Can you say Notely iPhone?

Published
by
Tom
on November 18, 2008
in API, New Features and iPhone
. 0 Comments

Being a sucker for anything with a little apple on it, I recently subcummed to the iPhone. So far the user experience is way better than any other phone I’ve owned. The ease of use and interaction is simply brilliant and most of the apps being released are great too.

This in mind I’ve been toiling away in Xcode for the past week or two to create something for Notely. This being my first dealing with application development on OS X so it’s been a rocky week but with the help of a few great sites I’ve gotten over most of my issues.

Since the app is coming close to completion I though I would throw up a few images and see what feedback came in…so..here goes.

iPhone app showing the home screen
iPhone app showing the users Notes
iPhone app showing the users Notes in detail

iPhone app showing the users contacts being deleted

Mail me or submit comments and suggestions to Get Satisfaction and I will see where they can be slotted in.

New features…

Published
by
Tom
on September 18, 2008
in Feedback and New Features
. 0 Comments

So I’ve been working hard on a couple of new features that some of you have been requesting and wanted to give you all a sneak peak and ask for any feedback on the ideas. So onto the features.

Mindmapping

I’ve developed a text to mindmap feature that turns formatted text as a flash mindmap. The text must be formatted in the correct manner, something a little like this:

Months of the Year
    Spring
        March
        April
        May
    Winter
       October
       November
       December

This will, when processed, create the following mindmap.

When viewing the mindmap you can expand and contract nodes to create the appropriate view for your learning.

Questions & Answers

The second new feature is a questions and answer service. I’m hoping this will replace the need for a separate forum..which I really don’t have the time to manage. With this new tool users can ask and answer questions (funny that). Answers provided can be voted upon and the answers with the highest user approval will be promoted to the top of the answers list. This will provided a basis for older pupils to help out those a few rungs below them. I’ll even be popping in every now and again to ask and answer questions. Here are a few screenies of the new service, as ever feedback is appreciated so don’t hesitate to contact me either in the comments, e-mail or Get Satisfaction.

Notely Support

Published
by
Tom
on May 10, 2008
in New Features, Support and Version 3
. 0 Comments

I’ve always thought of web applications such as Notely as replacements for traditional desktop apps. Being a web application allows Notely to be flexible, focussed and constantly updated. One thing that web applications often do wrong is support; most sites throw up a an FAQ. Not Notely!

We’ve added even more ways for you to get support, we’ve now got a dedicated support email (hmm you can guess what it is I think), a support form, a new manual and I will be using Get Satisfaction.

The Support Form
The new and improved support form allows you to send in bug reports and support requests, simply fill out the form specifying as much of the information as possible and as detailed an explanation as possible. It’s even possible for you to add a screenshot of your problem. With all this information submitted it should be fairly easy for me to figure out waht the problem was and fix it.

The Manual
The manual comes in two flavours; videos with subtitles and a HTML walkthrough. The manual aims to explain all the key tools within Notely and shows you in detail how to use each of them. The manual is currently only in English but in time I’ll get it translated.

Get Satisfaction
From now on I’ll also be logging into Get Satisfaction, a sort of out-sourced crowd-sourced support system, to check for new posts. You can ask questions about Notely on our page here. I would encourage you all to sign up to Get Satisfaction and help other users out, the less time I have to spend on support the more time I can devote to developing Notely.

I hope these two new tools (along with the current FAQ) will make Notely more of a candidate to replace traditional desktop tools for some of you out there.

Version 3.0!

Published
by
Tom
on May 3, 2008
in Community, New Features and Version 3
. 0 Comments

The last few months have been a busy period for me, working away on Notely version 3 while trying to promote and market the site. Well the time has now come to release Version 3 to the world! After quite a few months in the works Notely Version 3 has a number of great new features

  1. Improved notes editing
  2. Equation editor with preview
  3. E-mail integration
  4. Improved support
  5. Video and picture manual
  6. Enhanced calendaring (monhtly, weekly and daily views)
  7. Sync support for calendar
  8. Increased language support
  9. Community forums and profile pages
  10. Ability to send messages to friends
  11. Chat with friends online
  12. Import PDF/RTF documents to notes
  13. Enhanced schedule builder
  14. And more..

I’ve stored up quite a lot of great new features for this realase as I’ve also switched servers to help keep Notely nice and zippy as the user base grows. I hope you enjoy using the new Notely and that it helps you to get organised!

If you have any suggestions or feature requests feel free to post them either on the Suggestions Page or the new Community Forums and I will try to accomodate them all. Please take a minute to check out the new Manual to see how all these great new feature can help you get organised!

Notely user community

Published
by
Tom
on May 3, 2008
in Community, New Features and Version 3
. 0 Comments

Hey! How’s everybody feeling today? Good I hope! Notely’s getting a new feature, isn’t it a great day! So when I was at university I always found it helpful to ask cleverer people questions, seems logical really. So I figured that Notely users of all ages might benefit from a community behind Notely that can be used to socialise and ask questions.The Notely community is a new trial I’m going to run, if it gets used and isn’t abused I’ll be keeping it around and maybe we can even see if we can get some subject experts in to answer some of the over technical questions.Your current username and password should work fine on the community (you aren’t automatically logged in though :( ) if not contact me and we’ll see if we can sort it out; it was a big job moving 5000 or so users to a new database!

