AquaMinds Weblog

The Organized Student - essential software for lifelong learning

2008-05-03T07:20:12Z

We just released a new video on our Demo Theater site called The Organized Student. As we were developing the script and narration for the video (using a storyboard outline in a shared notebook), I kept thinking back to when I was a student at Stanford and the tedious (frustrating) process of reviewing my lecture notes and outlines before exams. Some were really good but many of my notes were just plain cryptic and never complete enough to cover all of the lectures. My memory wasn't good enough to recall the key details. I really needed a second brain, a digital tool of some kind that I could use to help me study and review.

Fortunately, today's students can create very comprehensive course notes and outlines entirely on their laptops for quick and easy retrieval. Using NoteTaker or NoteShare, they can also turn on the Voice Memo and start recording the lecture itself while using Voice Memo Links to review the audio in the exact spot they typed a note or an outline in their notebook. The organized student is outlining, taking notes, recording lectures and managing their academic work in one convenient place; in their digital notebook. And if they're using NoteShare, they can share their notebooks.

Our video presentation highlights how students can use NoteShare (or NoteTaker) to help manage the demands of academic life. And most importantly, students using our software are acquiring important skills that will continue to serve them throughout their academic and professional lives. Mastering these information literacy skills can help them get things done on time, organize projects, share notes and learn to study together. In short, it's essential software for lifelong learning.

(Category/Tags: education, outlining, academic life, lifelong learning, share notes, lecture notes, enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, enterprise, sharing, notebook, outlines, note-taking, shared notes, workgroup collaboration, Java, NoteShare Server, life sciences research, lab notebook, Web 2.0, NoteTaker, NoteShare Express, NoteShare, Apple, e-books, literature, digital books, iPhone, iPod Touch, Leopard, OS X, Apple, Macintosh, Vista, DELL, H-P, IBM, web notebook, wiki, blog, knowledge management)

Share notes - organize and share your notebooks using NoteShare Server

2008-03-19T17:30:35Z

Team work. Communication. Shared knowledge. Organization. Information flow. Coordination. Enhanced productivity. Cognition. Augmented intelligence. Transformation. Task-driven workflow.

These are just a few of the many words and phrases used in the industry to describe collaboration software and its potential user benefits. Given the rapid pace of change, the IT industry doesn't know or understand all the choices users have today in deploying collaboration software and sharing technologies. And as a result, collaboration is narrowly positioned around real-time meetings and videoconferencing systems.

In fact, we believe that much of the productivity to be gained by using NoteShare is around the edges or in the asynchronous time spaces when team members don't all work in the same building or they can't meet at the same time. By this definition, collaboration's value is not exclusively in hosting real-time meeting events but instead, it's also in the time invested by members in keeping the project flow moving forward. How? By staying organized and focused on knowledge capture and information retrieval (aka search).

When we first introduced NoteShare in 2006 (see New York Times article), we created an instant sharing platform for sharing your notes and information that worked everywhere since it's based on "peer-to-peer" collaboration. And even today, P2P notebook sharing is one of the biggest features of using NoteShare for ad hoc and on-demand notebook collaboration such as meetings, presentations and brainstorming sessions anywhere (classrooms, campuses, conference rooms, airport lounges and cafes).

A team's project success can depend upon the types and kinds of collaboration tools being used to share notes, collect information, organize communications and generally keep the team on task while putting all the key operational information in one place. If your project activity involves taking just one note or copious notes, NoteShare can provide a seamless yet powerful way for your team to share notes, capture knowledge, organize key information, clip email messages and grab web page snippets. Truly a power tool for information processing on the workgroup level.

And now, with NoteShare Server, our users can maintain 24x7 notebook sharing. It's truly magical as well as seamless. So think about it, NoteShare provides everywhere sharing with its breakthrough P2P approach (just works) while NoteShare Server delivers "all the time" sharing of notebooks. So when you're thinking about getting your team and office focused on capturing knowledge about your business, your research or your projects, think NoteShare Server as your instant collaboration solution. It's the fastest, easiest way to share notes, capture knowledge and keep everyone on the same page.

