeled notes for all projects/categories/etc.

Great!… now lets say an entire project is placed on developmental hold, these tasks are no longer urgent because of the dev freeze but once that project begins development I’ll need them to remain urgent. I could now edit my Smart Folder and depending on your organizational preference exclude that project from showing up in said filter. If using folders you could tell the smart folder to “exclude” notes from folder “project foobar”… or if using tagging (my preference) “exclude” notes tagged “foobar”.

Application Integration:
Talk about stream line! Journler hooks into some of OS X’s most popular Apps. While composing a note attach a file (also note the files are reference pointers, so if you update that file… it’s updated in the note) using finder… or view an attached file in Finder. However you can also attach a contact from your Address book, or email a file/note from Mail. Attached an XLS file… have Office installed, it already knows and shows the Office Excel Icon as the viewing option. Listen to an MP3 file you’ve attached or watch a vid right inside the app using native Quicktime support. Hook dates into iCal and link them to existing iCal entries. It even hooks into Spotlight, just type in the title of the note you want to view and Spotlight tracks it down, hit enter and it opens right up in Journler. All of this is done so smoothly you’ll start to wonder why other applications don’t do it the same way. As if that wasn’t enough Apple Script integration allows you to write your own functionality!

Summary:
I consider journler although one of my newer Apps easily one of my MVP apps. As I get more used to it and discover new ways to use and implement it the more I fall in love with it’s simplicity and functionality. I’d suggest everyone give it a week worth of trial and see if you don’t agree. It’s so open anyone could find a way to utilize it…. and I mean anyone… Soccer Mom’s to NASA engineers.

check it out @ http://journler.com/

Tellme lets you speak commands into your Blackberry to seach the web, look up movie times, check traffic and make other queries.

Once users download the program, they can push on their phone’s green “talk” button and say either the name of a business, type of business, or the keywords “weather,” “movies,” “traffic,” “map” or “driving directions.”

Using GPS, the system figures out where the user is located and delivers nearby results from Microsoft’s Live Search engine to the smart phone’s screen, along with links to call, get directions, buy movie tickets and other related actions.

Might be worth a shot for the Crackberry addicted sect out there.

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Here’s an experiment in keepings things small and confined to one Javascript file. There are no external image files or anything, everything is rendered with Javascript using either canvas elements or old fashioned div-making tactics (for IE). The sprites are stored in custom encoded strings in a format that only allows 4 colors for each sprite but in turn only takes up around 40-60 bytes per sprite. [...]

It is by no means a complete clone or anything, it’s not even an entire level and several key things are missing, such as mushrooms, Koopas and stuff. It was merely done as a sort of proof-of-concept and to see how small it could get.

Now, if only it could be playable on the Blackberry – we would have a complete time suck here.

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MediaChance has released a free application for dual and triple monitor users. To boil this program down it simply puts a taskbar on your 2nd or 3rd screen. MultiMonitor will show the applications that are open on only that monitor. A couple of extra bonus features are a clipboard extender that shows up in the lower right of your 2nd display. There is also a button near your minimize button that can automatically move your windows to your primary or secondary display.

Windows only and totally free

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Google Docs is finally allowing users to edit documents offline using Google Gears. Initially documents alone will be editable and spreadsheets will be readable with presentation documents to get similar functionality down the road. Online word editors like Google Docs, while useful, still have the stumbling block of people not being able to get their work done without an internet connection.

Interestingly enough, competitor in this space Zoho has had offline functionality with its word-processing application for a while now, Zoho Writer. Is this welcome news to anyone?

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In Windows Vista, the rewritten backup utility also uses Shadow Copy to manually backup files. In addition, the Shadow Copy for Shared Folders feature is now called “Previous Versions” and has been enabled for files on standalone computers. It stores backup copies of files on local volumes using incremental snapshots and can restore them later. [Wikipedia]

But how do you access these super secret backups?

ShadowExplorer allows you to browse the shadow copies created by the Windows® VistaTM Volume Shadow Copy Service. It’s especially thought for users of the home editions, who don’t have access to the shadow copies by default, but it’s also useful for users of the other editions.

ShadowExplorer will show you available point-in-time copies that you can browse through and retrieve. Worth a try for the price. Free.

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dotSyntax, the Instant Messaging startup behind my favourite IM client Digsby today announced their public beta launch meaning no more invite codes needed, just to go to their site and download the program if you want to try it out. Along with the public beta, a major update will be pushed out with the program having the following features.

• One combined buddy list for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts with duplicate contact merging, tabbed conversation windows and two way SMS from within the IM window

• New e-mail alerts for Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts, as well as, an Inbox Snapshot view that allows users to perform actions like “Mark as Read” and “Report Spam” with one click

• Real time newsfeed for Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter friend events like status changes, new photos, and upcoming birthdays, along with alerts for events like friend requests, new messages, and group invites

• Personalized look and feel with various application skins, conversation themes, and extensive buddy list layout options

So, no invite code is no excuse not to try my favourite IM right now! Tell ‘em Evan from UNEASYsilence sent ya!

Try It

Based upon Safari Adblock, this utility will hopefully increase load times by filtering out advertisements when you surf. Only catch, the iPhone has to be jailbroken.

To install AdBlock for MobileSafari, you will need to “Jailbreak” your iPod Touch or iPhone and install the Installer.app on it. Once you are jailbroken, open the Installer and click on Sources locate at the right end of the bottom toolbar. Then click on the Edit button locate in the top right corner of your screen. Click the Add button on the top left corner of your screen and enter the following address http://i.cocoamug.com

I reached out to the developer of the product for a longer trial period to evaluate the product, but from a days test I found most ads filtered out. If your phone is jailbroken, this program is certainly worth a look to make your EDGE web browsing much more pleasant. Available for roughly $8.

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The fourth beta of the Firefox 3.0 browser was released Monday and includes more than 900 enhancements over the previous beta, Mozilla announced.

The creator of the open-source browser said the new beta includes improvements to performance and memory usage, fixes for stability, and platform-specific enhancements. Some of the enhancements include a new download manager to make locating downloads easier; a full page zoom feature that allows you to zoom in and out of pages more easily; and integration for Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux that features platform-specific icons, buttons, and other user interface elements.

If you want to be on the bleeding edge, you can download FireFox from Mozilla now.

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