Ever student knows that they can go to Wikipedia for an overview of a subject, that they can go to Google for a wide variety of perspectives and popular media,  Google Scholar for academic journal references, and Google Books for searching within books, both current and obscure.  The new Google Squared even organizes output into a table of key concepts to help you organize your research.

But there is a key weakness to all of these resources:  they are designed to point you to documents that might have the answer.   Google can do some simple calculations and conversion from the search box, but in general you end up with links to resources that MIGHT have the answer you are looking for.

An alternative to your normal searches

WolframAlpha is different; very different.   Read the rest of this entry »

“You can’t expect to meet the challenges of today with yesterday’s tools and expect to be in business tomorrow.”

One of the biggest challenges of GTD lies is finding the right tools and system for you. There are many tools available across all platforms, including online. The hardest part is choosing a single tool that fits your personal needs, and ultimately something that you will stick to and not abandon. I’ve seen some versatile GTD tools, but with an ugly interface, I found myself dreading them within a week.  My longest stay has been with Remember The Milk. I used RTM contently for over a year, but eventually I found that I had outgrew my system. Some of the things I wanted to do, like sub-tasks, sub-projects and different views and task sorting were not possible in RTM.  Coincidentally, I had recently gotten a Mac, which opened up a whole new platform of possibilities. The biggest player in the task management field being OmniFocus. Long story short, I have found OmniFocus to be the best GTD tool I have ever tried.

Here are the Top 7 reasons you should try out OmniFocus (buy a Mac if you have to):

1. It is really really ridiculously good looking.

When choosing a tool that you are going to be using for countless hours each week as the core of your organizational system, it needs to be an enjoyable experience. OmniFocus has an attractive interface that combines the glossy and familiar interface of Leopard with a simple and easy to use program interface. The end result is something that is eye catching, but still lets you focus on your work.

2. It has a brother - OmniFocus for iPhone.

One of the main reasons I left Remember The Milk was that I couldn’t carry it around with me unless I had a Windows Mobile phone or a Palm. OmniFocus has a great iPhone and iPod Touch app which lets you sync your tasks and go. The interface is designed similarly to OmniFocus and offers most of the functionality of the desktop client. It even makes use of the iPhone’s GPS by notifying you when you approach geographically defined contexts, and telling you what actions are available.

3. It works well with GTD.

If you’re an orthodox GTD’er, you are going to like OmniFocus. The contexts and projects set up will satisfy even the strictest of GTDer’s. In fact it will satisfy everyone, because even if you don’t like strict GTD, you can customize how you use OmniFocus to fit your needs.

4. Sub-projects, sub-contexts, sub-tasks, sub-everything.

There is something distinctly satisfying about being able to organize small tasks into bigger tasks into projects into bigger projects into folders, etc. You can even organize your contexts in a hierarchy.  This is a great feature for drilling down to any level of your contexts. For example you could look at all possible actions around home, or look specifically at actions that are available in the basement, garage, etc.

5. OmniFocus offers precise availability through start dates, task order, and holds.

In any given action list, there will be countless actions that you cannot complete due to not being in the right place, someone or something being unavailable,  or perhaps the time to complete the task hasn’t even come around yet. OmniFocus allows you to  filter your lists to view only actions which have a passed start date, are in an available context, and do not rely on the completion of another uncompleted task. You can even put entire contexts or projects on hold, so they will not show up in your next actions.

6. Easy capture with Quick Entry and Clippings.

OmniFocus allows you to quickly capture your actions using it’s Quick Entry box. By tapping a key shortcut, a box pops up on screen and allows you to add tasks and then close it. You can also use a shortcut to clip portions of text from other applications and put them as a note for items.

7. Drill down with Perspectives.

OmniFocus has a feature called perspectives, which lets you save the view properties of a window as a state, and restore them at a future time. This allows you to manipulate OF’s interface to view only what you want. For example I use a “Do Today” perspective, which only shows overdue items and flagged items, and has the toolbar and sidebar minimized. This allows me to easily view what I plan on doing today. When I’m done, I can easily return to my regular window.