(Category/Tags: enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, enterprise, sharing, notebook, outlines, note-taking, shared notes, workgroup collaboration, Java, NoteShare Server, life sciences research, lab notebook, Web 2.0, NoteTaker, NoteShare Express, NoteShare, Apple, e-books, literature, digital books, iPhone, iPod Touch, Leopard, OS X, Apple, Macintosh, Vista, DELL, web notebook, wiki, blog, knowledge management)

Introducing NoteShare Server - create, communicate, collaborate

2008-02-12T19:59:01Z

When we first introduced notebook sharing in 2006, our vision of collaboration was driven by instant, peer-to-peer collaboration between two or more NoteShare users. And today, it's being used by thousands of users daily who have the power to share notebook documents and collaborate anytime, anywhere right from their own Macs.

In classrooms and across campuses, to board rooms and conference rooms, notebook sharing is a powerful productivity enhancing, application for sharing information, organizing team projects and presenting ideas. The seamlessness of notebook sharing is what makes NoteShare so valuable to users. And as expected, our users told us that notebook sharing was not only a great on-demand application but that they also wanted to share their notebooks all the time. In a nutshell, they wanted dedicated, managed notebook sharing.

Today, we're introducing NoteShare Server for OS X. It's our third major application for OS X and it also marks a major technology milestone in enabling multi-media rich notebook sharing to be both on-demand and now, all the time with a managed server solution. NoteShare Server distinguishes itself in three important areas:

- it is easy to set-up and configure
- it runs on a basic Tiger or Leopard system (such as a Mac Mini)
- it is both convenient and flexible using web-based administration (remote or local management)

And one more key point; it doesn't cost thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars. It's available for the next 90 days for $49.95 (MSRP $149.95) during our special technology preview promotion. If you're currently a NoteShare user or you're thinking about organizing a classroom or setting up a small office or you just want to manage a remote project team, NoteShare Server can boost your productivity starting today.

Scott Love writes:
On a personal note, I've always dreamed of having "my own personal information server" that I could use at home or in the office or whenever I was traveling. With NoteShare Server, that dream is now a reality. Your notebook information is now at your fingertips.

Anytime, anywhere is now all the time

2008-02-01T07:51:25Z

Starting next week, we'll be launching NoteShare Server. When we first introduced NoteShare in 2006, it was and still is the easiest way to share notebook documents between two or more users. As a peer-peer solution, it's flexible, convenient and always available. If you're working in a room or across a campus, you can always share your notebooks for instant collaboration. And if you're in different time zones and need to get things done quickly, NoteShare can enable productive workflow across the Internet. And this is still true today.

But there is another kind of sharing that's equally important to enabling project workflow and teamwork, and that's asynchronous collaboration. Even when we're in the same time zone or even the same building or campus, we don't always need real-time collaboration but rather we need cumulative productivity. Enter NoteShare Server.

A powerful yet clever software application that allows you and your team to manage and host shared notebooks 24x7. Non-stop, anytime, anywhere sharing all the time. Your notebooks, your data, you server; on-demand whenever you or your team need access.

And with NoteShare Server, sharing your notebooks is even more convenient and flexible with remote management tools to allow instant configuration and uploading of your notebooks. And what kind of system can you run NoteShare Server on? We prefer to run it on a Mac Mini but you can run on any Tiger or Leopard system. NoteShare Server is suitable for both home server use as well as classroom and workgroup server use. In short, another powerful way to put information at your fingertips.

