For a long time I've been searching for the ultimate note taking application. OneNote used to be my favorite but since I became a consultant and needed to move between different workstations it became a strain to keep things in sync.

The ideal note taking application needs to meet the following criteria for me:

- Web Access: I should be able to take notes in a hurry without having to install any applications.

- Desktop Application: Should be easy to use and needs to be as good as OneNote.

- Synchronisation: The desktop should be able to sync to the web so that I have the latest version both online and offline.

- Secure: Google has spoilt me with their https support for all the Google Apps that I use. I hate to have my personal stuff sent over plain text for anyone on the network to view.

For a long time I've been using Google Docs for storing stuff, unfortunately that doesn't include desktop support.

Evernote is the closest that has come to the nirvana I've been searching for. The two coolest features for me are the desktop application and the online synchronisation feature. The best part is that it's free!

A couple of people have emailed me asking for the GUI version of the dasBlog to BlogML import / exporter, so I thought it best to share it with everyone. You can now download this from the MSDN Code Galley at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/DasBlogML

Please let me know if you find any bugs and remember that I've only created a simple UI wrapper over the excellent work done by Paul.

The twitter web UI has a bug when you try to follow friends.

The simplest workaround is to add friends by typing the 'follow username' command in the twitter.com site or sending it as an sms.

I just tried twitter last week and was blown away! This is one really really cool service.

For me the coolest part about it is the SMS/Texting feature. For those who haven't used it yet, think of it as a service which lets you SMS/Text all your friends by sending an SMS to just a single number that twitter gives.

Twitter then goes out and updates everyone on your list by sending them SMS plus updating a whole lot of other places like your Facebook profile, your blog...

Other features include sending the message from the Twitter website or even from a downloadable app (imagine that FREE SMS), if you want to you can send a message to just one friend.

Note to Sri Lankan users, this works find on Dialog but a few of my friends on Mobitel had trouble getting setup. If any of you get this working with Mobitel please let me know.

Once you have created a twitter account go to http://twitter.com/merill and 'follow me' to get my twitter updates. 

If your using Vista or Outlook 2007 then the free Outlook Preview Handler in this MSDN article by Stephen Toub gives you a whole bunch of new files including PDF and ZIP support.

Go get the install directly from here.

I've got a great many videos that I've captured in .wmv but haven't had the time to figure out resolutions, formats and burning them to DVDs, yet.

That's all changed now that Lifehacker has a a great post on Burning almost any video file to a playable DVD using DVD Flick.

I was fascinated by ffmpeg when I first read about it a couple of weeks ago. DVD Flick combines this along with other open source tool to create a nice, easy to use package.

I take a lot of screenshots and Vista posed a problem with it's window shadows. My workaround was to place the screen behind a Notepad background before taking the screenshot.

Enter Window Clippings from Kenny Kerr, includes taking the shadow background and supports a whole lot of formats including smaller file sizes with .png

The Snipping Tool in Vista just got retired.

BlogJet 2.0 has been released. I’ve tried it out but I think I’m going to give it a pass and stick to the old version.

IMO BlogJet 2.0 suffers from the same problem as Windows Live Writer, the key word here being ‘clunky’.

Hmm.. Just checked out the Live Writer Gallery, looks like the Live Writer team has been busy updating it with six new releases and there’s a thriving gallery of Writer Extensions. Will report back soon.

In the meantime you can download Live Writer from here.

I’ve been a long-time user of LeechGet for managing my downloads but had problems running it under Vista.

Internet Download Manager was a good choice until I ran out of the trial period.

Today I found out about Free Download Manager which is free, no ads or spyware and is not hobbled by any maximum limit on the number of downloads. It also doubles up as a Site Downloader. Best of all, something my network admins would love is that I can control the amount of bandwidth it uses by selecting a light, medium or heavy load.

One innovative feature that I’ve encountered just now is the social aspect of commenting on the file that I just downloaded and also to see others opinion on it. I’ve seen these in torrent and other p2p software but for the first time in a download manager.

Another program from my ‘Must Have’ folder. KeePass stores all my privata logins in a safe, secure encrypted file. It’s open-source, so it’s free as well. The features I love the most are the quick search text box as well as the macro play-back. For example I simply need to navigate to my VSS entry on KeePass and press Ctrl+V to have it run a macro that starts VSS Admin and logs me into the server. This is how the macro looks:

KeePass is very secure, even when the data is loaded into memory it is kept encrypted. Read all about it and get it from here.