Aug 27, 2010

World of Tech: Storing Your Inspiration (Free Tools)

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In previous posts I have talked about using technology to keep up with your inspiration and to organize your inspiration. One thing I have not covered is how to store all the information so that it is easily accessible from anywhere you are. Here are a couple tools to help:

PDF Writer
A PDF writer allows you to turn a webpage into a PDF file. Why would anyone want to do that? Have you ever bookmarked a tutorial webpage and when you went back a few weeks later it was no longer there? I have and let me tell you, it is really frustrating. So what I do is use a PDF writer called CutePDF to turn the webpage into a PDF. That way even if the site goes away I still have my own copy of the tutorial or webpage along with the original link right at the top of the PDF.




The best way for me to show you how it easy it is to do this is with a short video:


Now once you have created a PDF you have the problem of it sitting on your computer and not being accessible from other locations. So what I do is use Google docs to store (and edit) the files online.

**NOTE: You will need to sign up for a free Google account but the account is used for ALL Google products such as Google reader, blogger.com and most of the tools we are talking about on this blog. 

Google Docs
Google docs is like Microsoft word, excel and powerpoint rolled into one but 100% online including the ability to store, retrieve and share all of your documents.  You can even upload your current Microsoft documents to Google docs for storage and edit them right online.  My favorite part is that Google docs is made for groups to work together online.

Lets say you and your bridesmaids want to go through a to-do list together but you're all over the country like my girls are.  Have everyone log into Google docs and they can watch live as edits are made.  There is even a chat window so you and your girls can communicate with each other. Ehow did an amazing set of videos on the different aspects and how to use google docs. You can find these video here on ehow.com

Are there any other tools you are using for storing your information?

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