fDo you get great ideas then forget them?
Do you write your ideas on scraps of paper then lose them?
Do you keep a notebook but forget to take it with you?
Do you resort to sending email notes to yourself so that you can pick them up later?
Have you given up thinking of new ideas because you know that you will forget about them?
If you can answer yes to any of the above questions then you might be interested in hearing about a Yahoo service that I have been using for some time. It”s called Yahoo Notepad”.
As it”s name suggests, Yahoo Notepad is an online version of the Windows Notepad so familiar to PC users. Provided you have ready access to the Internet you can create notes any time you like and access them from anywhere you like, any time you like.
Yahoo Notepad is also very easy to use and has good online help to enable you to get the most out of the system.
So what are we waiting for? Lets go set up an account on Yahoo Notepad.
Step 1 – Set up your Yahoo account.
Get out your browser and surf over to http://notepad.yahoo.com Click the “Sign up now” link and fill in your details. Read the terms of service then click the “Submit” button. As soon as your registration is confirmed you can start using Yahoo Notepad so continue with step 2.
Step 2 – Log in
Log into your Yahoo Notepad account by first typing http://notepad.yahoo.com into your browser address window.
Enter your Yahoo! ID and password in the “Existing Yahoo! users” box and click the “Sign In” button.
Step 3 – Create a folder
Start as you mean to go on I say so begin by creating a folder to keep your notes. You should always keep related notes in a suitably named folder because it will make it much easier to find things when you are looking for them later.
Click the “Add Folder” button then, under “General Preferences”, type the name of your new folder. Call it “MyFolder” for now,
you can always change it later. Click the “Add” Button to complete the folder.
Click the “Notepad” tab at the top of the page to return to the Main page. Notice that your new folder appears in the left panel together with an “All” folder. If you select “All” it will list all of your notes from all of your folders.
Step 4 – Create a note
Now you can start entering your notes. Click the “Add Note” button to create your new note.
Before you start typing your notes select the folder you want to use from the “Folder” drop down menu (You can do this at any time while you are entering your note text but I like to do it first so that I don”t forget to do it.) If you want to create a new folder for this note then select “[Add Folder]” from the list.
Yahoo Notepad uses the first line of the note text as the title of the note to identify it so you might want to put a short title for the note on the top line.
Now enter the body of your note, it can be anything you like and it can be any length you want. I suppose that there must be some limit to size of a note but I believe that it is very large and as yet, I haven”t hit it so I think that you can consider it to be unlimited for all intents and purposes.
Click the “Save” button to save your new note. If you have selected “[Add Folder]” from the “Folder” menu a box will appear to allow you to enter the name of the new folder. Enter your folder name, call it “New Folder” for now and click “OK”.
Step 5 – Review the Yahoo Notepad Help
As I said earlier Yahoo Notepad provides excellent help so take a look at it right now. At the top of the page there are tabs and each tab has a drop down menu. Click the triangle on the right hand side of the “Notepad” tab to see the menu and select “Notepad Help” from the list.
The help is clear and a lot of “How Do I” questions are answered so it must be good.
Step 6 – Use it from anywhere
No more losing your ideas because you can”t find them or you don”t have them with you. Now you can access them from anywhere, as long as you have an Internet connection. Simply surf over to http://notepad.yahoo.com and log in to your Yahoo Notepad account.
Shortcomings
Yahoo Notepad does not provide an easy way to back up your notes which can be a little annoying if you want to ensure that you never lose them. It is unlikely that Yahoo would ever lose your notes but it can happen if they suffer catastrophic server
problems.
For important notes I copy the contents of the note window then paste it into Windows notepad so that I can save it as a file on my PC.
You can do this by clicking your right mouse button in the “Notes” window then clicking “Select All” from the menu. Now right click your mouse again and select “Copy”. Open the Windows Notepad program from the “Start” menu. “Start/Accessories/Notepad”. Right click your mouse in the Notepad window and select “Paste” from the menu to insert your note text. Now select “File/Save As” to have Windows Notepad save your note to a file of your choice.
If you find a better way of backing up your Yahoo Notes then please let me know.
I hope that you have found this “How Do I…?” useful. Please let me know how you get on.
Related Posts
