Ideas from Mark Stout

Today's Family Tech column is about a serious subject. The remaining ones before Christmas will be fun, I promise.

I did something stupid earlier this week.  I imported a bunch of big image files into Evernote.  I intended to put them into their own local, non-sync'd notebook.  I failed to designate the notebook as local when I created it. In one act, my Evernote quota nearly maxed out with a week to go before rolling over.  I had maybe 200K left. My first advice to anyone in the same predicament, is go Premium .  In fact, you can invoke Premium for $5 a month, and then cancel it after the first month.  Phil Libin, the Evernote CEO said as much in one of their podcasts .  Premium would have given me 500 megabytes a month right then and there, instead of the 40 megabytes a month the free account does. I didn't for a variety of reasons.  The thought occurred to me the week would be a good opportunity to find strategies and blog about them.  Use them only if you can't go Premium.  Premium is a great value, and Evernote richly deserv...

Great Danes and small children do mix. Both the 13 month old boy, and the seven year old Dane seemed to enjoy one another. Even when the boy crawled through the legs of Sol from one side to the other.

Only 3 days to go though.  Can I muddle through without going Premium right now? I am addicted to Evernote.

Family Tech Column this week :  Smartphones make a smart family gift

Update same day as publish (11-20-2009 6:51 PM EST) : The Delicious import was forever on the Web Client's Settings page.  I see now Evernote has redone that page, and now has a separate Import page.  However that page only lists import from Google Notes.  It does not have Delicious anymore.  I'll leave a message on one of the forums asking about it and will update here when I get an answer. Update 11-22-2009 - Evernote says " The delicious API changed its behavior enough that it failed more often than it worked for our users. We disabled it until we have someone who can sort out whether there's a better solution. "  Let's hope it isn't too long.  When I see the import ability is back, I'll create a new post here.   Some men collect cars, or golf clubs, or coins.  I collect bookmarks. As I surf the web, I am forever finding things that I either want to be able to find again, or find interesting but do not have the time just then to read. ...

Dave Winer thinks so .  I think he's sort of right.  Dropbox & Evernote are tied in my mind.  And complementary. On another topic, I got a nice link in this post today .  Thanks.

I'm writing a piece on Smartphones as Christmas gifts.  By Smartphone, I mean a phone that can surf the web and maybe run apps that help you out.  Not only do I mean iPhone and Android phones, but Instincts, Palm Pre's, Blackberry etc. I am looking for feedback to quote.  Please leave in comments any things you have on the questions, "Has your Smartphone changed your life?  How?"  Please mention your Smartphone's name. All comments are assumed to be free to print as quotes with attribution to you. Thanks for any help.

If over Thanksgiving, you are likely to hear "While you are here, can you take a look at my computer.  You know so much more about those things then I do." then you are your family's geek. You may not think of yourself as especially knowledgeable but to those around you, in comparison to themselves, you seem like a whiz kid. This week's Family Tech column at InsideNova.com is a few things to help you maintain your miracle worker status.

TechCrunch is reporting Google has snapped up Gizmo5 .  If true, this could mean fascinating things for Google Voice. Day 2 : Nov. 10, 2009 :   Still unconfirmed.   Andy Abramson has some insights. Day 4 : Nov. 12, 2009 : Confirmed by Google Voice Blog.

This week's newspaper column, Family Tech , is about using Dropbox to coordinate the efforts of your community group (i.e. Scouts, Little League etc.)

I've always been a big fan of traffic reports on news radio stations.  When I lived in San Francisco, KGO freely promoted their phone number to call with traffic news. I was surprised when you did call, it was the on air reporter who took the call.  You'd think they'd be busy gathering info from all the resources they had to compile traffic information from. I called so much, Lyn Durling in the morning used my full name while using everyone else's first name only, prompting my boss to ask if I was moonlighting for them.  Lyn asked me to call every morning when I passed over the 680 grade so he could get an accurate read on conditions. It was surprising when I moved to DC that WTOP never says their phone number on air during the weekday.  I've caught it a couple times on weekends.  When I've called, they have been nice, and again it was the on air person who answers. Stuck in really bad traffic the other day, I started to think how all the people stuck in t...

My latest column is up .  In talking about Wndows 7, I wonder if perhaps it will be the last great PC only operating system.  More and more, I suspect future OSs will be designed alongside siblings for various platforms:  PC, slates, phones, TV's etc. That's why I'm getting very intrigued with Android.