(Category/Tags: enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, enterprise, sharing, notebook, outlines, note-taking, shared notes, workgroup collaboration, Java, NoteShare Server, life sciences research, lab notebook, Web 2.0, NoteTaker, NoteShare Express, NoteShare, Apple, e-books, literature, digital books, iPhone, iPod Touch, Leopard, OS X, Apple, Macintosh, Vista, DELL, web notebook)

"Always On" Notebook Sharing with NoteShare Server

2007-12-15T19:58:06Z

In the coming weeks, we'll be officially launching NoteShare Server for OS X. It's a very flexible yet powerful way to manage "always on" notebook sharing. The application has been designed to run on a very modest baseline system such as a Mac Mini running either Tiger or Leopard. Although we call it a server (a non-stop application service), the software doesn't require an actual server system and can be managed remotely from any browser on any system.

NoteShare Server can handle at least 36 or more simultaneous users working on the same shared notebook which is ideally suited for classrooms, small offices and workgroups. In our early testing, users have been using NoteShare Server to share lecture notes, organize projects, write books, collaborate on lesson plans and manage information from a variety of sources for convenient reference. It's another way to put information at your fingertips.

If you are interested in learning more about NoteShare Server or want to test-drive it first, make sure you either subscribe to this blog's feed or you're already receiving our mailing list messages which we use to post new product announcements.

(Category/Tags: enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, enterprise, sharing, notebook, outlines, note-taking, shared notes, workgroup collaboration, Java, NoteShare Server, life sciences research, lab notebook, Web 2.0, NoteTaker, NoteShare Express, NoteShare, Apple, e-books, literature, digital books, iPhone, iPod Touch, Leopard, OS X, Apple, Macintosh, Vista, DELL, web notebook)

New release day

2007-11-06T21:53:45Z

We've updated both NoteTaker and NoteShare today. They are free upgrades for all registered users. Both public releases support Leopard (CoverFlow) and come with a new plug-in that you can optionally install if you're now using Leopard.

We do expect there will be additional updates in the coming months since Leopard is just now being adopted among our user community which means there will be some issues and new bugs that we missed during our development and beta-testing cycle. Leopard is a very visual OS and we think it offers a lot of value to users who are switching or planning to upgrade.

In the coming months, we'll be talking about new releases and products. Make sure you're either subscribing to our RSS feeds (What's New or our company's blog) or you're signed-up to received our mailings (it's opt-in only). Next up, NoteShare Server for OS X.

Leopard: the flowing, highly visual operating system arrives and we're excited

2007-10-26T16:50:02Z

First off, both NoteTaker and NoteShare work great with Leopard. If you're a registered user of our products, you can download the new versions (free upgrades) today and get started using Leopard later today. We've included a QuickLook plug-in (separate installation) that takes advantage of Leopard's highly visual experience when using the Finder to browse and display your files and documents.
CoverFlow is one of the best reasons for going Leopard; it's so pleasing to the eye to browse this way. As for performance, in my case, my old PowerBook G4 just seems to be faster running Leopard (start-up, launching applications and shutting down the system). I have Vista too (running on a very hopped up DELL system) and it's not nearly as fast or as clean running so far as Leopard has shown. Maybe it's not a useful comparison but Leopard just feels and performs like a better engineered operating system. At any rate, NoteTaker and NoteShare are Leopard compatible today. And if you have an iPhone too, check out our newly enhanced Create Web Notebook feature that generates iPhone aware web sites. Very powerful.

And one more nice thing to say about Leopard; Spaces really adds a lot to reducing desktop clutter while allowing you to customize your workflow according to applications and groups. It's a Leopard feature I'm using daily now.

Bringing digital books to the iPhone and the web: under the sea with the other Nemo

2007-10-24T13:23:38Z

Even before we launched AquaMinds, we've always been passionate about digital books especially classic works that are readily available without any special copyright considerations. When we introduced NoteTaker and later NoteShare, we included a one-step, easy to use web publishing command called Create Web Notebook that enables instant publishing of your notebooks as standalone, interactive web sites.

Since then, we've been updating and improving this feature with each software release. This week, if you're a registered user of our software products, you'll be able to update your copy of NoteTaker or NoteShare to the latest version (free) which includes a new version of Create Web Notebook (File menu) that automatically builds iPhone-aware web notebook documents.

