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What can Taskade do?

It's a to-do list, it's a project manager, it's a video conferencing app, no, it's an instant messaging tool.

Actually, Taskade is all of those things and so much more.

So in this video, I wanna show you how Taskade can replace many of your more expensive applications but perhaps more importantly, keep you on the same page.

So you don't have to be switching tabs or opening up different apps.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

Built-in video conferencing

So let's get started here with video conferencing.

And right now I'm in the middle of a Taskade call, no, this isn't a small or minimized Zoom window or Microsoft Teams.

I'm actually using Taskade's built-in video conferencing tool.

So myself and my team and whoever else I invite to this call, we can actually view the same project here on the left-hand side, making sure that everyone's on the same page.

And the great thing about using an integrated tool like this is you don't have to remember if you sent the correct link or not.

Everyone who's invited to this project or to a broader workspace can have access to this call to make sure that everyone's on the same page.

Project chat and instant messaging

Now it gets better than that, down below here, we also have a chat window as well.

Now you may think that this is built into the video conferencing feature, and of course, we can be using this chat window to upload files and to communicate with one another while we are on a call, but this is actually a full-fledged instant messaging system as well.

So as we're working on projects, we can update one another, we can ask questions, we can mention people directly, and have a full log of that going on here as well.

So no, this is not specific just to the video conferencing functionality, we can be using this ongoing.

And what I love about this is that we don't have to remind people to use the correct channel or the correct hashtag.

For those of you who use Slack, you may be familiar with what I'm talking about.

Of course, everything that is mentioned here is going to be attached to this project so that we can stay focused on the task at hand. Well, let's dive into some of that fuller-fledged project management

Multiple project views in Taskade

and task management functionality that you can see here on the left-hand side.

So Taskade can be used in a variety of different ways.

Here, you can see I've got a variety of different checklists and tasks.

Some of them are assigned to individuals, some of them are assigned to me, for example, but Taskade can be used for note-taking, for creating an agenda.

There's really a wide variety of ways in which you can use Taskade.

But one of the things that I love is that you can view this information in a variety of different ways as well.

So here in the top right-hand corner, you can see that we're looking at sort of the traditional or standard list view.

And if you like something a little more linear, we've got our subject headings here, sort of a vertical workspace.

This may be great for you, but what if you prefer something more like a Kanban view, something a little more like a board view?

Well, great! Taskade has that too.

So you can drag tasks over into different lists and you can manage that here as well.

They also have something called an action list, which is really gonna create a little more distinction between things that are actual tasks, things that are actually separated, even if they are sub-tasks were broken out into different branches.

Now, one of my favorite views happens to be this one, and you don't get this in an awful lot of project management tools.

And that is the mind map view.

Now, of course, this may be dependent on the type of project or the type of tasks that you're working on.

I really enjoy this mind map view because the way it branches out, the way I can quickly add other levels, right?

The ways I can quickly add sub-tasks and so forth or minimize views right here within the mind map view, something that you don't always get with other project management tools.

And then last but not least, we also have an organizational chart view.

Now this is really, in many ways, just the mind map view tilted on its side, right?

Just rotating it a little bit but depending on what you're working on, you may like this organizational chart view as well.

Now, if you wanna make sure that you have a favorite, even if other people on your team or whom you're collaborating with are changing views, you can select a default here.

Here you can see I've put a star by the list view because this is the default view that I want to be using when I'm working or at least the first view that I wanna see when I'm coming in here within Taskade.

How to check all tasks in Taskade projects

Another nice few touches that I like about the project view and how you manage your projects here within Taskade is the ability to check off multiple tasks all at once.

And how many times have you come back to a project and realized, Oh yeah, we've already finished this up, right?

Like we've done everything on this board, I guess I gotta come back in here and manually check off every single thingwith how Taskade is laid out we've got s that is in front of me.

Well, what Taskade has added is an ability to check everything so that you can quickly get caught back up to speed.

