While I have not b

een a huge fan of Google Notebook, I have used it and showcased it in a presentation on Digital Notebooks at the IETC 2008 Conference last November.  I know that many educators really liked using Google Notebook.  Now overall for existing users it appears that Google will maintain the Notebook service as it is:

we’ll continue to maintain service for those of you who’ve already signed up. As part of this plan, however, we will no longer support the Notebook Extension, but as always users who have already signed up will continue to have access to their data via the web interface at http://www.google.com/notebook. – Raj Krishnan, Product Manager, Google Notebook

The loss of the Notebook extension I think will be a bigger hit to users as it made it so easy to grab thoughts and ideas… Ironically, on January 12, 2009 Will Richardson blogged about his reading practices and archiving the snippets of web-based thought that challenge him:

I’m growing increasingly enamored withe Google Notebook as a way to capture the best snippets and ideas for a variety of purposes. More and more, I read with an ear for saving the most salient parts, which is really challenging me to think of my own organizational schemes in a good, but somewhat frustrating way. – Will Richardson, Weblogg-ed.com

I hope that everyone finds a new tool that meets their needs for gathering, organizing, and leveraging digital content.  I would like to provide a an alternative, that to those of you who know me well will not be surprised… Zoho Notebook… I have always felt that Zoho provided a much more robust tool for gathering a plethora of different types of information be it text, audio, video, embedded, graphical and much more.  Additionally, 6 days after Google’s announcement Raju Vegesna, Zoho Evangelist, posted that Zoho had altered the Zoho Notebook firefox plugin to enable an import from a users Google Notebooks into Zoho Notebook.  Detailed directions are included in his post, but for some reason, the link within my Zoho Notebook in Flock did not take me to the location I needed… So, here are the instructions if you are looking to try.  The add-on worked flawlessly for me within Flock:

To import with ease, you can use our add-on for Mozilla Firefox.
Install or upgrade to Zoho Notebook Helper 1.0b2
On restarting Firefox, please point your browser to chrome://zoho-notebook/content/g2z.html and follow the instructions given there.

OR

To import your notebooks from Google Notebook into Zoho Notebook, please upload Google Notebook as Atom(.xml).
You can export your Google Notebook as Atom in Google Notebook’s interface.
Step 1: Click Manage notebooks on the left hand side.
Step 2: Click export on which notebook you want to export.
Step 3: Click Atom, You will be prompted to save a file. Save that file to your disk.
Step 4: Now click Browse or Choose file button provided below, to select the saved file.
Step 5: Click Import.

I also have heard (but not confirmed) that Evernote is looking to develop a similar import tool.

On a final note, Google is stopping it’s print ads business as well… In no way is Google hurting, but this is the first time I have seen them pull back … many are speculating what else will be getting cut as well… We all know 2009 will be a difficult year for everyone, but together we can and will get through these hard times.  For the last two years I have been enamored with Zoho, and hope that you will give Zoho Notebook a try.

Do you know how much Google knows about how to search?

So, I believe that I am pretty good at Internet based searches… I’d feel confident saying that I am quite good at finding material, information, locations, data, etc. through a web search.  I know to narrow and expand the search, I know to look for synonyms, break things down into their component parts, come up with similar concepts, use site specific searches, search by key words or tag words, use other resources like technorati and delicious and search engines… look at visual search tools like kartoo to look for linkages… even with all of that I was amazed by what I saw on this video. 

Patrick Norton, formerly of ZDTV/G4 and DL.tv, interviewed Matt Cutts, a Google engineer, about some of the advanced search techniques (limiters – definers) that are capable in Google’s search engine, and frankly I was amazed at all of the cool things that I did not know Google could do…

Want to find “things” that are between two numbers? Say you were looking for the coolest hotel room in Cancun, but you were on a limited budget and only wanted to see rooms that would cost between $50 and $75 per night… How long would that take you?  What about knowing the depth of the San Andreas Fault… could you find that without needing to read 5 sites on the San Andreas? Want to know how many Euros 600 Yen would be? Need to track a package or know where a flight is? Google can do all of this but probably MUCH more easily than you think.  Check out this video:

A special thanks goes out to the Jeff Utecht the Educational Liaison at WetPaint for the message regarding this video!