Evernote Hello: When the face is familiar?

A good blog won't merely tell you about old stuff, but will keep you informed of the latest news.  In a blog about personal productivity technology (especially stuff of interest to librarians), I think the announcement of the new Evernote Hello app is relevant.

I'll be honest: One of my most stress-inducing moments is when I'm at a meeting or conference and run into someone who seems to know who I am but whose name I just can't bring to mind.  At a genealogy conference, I usually joke that I'm much better at remembering the names of dead people, but that humor isn't as useful at a library-related conference.  So I was intrigued to hear about the new Evernote Hello app.  Here's what I know so far:

It's an iPhone app.  (Sorry Android users.  I would assume that if it proves successful, Evernote will create an Android version soon.)

It synchronizes with Evernote, so all of the information you put into it will be available on all of the devices you use with Evernote (but it will be read-only information...you won't be able to edit it except in the Evernote Hello app itself).

It's intended for people (the people you meet) to put in their own name and contact information, and then to take several photos of themselves.  I suspect that this will work for some, but that in other cases, you'll need to enter this info for them.  In any event, the information is already date/time-stamped and location-tagged, so you'll be able to figure out the context of where and when you met them.  That means that if you meet a whole bunch of people at the same time, you can search for them that way, and the same is true for when you meet a whole bunch of people at the same location.

Finally, when you display someone that you captured using Evernote Hello, you'll also see any notes you took around the same time, so this means that you can see notes you made during a meeting with these people.  Interesting idea, eh?

OK, I'll try this out at my next opportunity, and let you know how it goes.

Week Cal: The Slightly Better iPhone Calendar

Sometimes it is the little things that make a big difference.  I have always been slightly disappointed by the standard iPhone calendar app (Calendar).  I usually use the List display because it takes up the least room (meaning I can see several days forward) and so it allows me to schedule a meeting without having to click thru several days worth of calendar.  But the List display shows only the start time for my meetings and other events.  It's hard to schedule meetings when you're not sure if your other meetings are only 60 minutes or possibly as long as 90 or 120 minutes.

So it's a little thing, but I have discovered Week Cal, an iPhone app (the iPad version isn't available at the moment), and Week Cal's List view shows the start time and the end time of each item.  At a glance I can see if I have time between meetings, or if I have unintentionally overlapped two meetings.  The font is a little smaller than the one used by Calendar, too, but not too small to read, so I can see a little bit further into the future without scrolling. 

Keynote Remote: iPhone Control of Your iPad

A year and a half ago, when I bought my iPad, I began using it for presentations when I traveled.  I had the Keynote app, and I would create my presentations using PowerPoint on my desktop computer, then save the presentations into Dropbox, and then open them on the iPad using Keynote.  Other than fixing a few font problems, I was good to go.

Almost.

The only drawback was that, unlike with a laptop, I didn't have an easy way to control the presentation remotely.  I was essentially trapped behind the podium so that I could advance my slides.  Clearly, I needed a way to run my presentation remotely.   Then along came Keynote Remote, an app that would run on my iPhone.  By using Bluetooth, I was able to link the iPad to the iPhone, and suddenly I could see the current slide and the next slide on my iPhone screen.  Now I could walk around the front of the room, holding the iPhone, and advance my slides.  This worked with only one minor hiccup during one presentation.

Life was good. 

Then I upgraded to an iPhone 4S (from a 3GS), and upgraded my iPad to iOS 5.  And suddenly, the ability to link the iPad to the iPhone via Bluetooth went away.  At least when using Keynote Remote. 

I discovered one workaround.  By downloading and installing another pair of apps on my iPad and iPhone that communicated using Bluetooth, I was able to re-establish the Bluetooth link, and then Keynote Remote returned to the ability to communicate with Keynote using Bluetooth. 

Life is ok.  But it will be better when they fix the iOS 5/Bluetooth bug in Keynote Remote. 

Do any of you out there use Keynote on your iPad to present with?  And Keynote Remote to control the presentation?