IT Ideas

Evernote - an alternative to Onenote  Evernote has been around for a while and is an alternative to OneNote. So you can use it for personal organisation or working on projects together. There are apps for all the main mobile platforms or you can access it in a web browser. There is also a windows app. You can import OneNote notebooks using the Windows app. Did a brief video to show you what it looks like:

You might want to edit Office files directly in Google Drive - this is how: This added to my previous post about handling Office files and demos the Office version of Nexus. I would encourage our users to just use Google Docs files - simpler and easier to work with. However, if you want to use the full blown version of Office 2010 on anything with a browser watch this:

Mail Merge I get comments that you cannot do mail merge in Google Apps. In fact the opposite is true - there are loads of ways to do it! Most require you to add a Script into Spreadsheet. Do this by going to Tools and then Script Gallery. My favorite i s 'Yet another mail Merge'. Just type this into the search and add it. You will get a couple of little popups asking for permission - just allow. This one allows you to create the message to be created straight into Mail. Merge fields are in the form $%merge field% . These merge field names should be the same as the headings in the Spreadsheet where you put the data.  Once the script is added - you will see a Mail Merge option in spreadsheet. Click on this - select the message you have saved and the column that contains the email addresses and that's it. Short video below:

This is a short video on how to add animations to Google Presentations. You can make stuff appear, disappear, fly in and so on as you can in PowerPoint.

Google Hangouts is an update to instant messaging.  It allows you to have up to 9 way video/voice messaging . All you need is a webcam and mic and the Google Talk plugin add in into your browser. You can start a hangout if the person does not have a webcam - they will see you - but you won't see them. To start just choose hangout when you IM someone. Have fun.....

Just a little video I did looking at how to switch from Google documents to Google Drive and some basic functions: You always want to use Google Chrome signed in - watch this short video to see what this means....

Want to put complex layout, diagram and so on into you Google Docs - then use Google Drawing This is a good intro video from Google: Well that shows you how to make an android! You can put Google Drawings into your docs by using the web clipboard or creating a drawing while in spreadsheet or documents. This is how to make a seating plan:

Do you want alerting when someone edits a doc or fills in a form? You can turn on notification in Google docs and setup a variety of rules: You are then prompted for the type of notification you might want to receive....  Useful if you don't want to keep checking a doc.....

Just thought I'd share some of my favorite Chrome/Google Drive Apps Webcam Toy Make silly faces and have fun with your webcam - what more could you want..... Nexus Libre Office Edit Office files in a browser window and save directly back to your Google Drive. LucidChart for Education Create organisational diagrams with ease and save them straight back to your Google Drive. An alternative is Lovely Charts - but Lucid has full integration into Google Drive and more features. Loupe Collage Create funky interactive collages with photos. Dead easy to use. Example from the school site below: Pixlr Editor - Now a Google Drive App Who needs Photoshop? Pixlr offers high end photo editing online. Can link directly to your Google Drive, Picasa, Facebook and Flickr accounts.  Loads of tutorials on YouTube - but a good one is: There are lots more - will update in due course......