BitCoin

Ok. i am out here on the bleeding edge of technology.

I have begun delving into Bitcoin. I opened a Bitcoin wallet account at CoinBase.com. It takes a couple of days to verify the connection to my bank account. So I haven't bought any Bitcoins yet.

The Current price is $787 each. So I will only buy 1 for now. These are easily convertible back into dollars. I don't know yet how purchasing is done. There must be a way to pay for items using fractions of a bitcoin.

I will keep posting on my experience.

Are you still buying music?

I was at a concert recently listening to Nestor Torres.  He was a new artist to me but my wife had heard him years before and brought me.  I was very happy to discover this new artist playing latin Jazz.  During intermission I found that they were selling his CDs in the lobby for $20 each.  Fortunately for me, I don't buy music anymore.  I pulled out my smartphone, opened the app "Spotify", searched for him and grabbed up 5 of his albums into a single playlist to enjoy later FOR FREE.    No I am not a theif nor a friend of the artist.  In fact for each of the concerts I have been to in the last year I have done the same thing.

Are you still buying music?  Formerly, I spent an average of $20/month buying CDs either at a retail store or through Amazon.  For the longest time I was dependent on the radio for the next time my favorite artist came back around in the station's playlist.   No more.  For quite awhile I used the legal version of Napster.  I could search their library for my favorite artists across rock, jazz, classical, country and opera and make playlists of my favorites.  I paid $15/mo for that priveledge.  Later Napster was bought by Rhapsody and the price remained the same.  The only drawback was that when I wanted to listen offline, once again I had to buy each of the titles in the playlist and sync that with my MP3 player.  

Along came Spotify.  Only $10/mo with unlimited access to their library which is enormous.  As with Napster, I never searched for a song or artist who I was unable to find.    Further, I no longer have to buy any tunes to listen to offline.  I can download all of my playlists to all of my devices, smartphone, tablet and laptop to listen to offline for the monthly fee of $10.  Yes. That is $120/year but I used to spend at least that much each year or more and still many times skipped buying some CD because I was over budget for the month or year.  Now I never have to skip any artist that I like and never have to worry about blowing my music budget.  I also don't have to worry about making a mistake by buying a CD that I don't really like.  I never have to buy a whole CD to get only 1 song.  Many of my playlists are comprised of singles from my youth in the 60s and 70s and I didn't have to order them from a commercial for Time / Life books with their compilations.    I never have to be concerned with where my MP3s are stored on my hard drive.  Spotify manages my music availability everywhere.

If you are still buying music, let me ask you why?   If you spend less than $120 /  year this would make sense.

There are several other services out there that likewise "rent" music in a subscription service, such as Rhapsody that I noted above as well as Google.  Make sure that you arent' paying more than $10/month for unlimited access to their library including offline use.

One more thing about Spotify.  My wife loves music but is not as obsessive as I am about searching and organizing them into playlists.  So I often do that for her with my Spotify account and share it with her via Facebook.  Spotify has the option to login with your Facebook account which allows you to easily share music with others.

Check out Spotify and let me know what you think.  I'm pretty sure that Spotify is cross platform but if you are using that fruity platform, you will need to see for yourself. :)

I am not compensated for this or any product that I suggest.  I just share stuff that I find works for me.

Free, Free, Free at Last From Paper Anyway

About 3 years ago I found the first tool that truly comes close to delivering on a paper free life.  The application,

called "Evernote", has since become my favorite tool for keeping my life organized.  Evernote captures every type of thing that we might want to access anytime in the future.  Webpages, emails, notes, pictures, videos, recordings, and documents become available everywhere I go, in my home office, on my cell phone, tablet, or any computer with access to the web anywhere in the world.  Email and calendars have been used for a very long time to try to accomplish these organizational tasks.  While this was helpful,  they are adapted to doing things that they are principally not designed for.

Organization is nothing with out the ability to find something later.