And that's especially helpful if you're looking at something like your own task list.

So here you can see, I've got a variety of different tasks that are assigned to me with specific due dates.

If I, or maybe someone who is the project lead, is not checking these things off, I'm gonna still see this in my task view here.

So if I go back to my team workspace, let's go back to this brainstorming solutions project.

If I say to myself, you know what, we've actually finished everything off here, I don't wanna waste my time checking off every little tick box.

I can come up here and select more and I can select check all.

Now, the nice thing is, it's going to give me a prompt, are you sure you want to do this?

I think this is always a very safe measure whenever you're doing something like this in bulk but I'm gonna say, yeah, yeah, go ahead let's just check everything off here and so now we're done.

Now, this project is wrapped up.

So just a nice little touch to make it a little bit easier when you get into those positions or when you get into those circumstances and you need to check everything off. So let's go back to the workspace here. And for those who may not be familiar

Taskade structure and custom templates

with how Taskade is laid out, we've got some nice subheadings here, including a calendar.

If you want to favorite certain projects or workspaces and as I just showed you, your own personal tasks.

So it can bring in tasks from multiple locations but then you can break things out by different workspaces whether it's your own workspace, I've got a personal workspace here, or a team workspace.

And as you can see here on the right-hand side, I've got different projects within that workspace.

So a nice way to organize and branch out different things that you may be working on.

Now, if I wanna start a new project within this workspace, I can come up here and select new and right at the top it's gonna give me some helpful templates to get me started quickly and easily.

Now there's a few preset ones here, in fact, you can actually see a lot more if you click this option.

There's a full library of Taskade templates from users in a variety of different industries, but you can also create your own.

So for example, here I've created one called Team Meeting Agenda, which already has Simpletivity in the title.

It already has some of my custom headings here because this is the type of things I want us to be tracking when we have our meeting together.

So not only can you create your own custom templates, but you can attach them to a specific workspace.

A pet peeve of mine is that as you're building out a variety of different templates and you wanna go use them but you're already within a sub-folder or a particular area or a particular workspace.

I don't wanna see all of the templates, I only wanna see the templates that are relevant for that workspace.

So you can do that.

Here we go back to the team workspace.

If I click on templates, here you can see there is my Team Meeting Agenda.

It's waiting for me because it's specific to this particular team.

So there's a quick overview of Taskade, how it can replace things like Zoom, like Slack, like Asana or Trello, so that you can keep yourself and the rest of your team on the same page.

What Taskade features excite you the most?

Now, I would love to hear from you next, which of these features are you most excited about the most or which of this functionality are you typically more frustrated with in terms of having to go back and forth or creating some type of linkage or integration that you would love to see here all on the same page.

Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video, be sure to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.

Meet Francesco from Keep Productive

Hello there, my name's Francesco D'Alessio and I run a YouTube channel called Keep Productive.

I've been here on Scott's channel before to do some features, and I'm excited to be back.

Today, I'm gonna be diving into Amplenote.

Scott will be diving into his opinion on Amplenote over on my channel, Keep Productive, so you can check out that video below, naturally.

If you're new to both Scott and I's channel, it'd be great to have you as a subscriber.

Overview of Amplenote workflow

So Amplenote is an application that blends note taking and task management.

It has a two-week trial, and if you wanted to go for the Basic and Pro account, it's $6 per month and $10 per month, but you'll find all the pricing information below.

So before we get into stuff like that, we'll talk about the application and the concepts behind it and really go into a bit more detail in what the application actually does.

If you're interested, this app was actually created by the creators of Get Clear and Bonanza.com, Bill and Jordan, and it is available on iOS and Android and also on web.

So the whole concept is quite interesting. It's designed and based off of something called the idea execution funnel.

The concept itself is broken into four phases: Jots, Notes, Tasks, and Calendar.

Essentially in Jots, you write and capture. In Notes, you rewrite them and organize them.

In Tasks, you make them more actionable, and then you actually schedule them and do them, connecting it to your Calendar.

