Damian Brady’s Blog

Yeah, it’s been a while, I know. Let’s just pretend it hasn’t and continue on, hey?

So I found this free web application called mynoteIT courtesty of Digg, and god I wish it’d been around when I was still studying. Of course we didn’t have so much wireless ubiquity when I was doing my undergrad, so it would have been fairly pointless, but I digress.

There’s a review of it on the college v2 website if you want a quick rundown, but basically it’s designed to help organise your uni/school experience including your classes, timetables, notes, grades, contacts, and a few things in between. It’s part document management and sharing, part calendar with reminder services, and part social network.

If you’ve read the review on the college v2 website you will have noticed the gushing praise. I mean, the title is, “mynoteIT: the dream app we have all been waiting for?” so it’s obviously going to be a pretty positive review. For the most part I agree; this is a very impressive application. It’s well thought-out and if utilised properly by a number of students, particularly a few in the same classes, it could be a very useful tool. Like I said, I would have loved something like this when I was studying.

There are some really impressive features in this app that are helped along by everyone’s favourite buzzword, AJAX (or Web 2.0 or whatever). My favourite is in the note-taking section. At the top of the page, there’s an expandable section they call “Workspace Utilities“. The two tools in here are “Lookup a word” and “Translate a word“. At first, I was expecting these to fire off a popup to another page, but good old AJAX ensures that you get a quick inline response without any postbacks or new windows.

You can also paste notes in from Microsoft Word if you’d prefer to use that while you’re actually note-taking. This means you wouldn’t really have to be online to be able to use the app; just take notes in Word, and upload them later. Because you’re pasting them in and mynoteIT is converting them, they’ll be fully searchable as well.

The only thing I’m a little concerned about (apart from the obvious - some server somewhere is holding your notes) is the appearance and navigation. Of course, being a Web 2.0 app, it’s labelled Beta, so appearance and navigation probably aren’t the most important things right now. I’d really like to think that these two aspects will get a lot of attention as it moves forward, and I’m sure it will.

In summary, this is a bloody good web app and it’s really good to see a single app that combines so many functions in such a sensible way. Have a look, and if you’re a student, maybe give it a try.

Damo “Visa” Brady

I’ve been a bit slack with the posts lately. I could make excuses citing lack of time, but truthfully I haven’t found much that I’ve been motivated to write about.

While I honestly haven’t had a great deal of free time (self-inflicted, as always), I guess I’ve just been consumed with things happening around me rather than things I’ve read about or have heard about.

Perhaps the lack of motivation comes down to recent disappointing events. Last weekend my volleyball team lost two finals, knocking us out of contention for the flag despite finishing third after round games. St. Kilda, the AFL team I support, suffered a similar fate at the hands of the Melbourne Demons (and injury) and the Broncos (NRL) lost the first of their finals to the Dragons. On top of that, Australia lost two legends in Steve Irwin and Peter Brock.

So all in all, it’s been a fairly ordinary last week or so. I’m sure I’ll be motivated enough to put something decent up here soon.

Damo “Visa” Brady

Well I’m sure you’ve heard already but Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, has died while filming an underwater documentary off Port Douglas.

Steve did a lot for environmental causes and will surely be missed.

Damo