OneNote has been a Microsoft offering for a long time. I first wrote extensively about it in 2010, but it's been around for a lot longer. Announced in 2002, it was available generally in 2003, but wasn't included in the Office suite and had to be purchased separately. After using this application for a day or two, you might find it indispensable.
Its closest competitor is Evernote, which I've never been able to like despite several attempts. Google's Keep application is probably the best free alternative, but if you're already using the Office suite you have OneNote -- so why not use it?
OneNote is also available for phones and tablets, IOS and Android. Even if you don't use the Office suite, you can download a free version for mobile phones, but it's limited to 500 notes.
In the early days, OneNote required Groove to synchronize content across computers, but now everything synchronizes properly via a Microsoft Outlook account, which is the recommended option for logging on to Windows 10.
I use OneNote to store information about books that I want to read, about hardware and software settings, about doctors and prescriptions, about potential topics for TechByter Worldwide and, since 2011, to maintain status information about past and upcoming programs.
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OneNote users create [1] notebooks (I have a personal notebook, one for TechByter, another for hardware and software, and one for client projects). Each notebook contains [2] tabs. In the TechByter notebook I have tabs for configuration settings, program planning, notes for upcoming topics, and such. Each of the tabs contains [3] pages. My program planning tab has pages for each year, design notes, and some that contain information about uncommonly complex subjects. The program planning page contains a [4] table with one row for each weekly program. Temporary notes, URLs, and random thoughts are outside the table.
Pages can also have sub-pages. This is a function I use occasionally and here's one example: My personal notebook has a Miscellaneous tab and that tab has a Reading Challenge page that I set up several years ago when my wife challenged several people to an ambitious, year-long reading exercise. Since then, I've started reading a lot of series books -- many of them police procedurals -- so I have a sub-page for each author and the sub-page lists the author's books along with information about whether I have read the book.
An auto-save function wasn't invented for OneNote, but it was one of the first programs to take advantage of the technology. Changes were saved immediately and automatically. Even after using the program for nearly a decade, I still press Ctrl-S occasionally even though it does nothing.
One of the features that differentiates OneNote from Evernote is the ability to format text. It's not Word (or even Excel), but the [1] formatting capabilities are more than adequate for its intended purpose. It's perfect for jotting down notes using the keyboard, camera (still or video), or stylus. Copy and paste information from emails, websites, documents of all sorts as reminders of important information. There are also [2] tags; more about those in a moment.
Although I don't use it much, OneNote has a snipping tool that lets users select an area on the screen and then send the image to a specific page without even having to open the application. Another option involves the virtual OneNote printer that allows printing directly to OneNote from any application that can print.
Importing files into OneNote is also an option or using the Web Clipper extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. So getting information into OneNote is never a problem. The real power comes from the application's ability to find what you're looking for.
Ctrl-F limits the find operation to the current page, but a far more powerful option is Ctrl-E, which searches all pages in all tabs of all notebooks. The result will be a list of pages that contain the term you're looking for and clicking any of the listed pages will take you to that page.
Images pasted into OneNote are automatically analyzed for text, so it's possible to search for text in an image or a printout. If you need the text from an image, just right-click it and choose Copy Text from Picture. This also applies to handwriting.
Any item in OneNote can have one or more associated tags. All tags can be defined by the user and the first 9 tags can be applied from the keyboard (Ctrl-1 through Ctrl-9). I have [1] Pending, Research, In Progress, Question, Complete, Important, Contact, Address, and Phone Number as the first 9 tags. In [2] defining a tag, the user establishes the name, a symbol to display, the color of the text, and a highlight color.
As good as OneNote is, there's one task that it's not suited to: Maintaining a list of passwords. OneNote does allow users to password-protect files, but password protection on Office suite applications offers little more than an illusion of security. Think of it as a plastic lock on a cardboard door.
