Having some fun with Evernote in the last couple of days. Nothing serious, and this isn't a complaint about Evernote, which for the most part I really love. (I don't like the way you can't change the font or the font size as easily as on Word, but that's a small issue. Although I did discover recently that highlighting the whole note and using Ctl + increases the font size, which is good.)
Anyway, the first of the 'issues' was that when I went to use ClippingsConverter, the website that takes the highlighted notes off your Kindle and exports them to wherever you want to export them to (Word or Excel are options) I couldn't export to Evernote. It kept telling me ClippingsConverter wasn't authorized to do so, and I'd need to authorize it. Well, I'd already authorized it some time back, and didn't actually need to do so again. But I couldn't get past this point. I unauthorized and re-authorized, but to no avail. Evernote wasn't able to help, saying it was an issue with CC - admittedly the latter has recently updated their website, so maybe there's a change that's causing the problem. I went back to my friend, Jim, at CC, and he's doing his best to sort it out. But so far we haven't got anywhere. (Jim, incidentally, is a great guy, and very willing to sort out problems as soon as he can.)
And then today, I wanted to export files from Zotero into Evernote. I'd never done this before, but it turned out to be a piece of cake, except that the files consisted of individual book titles, and every single one of them was turned into a separate note in Evernote, increasing my notes from some 3,000 to well over 4,000. Not so hot. I deleted them all again, but it would be good to be able to export into a single note, which is what I wanted to do. Can't have everything.
I see that Evernote is upgrading to version 5 soon, and promising new things. Hopefully there won't be things missing that are currently of value. It doesn't seem as if that's the case, but sometimes developers like changing things for the sake of changing them....don't they, Microsoft?
By the way, I'm using Evernote on my smartphone too, these days. It works really well on there - better than on the iPad, in fact.
Showing posts with label zotero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label zotero. Show all posts
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Monday, December 19, 2011
Shifting to Chrome
Well, the shift to Google Chrome as my default browser seems to be going okay. Of course some things went missing with the change - not my bookmarks, which were happily imported from Firefox - though truth to tell, I hardly ever use the bookmarks now, as typing into the URL line usually brings up anything I want.
I did lose the add-ons I had - Chrome calls them extensions - and had to go and re-sort them: Evernote's clipper, for one, and RoboForm (which oddly turns up at the bottom of the screen rather than the top; some curious feature of Chrome, apparently). Zotero also went missing - it's part of Firefox's add-ons, but not Chrome's as far as I can tell. You can get Zotero as a stand-alone programme now, but I haven't yet figured out how to get stuff into the right folder in the stand-alone version: when you click on the little blue box that records the book item you're interested in, it just pops it in wherever it feels like it, and because of Zotero's set-up, you can't find which folder it's in, although of course you can actually find the item through their search box.
And just now I realised I didn't have the add-on that copied URLs to Twitter (or other social media). Chrome has an extension for this, so that wasn't too much of a problem.
The main reason I shifted was because Facebook was becoming very sticky on Firefox. (My geek son reckons Firefox has overloaded itself with all its upgrades). Anyway, on Chrome, Facebook is behaving itself very well, so that's a plus. Another plus is that there's no separate box for doing a Google search: the URL box and the search box are one and the same (this being Google's browser, naturally) so that's actually a gain. This was starting to happen on Firefox, but not quite so effectively.
So, at present, all good.
PS 20.12.2011 Only realised this morning that Evernote is not working in quite the same way it used to. Instead of clipping whatever it is that you want clipped directly to the Evernote database on your computer, it clips it now to your Evernote database online. It's only when you sync the two that the computer version updates. Before it was the other way round. Odd. On the plus side, the new look Evernote clipper is an improvement over the old one. And doesn't require as much fiddling around with each time.
And another thing: everything is being spellchecked all over again (like the word, spellchecked, for instance). Obviously Chrome doesn't import all the words I've collected over the last few years of Firefox usage.
