Ideas from Mark Stout

Ways to learn to search better.   This week's Family Tech column.

Twitter is making a lot of people mad these days, including me. I think I have a solution. First, they urged third parties to build clients to help their platform grow.  Now, they have changed their API rules and cut many of those innovators off at the knees. They finally got my goat this week when IFTTT.com announced they were having to delete recipes due to the API change.  I had several recipes but the one I'll miss most copied any tweet I Favorited to Evernote for later reading. Most of my time to scan social sites is during bits of downtime during the day, and I'd do it on my phone. Many times I'd be reading tweets on my phone, see a tweet with a link I wanted to read later when I could give it more attention. I could favorite a tweet on Tweetdeck with three touches.  IFTTT.com would see the Favorite and copy it to Evernote. I can share to Evernote on my Android phone, but it takes five touches.  Not a big deal, but it ...

This week's Family Tech talks about the new iPhone 5 and other new products vying for our attention this Christmas.

This week's Family Tech column is specific to parents with children in the Virginia's Prince William County Schools, but your district may have similar capabilities. It describes the county system for checking up on your child's grades, attendance and assignments.  And also on how to use their phone to track their location.

I am a little surprised that Amazon's new 8.9 inch Kindle Fire HD and updated 7 inch Kindle Fire HD still do not have Bluetooth.  Or am I missing something in the specs?  I know the original Kindle Fire did not have Bluetooth. I know they are meant as media consumption devices.  While they probably have good speakers, if you want bigger speakers or good headphones, they invariably hook up via Bluetooth. Personally, I sometimes use a Bluetooth keyboard with my Xoom tablet to write.  I don't do it often, but when I do I find the ability of value.  I couldn't get that with a Fire. I'm afraid the Nexus 7 is still the better tablet.  Even if I don't get affiliate commission as I would if you buy a Fire with one of the above links.

from  Get Productive Fast: New Sharing Abilities in Windows & Mac Clients : Released today are updated versions to the Mac and Windows Evernote clients giving users more options for sharing. From their blog : You can now easily update sharing permissions for individuals, and, if you’re a Premium user, you can allow others to re-share your notebooks. In addition, the whole sharing interface got a nice redesign. Check it out  at the Evernote blog.

If you haven't checked out the update to Evernote's Trunk do so now. They do a wonderful job of highlighting products and services to augment your already awesome Evernote experience. Not having an awesome experience? My book my help you find the awesomeness. (Cross posted with Get Productive Fast website)

A few ideas not worthy of a full column for each, but I wanted to share, are in this week's Family Tech column.