Show Notes for Members below
Not a member? Join here. This episode covers:
- Tip o Week: Screen Rotation
- Beginner’s Lesson: Bag o Tips
- App o week: Virtual Reality – A Walk Thru Alzheimer’s
Tag Archives: Evernote
Some Things Never Change
Technology is constantly changing. We spend most of our time trying to keep up!
We’ve been supporting technology for a long time. Chris has been writing about technology over 30 years. She started when she was 5 or 6. Haha.
Here is an article from 1987 about the state of technology then. It was written by Chris Van Valkenburg, that was Chris’ name before she married me. She owned a computer training center called Computer Savvy Workshops back then. While reading it, I swear it could be written today with only a few name changes, and it would still be valid. The first article is titled “Nothing New for 1987 … please.” Let’s change the year to 2016 and just a couple of words, then the opening paragraph becomes …
Usually, in contemplating a new year, you can come up with a wish list of new
computerssmartphones,softwareapps, or new features for oldsoftwareapps. This year my wish is for NOTHING new to happen. There are too many new things on my desk right now.
Click on the graphic to read the newsletter. It takes you to Evernote, but you can click the skip button in the lower right to go to the link. You don’t need an Evernote account.
Using Evernote as a Document Scanner
You really don’t have to travel with a document scanner! The Evernote app on your Android or iPhone will do quite nicely once you get the hang of it. If you don’t already have Evernote, you can download it for free from the Play store on Android, or the App store on iPhone. You might also want to watch Episode 54 of our What Does This Button Do live show. In that episode we devoted our beginner’s lesson to Evernote.
Do you Keep Receipts?
One of the things I like to do with Evernote is take pictures of receipts that I feel I need to keep. Even if I also keep the paper copy, having a scanned image is especially good with the thermal paper type of receipts because they fade over time. To substitute for scanning, it’s import to know the difference between taking a regular photo note and a ‘document’ photo note? The receipt on the left is an Evernote Camera note, the one on the right is taken using Evernote’s “Document Camera.”
Picture taken with Evernote Camera |
Picture taken with Evernote Camera in Document mode |
Use Evernote’s Document Camera
When you open Evernote (on an Android phone) and click the + to add a note, you’ll have several choices: Camera, Attachment, Work Chat, Reminder, Handwriting, Text Note. When you choose Camera, you now have more choices: Document, Camera, Post-IT, and Business Card. What I’m talking about here is Document.
The key is to place the document on a contrasting background and make sure to include some of the background in the picture. Don’t worry, Evernote will crop it out of the finished product. It will also turn the document into clean black and white and even increase the contrast to make it as readable as possible. Really, it’s very close to a scanned results. Then you can file it into the appropriate notebook, with some tags, and you’re done!
Here’s a short video demonstration for Members only.
Not a member? Join Today!#54 Evernote. What Does This Button Do?
There are show notes below which document what was covered in the show and include timeline links, so you can watch just the part of the video that you want. If you are not a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch Episode 54 video on YouTube, but you won’t get the show notes.Become a member here. This episode covers:
- Quick Tips: Sending notes to yourself with Google Now
- Beginner’s Lesson: An Intro to Evernote
- App of the Week: Wink – Home Automation
Evernote Can Receive your Email
If you haven’t heard of Evernote, do yourself a favor and watch our “What Does This Button Do?” show, episode #54. We give an introduction to Evernote starting at 06:49 into the show. Evernote is our Go To place to enter any kind of information we want to keep, remember, find later. That includes a simple note about something you just heard, a snapshot of an eye exam and prescription, a copy of a webpage you want to read later, a snapshot of a receipt, and many many more.
Your Evernote Email Address
When you have an Evernote account, you can create notes by opening Evernote on your computer or on your smartphone or tablet. This article is about the fact that your Evernote account comes with a special email address. Email something to that address and it gets filed in your Evernote account. I use this to save important emails out of my inbox. So, for example, if I receive an email with important information about documents my accountant needs for my taxes, I might forward that email to my Evernote account. I do the same with any and all documents important to my taxes and then, when it comes time to prepare them – all I need is access to my Evernote account. If I have the opportunity to edit the subject line of the forwarding email, I can add @taxes to automatically file it in the “Taxes” notebook in Evernote.
During our streaming Evernote lesson, a viewer – Marie MacDonald – left a comment about how she uses her Evernote email address as a way to subscribe to newsletters! What a GREAT idea! That bypasses your email inbox completely. Whatever arrives in Evernote via email is stored in your default notebook, but you can set up a Notebook for newsletters and move notes there later.
To find your special Evernote email address just go to the menu and choose Settings and Account Info. You will see an entry for Evernote Email and it will look something like yourname.74363h2@m.evernote.com. Anything sent to that email will show up in your default notebook in Evernote. You can move them later.
The video above comes directly from Evernote and it also shows how, using Gmail, you could make a rule to automatically forward messages to your Evernote account.
As an Evernote Basic (Free) customer, can I save emails into Evernote?
