Zoho Notebook is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while. There’s a learning curve - I gave up on it several times, actually. The only instructions I found were a sort of video, and you know how I feel about video instructions. But after a couple of weeks, here’s what I’ve learned.
You can create [...]

Zoho Notebook is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while. There’s a learning curve - I gave up on it several times, actually. The only instructions I found were a sort of video, and you know how I feel about video instructions. But after a couple of weeks, here’s what I’ve learned.

You can create several notebooks, or just pages within one big one. You access notebooks from the left sidebar, and pages from the right sidebar within each notebook. If you’re going to be flipping between certain pages, I’d recommend keeping them in the same notebook for convenience to save on clicks.

Within Zoho, you can create Excel compatible spreadsheets. There are several things I log daily on Excel sheets. I went into Zoho’s separate spreadsheet module and uploaded my files from my desktop (you can create new spreadsheets and copy and paste into them from within Notebook, but to upload, you need to spreadsheet module). Then in Notebook, I clicked “Add Sheet Page”. The popup gives has two tabs: New and Existing. I clicked Existing and chose the spreadsheets I’d uploaded. One note: when you work on your spreadsheet, you need to save it first by using the little floppy disk save icon within the spreadsheet’s menu. Then use the standard “Save” option for your Notebook page. It sounds confusing, but basically you need to save the sheet separately from saving the page the sheet is on.

By the way, the only thing I’ve found that doesn’t work in Zoho’s spreadsheet program is the ability to freeze panes. I’m not missing it.

But there’s something else: if you click “Add Web Page” near the top of the left sidebar, you can import an entire, functioning website into the frame and have it there on command. Remember my WordPress GTD? I just added it as a webpage into the notebook, and I can use it from within Zoho. Ditto on Bloglines and Google Reader. Gmail won’t go into it (I’m guessing because it’s on a secured server). But I suspect any site that’s not on a secure server will. This means a lot of my daily browser tab sites and two Excel spreadsheets can be consolidated into one tab.

Oh, and if you want to use Zoho’s quite useful To Do/Planner program, you can cut and paste this link in as a webpage for your notebook - http://planner.zoho.com/login.do - and keep it in the notebook with anything else. Or you can do the same with any other To Do list you maintain.

Plus, you can log into this from everywhere, so I’m no longer having to email files back and forth.

I haven’t played much with the other modules, but here are some things I’m still learning. You can Add Blank Page and put all sorts of stuff on it - video, audio, URL’s. Frankly, I’m still not sure what I want to do with this - it could probably be useful for just copying and pasting stuff I want to come back to or collect. I did discover if you add an RSS, and it’ll appear as a little box with the post links inside. That’s not how I prefer to read my feeds (still a Bloglines fan), but it will work for some people. The only problem is, it won’t handle a redirected feed - i.e. a WordPress feed redirected through the Feedburner plugin.

You can upload files - I tested Word and PDF files. This is strictly file storage - you can’t edit them, but you can download them to work on, then upload them again later. But… you can use the Zoho writer module to upload Word files, then put them in your notebook just like the spreadsheets. In the Writer module, you select “Import” at the top, then upload the document. It won’t look exactly like your Word document - I’m seeing some altered fonts and removed horizontal divider lines. But still very useful. And you can create brand new Writer docs from within the Notebook.

Bugs to watch out for: after a while, it just stops saving changes. The way you find out is the little “Saved” popup in the lower right corner (which I didn’t even notice for a while) stops showing up.When that happens, you just need to refresh your page - it’s probably an Ajax-related issue, but then this is still in beta. UPDATE: another issue is that if you save a frame-busting Web Page to Zoho, it’ll divert you out of your notebook when you try to load that page (and you can’t even delete the page, then). About.com was the culprit in my case. They plan to find a way to fix this, or maybe just block such sites from being added, but for now you can use ‘test frame buster‘ before adding.

Feel free to ask me questions and share your own discoveries if you play with this.

Technosailor has offered a Craig’s List style Wordpress theme for download. Very small, very fast, very SEO.
Check ThemeVibes for the latest Wordpress and other CMS themes around the web, complete with a demo. I’m definitely seeing stuff there that I don’t see on Wordpress’ own theme viewer.

Technosailor has offered a Craig’s List style Wordpress theme for download. Very small, very fast, very SEO.

Check ThemeVibes for the latest Wordpress and other CMS themes around the web, complete with a demo. I’m definitely seeing stuff there that I don’t see on Wordpress’ own theme viewer.

If you want to cut out the middleman and sell sponsored posts and paid links yourself, without losing a commission to a text link or sponsored post broker, here are a couple of Wordpress plugins that could help you with that.
WPbankroll lets people write posts for your site and submit them at a price you [...]

If you want to cut out the middleman and sell sponsored posts and paid links yourself, without losing a commission to a text link or sponsored post broker, here are a couple of Wordpress plugins that could help you with that.

WPbankroll lets people write posts for your site and submit them at a price you set. That’s right - not only do they pay you for the linkage, but they write the content for you, too. They can also opt for a featured post, which costs more but gains them a link out on your sidebar. The free version of this plugin has all the features - you just have to leave a link to their site on it.

WPTextAds sells text ads directly to people who visit your blog or who find you on del.icio.us, using a special tag designed just for the WPTextAds market place. The free version allows you a certain number of each type of ad; the paid version allows unlimited ads. Really, if this tool is a good fit for you, you should be able to earn enough from the free version to pay for the paid version in time.

Check out AMWSO for a really attention-grabbing graphic widget that shows RSS feeds in a scrollbox. It’s designed for only certain blogging and social bookmarking engines (Blogger, MySpace, etc.), so it’s a great way to show off your other blog on one of those.
People can click on the individual post title. And the scroll bar [...]

Check out AMWSO for a really attention-grabbing graphic widget that shows RSS feeds in a scrollbox. It’s designed for only certain blogging and social bookmarking engines (Blogger, MySpace, etc.), so it’s a great way to show off your other blog on one of those.

People can click on the individual post title. And the scroll bar works, but other than that, clicking anywhere on the window takes you over to the other blog.

If you’ve ever thought about self-publishing a book, DVD, music, etc., Lulu might be what you need.
Lulu is an online print-on-demand service that allows you to upload your book or creative work, and have individual copies printed on demand. You can order one copy or five, or use Lulu to promote & sell your book [...]

If you’ve ever thought about self-publishing a book, DVD, music, etc., Lulu might be what you need.

Lulu is an online print-on-demand service that allows you to upload your book or creative work, and have individual copies printed on demand. You can order one copy or five, or use Lulu to promote & sell your book online.

Via Lynn Terry

It looks to me to be quite similar to the Cafepress concept. You do most of the work - the creative parts - then outsource the tedious bits, like the actual printing.

Am I the only one who gets booted off the server repeatedly when I try to make Wordpress upgrades? And yes, it happens on more than one host, so while my hosts may not be perfect I think this is more a matter of Wordpress installs containing about 8 million files.
I often end up having [...]

Am I the only one who gets booted off the server repeatedly when I try to make Wordpress upgrades? And yes, it happens on more than one host, so while my hosts may not be perfect I think this is more a matter of Wordpress installs containing about 8 million files.

I often end up having to upload tiny little folder by tiny little folder sometimes, just so I can keep track of what’s actually been uploaded and what hasn’t.

Would it be that difficult for them to release a changed file zip, even just for the very last upgrade, so that if you keep up with them you can always just change the latest files?

I know there’s a list of changed files somewhere, but separating those out from a list is painful. I have a feeling there’s an easier way they could go about it from their end.