Obviously I have not covered near all of the features of OmniFocus, but these are the most important ones to me. OmniFocus has a free 14-day trial which allows you to try out the product before you buy. I’d highly recommend checking it out, you will be impressed.

OmniFocus [OmniGroup]

How many of you have heard of Steve Pavlina?
He is well known for his personal development blog in addition to his personal experiments on things such as raw foodism and polyphasic sleep (see his blog if you want to know more), Steve is certainly an interesting guy. Lately, he has been working on his first book, Personal Development for Smart People, which I have been looking forward to for a while now, after he planned to write one a number of years ago, but that plan got put on hold. The result has recently been released, due to be released on the 14^th of October, but ended up being released early.

The book sets out a ’system’ for personal development that is extremely unique. Although I have not read huge collections of personal development books, I have read a few and this seems far different from anything else I have read. As Steve says, many other systems are flawed in that they only address one aspect of personal development. Steve’s system is designed to be totally universal and applies to all aspects of life, from health to wealth and relationships. I’ll try not to give away all of Steve’s secrets, but I will certainly try and give you an idea of what the book is about in this review:

The Triangle                                    
I think the first part of the book, if read on its own would not make much sense to some people. It may seem difficult to slot together and understand, so if you do read the book and struggle to keep up during the first part, don’t panic! You are going to be trying to work out how it fits into your life, and this all becomes clear after reading the second section. It is like having to be taught the theory first before you can start applying it to situations.

In terms of the theory taught, the first part of the book is based around the idea of a personal development triangle, which has the following seven characteristics around it:

Primary Principles
Truth
Love
Power

Secondary Principles
Oneness
Authority
Courage
Intelligence

The idea is that two of the secondary characteristics add together to produce one of the primary characteristics, with every characteristic being something that we must master in order to develop ourselves. These can be applied to all aspects of life, from your grades to your wealth.

Part Two – The Application
The second part of the book, much like many other personal development books, looks at how to apply the knowledge that you have gained to various aspects of your life, looking at six different areas in total. This part really helped me to understand the basic principles behind the book, and how they apply to real life.

The chapters work through in a very digestible way. It is divided into the seven subheadings or principles, with each section of the chapter looking at a different principle. The chapters often prompt you to question things, examples being in the Money and Love section – “Would anyone cry if I went out of business” – looking at whether your work is truly meaningful. These questions can be very insightful, and beyond what paragraphs of writing could provide, really inspire you to question in a way that is beneficial to you personally.

Summary
I found Personal Development for Smart People to be an excellent book. It is well worth checking out Steve’s blog first to get an idea of some of his writings, but don’t expect it to be the same thing. It is certainly original, and offers a really unique insight from a guy who has spent so much of his life focusing on his and others personal development. Some students might find this book to be a bit much for them, if you are the type that is happy to just get on with schoolwork, then this book probably is not for you, but if you want to take your personal development into your own hands, this book is a good place to start. Don’t be surprised if you have to pause when reading however; and read chapter by chapter, there is a lot of information condensed into this book, and it may take some time to get to grips with!

Disclaimer: I was provided with a free review copy of Personal Development for Smart People in eBook format in order to write this review.

Welcome to the first post of Mac Addict. Your first stop for Mac only software, hardware, and gadgets reviews with students in mind. With school comes textbooks, workbooks, and of course, journal articles. The hard drives of college students and professors alike are littered with dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of articles. How do you tame the chaos?

Enter Papers

Papers is like iTunes for your budding journal article collection. It has all of those same search and organization features that we have come to know and love in iTunes, but applied to PDFs. Have a paper due on the French Revolution? Start a smart collection, set the conditions for inclusion in the list, and voila! All the articles you have now and will add later will be included in that collection. Imagine the zen-like calm that will descend upon you as the realization your research is intuitively organized and easily backed-up. You, my friend, will be envied when crunch time hits.