Web notebooks are still universally viewable from any browser on any platform but they are even more interactive (touch UI) when viewed from an iPhone or iPod Touch. See for yourself and take a voyage of discovery into one of literature's classic works of early science fiction as we present 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas by Jules Verne.

It's that time of year again.. more innovation, more products, more releases coming.

2007-10-05T17:12:11Z

As expected, Apple is getting closer to shipping Leopard. For what it's worth, I think it's going to be a solid software release especially in comparison with Microsoft's Vista. I happen to run both operating systems for business and personal home use but Apple has done a lot of the basic things right to get Leopard ready for a very important release.

Much of the "deep" innovation in Leopard is still months away from showing up in third-party applications but it's both subtle and powerful. In some ways, Leopard is not so much a user innovation milestone as it is a developer milestone. Apple is providing more ways for developers to innovate while leveraging Apple's superb OS X architecture with the release of Leopard.

To prepare for Leopard and beyond, we're making new preview versions of NoteTaker and NoteShare available to all registered users for download. If you need to test for compatibility or simply want to check out the new enhancements then go to our updates page and get yourself a preview copy of either NoteTaker or NoteShare now. As with any early access release software, you should expect bugs and issues. Please use our feedback form to report any issues or problems with our preview software. Our intent is to quickly address and fix bugs as they show up while getting our software ready for final release. And finally, you can expect updates from us and in the near future as we prepare for Leopard's arrival.

And yes, we have new products coming too...

NoteShare Express delivers instant, live notebook viewing

2007-08-13T18:31:22Z

Today we officially released NoteShare Express 1.0 as a free add-on technology for all NoteShare users. In a nutshell, it enables non-NoteShare users to view and access shared notebooks from their browser. This means that NoteShare users can be working in real-time on a shared notebook while NoteShare Express viewers are actually seeing the changes and edits as they happen; all from their web browser. No software to install. Just simple browser access to view a live, shared notebook site. And all the same security, encryption and password protection to NoteShare spaces and notebook documents are supported in NoteShare Express.

Try NoteShare Express now by clicking on this link.

Why a cross-platform notebook viewing solution?
One of our early NoteShare users asked how they could allow non-NoteShare users in their research lab to view their lab notebook documents especially those researchers in the organization with Windows and Linux systems. Enter NoteShare Express. Within minutes, they were conducting real-time meetings using NoteShare Express to enable non-NoteShare users to access and view the live notebooks during meetings. Additionally, this life sciences customer has also been running NoteShare non-stop as essentially their notebook server (more about this in my next post). This means that NoteShare Express provides convenient viewing access to the shared notebooks 24x7 which is an essential workflow requirement for many of our customers especially when its collaboration-based research and data collection. And naturally, all of the security features of NoteShare are supported in NoteShare Express.

AquaMinds Summer Update Report
We've been really, really busy with new development. NoteShare Express is the first of a series of new releases that will coming at the end of 2007 and early 2008. All of which will result in an AquaMinds cross-platform offering for both server and desktop product lines. Next up is NoteShare Server which is going beta at the end of this month. Summertime has been nice but the busiest ever for our company all around.

Productivity Magic: The power of using a shared notebook

2007-05-09T18:12:08Z

We just finished a new video for the AquaMinds Demo Theater which will premier this week. As we did with the first video, the entire project (including outlines, meeting notes, brainstorming, research, clippings, schedules, script writing, edits and reviews/changes,) was managed using a shared notebook in NoteShare. During the project, no one worked in the same physical office. Everyone on the project was working at a different location but working on the same notebook document. We "hosted" the shared notebook on a Mac Mini so team members could access the project information anytime, anywhere.

CLICK HERE to view the movie in this page

CLICK HERE to view the full size "Sharing Notebooks Anytime, Anywhere With NoteShare" in a new window.

