Sunday, February 3, 2008

10 Tips to Retain More of What You Read Online | Vandelay Website Design

I know, I know. I said my next post would be a step-by-step guide to getting started with WikidPad. I'm working on it.

However, I thought this article by Vandelay Website Design on 10 tips to retaining online content was very good and related to the use of WikidPad. Or, at least, it related to why I've continually searched for such software. Check out Vandelay's article, it is a good read.

Now, I'll get back to working on that WikidPad guide.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

WikidPad: managing data, info and notes

I'm a bit of an information packrat/junkie. O.k, I'll fess up and admit it: I'm a big information packrat/junkie. As I wander thru my day I write myself lots of notes on stuff I run across or things I need to do or remember. A routine behavior in which I know I am not alone.

Sometimes my notes are on paper...which I often promptly forget are in some pocket or the other and then my wife later finds their remains in the bottom of the washing machine; or I jot them down in some program on my computer and they get lost somewhere in the bowels of the machine.

Lots of snippets of information scattered across numerous files and pieces of paper and never able to find them when I need them. At least, not quickly. So, they get lost and forgotten until I happen to stumble across them again. The only bright spot is that the notes on my computer don't get run thru the washing machine and wind up in crumbles on the bottom of my hard drive....

There are, of course, lots of software solutions out there. I won't resort to hyperbole and claim I've tried them all...I have, however, tried a bunch of them. Software solutions, I mean. I haven't pursued any of the psychiatric solutions.

The basic requirements that I've been trying to find include some kind of free form database that offers the ability to tag my notes with lots of keywords so I can, eventually, find them again. I'd prefer that the software not stuff everything into one humongous file like treepad, keynote, evernote or the many variants of tiddlywiki. And, I like the idea of having my keywords easily accessible in some kind of tree format (as some of the previously mentioned programs provide). Oh...I also want it to be cheap (free) and, of course, easy to use.

Enter WikidPad. WikidPad's website describes the software as "a Wiki-like notebook for storing your thoughts, ideas, todo lists, contacts, or anything else you can think of to write down."

Despite my own initial learning-curve bump, I quickly discovered that I like WikidPad.

The nice thing about WikidPad is its versatility and the fact that I can keep my various notes in a wiki-like file structure on my local computer. No Internet connection required. I can manipulate pages and pages of content as my heart desires. And, I can tag and cross reference them with as many attributes as I wish...hopefully, with enough relevant keywords that even I will have a chance of locating them again. All my various snippets of information can be captured, cross-linked, managed, easily updated, all on my local machine and, most importantly, I can go back and find them again.

I found the program to be a routine Windows XP install with but one exception: there is a warning on the website to use ASCII characters only in the folder name to which WikidPad will be installed. So I made sure not to throw anything strange in the directory name and avoid spaces. I have no idea if it will work on earlier versions of Windows (the website says it will) or on Vista. The help file indicates that it will also install on a USB stick, but I haven't tried it yet.

While I like the program, the help file of WikidPad is a bit....terse. In fact, since I really don't speak Wiki, it was downright overwhelming. There is a WikidPad Yahoo Group and the folks there seem to be friendly and helpful. There are also several WikidPad sites around the Internet, including the WikidPad's Track Homepage. The homepage provides some info on getting started, but I still struggled a bit when I first worked through their info.

While WikidPad was easy to use once I got up that first steep learning curve, in the beginning as I searched for help I ran across more than a few queries from folks who seemed just as bewildered as I. We were all asking, "How do I get started using WikidPad?"

So, since I have now rambled on more than enough I'll stop here and my next post will be a step-by-step guide on how I got started with WikidPad.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Converting .docx files to OpenOffice format

Hello. Thanks for checking out my first blog. My hope is to share some of the basic tutorials, ideas and solutions I've run across in trying to solve some of my more obscure and perplexing computer-related tasks. The idea for this blog occurred to me as I was scratching my head trying to figure out how to open a .docx file I received.

Instead of shelling out the bucks for Microsoft Office when I bought the new home computer, I was adamant that OpenOffice would work just fine in our household, thank you very much.

And, at first, it was just fine. OO did meet our (at least, my) word processing and spreadsheet needs. I was able to open and read/write to Word and Excel files with no problem; even able to run Excel files with complex macros. Not a problem.

Then, I'm working at home and get the .docx file via email. If I was at work, everything would be fine. Even though I've got Office 2003, I've loaded the necessary MS compatibility packs to allow me to open .docx files.

But at home? Noooooooo. I gotta save money. And, its late and I want to call it a night. But, I really, really, need to look at this file before I go into work the next morning.

After some digging on the Internet, I finally came up with a solution for a computer that was sans Microsoft Office and didn't require an upload to the Internet (I was determined to find something that ran on my local machine.) I first tried the converter and reader that is available from the MS site, thinking that even if I could only read it, perhaps I could do a cut-and-paste.

No dice. No MS Office of any flavor on my machine, no conversion. I couldn't even get the reader to work.

Back to digging on the search engines.

I finally ran across OpenOfficeNinja which provided info on 'odf-converter'. It runs at the Windows command line and will convert .docx files to .odt format. Once in .odt, the file will be read directly by OpenOffice.

I went to this link on the OpenOfficeNinja site and followed Andrew Z's instructions on how to download and install the file. Note that he mentions the need to change the extension of the converter from 'odt' to 'zip'. When I downloaded the file to my Windows XP machine, it actually had an extension of 'oxt'. Regardless, when I changed the extension to 'zip' it worked as advertised.

I was lazy (and sleepy) and didn't want to bother dealing with typing pathnames and directories. So, I just unzipped the file to my root directory with a simple folder name like 'C:\docxconvert'. I then copied the file I wanted to convert to that folder, dropped into a Command Prompt (found on my WinXP machine under Start | Accessories) and at the 'c:>' prompt navigated to the directory by typing:

cd: c:\docxconvert

Then, I followed Andrew Z's instructions and ran:

odfconverter /I filename.docx

I did discover that odfconverter does not like long filenames or spaces within the filename. So, instead of trying to fool around with something like:

'3rd draft report.docx'

I changed it to simply:

'report.docx'

...ran odfconverter again, and, presto: I had 'report.odt' in the same directory.

The file fired right up in OpenOffice and I went to bed...after discovering yes, it could have waited until tomorrow.

ah well.

I learned something new.