But it doesn’t stop there. You’re at your desk and you remember reading this amazing book review that you popped into Papers, but can’t find it now. No problem. Click the ‘Reviews’ button on the top and it displays only those PDFs that you’ve marked as reviews. Now, you need to send that to the rest of your group. Easy as pie. Just hit the handy-dandy ‘E-mail’ button, type in the e-mail addresses of your group, a little blurb, and *poof* your group has the article they need. Genius!

While all of this is well and good, what makes it the ‘must-own’ piece of software is the simple fact that you can download journal articles directly from databases like JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Pubmed, plus loads of others. Tabbed browsing within Papers. Oh yes, they went there. No more flipping between 6 different windows as you hunt down an article for your paper.  Find an article you want, click the download button and all of the bibliographic information comes with it, too. Go to ‘File’, hit ‘Export’ then ‘Word2008bibliography’ or whatever bibliographic software you have, and you’re ready to roll. “But I don’t know how to handle the proxies,” you whine. Go, Young Grasshopper, to the Reference Librarian and they will show you the path. Want to save that search for latter? Check a little box and it’s done. You can even mark up PDF files with notes and highlighting right in Papers, with either Preview or iSkim, or just read it in the ever handy ‘Fullscreen’ mode. Will that save trees and cash? You bet.

As far as performance is concerned, I’m running a 3 year old iBook with Leopard and 1.512GB RAM. I have a humble collection of 140 articles and it runs like a dream. Granted, if you have a collection of a few thousand articles you’ll probably see some performance issues, but that comes with the territory. If your machine is newer, it will run that much better.

The developers are incredibly helpful and quick with responses to e-mail. And those guys aren’t just software developers who had a good idea. They’re graduate students/research scientists, so they really know what it’s like to have an information overload. If you think they have compromised or cut corners on this program in any way, think again. In 2007, they won an Apple Design Award for it. Yes, it is that good.

The support forums are lively and it is a great way to not only share ideas and tricks with the other users, but suggest features for the program. If you use Firefox and Zotero, there are a few, but growing, resources there to help you get the most out of both pieces of software.

Did I mention they offer a 40% educational discount on the regular price of $42? That works out to about $26. So, for the price of a large pizza, wings, and ahem ‘beverage’, you can own a fantastic piece of software that will make your life 1,000 times easier.

By the way, they also have a number of other helpful program for those in the sciences available at: http://mekentosj.com/programs/

I’ve been using this program for 2 years now and I wonder what I did before I found it. It made finishing my Master’s thesis that much easier and I knew I had an advantage since my research was always organized and ready to go.

Let me sum it up this way. If you own a Mac and you are a student, you need to own Papers.  ‘Nuff said.

http://mekentosj.com/papers Read the rest of this entry »

To read my complete journey to GTD Mastery see the main post.

Step 15 to GTD Mastery is: I have a paper file system which is fun and fast to use, perhaps using an automatic labeler.

A couple of months ago, I put out a call for help to our readers for the creation of my paper file system. Many of the responses advocated a paperless system. After weighing my options, I chose the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510 scanner (Mac version here). The S300, a lower-end model is also available (comparison chart here). The factors that swayed my decision were the inclusion of Acrobat Standard and the carrier sheet support which helps with the scanning of my odd-shaped newspaper/magazine clippings. The S510 also scans over twice as fast and you can feed it 50 pages compared to 10 pages with the S300. This lets me use the S510 as my inbox.

First Impressions
Upon opening, I couldn’t believe how small the S510 was. Its footprint is less than a standard piece of letter-size paper.

Setup
Step-by-step instructions are provided in the manual and are easy to understand. The first step was to install the ScanSnap’s drivers and software and Acrobat (Windows 2000, XP, and Vista compatible). Everything went smoothly and, despite the software spanning 3 CDs, I only had to restart the computer once. The ScanSnap itself connects via USB and is run off of DC power.

Testing
I tested out the ScanSnap with a pamphlet I received from school. You can take a look at the resulting PDF here.

At this point in the review, I should be writing about how great a product the ScanSnap is and how it has simplified and revolutionzed my paper workflow. However, I’m going to outsource this part of my life, Tim Ferriss style. Ryan Norbauer over at 43 Folders shares my love for the ScanSnap.

