I haven't made a post in ages - even though I've had plenty of time because of the summer holidays. I guess I have some catching up to do... But today is gonna be about OneNote 2010!

I had my first day on my 3rd semester today and it is a tradition for me to reformat my computers, so they are ready for the burden, that is to be used as a school computer. Since OneNote 2010 has been released and I get a free copy through a deal between my university and Microsoft, I of course wanted to try it out. And lots of good things can be said about it!

In ON 2010 Microsoft has enabled the use of SkyDrive. SkyDrive is Microsofts cloudsystem - if you have a Windows LiveID (a hotmail or live account) you already have a SkyDrive which can store a nifty 25GB of data. Think DropBox. If you create a web notebook in OneNote 2010 you will _always_ have access to your notes - simply from the browser! Pretty awesome. My main use of the service is to share my lecture notes between my laptop and stationary computer. And this takes me to my point - how does one setup such a system? Even though everything is so glassy and user friendly in Office it wasn't really obvious how to do this.

Setting up a shared notebook. Create a new Notebook and choose "Web" as type. Enter a logical name and proceed. OneNote will ask if you wish to send a link to the Notebook. Since you're only sharing between yourself on your own account, I simply recommend to just use a web interface - so click No.

Opening the shared notebook on another computer. It's actually really easy when you know what to do. Here's 3 steps:

1) Navigate to the SkyDrive. Open Internet Explorer (will _only_ work in IE), go to live.com and login using your liveID. In the top bar find the "Office"-link and click it. Now find the link where it says "SkyDrive" (below your file(s)) and click it.

2) Open the file. You will most likely see a folder or two. Open the folder which contains the file (probably "My Documents"), and find the OneNote-file inside and click it.

3) Opening the file in OneNote. In your upper left, click "File" and "Open in OneNote". Hurray - if you are using IE, the file should automagically open in OneNote and be a shared Notebook (it should have a globe in the icon).

Just repeat step 2&3 if you have more than one Notebook. Also, this also works on more than 2 computers (obviously) - just repeat the actions above for each computer.

Perhaps I will make a follow-up post on OneNote 2010 features. It really is an awesome program.

Cheers

I just stumbled upon some cool W7 tweaks on SevenForums and figured I'd post them here.

The first one is a tweak to change the hover delay on Aero Peak/thumbnail previews in the taskbar. The original link is here, but I've written a resume here.

The next one also concerns the taskbar. It's a tweak to enable easy cycling through previews by clicking on the taskbar icon. Copy+pasta:

My last tweak for you is really awesome. By creating transparent shortcuts in the taskbar you can group items in an easy way. Go to LifeHacker and find out how.

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Now, you might think 'visualizers? That old WMP 90's crap?'. The answer, I guess, is both yes and no. It's a visualizer in the way it visualizes the music using some sort of algorithm but no in the sense that this is nothing like any other visualizer I've ever seen.

Enough talk, I'll throw in a couple of pictures and then please go and hit CTRL + T and then CTRL + F in iTunes and sit back in joy. I never thought I would give Apple that much appreciation...

Pict 1

Update: I just found a link to a low quality video showing the visualizer in action. Go here.

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Firefox. Made up of all the small pieces.

So, this post is a perfect example of the purpose of this blog: making my life easier and bookmarks lighter. I don't use any fancy addons and you will therefore (most likely) not be surprised or find anything new here, but nevertheless I will list the ones I use and recommend.

Adblock Plus. The number one banner-killer on the web. Get rid of all those adds.

Brief. My favourite RSS-reader. Comes with a simple and elegant design.

DownThemAll. DTA is extremely useful if you need to download lot's of similar files on a page.

FlashBlock. This addon will block flash by default and thereby save you from a lot of adds.

IE Tab. Great plugin if you need to use/view some page in Internet Explorer.

NoScript. Actually, I don't use this addon. In my opinion too many things are blocked and it makes surfing the web a pain. However, it is without a doubt the safest way so enable this whenever you're browsing a place with minimal security.

PDF Download. Upon clicking on a link to a pdf-file, this addon will ask if you wish to open or save the file. Handy!

StumbleUpon. One of the most popular FireFox addons. I've used it for years but since it's so it's time-consuming (i.e. addicting) I've simply had to uninstall it! Try it out and see what I mean :)

Video DownloadHelper. Download those YouTube movies easily.

X-Marks (Foxmarks). This is the main reason for why I use Firefox. I have loads of bookmarks and this plugin synchronizes them between all my computers. It also gives access to ones bookmarks through the browser.

Okay, this was it I think. Cheers.

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To Quicktime or not to Quicktime

A year and a half ago lifehacker made an excellent post regarding alternatives to popular (and crappy) windows software. The post is still relevant but I wish to highlight a few that I've had good experiences with and add some other ones.

Alternatives to

Internet Explorer: Firefox. Or Chrome. Does this need explanation? GetFirefox.com please! Or if you need a light, fast browser go for Chrome. I use it for my NetBook and it works wonders when I just need a quick browsing session. But remember, Chrome hasn't got addons!

Adobe Reader: Foxit. Faster, firefox support, light. Did I say faster?

Quicktime: Quicktime Alternative. Although none would be better, Quicktime is a necessary for some programs.

RealPlayer: RealPlayer Alternative. If you need to play those RealPlayer-files.

WinZip: 7-Zip. Excellent free-ware alternative!

Windows Media Player: iTunes, Songbird. To be honest, I do like some aspects of WMP in Windows 7. But overall, it's terrible for managing larger libraries. Try iTunes if you have an iPod. If not, get Songbird! It's an awesome piece of software built on FireFox. Yes, you read that right! You get a browser IN your media player. Quite cool, aight?

iTunes: doubleTwist. Okay, so first I recommend iTunes and now reject it? Let me explain. For those of you with iPods; doubleTwist will let you sync and put music onto your iPod. Using doubleTwist you can now as an iPod owner get rid of iTunes if it isn't your thing. Also, the author is none other than DVD-Jon!

Tune-Up Utilities: Glary Utilities. I've used Tune-Up Utilities for quite a while. It's a wonderful application that easily takes care of your computer. However, because they haven't made it compatible with Windows 7 I was forced to find an alternative. And so I did! Glary Utilities even adds some good functions such as searching for duplicates. Get it while it's hot - and free!

Nero Suite: infraRecorder. Nero has never been my thing. Too much application for such a small task. Get infraRecorder. It's free and easy to use.

Daemon Tools: UltraISO. Although D-Tools always has been my mounting program of choice, the incompatibility with Windows 7 let me look elsewhere. I did so and found UltraISO. Very handy program, which easily let's you browse and mount images. It also does a whole bunch of other stuff, but I haven't really used those features.