Downtime :(

Published
by
Tom
on April 22, 2008
in Downtime and Version 3
. 0 Comments

Due to the impending release of Notely version 3 Notely will be taking some time out next weekend (3rd May 08 01am - 5rd May 08 01am GMT) in order to do some major server/database re-jigging. So that’s the bad news…now for the good news.

When we come back on Monday morning we’ll have a brand spanking new site with tonnes of great new features for you all. Version 3 of Notely won’t look radically different but there will be over 20 changes under the hood including some much needed new features all aimed at making you better organised and allow you student to organise your workload much much better.

iPhones for students!

Published
by
Tom
on March 30, 2008
in Education
. 0 Comments

Bloody Hell! Lucky old Americans. Students as ACU are to be given iPhone or iPod Touch when registering for college. In an attempt to create a modern, cutting-edge, learning environment the College will be rolling out the program from the next academic year. Using these iPhones/iPods students will be able to download and install over 15 web applications developed by the College’s IT staff. Amongst the services will be homework alerts, in-class surveys and quizzes.

Jealous as I am of these lucky future iPhone owners it’s great to see technological solutions being embraced in schools and colleges around the world! Good move ACU!*

Homework ban for UK pupils

Published
by
Tom
on March 16, 2008
in Education
. 0 Comments

It seems that UK teachers are making an effort to get homework banned in UK state schools. The teachers union is under the impression that pupils might get stuck in  a “cycle of resistance to school in children from poorer homes“ caused by the difficulty of completing homework.Obviously children around the UK are rejoicing no-end about this, why wouldn’t they! But are teachers not looking at this the wrong way? If students find homework too difficult to complete it shows that pupils need help to complete homework in a manageable way.There seems to be no suggestion that pupils are unable to complete homework for academic reasons, the problem is with finding the time to do it. The UK Government’s current guidelines suggest that pupils should do “one hour a week at five” rising to “90 to 150 minutes a day at 16.”  This may not sound like a lot but pupils are finding it increasingly difficult to find the time to complete these tasks.Problems like this are why I created Notely in the first place; many millions of bright students the world over lack the organisational skills to make the most of the learning opportunities they have.Pupils using Notely are able to schedule homework and even receive reminders before their homework is due in and collaborative features like whiteboards (group-editable notes) can help pupils during group work.

Schedule Updates

Published
by
Tom
on February 5, 2008
in Small Changes and Version 2
. 0 Comments

Hey guys,A while ago Notely had a small upgrade to add some new features such as the Schedule Builder. You all seemed to like the schedule builder, but there was one common request. To be able to customise the time slots. So given  the demand I’ve added this feature today.All you have to do to edit the time slots is click and type. As soon as you click away from the time slot it is saved behind the scenes.I’ve also been busy creating some cool new features that I think you’ll love, hopefully they will be coming out shortly (within a few weeks) I’ve also got a couple of new languages coming.

Version 2 new additions

Published
by
Tom
on December 24, 2007
in Small Changes and Version 2
. 1 Comment

Version 2 of Notely also brings with it some small changes in that aren’t really big enough to be called features but are useful none-the-less.

Mark Tasks and To-Dos as Done

To-Do list and Task entries can now be marked as complete allowing you to keep track of all the work you’ve done over the years. This also feeds straight into the grades feature, allowing you to mark tasks (homework) as done and record the mark you were awarded.

Timezones

Notely now works with timezones, so you can edit your settings and Notely will keep you on time.

More Languages

We’re getting there! Notely is now, partially at least, translated into 10 languages. I’m currently working on Greek and Portuguese and am always looking for translators. If you know a foreign language or spotted a mistake let me know and we’ll sort you out with an advert free account.

Autosaves and drafts

Ever been working on a big essay, got to the end, then loose it all because your computer crashed! That’s why God invented autosaves and drafts and why Notley has copied him. Now all Notes will be automagically saved every 15 seconds and Notes now have a save as draft button.

Nearest Class on Dashboard

Forgotten a class? No worries Notley’s got your back. Just fill in your class schedule and Notely will tell you when you’re supposed to be in class on your dashboard.

Simplified Dates

Notely uses dates all over the shop so we’re now using Brian’s (sorry I don’t know your last name) Unobtrusive Date-Picker Widgit Update to make date’s less complicated.

Delete warnings

We’ve had a few grumbles about accidental deletes so we stepped up to the plate and added a warning when clicking delete on pretty much anything in Notely. Hopefully this won’t annoy too many users and will help to stop any accidents.

Sortable Tables

Sortable tables are here! Can’t find what you’re looking for, sort! Easily find all those notes tucked away in the corners with the click of a button.

Improved File Storage

In an attempt to make file storage more useful you can now add folders (only one level at the moment) so you can better organise your media