RedNoteBook is a graphical daily journal tool with plenty of features that is sure to please nearly every level of user. It has an outstanding interface that allows for drag and drop support as well as exporting, backup, and statistics. And in this Ghacks entry, I am going to show you how to install and make use of this handy tool.

Features

Let’s take a look at some of the features of RedNoteBook.

• PDF support
• Drag and drop interface
• Edit and preview mode
• Category cloud
• Entry tags
• Text format
• In line images
• Export to PDF, HTML, Latex, or plain text
• Multiple journals
• Auto save
• Open source
• Translated into 16 languages
• Free

And much more. Now let’s install.

Installation

The installation is simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Open up your Add/Remove Software tool.
2. Search for “rednotebook” (no quotes).
3. Mark RedNoteBook for installation.
4. Click Apply to install.
5. When complete, close the Add/Remove Software tool.
6. That’s it. You are now ready to start keeping your journal.

Usage

Figure 1

To start RedNoteBook click Applications > RedNoteBook which will bring up the main window (see Figure 1). As you can see the developers have taken it upon themselves to create some nice documentation for the first four entries (regardless of what day you installed the application). These entries serve as a very easy to use quick start guide. So instead of repeating what the developers have already done, I will show you some of the features they haven’t listed.

Adding images

One of the first things that tripped me up with RedNoteBook was adding images. RedNoteBook clearly supports drag and drop. So you can open up your file manager and drag and drop images to a journal entry. But when you drop the images into a journal entry what you will see is something like:

[""file:///home/jlwallen/Pictures/27058-Overflowed"".jpg]

It wasn’t until I realized there is two modes for RedNoteBook (Edit and Preview) that this made sense. By default, RedNoteBook starts every entry in Edit mode. So when you drag and drop images the image will show up as a link to the image. It’s not until you switch to preview mode that you will then be able to actually see the images. This should have been all too obvious. Now you don’t have to have that same “head slapping moment” as I had. ;-)

Annotations and Categories

One of the best features of RedNoteBook is the ability to annotate and categorize your daily entries. This allows you to search your entire journal for various subjects. The right hand side of RedNoteBook is dedicated for what is called Annotations in Categories. You create categories for your journal entry and then annotate your categories.

For example: You can have a category called “Meals” and in that category you can annotate the list of meals you had that day. To create a new category right click an empty spot in the right pane and select Add New Entry. When you do this a new window will open (see Figure 2) where you can then enter the category in the top drop down. You have to add a new entry before you can actually hit OK. After you have created a new category, that category will then be available, via drop down, for future usage.

Final thoughts

There are a ton of really great features that make RedNoteBook an ideal journaling tool for just about any type of user. The only thing you can not really do (without some work) is publish your journal. You could export the journal as an HTML document and then upload that document…but that’s more work than necessary. Maybe in future releases the developer will create an auto-publishing feature to various blog sites?

The small laptop weights 1.1 kilograms and comes equipped with 512 Megabytes of RAM, a 900 Mhz 64-bit Longsoon CPU, 3 USB ports, a SD-HC port, Wlan, Ethernet connections, speakers, microphone, webcam and a touchpad.

In case you might be wondering why I have not mentioned a hard drive: It does not come with one. It makes use of a 4-16 Gigabyte USB stick instead which comes preinstalled with Mandravia Linux and Open-Source software like Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office.

Small Laptop

That’s an interesting concept but rather problematic because you can’t do anything if you forget the USB stick. The Longsoon cpu requires some explanation as well. That’s a cpu that is manufactured in China and I was not able to come up with any benchmark comparison charts.

Small Laptop Doubts

While the small laptop might introduce some interesting features it surely does have a few limitations especially that it does not come with a hard drive but makes use of an usb stick only that contains the operating system.

This adds to the security of the small laptop but it also raises a few questions about operating system performance. USB Sticks are slower than hard drives and flash drives usually and it would be interesting to see how this affects performance of the whole small laptop.

The small laptop will be available in white, pink and black at the beginning of September for a suggested retail price of roughly $400.

Problems can also arise after establishing the connection. Users might have to change certain settings like the default printer or SMTP email server that requires manual work.

Avanquest Connection Manager is a software that tackles those situations by detecting and memorizing connections and settings for the user so that future connections demand almost no attention and time.

The software can be freely downloaded from the Avanquest homepage. Users still need to register the product to receive a serial number which will be send to an email address.

The software scans the existing network connections immediately and provides a manual wizard which can be used to add other connections. This can be useful if the user has all the information about another location and wants to add it to the Connection Manager before he goes there.

Profiles can be accessed through the main window which resembles the Windows Network Connections window which sorts connections by type or by so called groups which offers a custom way of sorting network connections.

One interesting feature is the apply best profile option in the program’s main window which can automatically select the best known profile for the current situation and location. Buttons are provided for WLAN and LAN connections.

Feature Overview:

• Easy Connection Wizard – Detects and displays every network available
• Profile Manager – Saves profiles automatically whenever the user connects to a new network
• Enhanced Security Settings – Supports Virtual Private Networks, Firewall settings and WEP / WPA /WPA2 for wireless connections
• Network Profiles – Save network related settings like network type with support of wordgroups and domains, default printers, email, internet connection sharing and drive mapping.
• Automatically match networks – Applies settings automatically if a match is found

The Avanquest Connection Manager is a handy software for every notebook owner who is connecting his notebook from different locations. Best of all it’s totally free, my only complaint would be the advertisement that is displayed in the main program window. It’s not a huge deal because that window is only open for a short time. It is compatible to Windows XP and Windows Vista.