Here’s the premise: the SnanSnap is the first consumer scanner (that I’ve used anyway) to truly be about information storage. It’s not for ultra high-resolution photo scanning; it’s all about documents and speed. Firstly, you initiate scans by piling your documents into the stacker and simply pressing the one big button on the face of the device. It then rapidly (and I mean damn fast) gobbles up your papers and spits them out at the bottom. Fujitsu says up to 36 pages/minute in duplex mode, and that sounds about right. The resulting digital document gets dumped right onto your hard drive in searchable PDF format, which every OS seems to understand natively these days. It automatically corrects for mis-aligned papers, auto-detects whether the document is color or monochrome, scans in duplex if it detects a back side to the page being scanned, and detects the size of the paper being scanned and intelligently crops the digital version to the right size. You can mix and match document types liberally and it stitches them all together into one PDF with each page automatically adjusted to its own parameters. I love that there is just one operative button: you just tell it to go to town, and it gets out of your way and makes smart guesses based on what you give it.

Carrier Sheet
I pulled out an old magazine clipping to test out the carrier sheet. Needless to say the ScanSnap came through again. You can find the resulting PDF here.

CardMinder
You can also scan any business cards you may receive.

The ScanSnap includes the CardMinder software for managing your business cards. Unfortunately, it only supports the reading of the contact’s name, company name, one phone number, email address. In the future, I hope that it will support address info, multiple phone numbers, and website. You can export the card info to Outlook or Outlook Express. If you use a different email client, CardMinder also allows you to export the info to a CSV file. I use Gmail and it supports the importing of CSV files.

Gmail correctly identifies the “name” and “email” fields from CardMinder’s CSV. However, the “phone” and “company” are placed in the contact’s notes under “more information.”

Final Thoughts
Being a student with a budget, I had my reservations about the ScanSnap’s price tag. However, in the long run, the ScanSnap will be cheaper than filing cabinets, file folders, a labeler, and labeller refills. I purchased mine from ATS Systems here in Canada with free shipping on orders over $99. There’s also a $50 rebate on all S510s purchased from January 1 to March 31. You can download the rebate here. The total cost of my ScanSnap came to $450 CAD. Amazon and eBay are currently selling them for ~$400 US (plus shipping). If you’re on a tighter budget, the S300 is listed for $260 CAD at ATS Systems. If you don’t need the carrier sheet and don’t mind slightly slower scan times, I would save your money and buy the S300. If space is a concern, the S300 is half the depth of the S510.

OneBigU’s slogan says it all, “Answer Questions, Help Darfur.” OneBigU is the brainchild of Eric Cheung, a University of Toronto graduate.

The idea came when I was stuck on an assignment for school. Sure, I could call up a friend or pester them with messages, but why do that?

I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only student in the world to be stuck on this particular problem.

If only there was a place where you could find old and new questions asked by students around the world along with the answers…

Perhaps Eric didn’t find that community, but he is starting to build it. Launching at the beginning of the year, OneBigU’s premise is similar to Yahoo Answers: ask questions and share your knowledge with anyone over the web. However, OneBigU focuses on students, with questions stemming from a student’s homework problems. Anyone is free to post a question without signing up. However, you must sign up in order to answer questions.

Upon answering a question, other members can vote if they believe your answer is correct. Ultimately, the submitter of the question selects a “best answer.” Following this, OneBigU pays the user who submitted the “best answer” as a portion of its ad revenue. The user is then free to either withdraw the funds to their PayPal account or donate the funds to OneBigU’s partner charity, Help Darfur Now (HDN).

HDN is a non-profit organzation geared specifically for students and their families that is dedicated to raising funds for and awareness of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It was started by three New Jersey high school students. Currently, HDN has 100 chapters across the US.

Prominently displayed on HDN’s home page are endorsements by the likes of George Clooney, Martin Sheen, and Senator Barrack Obama.

Hands-On
Below you can see the results of my experience with OneBigU.

What Does the Future Hold?