Keeping Everything Organized Automatically
One of the more interesting aspects of this project has been the ease at which we've been managing the video versions and changes. Instead of sending around new video segments via email and then waiting for the usual back and forth replies, we managed the entire review process in one shared notebook. In this way, comments and edits were always being added and organized in context with the actual video being reviewed. Not only did this improve the review cycles but we could easily go back and review what had been said by team members. We still used email for sending around notifications or reminders but little or no production content was exchanged in email. The result is that our video project binder is a "living" archive of our work while also a reference document of our editorial process and design.

A Smarter Way To Work
Which brings us to the main point of using a shared notebook; it's just a smarter way to work and collaborate with your team while sharing information in a snap. And what kinds of teams use NoteShare? Sales teams, life science researchers, small office workgroups, creative teams (music, film, advertising, entertainment), consultants, small businesses, study groups, educators, students and just about any project team that wants to get organized. It's truly productivity magic when your team is working on the same notebook.

(Category/Tags: note-taking, notebook, knowledge, communications, enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, social, project teams, NoteTaker, AquaMinds)

Using NoteShare on the Internet - watch the video

2007-04-06T16:51:03Z

We officially launched AquaMinds Demo Theater this week. The site will be hosting a series of instructional videos that we're producing this year that showcase user applications and various workflow scenarios. Each video will highlight product features and technologies in action. The first video features the use of web research agents that help students and researchers quickly assemble Internet research sources into custom notebooks.

The resulting personal notebook then becomes the basis for a report or research project where the user's work can be organized in one place. We specifically highlight the Homework Assistant script in the video which is one of the basic web research agents we provide with both NoteTaker and NoteShare. If you're using Dashboard, our web research agents are also available as widgets (free download from here).

In the scientific realm, one of our most popular research agents is the MedResearchPro widget which enables a federated search of both NLM and Google Scholar used daily by physicians and medical researchers in the life sciences. It also should be noted that Internet search and browsing features are built-in seamlessly to our products so that the richness of web content can be included with any notebook page.

Collaboration and using NoteShare to manage this video project
During the production of this video, we used NoteShare to manage the project. During the early phases of brainstorming and outlining the script, we collected our thoughts and ideas in a shared notebook. This was ideal as well as convenient because we had contributors literally scattered about the country and mostly in different time zones. However, the project notebook itself was being shared 24x7 from a Mac Mini running NoteShare in headless mode so team members could work on their part anytime (and anywhere). One of the most compelling uses during the project was the script editing and actual video previewing. In this case, each version of the QuickTime-based video was added to the shared notebook for review and annotation purposes. As the project evolved, it became even more important that we could access a single shared notebook to work on the script. By having everything right there in one place, we didn't waste or lose time on searching for previous work and resources. The project was easily managed using one shared notebook.

Although we did have a couple of meetings to discuss and review scripts, for the most part, the project was the result of asynchronous collaboration. In fact, if I were to draw a pie chart of the time spent on various tasks to complete this project, it's likely that over 75% of our project team's time was spent working asynchronously and that a smaller slice of the pie was devoted to real-time collaboration. We still had meetings in a room, we still spoke by phone (iChat too) but we didn't use e-mail exclusively to command and control the project. NoteShare really enabled this project to be managed on time and on budget.

Putting operational knowledge to work (by using a shared notebook)
Projects have a life of their own at times but one of the advantages we've learned from using NoteShare is that we can refine and improve upon the process next time as a result. As the team begins to work on the next video, we now start with a shared notebook in place that not only contains the previous project's work journal but we have a set of templates and outlines that we'll use to maintain production continuity. In essence, the operational knowledge of how we put the first video together is captured in the shared notebook. We know what works and doesn't work when putting the next video together. We understand the writing of the script and edit-review cycles. Process can be your ally or your foe but what we've learned is that by using NoteShare, we've enhanced process-driven productivity for both individuals and teams.

Shared Notebooks and Outlines - a Collaborative Way of Thinking and Working

2007-01-25T20:44:24Z

As we look back on the past year, it's a perfect time to note where we started and where we are headed as 2007 arrives. It was on January 1, 2006 when James Fallows first wrote in The New York Times about NoteShare. We had just finished testing the alpha version of our new software and were engaging early adopters in very intensive beta rounds of testing. Fallows himself had a firsthand look as a remote user at how easy it was to begin sharing and working on the same notebook with another remote NoteShare user.