I did lose the add-ons I had - Chrome calls them extensions - and had to go and re-sort them: Evernote's clipper, for one, and RoboForm (which oddly turns up at the bottom of the screen rather than the top; some curious feature of Chrome, apparently). Zotero also went missing - it's part of Firefox's add-ons, but not Chrome's as far as I can tell. You can get Zotero as a stand-alone programme now, but I haven't yet figured out how to get stuff into the right folder in the stand-alone version: when you click on the little blue box that records the book item you're interested in, it just pops it in wherever it feels like it, and because of Zotero's set-up, you can't find which folder it's in, although of course you can actually find the item through their search box.
And just now I realised I didn't have the add-on that copied URLs to Twitter (or other social media). Chrome has an extension for this, so that wasn't too much of a problem.
The main reason I shifted was because Facebook was becoming very sticky on Firefox. (My geek son reckons Firefox has overloaded itself with all its upgrades). Anyway, on Chrome, Facebook is behaving itself very well, so that's a plus. Another plus is that there's no separate box for doing a Google search: the URL box and the search box are one and the same (this being Google's browser, naturally) so that's actually a gain. This was starting to happen on Firefox, but not quite so effectively.
So, at present, all good.
PS 20.12.2011 Only realised this morning that Evernote is not working in quite the same way it used to. Instead of clipping whatever it is that you want clipped directly to the Evernote database on your computer, it clips it now to your Evernote database online. It's only when you sync the two that the computer version updates. Before it was the other way round. Odd. On the plus side, the new look Evernote clipper is an improvement over the old one. And doesn't require as much fiddling around with each time.
And another thing: everything is being spellchecked all over again (like the word, spellchecked, for instance). Obviously Chrome doesn't import all the words I've collected over the last few years of Firefox usage.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Progress?
In the past, even before I began writing for publication, I would keep files of clippings out of newspapers and magazines. I even used to try and put them in some order, or keep a primitive form of database so as to know what I had.
In fact, what would happen is that I'd come back to them some years later, find all these clippings which varied in interest from 'none' to 'moderate' and eventually toss them out. The only time they got used was if they were used when I first found them. After that, they usually became excess to requirements.
When I first started my current job, back in late 2007, part of my work involved scanning articles of interest onto the computer and databasing them. Sound familiar? However, it quickly became evident that it was much easier to find the article online - most newspapers have websites these days, and most magazines. That saved the tedious process of scanning (the scanner has gathered dust mostly since then) and also saved databasing, since Google Desktop did that side of the job much more effectively for me.
And then along came Zotero, and articles could be copied in the blink of an eye, as soon as you found them online (because now we were catching up with the information less from newspapers and mags and more from the Internet itself). No more cutting and pasting; just a click of the appropriate button and we were away. The databasing isn't so good, and will have to be reconsidered, and sometimes it's better still to use the slightly older method of putting the item on the computer itself.
But with Zotero you have access to the articles wherever you are: at work or at home, or anywhere else.
All this is well and good. You know what's funny, though, don't you? I'll come back to these pieces in a few years time, find they vary in interest from 'none' to 'moderate' and eventually delete them. The only time they'll get used will be if i use them when I first find them. Sound familiar?
In fact, what would happen is that I'd come back to them some years later, find all these clippings which varied in interest from 'none' to 'moderate' and eventually toss them out. The only time they got used was if they were used when I first found them. After that, they usually became excess to requirements.
When I first started my current job, back in late 2007, part of my work involved scanning articles of interest onto the computer and databasing them. Sound familiar? However, it quickly became evident that it was much easier to find the article online - most newspapers have websites these days, and most magazines. That saved the tedious process of scanning (the scanner has gathered dust mostly since then) and also saved databasing, since Google Desktop did that side of the job much more effectively for me.
And then along came Zotero, and articles could be copied in the blink of an eye, as soon as you found them online (because now we were catching up with the information less from newspapers and mags and more from the Internet itself). No more cutting and pasting; just a click of the appropriate button and we were away. The databasing isn't so good, and will have to be reconsidered, and sometimes it's better still to use the slightly older method of putting the item on the computer itself.
But with Zotero you have access to the articles wherever you are: at work or at home, or anywhere else.
All this is well and good. You know what's funny, though, don't you? I'll come back to these pieces in a few years time, find they vary in interest from 'none' to 'moderate' and eventually delete them. The only time they'll get used will be if i use them when I first find them. Sound familiar?
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