Evernote – Ever not pretty

Despite being one of the first users of the application, I still don’t know if Evernote is an app that I could ever fall in love with.

Evernote has everything I know I should be enthused about – it is cross platform, maximizes cloud technology, features automated syncing of notes across computers, etc.

However, even after numerous user interface revamps, there is still something I find horribly wrong & ugly with Evernote. True, there there have been improvements over the years, such as the removal of that horrible ribbon scrollbar. But still, Evernote has a long way to go in this new era of interface & usability design. Mock me if you will, but I need certain apps to be real pretty.

I’m also not comfortable with its roadmap for the premier version. $45/year seems like a steep price for a single feature which I found attractive, and which Google Docs gives for free: sending notes via email from my iPhone.

Sadly, however, this is the best we could get as of the moment.

Give Live Sync a break

We live in a world where it is not very fashionable to love a Microsoft product … but I need to give credit where due: Microsoft Live Sync kicks ass, and wins over Dropbox by a landslide.

Live Sync and Drop Box are free file sharing & syncing applications. You do this by creating a folder within your computer, putting files in it, and then inviting people would like to have a copy of that folder in their own computers. And it gets better: Any changes made in that folder (by you or by those people you have invited) are automatically replicated on all computers.

But wait — there’s more!

Imagine if you’re using multiple computers with different platforms (Windows, OSX, etc.) in different locations. You can actually sync your files, bookmarks, and emails. In all your machines. In real time.

Dropbox is a newbie on the block, but quickly gained fanfare from those who’ve never heard of an older but silent contender, FolderShare (the precursor of Live Sync). Or maybe FolderShare/Live Sync was consciously ignored. After all, we live in a world where Steve Jobs can do no wrong, where Linux is uber cool, and everything else in Microsoft.

When Microsoft re-christened FolderShare as Live Sync last December 2008, it defied all expectations and launched an even superior product: It increased syncing of up to 20 main folders, with each folder having a maximum limit of 20,000 files. There are no file size limit on an account. However, a single file cannot be greater than 2GB, so forget using it to back up your DVDs.

Dropbox, on the other hand, only allows 2GB of space per account. And in my book, that sucks. Big time.

Shorten a URL and find out how many clicked on it

Making URLs shorter have become very easy, thanks to services such as TinyURL, RubyURL, and urlTea.

dwarfURL is another one of those services – and more. It has become a personal favorite, mainly because it has the ability to track how many people actually clicked on your link.

For example, my dwarf URL is this:

http://dwarfurl.com/a8d51

I chose “password” as my password. To view how many people have actually visited this URL, I simply appended my password to the URL. Click on the link below to the click stats:

http://dwarfurl.com/a8d51/password

And of course, it has a quaint Firefox extension. Very handy for us Twitter users.

Dwarf it baby!

https://www.automatenspielen.de/iphone-slots

Google Talk – access it from the web, & gadgets for your website

Not happy with the Google Talk embedded in Gmail? You can have a much richer (and prettier) interface by going to http://google.com/talk and clicking Launch Google Talk.

The same website also contains instructions on how you can embed it on your webpage with your own customized width, height, border colors, and title.

The Dentist Monster

He’s my knight in shining armor — the guy who saves me from anything, alleviates my fears, brings me to the doctor, and basically makes everything all right. He can handle anything, anytime, anywhere.

Until he needed to go to the dentist.

Suddenly, he transformed to someone who could make the most imaginative excuses to cancel his dental appointments.

But pretty soon, this ingenious guy discovered for himself how to cope. He knew how to use technology to his advantage, and I saw him frequently visiting Dental Fear Central.

It probably worked because two months later, my knight is back, ready to carry me in his strong arms once again — with bright, shiny, white teeth.

Links:

Dental Fear Central