Tools

My Blogger friend over at 1+1+1=1 shared some computer secrets that are my new favorite! I'm sure that those of you who are internet/computer savvy already know about this stuff, but for the rest of us that aren't computer nerds, here's a tip for us!

Evernote is one of my new favorite websites. I love, love, love checking out fellow homeschooling blogs. I get tons of ideas and links. The problem is a forget half of what I find before I remember to use it. The same is true for crafting. Here is one advantage of evernote; I can clip the picture/web page/whatever I want to remember and tag it a bunch of different ways so that when I want to find something on a particular topic, there it is! It is the perfect perpetual sticky note.

Another advantage to evernote is this; I use Mike's computer a lot because it's faster and portable. However I use my computer too b/c I have an external hard drive and it's hooked up to the printer. Evernote has stopped me from emailing downloads and links to myself so I wont forget them. I have also been uploading a lot of homeschooling stuff from my hard drive so I can tag it in multiple categories and find things easier.

It has a ton of video tutorials, is very user friendly and you can use it on your iPhone or blackberry! Here is a good description from another user. I really like this!

I have also come to love my google calendar. One of my most favorite things about it is being able to create different calendars within one calendar. For example, I have a calendar titled Mike, one titled Rach, one for Homeschool, and another for Lucy. This is so convenient and I can color code it so it's easy to recognize what's what. I can select which calendar I want to see at any time or view than all at once. It's online so I can access it anywhere. I can set it to text or email me reminders of upcoming events. I can also add events to it from my phone as well as invite people to see a specific calendar (this has been helpful with homeschool stuff). And, as I create an event, I can choose to send email invites.

My other new favorite thing is igoogle. This is another thing that a blogger friend shared and it has changed my amount of time on the computer for sure! This is a new homepage for me that has all the sites I frequent right on one page. My email, Facebook, Blogs, bookmarks, and my google calendar (which I live by!) as well as a few more fun things like the weather, Pandora radio and birthdays. You can add more gadgets than stars in the sky (including twitter, YouTube and CNN).

What makes this so great to me is that it opens up other pages, like blogs and emails, in bubbles on the igoogle page. So you don't really leave your homepage. This really has saved me so much time and I love it! You also get to choose your background and that makes me happy! haha

I love technology!