So here we have the web version in front of me. It's only available for a 14-day free trial, as I said two weeks, and then there is a paid model, so the minimum you'll be paying a month is $6.

However, if you do get on with this, I guess it's like a task manager and a note taker all in one which isn't too bad of a price, I guess, and it does have a system and process behind it.

How to create notes in Amplenote

which does make it a lot better. So let's start by creating a brand new note, and as you can see, the design looks very similar to applications like Evernote, where you have these sort of three sections over here.

You can access your Jots, which is essentially your daily note taking, and as the concept mentioned earlier, you essentially use this to capture stuff and be able to write it down, and you can use these using some of the daily Jots here.

Notes is where you write, rewrite, and organize your notes for later. You can add tags to them.

And Tasks is essentially pulling all of the tasks that's inside all of your notes into this application, and they've got some really nice task abilities which I'll dive into.

So let's start by making a daily note. Okay, so as you can see here, when I was inside of Jots, I went ahead and created that as a full note, which meant that it became available inside of the Notes section here.

Now when I was inside of this section, you can do more formatting, the Jots section is really just you get the idea down, so they don't really want you necessarily to be making this fully-formed note as you would in the Note section.

And as you can see here, I added a few tasks.

Tasks and To-Do's in Amplenote

so let's see the concept behind the tasks. So as you can see here, you can pop open the feature, you can set a repeat up for the task, you can set a due date, in this case, I might make it today.

And as you can see, you can set a reminder, priority, and duration, all the regular stuff you'd expect.

Now what's really cool is it actually gives the task something called a task score, which essentially gives it a rating of how likely you're able to complete it.

And if I go over to the Tasks section, you can see that it's appeared here as well as all of the other ones that I've created in that note.

I can still pop this open and interact with it like I would, and as you can see, it's quite a handy way to get started on your tasks.

Now what's cool is you've got this shortcut called like Due This Week, so for example, if you want to narrow that filter down and find something that you need to do this week, then that's something that you can do.

You can also choose the ones that are high value only. For example, in this case, this is an important task so it's narrowed those down to filter that section.

You can go up to the top right and actually sort the tasks based on their tasks score.

This is an automated number that is associated to a task based on the following algorithm.

It's designed to help you find out what's really important to do.

Using Backlinks within Amplenote

which is quite a nice touch to this application, if I'm honest. So one of the features inside of it, aside from task management and this sort of built-in task management list processing, is actually the ability to create back links.

Now we've seen this inside of applications like Roam Research and Obsidian, but let's show you how they work.

So if you wanna create a back link, you create these two brackets and add the title of the note or link it to something you've already created.

So as you can see there, I created a section using a header for meetings, and you can see that I created a chat with Simpletivity.

Now when I actually finish those brackets, you can see that an area was created, and you can see a little preview of what the note actually has in it, in this case it doesn't have any notes.

I can edit the details of that preview but if I want to actually go into that, as you can see, all I have to do is open that note up and I can start writing my own notes here using the same format I would for most note taking.

Down here you can see the back links that have been formed, so for example in this case, they know that I've mentioned this inside of Daily Jots, which is perfect for if you want to start building something like the Zettelkasten methodology, which is something that is becoming increasingly popular in productivity these days.

So we've talked about so far in terms of the Jots to simply capture stuff, the Notes to simply be able to rewrite your notes and organize them in a bit more of a fixed fashion.

We talked about Tasks and how you can use the task score to work out which stuff you wanna get done during the week, but there's also the ability to connect with your calendar to be able to actually schedule it in.

So when it comes to using Amplenote, you can use it for note taking and task management.

It allows you to do this advanced task management where you can do everything from even hiding your actual task til later which is something that I quite like inside of this application, because it could probably get quite messy if you started filling up notes with tasks.

I feel like this is actually something that applications like Evernote could benefit from massively, having some form of methodology or task system that you could use and take advantage of.