For passwords and any other information that needs to remain secure, you need a password manager such as LastPass; but for retaining, organizing, and locating just about any other kind of information, OneNote is ideal.
See the Office 365 article in Short Circuits.
Office suite users shouldn't ignore OneNote, the information organizer that's already on their computer. No matter what information you want to store or how you want to organize it, OneNote is an excellent choice, particularly for those who already use Microsoft's Office suite or Office 365. With web access and apps for IOS and Android devices, OneNote is available almost everywhere.
Additional details are available on the Microsoft website.
Windows 10 tries to protect users by displaying a warning when it determines that a program is being installed or a setting is being changed. The desktop dims and then the warning pops up. How quickly the warning appear depends on the speed of the computer and that annoys some people.
It's possible to change the behavior, but the underlying question is Should I change the behavior?
No matter how careful the user, it's always possible to make a mistake. User Access Control (UAC) warnings are the final safeguard. I'm relatively careful, but I still leave the UAC warnings set to the highest of the 4 levels allowed to me.
As a user with administrator, privileges, I can choose any of the 4 levels:
Users with standard privileges will see all 4 options, but can choose only 2 of them:
If, after considering the dangers of downgrading the settings, you decide that you want to proceed, press the Windows Key and X to display a special menu and choose Settings (or use your preferred method of opening the settings panel.)
Type "uac" in the search field and then click Change the User
Account Control Settings.
Select your preferred setting.
Lowering the setting will potentially reduce the protection Windows provides.
Although these warnings can be annoying and they interrupt the user's work flow, they also serve as a strong barrier against accidental or malicious changes that can be even more time consuming, will severely interrupt the work flow, and may result in lost data.
I received a call the other day that told me someone way "trying to hijack my computer" to steal my personal information. The call used a speech synthesizer and it was clearly a fraudulent call. Listen to it and judge for yourself.
Why is this obviously a fraudulent call? Let's start with the voice synthesis and why someone might choose to use this instead of recording an audio track of their own. The most common reason is that the creator of the message doesn't speak English well and may not speak English at all.
The message has obvious wording errors. For example: "If it's not fixed right away, then your computer will become obsolete." That's the wrong word, one that was probably suggested by an automatic translation application. The message creator didn't know enough about English to correct it.
The message also warns that "all of your credential information may got compromised". This is another clear indication that the creator of the message has a minimal knowledge of English.
The caller is never identified. It's just a "security team". If a call such at this reached an office worker at a large company, "security team" might be misinterpreted as an internal message from the IT department. In that case, the phone number should be a clue. The 718 area code is used in a small part of Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.
If you research the number to call (718.355.8226) using a service such as WhoCallsMe, FindWhoCallsYou, or ShouldIAnswer, it will be immediately obvious that the number has a highly negative rating.
But the #1 reason that this is clearly a fraudulent call eliminates the need for any of those considerations: There is no way for any outside organization to know that your computer is under attack and no reputable organization will ever make a call like this.
Microsoft charges $100 per year for Office 365, which includes computer-based applications for Windows and MacOS, on-line apps, and mobile apps for IOS and Android devices. Currently there's an installation limit, but that will disappear in October.
It's not really much of a limit: 10 devices in total and few people have more than 10 devices, but there are other changes coming, too.
The same document open simultaneously on a Windows desktop system, an Ipad, and an Android tablet.
Microsoft's Tech Community blog says that as of Tuesday, October 2, Office 365 Home users will no longer have any limits. The Personal version will see the same upgrade and that's more significant because previously Personal users were limited to one PC or Mac and one tablet.
The more significant change affects the number of users. A single Office 365 license can now be shared by 5 users, but that will increase to 6 in October. Each user also has access to 1TB of on-line OneDrive storage. That would be a plus for someone with a large family.
Microsoft says that each of the licensed users will be able log on concurrently from 5 devices so a single $100 annual license could allow 30 devices if each of the 6 users had the 5 simultaneous connections.
