I don't usually do an article on Sunday. I figured I can give you a rest one day a week, but I discovered something that is quite nice. If anyone uses Microsoft OneNote that comes with the Microsoft Office suite, you'll be happy to hear that Google has released what looks like a OneNote clone on the web. Like most web applications, things are a little bit different and the user interface is not quite as robust, but all in all this is mighty impressive. I typically do my blog posts in OneNote because often times I have several topics floating around in my head. Trading ideas, trading systems and market information flow in faster than I can analyze and digest so I may write a brief sentence or two and look through my notes to follow up later.
The clear advantage to having this on the internet of course, is being able to access my notes from any computer. Another big deal is going to be when I change or upgrade computers. It's one less thing I have to worry about moving to the new computer. Finally, for those that don't currently use OneNote, there's another advantage since you don't have to buy any software.
To begin adding a note, just go to your notebook and click anywhere and start typing. It doesn't matter if you're not in the right place, you can always move the note to the proper location later. Your notebooks are listed on the left. Each note can be moved to the appropriate notebook by clicking the arrow drop down in the upper right hand corner. Below I demonstrate moving the entry to my blog notebook
(click to enlarge)
Basic text manipulation including changing the font, font size and color are available. You can also add
hyperlinks into your note as well. One thing that is missing that I use in OneNote is the ability to embed an image.
Noting URLs is a nice touch. I have a number of URLs that I don't save but wish I had later. These are URLs that come up over the course of months or years that I come across doing research. The content is usually not compelling enough or applicable enough for me to clutter my bookmarks with at the time. I've now found a home for these links. When performing a search in Google, there is a hyperlink next to each search results called "Note This". Click on this link to create a new note in your notebook with the URL as a reference.
The Google Notebook browser extension allows you to add notes from any webpage by installing a plugin that places a tool strip with a single button beneath the URL bar and above the tabs (in Internet Explorer 7). It also embeds a notebook icon in the status bar of your browser. Click the notebook in either location to begin making notes from any URL. I'm not sure if I find this useful yet.
So now I've completed my first article for the blog using Google Notebook. I'm certainly interested hearing what others think of this tool.
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