Tags and special features in Amplenote

So before we go, I wanted to point towards some of the features that I really liked inside of this application, particularly the ability to add tags is something that could be quite useful for organizing projects and activities.

They essentially serve as notebooks, and that's something that can be used as you go along.

The other thing I really like is if you go to the top right-hand corner, you can do what's called Applying Vault Encryption.

Now obviously once you have the basic account, I believe that's where you'll be able to access this, but you can see here that you can actually encrypt your notes, which means that the notes won't be stored on the server.

So it says here that the content of the vault-encrypted notes will not preview in your notes list or be matched in searches.

So this is actually a perfect way to keep your notes safer and more secure, away from other prying eyes. I really like this focus on security that they have.

The other thing I really like is the fact that down here you've got hidden, completed, and back links, all really nicely organized, ready for later, and I also like the search bar for being able to find and organize

Amplenote pricing plans and options

your notes for later, and it actually was really easy to use. So this application is still in its early days, so let's take a look at the pricing.

As you can see here, there are three types of pricing: Basic, Pro, and Founder.

With the Basic one, it's near enough $6 per month. It's billed annually, and it allows you to collaborate with unlimited users, use some of the task scheduling and recurrence, all of the notes encrypted at client, and up to 10 gigabytes storage for attachments.

The Pro is billed at $10 per month but billed annually. All the benefits of the Basic, and that means that you will have to upgrade to this account to get the Vault Notes for sensitive content.

You'll also have publish your notes as web links and up to 25 gig for storage.

Now if I'm honest, the pricing is pretty steep for this one, however they are an independent developer, so as you can imagine, this app is something that they're working on and improving and at quite a rapid rate.

And if you compare it to apps like say Roam, it's still cheaper.

But if you're going for the Founder plan, which is $20 per month billed annually, then naturally it's gonna be more expensive than the likes of Roam Research.

So folks, if you're looking for a note-taking application that has some really cool task management abilities within it, that totally utilizes back links, and it has more of a focus on security and you're willing to pay up to $10 per month, this could be a great option for you.

So folks, I just wanted to thank Scott for having me here on the channel.

I love coming on, I'm excited for his feature over on my channel, so make sure you subscribe to both of us, but a big thanks to Scott.

We'll talk very soon, I'm sure me and Scott will work on some collaborations in the near future, but sending my best to you all, and I hope to see you in the comments below.

Cheerio, folks.

Don't look like a fool on Zoom

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom. You don't wanna look like a fool on your next video conference.

So in today's video, I'm sharing with you seven common Zoom mistakes that you can easily avoid, so you can look so much more professional in your next Zoom meeting.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen in here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

How to test your Zoom audio & video in advance

And let's start off with tip number one, and that is do a quick test in advance.

I'm just gonna stop sharing my screen here so we can go back into the menu.

And even if you started, you can still do this, but I would recommend you do this in advance.

On your desktop or laptop computer, you wanna open up the Zoom interface.

Now, if you're joining a Zoom meeting on your mobile device, you're probably going to get a prompt anyhow to test your video and to test your audio.

But here, what we wanna do is open up our Zoom meeting interface and click on the gear icon, click on settings.

And we're gonna look at two settings very quickly. No joke, I actually do this every single time.

Number one, I click on video. Hey, am I in frame? Is the lighting proper? Am I using the correct camera?

Because for many of us, we actually have more than one webcam. Your monitor or your laptop probably already has a webcam built in, but perhaps you're using a better or higher quality webcam that you attach via USB.

So make sure you come down here, make sure that you're viewing the correct webcam. Now that's a pretty quick and easy one.

We also wanna click on the Audio tab and take a look at two quick things here as well.

The first one is test speaker, making sure that you are hearing the meeting the way that you want to.

In this case, you may have a variety of different options as to how you can listen to that meeting.

For example, I typically take my Zoom calls using my Bluetooth earbuds, and because it's Bluetooth, these are often connected to a variety of other devices in my home.

