Link your Windows Live Email Accounts

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Our Provider’s email is powered by Windows Live, therefore I took the opportunity when I got the email address to link it with my regular hotmail account.

I became surprised to learn that few classmates knew how to do this – frequently missing important emails, due to lack of enthusiasm for checking university mail. This was also a great problem at undergrad as there usually becomes a point where the inbox is full and then you don’t receive any mail.

So for the benefit of those who do not know how to use this function, here are the details.

1. Sign into the Hotmail account that you usually sign into (and wish to access both accounts from)
2. Click on your name in the top right hand corner where the arrow is to reveal drop down list and click on link other accounts
3. When next page loads, click link an existing Windows Live ID.
4. You will then have to enter your current account details and the one you wish to link
5. click link and volia. done.

You can now sign into both accounts using the one account, yet keep the 2 accounts separate without using mixing up the mail. To change between the accounts simply toggle by clicking name in right hand corner and selecting the relevant account from the drop down list. Easy.

On another note, University email is good to have separate, as it keeps all the junk mail out of your normal account. As an Alumni of my Undergrad University I do receive email from them to my regular account, which is of course optional. And it got me thinking would an opt-in option work with regular university emails – i.e. send uni emails to a specified personal address, particularly  if you were in the habit of  forgetting to check?

iProcrastinate

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Despite the name, “iprocrastinate”, this is one of the best tools for the ipod/iphone for organisation and productivity (until the next new one appears on the scene).

Iprocrastinate can be used several ways to suit your study programme/schedule. Here I have used mine as an example of what you can do.

1. First I created a folder for each class I take: Criminal Litigation, Skills, Property Law, Civil Litigation and Business Law. These are colourcoded and each say how many tasks I have to do, and how many are overdue. As can be seen in the photograph it tells you your active tasks, how many are actually due today and in red it also tells you how many of these tasks are overdue.

2. Within each subject I have a Main Task to represent each class, e.g. Property Workshop 6 and any Post-workshop Tasks. The numbers beside the task represent the subtasks, showing the total and how many are completed. For example for my Post-workshop 5 task I had 3 tasks to do and I have completed all three – therefore it is 3/3. Underneath the title of the task is the due date – this will be shown as a date or day and when you have passed the date it will say Past as it does in the photo below.

3. Each task can easily be broken down into sub-tasks, kind of like a check list / to do list to be ticked off. For me this mainly comprises of my pre-reading for class and things I have to look up etc. The photo below shows Property Workshop 6 – the 9 Steps represents the sub-tasks I have entered in, the 100% means I’ve completed it. You simply tick them off as you do them.

When all the things are ticked off, the task automatically becomes complete. Couldn’t be easier.  I will also note that these sub-tasks (steps) option can also be turned off so that the checklist will only be the main task if this suits your needs better.

Overall, this is a great app and I would highly recommend it. Particularly if you like having some many lists, most organising apps are a more simple to do list just containing a to-do list for each subject (I.e. the ability to have just 2 sets of lists rather than 3).

Google Docs

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For the many many articles I had to read for my undergrad Commercial Property Coursework – in all honesty there was no real reason why I chose google docs over say Office Live or any other similar service. In reality there is little difference in my mind.

Straight forward interface – type, save, upload, download. All the information is there whether you are at uni, home or the library. Information can be sorted into folders etc.

I’m not going to sit here and analyse every feature of Docs but if you’re interested in the comparisons Read Write Web did an interesting comparison article earlier in the year.

Since my undergrad I’ve gone off GoogleDocs and as always still on the search for perfection.

OneNote 2007

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I purchased Microsoft Office 2007 last year as part of Microsoft’s Ultimate steal and ever since I was addicted to OneNote. Luckily my university had upgraded to 2007 as well to make integration a lot easier.

If you are familiar with Office, the whole OneNote setup will be straightforward for you. Everything can be organised into subject (a notebook for each subject) and then each subject has as many tabs as you wish (I used this for each topic) and then each tab can have as many pages and sub pages as you like.

The pages allow you to type anywhere on the page and clip (cut) anything from the web to each page giving you amazing flexibility. You can highlight, search, have to do lists etc anywhere to suit your needs.

Here are some examples:

For each subject I had a notebook (this one is internet law). I then put together a number of tabs. The one on show is my reading list, and you can simply paste in a link when you want and tag it with a little check box which you tick when the task is complete. Easy.
For anything you don’t have a particular place for (as of yet), there is a section for unfiled notes and misplaced sections – which is handy. You can also add things quickly to One Note by using the icon on the taskbar, which then saves the page as a unfiled note for you to organise later.

The second picture shows an example of how the pages fit together: At the top is a search function which allows you to search for a particular keyword over all the notebooks which is very handy and results will highlight both the work and the page it is on making it easy to find if you have many notes. Great for doing coursework. The pages on the pictured list are to do with media literacy, the main pages are longer  (Which I used for discussion about a topic) and then the sub-pages are shorter (I mainly used these for relevant cases and some articles).

Overall, OneNote, keeps your notes in a very organised fashion, but with the ability to be amazingly flexible. No boring rigid structure or limits on what you can do – overall great. Of course it is kept on your computer rather than being an online only notebook like I usually use and the downside that you have to purchase it – but frequently people have Office, but have never bothered to open OneNote, well seriously, if you are one of these people, you are missing out.