Currently, OneBigU has raised $35, with $25 going towards HDN. It remains to be seen whether OneBigU’s social consciousness will provide enough incentive to attract a larger user base.

One key factor at play would be its existence as an “online study group.” This has recently come under fire in Canada, where the Toronto Star reports that a student at Ryerson University (where I attend), located in Toronto, has been expelled for running a study group in Facebook.

For more info, see Eric’s interview with tech journalist Amber MacArthur, on the commandN video podcast.

On GearFire, I write about productivity and time management. If the adage “time is money” is true, then students need to manage their money too. Enter ClearCheckbook, a free Web 2.0 application for personal finance.

ClearCheckbook runs under the slogan “money management made easy” and I can wholeheartedly agree having used it for the last six months. Registration is simple, requiring only your e-mail and desired username and password. Upon registration you are presented with a step-by-step walkthrough of how to setup ClearCheckbook.

Step 1: Creating your Accounts

Account Name: Give your account a descriptive name.
Account Type: Is it Cash, Checking, Savings, or a Credit Card?
Active: Are you using it right now? If not, unchecking the box will hide the account until you need again.

Step 2: Manage Your Categories

When creating categories, I recommend subcategories to allow for detailed tracking of your spending habits. This stems from my adoption of the methodology in Your Money or Your Life. It is a personal finance book that comes highly recommended from tier-one bloggers.

Step 3: Manage Your Initial Balances

Amount: Enter the current balance of the account.
Description: Enter something appropriate.
Transaction: Initial balance.
Account: Do an initial balance for each of your accounts.
Category: You don’t need to categorize the initial balance.

After you have finished setup, you can click on the “summary” to go to your home page (seen below).

Step 4: Record your transactions

You are now ready to record your daily transactions. For example, you buy a DVD for $20 in cash.

Splitting a Transaction
Let’s say you order multiple items from Amazon on your credit card. ClearCheckbook let’s you subdivide the main transaction (seen below).

Balancing your Accounts

Forget whether your cheque has cleared? Worried about credit card fraud? ClearCheckbook uses “jiving” to easily balance your books. Each transaction has a checkmark beside it. You can confirm all your transactions by “jiving” them. For example, you go to your online banking and see the Amazon order on your credit card statement. In ClearCheckbook, you click “un-jived” in view options. “Jive” the Amazon order by clicking on the checkmark beside it (seen below).

Paying Off Your Credit Card

Spending Reports
You can view your spending habits by clicking on “reports” at the top of the page. ClearCheckbook provides pie charts and bar charts.

Recurring Notices
ClearCheckbook can send you reminders of payments or automatically create recurring transactions. You can access this by clicking “tools” at the top of the page.

Budgeting/Monthly Spending Limits
Also found under the “tools” page, it is a set-it-and-forget-it way to start budgeting.

Other Tools
ScratchPad: A text page for recording notes (e.g. use it as a wishlist).
Quicken Support: Import and export Quicken files.
Checkbot: Record your transactions using instant messaging or SMS on your cell phone.

If you’ve made it through this post, I’m sure you’ll find that ClearCheckbook is a powerful, intuitive, and free way to manage your finances. I know I have.

Full credit to Pascal Venier who posted a review of his Easy-read.

So what is it? According to their web-site,

Easy-read is an ergonomic book holder that allows its user to read in real comfort without the aching hands and discomforts we usually experience holding our book open.

As Pascal said, “I do not know how I managed before without it.” The Easy-read works flawlessly as described. They provide a set of easy, understandable picture instructions with how to setup the Easy-read (it’s actually easy). It has made reading and taking notes from textbooks much more efficient and less painful. It also makes practising speed-reading a lot easier because you don’t have to hold the book with one hand while using your other hand as the pointer.

It also serves as a copy holder when working at the computer. This comes in really handy when you’re writing a paper from an outline.

I can’t think of anything bad to say of the Easy-read because it just works. You can buy one from their site for only $19.95 + $2.95 shipping (USD). It also makes a great gift for anyone (especially fellow students).