So I wanna make sure they're connected properly. What I can also do is select the Test Speaker icon, and make sure that I can hear what is going on, making sure that I'm hearing that in the device that I want to.

I also want to come down to microphone and make sure I've got the correct microphone selected and I can test that mic as well.

Especially if you've invested some money in a better quality microphone, make sure you're using that microphone.

By default, it may just be choosing your system's microphone, so yeah, your audience can hear you, but perhaps they're not hearing you in the best of quality.

So make sure you do a quick test in advance.

How to use the spacebar to unmute yourself

Now let's jump back into our Zoom meeting, and tip number two has to do with muting yourself when you don't need to be heard.

Now you're probably already familiar with where the mute button is, and I can come down here and mute myself so that no one else in this meeting can hear me.

It even gives me a bit of a warning because it can hear that I'm talking at the moment.

But the tip I want to give you is that if you're involved in a Zoom meeting where you only need to interject or contribute once in a while, right? You're not the host, you're not the main presenter, I want you to make use of your Space bar.

The Space bar actually acts as a trigger. You can almost think of it like a walkie-talkie where you hold it down and you can speak.

So if I press down on my Space bar, I am temporarily unmuted, you can hear me, everyone else can hear me, but as soon as I release that Space bar, I automatically become muted.

Take a look here on the lower left-hand corner, you can see the red slash, I'm muted, but if I press down on the Space bar, now I can ask my question or I can give my comment and then release that Space bar and I am immediately muted again.

So no more worrying if people can hear me. Am I muted, am I unmuted? You can use that Space bar so you know when you're pressing it down, you can contribute to that meeting.

How to share sound when Zoom screen sharing

Tip number three, we're gonna stick with sound, and this has to do with sharing your screen, particularly sharing music or sharing video.

How often have you been in a Zoom call and someone has tried to share a YouTube video or something else with sound?

And everyone has to start pointing at the screen or using private messaging and saying, "We can't hear it. We can't hear it. None of us can hear it."

And the host looks a little puzzled because they can hear it. They can hear it just perfectly. Why can't everyone else hear it?

Well, when you share audio or share video, when you select share screen, before you select that file or before you select your browser, you wanna come down here and make sure you check, share sound.

That is the only way that the audio that you hear on your machine, what you're sharing is going to be shared with others.

And if you are sharing video, you may also want to select this other option here, optimize for video clip.

Meaning it's gonna try and smooth things over a bit, so it is a better video experience for those who are watching the video through Zoom.

But if you are sharing audio, make sure that you select share sound.

Now note, this is also gonna share other sounds on your machine. So if there is going to be an alert or a notification or other things that come up, people are going to hear that as well.

But this is in particular if you are sharing that content with other individuals.

All right, I'm just gonna select my browser here. And let's go into share mode and talk about something which again can really make a lot of us look foolish,

How to move or hide the Zoom control menu

but there's an easy fix for this mistake. Many times we are sharing our web browser or a web page.

So here I am on the Zoom website and let's say, I want to browse around to a bunch of different tabs, but by default, the Zoom floating bar, which has all of my controls, is anchored at the top of the screen.

And you know what, that makes it really difficult, because if I wanna get to... Oh, I'm trying to get to that tab. And if I wanna get to this tab, as soon as my cursor goes over there, it comes down.

And how many times have you stopped sharing or maybe hit something up here when you actually meant to select that tab?

Well, the good news is that you can move that floating bar.

If you come up here and hover over the green, "You are screen sharing" area, click and hold, you can actually drag this floating bar to wherever you want.

Now, I often like to drag it to the very bottom of the screen because I don't have any tabs down there.

It's not in the way of anything else. And I can still access it, right? If I come down here, I can hover over and access these controls down below, but now I have full access to all of my tabs in my browser.

Or if I'm opening a file and I wanna access all the menu and options up above, nothing is distracting me in that case.

I can always come back and drag it back to the top or drag it to wherever I want.

