It's March Madness. Go Spartans

Thing #12 Rollyo

Susan Geiger tells me that Rollyo has been around for a long time (in Web 2.0 terms which is apparently measured somewhat like dog years), but somehow I had never run across it. This could have saved me lots of craziness.

If you read my post on RSS feeds you know that I follow a ridiculous number of blogs and since I read them in an RSS reader (Google Reader) I don't have a lot of visual cues to help me tell them apart. So lots of times I will read about something on the fly and later can't remember which of the 9 educational or 7 political or 8 tech blogs that I follow reported on it. So a Rollyo that searchs the blogs that I read regularly can let me look up that entry that I read a week ago and now can't quite remember where it was reported.

Wow, this should save some of that hair that I start pulling out when I can't find that very relevant post I need to win that argument make that salient point next time I am in a desperately heated fight lively exchange of ideas.

Thing #11 Web 2.0 Apps and Ning

One of my favorite Web 2.0 apps did not make the cut of the award winners that the library recommended, but it is a terrific hybrid tool that uses the "cloud" and also has interfaces for most of your web-able appliances (computers, phones and the like).

Evernote uses both a web interface and applications you can download to your computer (Mac and Win), iPhone or Windows Mobile device to set up notebooks that are stored on the web. You can also use their website to access your notebooks and add notes that you clip from other websites with their browser tools. You can add text, photos, web clippings, email clippings, screenshots, voice notes and attachments of all sorts and then organize them using tags and folders.

It's very cool. I use it for things like sharing grocery lists with my partner who can input items on the list online that I can access later on my iPhone at the store. At Christmas time I would take pictures with my phone and note prices of things I wanted to buy for the kids but first wanted to discuss with her. "No, don't buy that. I already found the bike for Daniel." "Oh." I say "Oh." alot in those conversations. Evernote doesn't really help with that part of the discussion.