Saving emails into Evernote became a paid feature on July 15, 2015. Evernote Basic customers can try this feature by saving up to five emails into Evernote before upgrading to Evernote Plus or Premium. For more info on features and pricing see the Evernote Pricing Page.
Start Using Evernote
If you don’t already have Evernote, you can set up a free account by using this LINK – Geeks on Tour will get points and you will get one month free trial of Evernote Premium.
#22 Photos on Contacts. What Does This Button Do?
For the best viewing, be sure to click the FullScreen button 
in the lower right corner.
There are show notes below which document what was covered in the show and include timeline links, so you can watch just the part of the video that you want. If you are not a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch Episode 22 video on Youtube, but you won’t get the show notes. Become a member here. This episode covers:
- Quick Tips: Taking Panorama photos, Holding down the Home button
- How to add Pictures to your Contacts on your smartphone and tablets
- App of the week: Evernote
#13 Taking Notes. What Does This Button Do?
There are show notes below the video which document what was covered and include timeline links, so you can watch just what you want. If you are not a Geeks on Tour member, you can watch Episode 13 video on YouTube, but you won’t get the show notes. Become a member here. This episode covers:
- Note taking apps: Apple Notes, Google Keep, Evernote
- App of the Week: Field Trip
Collecting Travel Ideas with Evernote
Evernote is not specifically an App for travelers, but I can’t think of another App that is any more useful for travelers! If you have not yet been introduced to Evernote, I’ll consider it my pleasure! Just go to Evernote.com on your computer and sign up for an account, then download the App for an Android device, or an iPhone or iPad – you will be so glad you did! Then you can start using Evernote to keep track of anything and everything! You can type notes into it, you can take pictures with it, scan documents and business cards, clip web pages, even record sound notes. I’ve been using Evernote for a year or so and I’m trying to train myself to use it more because it remembers everything so I don’t have to. Keep your medical records, keep receipts, todo lists, book recommendations, recipes, and all of those ideas that flit in and out of your head. The only hard part is remembering to use it!
Whenever I hear myself say, “I want to remember this, where shall I put it?” The answer is … Evernote. In this article I want you to consider keeping all your travel ideas in Evernote.
Remembering Map Locations
Let’s say you’re having coffee with a friend who just returned from a fabulous trip to the New England area. They’re telling you of a place called Sabaday Falls that they just loved. You get out your smartphone and look it up on Google Maps, and then your friend starts telling you about another spot. How to keep this map location in a master list of all travel ideas? Once you find a location on Google Maps, just tap on the Info Card for the place – right below the search box – the Search Results if you will. This should take you to a screen that includes the icon for Share.
Sharing Map location on my Android Phone |
When I click on Share on my Android phone, I get an option to share directly to Evernote. Then I can add a written note and the Tag for travel ideas. |
Sharing Map location on my iPad |
Even though Evernote is installed on my iPad, I don’t get a direct option. No problem, just choose Mail and use the email address for your Evernote account.
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Storing Handwritten Notes
The next time you talk to a friend about travel recommendations, they write you a note on a napkin about a wonderful RV park where they stayed. Evernote will remember this for you by taking a picture of the napkin! Then, before you save it, add a note about who you got it from and tag it with travel ideas and maybe RV and also Florida. Here’s how:
With your smartphone or tablet, open the Evernote App and tap the icon of the camera. You are now looking thru the lens to take a picture .. using the Evernote app … to snap the picture, tap the round green button, then tap the checkmark to finish. Notice that Evernote has automatically titled the note with the word ‘snapshot’ and the location where you were when you snapped it. You can change that title to something like “Chris’ RV park recommendation” and then find the link to “Add Tag” and choose tags for travel ideas, RV, Florida. If these tags don’t exist, just type them to create new tags.
The Power of Search and Tags
Once you have notes stored in Evernote, you can find them by searching for anything in the note. A search for Travel would pull up both of these notes because we tagged them with “Travel Ideas.” Searching for “Sarah” would pull up the note on Sabbaday Falls because we added that the recommendation came from Sarah and Rob. And, a search for “Lauderdale” will even pull up the picture of the handwritten note on the napkin!
I’m hoping that this article sparked some ideas for you. To learn more about Evernote, read thru the Official Evernote Getting Started Guide. They even have a page dedicated to promoting Evernote for Traveling.
Podcasting Test
We are toying with the idea of doing a little podcasting. But, it’s gotta be easy! If we can figure out how to record the audio on our Droid phones and easily upload the file and put in a blog post like this, then we just might do it.
For this, I used the Smart Voice Recorder App on my phone, then I uploaded the resulting .wav file to a Podcast folder on our website and used a little bit of HTML5 code to emed the audio file here. Let’s see if this works!
Our testing shows tis works fine with the Chrome browser, but not so much with Internet Explorer. If it doesn’t work for you try this link.
And here’s a video using JWPlayer and AWS S3
[jwplayer mediaid=”6201″]