Now, another option that you have with the floating menu bar is if you come over here to More, you can actually hide these meeting controls altogether.

Now you can see they are completely gone. I can't see them at all. And if I press Escape, it will return to the screen.

Now, a bit of a warning because they're completely hidden, I may end up forgetting if I'm sharing my screen.

And maybe after my portion of the presentation, I believe I've handed it off to someone else and I'm not sharing my screen. And then I go to social media or maybe try to do something else off the side of my desk.

Meanwhile, I'm sharing to everyone else. I might forget it. So if I hit Escape again, that floating bar is going to return.

But I think one of the nice things of having this visible at least somewhere on your screen, is you're gonna see this green, "You are sharing," and this stop share. The green and the red makes it pretty apparent that you are sharing in that moment.

How to chat with everyone vs direct messaging

All right, so the next one on this list is something really, really important and it's actually changed in the past year.

I've had so many questions about this one. I wanted to make sure I included it in today's video.

What we're gonna do is come up here and open up the chat window.

In fact, why don't I just stop sharing for a moment? I'm gonna have the chat window here on the right-hand side.

Now, one common mistake that you want to try and avoid is make sure that you know the difference between messaging everyone and messaging someone privately or sending them a direct message.

How often have you, or have you seen someone else, send a message when they thought it was directly to an individual, but really it was stuck on everyone and everyone in the meeting saw that message?

So take a quick look at this dropdown menu. Make sure that you know the difference as to who you're sending that message to.

But here's the question that I got asked last year, when it comes to a direct message, and Zoom has changed the label of this. This used to say private, now they use the term direct message. Is it truly private? Can the host truly not see this?

Well, it's true in the meeting, the host cannot see this. The host cannot see any of these messages, but what also used to be true is that if the meeting host was recording that meeting, they would get a log of the full chat, including those private messages.

So they weren't private afterwards. The host actually could have access to them.

I wanna tell you that that has changed and private really does mean private. The host does not have access to those messages even if they are recording the meeting. So something that you should be aware of there.

The other thing I wanna point out when it comes to chat is that if you are the host, you have a lot more options available to you here.

So for example, by default, most Zoom meetings are set to everyone publicly and directly, meaning that everyone can message the entire group or they can pick and choose individuals at a time.

But you can disable the directly option and you can choose just everyone publicly.

Meaning that every single comment is gonna be to everyone. No one can reach out to someone on a one-to-one basis.

There's two other choices you should be aware of. Host only, meaning that participants can only contact you.

You can contact everyone else, but only they can ask you questions or send you comments directly.

Now, this might be an interesting one to use if you are a teacher or a trainer and maybe you want to ensure your participants that they don't need to be embarrassed about their questions or to ask for help.

So in this mode, all of their questions or their comments go directly to you and no one else sees them.

And of course last but not least, you can just disable chat altogether.

You don't always have to have chat on, but I mean that sort of defeats the purpose of engagement and allowing people to interact in another way. Just wanna make sure that you're aware of those options there.

Speaking with participants

How to mute all participants

and speaking with having a little more control as the host, I also wanna make sure that you're familiar with muting everyone in your Zoom meeting.

How embarrassing is it that when you are trying to speak or give a presentation and then you hear someone's dog barking in the background or perhaps you hear someone speaking to a spouse off camera?

Well, don't forget as the host, you have control, that power to mute everyone.

If we come down here to the bottom, you can select Mute All. You're gonna get this pop-up window.

And just before you say Yes, I want you to look at this option as well, Allow Participants to Unmute Themselves.

If you're having a meeting with a fairly large audience or perhaps a group of people that you don't know very well, you may want to uncheck this option, meaning that they cannot unmute themselves unless you give them access to do so.

How to stop participants from doing things

You get to pick and choose. Now my seventh tip for you has to do with having full control, especially if you want to prevent your participants from annotating on your screen, prevent them from sharing their screen, unless you say so and other options.

If you're the host, you can come down here to Security and there is a section titled Allow participants too.