Over the years I have always had trouble finding things months or even years into the future from when I actually received them.  I received the final invoice from the installer who put in our tile floors. Normally, I might put that into a file folder and into my file cabinet but did I put that under the house address or under vendors or ....   Evernote allows me to scan that document, store it in a folder and tag it with several different tags depending on how I might search for it.

I have nearly emptied my file cabinet as I have been scanning recently received paper like receipts, warranties, product manuals, insurance documents, tax source documents, etc.  You know how receipts that you keep for awhile can fade but if you scan them they will be kept forever in that original, legible, condition.  Once they are scanned into an Evernote Folder and tagged with various different terms you might search for them they become easy to retrieve later.

A Project Notebook

Often as I'm beginning a project, I need to shop for resources, either human (like a contractor)

or physical (like materials).  I was shopping for a video security system for my house.   I went to Home Depot.  With my Evernote App on my phone I took a picture of their options including price tags and it was automatically stored in my default folder in Evernote that I call "inbox".  Then I went to Lowe's, Sam's and BJ's doing the same thing.  When I returned home I logged on to my computer, to Evernote and found that those pictures with the information were already synchronized there.   I created a folder called "Home Security" and moved them all there until I had time to review and make a choice.   I then read some reviews on each system online clipping the web pages with the info and storing them in the same folder with the pictures I had taken.  I can do this with all kinds of projects and all kinds of notes.

Collecting ideas.

I get ideas all the time.  While I'm walking or driving or having a meal, etc.  I don't want to lose that idea

even though I cannot act on it just now.  I could write it down on a piece of paper, if I had one and a pen and could find that paper later.  Or I can, click a single button on my phone and make an audio note to review later.  I can even add an alert for later to remind me to review it and add one or more tags so I know what may be in that audio note before I listen to it.    My phone has a voice to text option in the keyboard so that I can dictate the note instead of recording it.

I hate finding ways to store warranties and product Manuals

I recently bought a new sound system for my TV.  It came with two different manuals.  One for the receiver itself and one for the speakers.  Even the size/form factor of these two manuals didn't align with each other for storage.   I was dreading the idea of scanning each one of these. Fortunately, most manufacturing companies store their manuals online.  I was able to visit their site and download the two manuals in PDF format and store them in Evernote for easy retrieval.  I have been able to do the same with nearly everything that I have purchased in recent years.

Clipping

Evernote allows me to clip web pages and store them for future reading and retrieval.  I have a read later folder in Evernote.  They also have plugins for Gmail and Outlook that allow me to clip email messages to Evernote  for easy retrieval and grouping with other items of similar themes.

Embedding

As I collect things I sometimes want to share them with others.  Since Evernote works both locally on my machine and on the cloud, I can embed a link in an email or a Facebook post that can be accessed by others with a special public link provided by Evernote, on demand.

Document syncing

Fewest steps is the road to organization.  Similar to Drop Box, Google Drive and Sky Drive,  with Evernote you can designate one or more folders on your desktop hard drive to sync with folders in Evernote.   I have only one, that I call "Inbox" where all of my documents are saved to.  These are automatically saved to my Inbox folder in Evernote for me to view and sort later.

Cross platform and always available

As noted above Evernote has a desktop app for both Windows and Apple laptops as well as for tablets and smartphones for Android and IOS.  Each of these sync to a web server and are available through any web browser.

Comparisons

I compared Evernote to the above named cloud file storage systems as well as other note collecting and storage systems such as "Springboard" and "OneNote" and still found the features that I wanted of simplicity,  multiple note types and multiple means for capturing notes and cross platform retrieval to be far better with Evernote.   Springboard and OneNote do have nicer screens but are not as flexible or as powerful as Evernote.

No more...

I find that I have saved enormous time in not having to search for things or request copies of things.  I have no more papers on my desk.  Any business card, document, note, list or idea that comes across is immediately stored in Evernote.  Retrieval is a snap.

Free and Pro

I started with the free version and quickly went pro when I found out how much value I was getting out of it.

Check out Evernote.com and let me know what you think.