Synchronizing OneNote 2007 with Office Live

Excited that I finally figured this out, here is a step-by-step how-to that will enable you to put your OneNote notebook online with Office Live, allowing for Live sync and sharing amongst multiple computers.

DISCLAIMER:  At this time, Office Live Small Business gives free webspace in the amount of 50 MB.  If your books are smaller than this, then you will be fine.  If you choose to upgrade your server space, you can do so by purchasing additional space.  $4.95 a month plus taxes gets you 1GB of space.

If you are only using Windows Vista or 7 machines, you will NOT want to use this method because there are free WebDAV providers out there that OneNote will be compatible with.  Only use this method if you are looking for a free or cheap way to sync with multiple computers that include Windows XP computers.

If you want me to explain how I set up my personal Vista machine to sync via WebDAV with a public provider, let me know.

Let’s get started.

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Affixa: Integrate Windows With Webmail

–Notably Good Ltd

Email for the common user is increasingly web-based.  Gone are the days where a mail ISP just dropped your mail in a box somewhere, and the preferred (only?) method of doing anything nice with it was to have a client installed on your machine.  Gone are the days where web-based email was a horrible thing to have to navigate, used only in the emergency where you had no choice but to check it online.

But, Windows has yet to truly acknowledge this.  Send To | Mail Recipient is limited to the client you have installed on your computer.  Every one of us has done it: right click a file, choose Send To | Mail Recipient, and then moan in displeasure as some client we never use (read: Outlook Express) would pop up and declare that you need to set up your account!

This has been driving me crazy.  I use Google Apps for my email, and I was trying to find some solution around this.  There are some odd registry hacks out there that can jimmy-rig it for sending emails and handling some mailto links, but then you run into the problem of sending attachments (read: having to do it manually).  I found relief in the form of Affixa.

Relief, at least, for Gmail and Yahoo! Mail users.  As Affixa’s website puts it: “It’s 2009, and email is web-based.  So why is Windows still partying like it’s 1999?” Read the rest of this entry »

Google Chrome: The Novelty is Wearing Off

I love Google.  They’re a great company.  I have Google Apps on my website, Google everything on my BlackBerry, and I hopped onto Google Chrome as soon as it came out. 

Knowing it was in the introductory phase, I dealt with certain facts of Chrome, such as the inability to use plug-ins or extensions.  Chrome is a fast little beast, and I enjoy it immensely.

But recently, I have had need to open Firefox once or twice during my work, and I see some of the extensions that I used to use that I no longer do.  I started getting frustrated with the lack of synchronization of bookmarks (Delicious), the inability to check out advanced details of CSS when working with web design (CSSViewer), and my popups. notifications and other various tweaks (FaviconizeTab, Google Reader Watcher, to name a couple.)

Google Chrome is nice and clean, but the bottom line is starting to dawn on me:  It is less functional, in its current form, than Firefox, and even Internet Explorer.  The amount of time I’m spending on bookmarks and dealing with CSS in Chrome is far outweighing the time I’m saving in the fast streamlined browsing experience I get from it. 

My opinion:  Google Chrome can’t compete unless it gets with the program.

And getting with the program it seems to be.  The net is abound with rumors and such that Chrome is getting extensions eventually.  According to Chromeplugins.org, and confirmed by Google, there seems to be a session dedicated to the development of extensions for the upcoming Google I/O Developer Conference, scheduled for May.

It’s just a few months away, but my patience is wearing thin.  I’m tempted to jump back to Firefox for now, and come revisit Chrome after the conference.  If extensions start getting coded.