Note Talkers

This is a reminder to let everyone know our contest is ending in three days on May 15th 2006 at 11pm EST.  Stop procrastinating and submit those entries!

Hello to everyone.  I am finally done with my finals exams and have moved to a new dorm for the summer.  Things will get back to speed in no time here at Note Talkers.  In the mean time, we have a question for all of our readers. Your feedback will dictate our actions.

For about a week or so, we have been considering conduction live webinars.  The webinars would be conducted through Microsoft Live Meeting and our readers can join in and see/hear the webinar.  For the readers who could not join, we would post a recording a few days later.

The topics can be anything the users are intersted in.  Some example topics include a run through of OneNote 2007, the power of Wikis, how to organize notes, etc.

My question is, is this something you guys are interested in?  If so, please comment on this post.  If not, please comment on why not.

Thanks,
Sid

I have finals all this week and have not been able to update this site. So, I thought I would entertain you with our 10 Most Popular Posts of April 2006.

1. Mind Map of Office 2007 Resources by Don Campbell

2. Participate in our MindManager Map Contest and Win Big

3. New OneNote 2007 Beta Features

4. Using the Prizes: Part 2 – Brainstorm and Export

5. “What’s he doing?” as a way to share how you take notes with co-workers

6. Join the ResultsManager meme

7. Another Bonus Prize for Referrals?

8. Site News: Big News Coming Real Soon!

9. Sign Up For Office 2007 Beta News (including OneNote 2007)

10. Fifty Ways to Take Notes

I have been using the Office 2007 Beta 1 Technical Refresh for a few weeks. I did not expect new features in the system, but I did notice new things in OneNote. I do not know if they are new features or if I just didn’t see them in Beta 1. But, they are new to me and I have not covered them previously.

New Features:

• Full Screen Mode (Full Page View)
• Get more desktop real estate with the Full Page View. This view gets rid of everything on the sides and the bottom and keep the toolbars on top.
• Unfilled Notes
• Have random notes that aren’t filed yet? It’s ok, they are kept under “Unfilled Notes”
• Color Codes for OneNote 2003 and OneNote 2007 Notebooks
• In the previous OneNote 2007 Beta release, all notebooks were color coded. But now, only notebook created in OneNote 2007 are color coded. Imported notebooks are white.
• Screen Clipping Tool
• This screen clipping tool lets you clip from a previous windows and the screen clip is sent directly to OneNote 2007.
• Automatic and Manual Page Extend
• Pages can now be extended manually and/or automatically!

My thoughts:

Full Screen mode is amazing and I use it constantly. I don’t have to manually turn off toolbars to get more writing/typing space. I haven’t used the unfilled notes feature yet because I am having trouble understanding how to use it. The different color codes is nice and helps keep track out different notebooks, especially between OneNote 2003 and OneNote 2007.

The screen clipping tool is useful, but I have mixed feelings about it. You can only clip from a previous windows, not a window of your choosing or the desktop. I find the Tablet PC Snipping Tool more useful.

I am really glad the developers brought back the Manual Page Extend. One of the reasons I didn’t use OneNote 2007 a lot was the automatic page extend. I found it helpful, but it would “kick in” too late for my taste. I had to read a couple of inches from the bottom for it to extend. I like writing/typing near the top of page, not the bottom. What would be even better is if there was a way to the automatic page extend can learn your habits or if you can modify when it “kicks in.”

Coming Up: Screen cast of the New Features

Sometimes it feels like I’m part of a minority using MindManager and OneNote (with PowerToys), so it was comforting to find Don Campbell’s Blog (MS Evangelist for Office) and his post of a Mind Map of Office 2007 Resources.

(via MindJet Blog)

One of the things I like to do with MindManager is brainstorm. It has a “Brainstorm Mode” (Tools -> Start Brainstorm…) which helps you enter a bunch of topics and then group them. Just dump all your thoughts about a subject and then organize it.

So you created a few Mind Maps and have a bunch of great information, but what do you do with it? It’s different than your existing processes/applications and no one else in the office has MindManager (yet). Some “quick wins” for supplementing your existing processes is to export the data…

• MS Word – Creates an outline with Numbering, Indenting, and more. Everyone will be impressed with how well you formatted the document.
• MS Visio – Create a Flowchart or Org Chart.
• MS PowerPoint – Add a great visual to your boring slideshow. People will be intrigued by the Mind Map and may actually pay attention!
• MS Project – (I love this one) Whip up a Project file for your boss in no time without the tedious New Project Wizard.
• MS Outlook Tasks – Create (and Sync) Tasks in Outlook.
• PDF and Image – Share your maps
• Pack and Go – Create a Zip file and password protect it.
• Save as Web Pages – Lots of options (Templates)…
• Dynamic Outline – Sidebar navigation using a dynamic Javascript outline control. Should be used for exports that require page navigation deeper than 2 levels.
• Single Page – Single page export with all topics listed together, and a Table of Contents at the top of the page.
• Presentation – Images-only export for displaying a map as a sequenced presentation in a browser. Best suited for Intranet, local disk or high-speed connections due to the number of image files.
• Static Outline – Sidebar navigation using a static HTML outline. Designed for smaller maps that only require page navigation 1 or 2 levels deep.
• Clickable Imagemap – Single-page clickable imagemap containing the map as currently viewed. Also creates the image file and raw HTML code for use in other web pages. (Example)
• Simple Outline – Single page export with all topics listed together and a Table of Contents at the top of the page.

That should get you started. Later we’ll explore how to stay in MindManager and some tools to enhance it (ResultsManager, KnowledgeLink Pro, & DecisionMill).

Due to the high traffic and popularity of our contest, we are extending the submission deadline by 3 weeks.  The new deadline is 5/15/2006 by 11 pm EST.  Now, you really have no excuses!

This will be a new series of posts titled “Using the Prizes.” It will show some uses for the applications in the MindManager Contest Prize Package. This post talks about a basic mind map.

To start us off I created a simple map of the prizes…

• Added hyperlinks to the product pages.
• Added Callouts and a description of each.
• Created a Relationship between Camtasia and SnagIt
• Added some Task Marker Icons
• Added a Map Part (RSS feed) for the MindJet Blog
• Modified the MindManager Topic
• Changed the shape to a hexagon (Format Topic…)
• Changed the color to blue
• Added an Image of their logo

Obviously these are just some basics and not that exciting, but I wanted to post the starting point so visitors can see the progression.

link to mmap file

Don’t have MindManager?  That’s ok, download the free viewer here.

Eric Mack doesn’t spell it out in this post titled “Mindjet listens. I get my wish” but I’m looking forward to seeing what integration can be done with Lotus Notes and MindManager. He was previously working on properly formatting a Hyperlink/DocLink, but hopefully there is more.

UPDATE: From the MM6 SP1 information…

- Added Lotus Notes Hyperlink -> hyperlink to Lotus Notes documents in Mail, Calendar, Address Book and To Do. In Lotus Notes, select an e-mail, appointment, contact or task, choose “Copy as Document Link” or go to the Edit menu and choose one of the copy as link commands, then Paste in MindManager (or Paste Hyperlink, or Edit -> Paste Special -> Hyperlink).
Supports IBM Lotus Notes 6.5 only. 

I take notes in too many places already, but after reading Brian Benzinger’s post about Fifty Ways to Take Notes I added a few!