And yes, we were not the first to deliver a shared environment or a collaborative platform as the article pointed out. However, NoteShare introduced "point to point" sharing of complex, compound documents in the form of notebooks. This is still true today, NoteShare is organized around notebook documents that are not merely a single page of text but a collection of rich media content displayed as pages and sections. Because any NoteShare user can both share and view, collaboration happens anywhere and anytime when using NoteShare.

This year, our goal is to deliver NoteShare technology and notebook sharing to as many platforms as possible. NoteShare 1.5 for OS X will be released very soon which enables multiple editors to work on the same notebook at the same time without any need to grab the edit pen.

Next up, we'll be releasing NoteShare Express Viewer, a free add-on technology that will make it much easier to publish notebooks to webtops and desktops as interactive documents. Shared notebooks will be easily viewable (and live) from any browser running on Windows, Linux and even OS X. And finally, we'll begin to introduce cross-platform solutions for editing shared notebooks everywhere. We will enable multiple users on multiple platforms sharing and collaborating at the same time (and shifted time) to enhance personal as well as team productivity.

When you're using NoteShare, you're engaged in a very dynamic process of sharing and communicating among friends, family and co-workers. If you're using NoteShare today, you're already gaining the benefits of using social software. Sharing "your" notebooks and outlines is truly a collaborative way of thinking and working.

(Category/Tags: social, enterprise, workgroups, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software, collaboration)

NoteShare Technology Preview - concurrent editing delivers more shared productivity

2006-12-01T20:11:41Z

No more waiting for the editing pen to begin working on a page in a shared notebook. We've just made NoteShare 1.4 (Preview Release) exclusively available to all NoteShare registered users for early access and evaluation. In a nutshell, the NoteShare 1.4 Preview supports concurrent editing of multiple notebook pages by multiple authors within the same shared notebook at the same time. Concurrent notebook editing allows teams to quickly and seamlessly assemble, aggregate, collaborate, share and communicate knowledge and information, anytime, anywhere.

Beyond Wikis, Way Beyond
Additionally, the NoteShare 1.4 Preview version provides support for selective control and access of pages and sections via read-only status. The owner of a shared notebook (teacher, project leader, team editor, manager) has complete control over which sections and pages are available for group editing. Once a page or section is deemed complete or "publication ready", the owner of the shared notebook can easily and quickly assign Read-only status to the selection as needed. NoteShare provides access to rich content and multimedia like no other solution. With NoteShare, your team can now communicate, stay organized and share knowledge 24x7 with all the richness and flexibility of a desktop application integrated with real-time, shared access.

What's coming next?
In the coming weeks, we'll be releasing NoteShare Express Viewer (rapid cross-platform publication of shared notebooks) and then followed by NoteShare 1.5, the official release of concurrent editing of shared notebooks. After that, the introduction of NoteShare Server in early 2007, our turn-key solution for dedicated hosting of shared notebook documents. And that's just for the first quarter of 2007. There's more to come.

Updates released for both NoteTaker and NoteShare

2006-10-26T20:59:04Z

New Updates
We've just released new updated versions of NoteTaker (v1.9.13) and NoteShare (v1.2). They require OS X 10.3.9 or higher and ship as Universal Applications so they run on both PPC and Intel-based Macintosh hardware. From your Help menu, you can check for updates or go to our Updates site.

What's New
Registered users may update at no charge from our site to download their respective product. Check out the What's New documentation (Help menu) for specific information about these new versions. Both product updates include new and updated scripts as well (AppleScript examples).

(Category/Tags: outliner, digital notebook, note-taking, outlining, productivity, business software, collaborative tools, multimedia, voice annotation, groupware, information sharing, outline processing, OS X, Windows, Linux, smartphones, desktop, webtop, information processing software)