So by having share screen unchecked, no one else can share their screen right now, until I check this, no one else can do so without my permission.

I have chat turned on, but I could turn it off at this level as well.

I can choose to prevent them from renaming themselves. If I don't want them to rename themselves something that is already looking good or I can identify them, I can prevent that as well.

I can also, as we just saw another location where you can prevent them from unmuting themselves and if you don't want them to start their video, maybe there's no need depending on the type of meeting or what you're trying to host, you can also prevent that option as well.

Now, if you're looking for an even better way to engage your audience, you may be interested in learning how to use Zoom breakout rooms.

If so, I invite you to watch my video down here in the left-hand corner.

Thank you so much for watching today's video.

I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Why Web Accessibility is important

Did you know that 20 to 25% of the population has a disability? Why should you care?

Well, that could be 25% of the population who cannot access your website, cannot find your products, services, or whatever information you're sharing online.

So in today's video, I want to show you a tool so that you can help others get the information and get the products and services that they're seeking.

Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

And in today's video, we're looking at helping others to get more done, people who are looking for your products, your services, or your information online, and giving them the ability to access that information.

Regardless if they have a visual impairment, maybe motor skills, or cognitive disabilities, or maybe just something as simple as poor eyesight, how can they access your information easily, without you having to do a lot of work?

Now, I think there are two key reasons why it's important for us to talk about web accessibility.

Number one, if your website is not ADA and WCAG compliant, you put yourself at risk of receiving lawsuits for not being accessible to other individuals.

But I think the second reason is so much more important, is so that everyone can enjoy the use of the web, including whatever it is that you have to offer.

How to know if your website is ADA & WCAG compliant

So how do you know if your website or websites are compliant? Well, a great place to go and check is Ace.accessiBe.com.

And when you get here, you can just enter in the name of any website, but probably your own, 'cause that's where you're most curious, and select get the results.

What accessiBe will do is a quick check of your website and evaluate it through the industry standards.

And in a matter of seconds, what it will spit out is a short report telling you if you are compliant or if you are not.

As we can see here on the website that I ran through the checker, it is not currently compliant.

And I can go through this report and see the different areas in which it is not accessible to those with a variety of disabilities.

How to make your website compliant with accessiBe

So what do you do if your website is not compliant? Well, it's not always an easy fix.

The thing is, you can't just change your font or use web-safe colors and instantly make it accessible to everyone.

There are simply too many and various disabilities. You have to make certain changes for their needs.

So instead, you can use a tool like accessiBe. Let me show you how it works.

Once you sign up and install accessiBe on your website, you will have the option to have this icon appear on your web pages.

By having this appear, your users can click it and now start to adjust your content, adjust the way that your website's information is displayed, so that they can more easily digest and find the information that they are looking for.

And accessiBe makes it really easy because it has a number of profiles ready-set, depending on that user's disability, to change your website.

But just before I show you how accessiBe is going to change your website for the better, let's take a look at a few things that we sometimes don't think about, in terms of the challenges that many users experience.

On this sample webpage, for example, we have a carousel that is rapidly moving here.

We've got a GIF image, which can be difficult for some people. It may even trigger a seizure for those who suffer from epilepsy.

We've got a number of bright colors, and the font is maybe not the easiest to read.

How accessiBe makes web content accessible

How could someone with a disability safely navigate and find the information that they are looking for? Well, by clicking on accessiBe, I can make a few changes.

So, let's start with the first one: Seizure Safe Profile. Immediately, you can see that the colors have been dialed back a little bit.

It's not exactly black and white, but it's a lot easier on the eyes. This GIF image, for example, has stopped moving, and the carousel has as well.

Again, the content is still there. It's all still clickable, it's all still accessible, but much easier and much safer for someone who suffers from epilepsy.

The second one down is the Visually Impaired Profile. So, by selecting this one, you can see that now the colors are much more distinct.

And I'm sure you saw that the text, the font itself, not only became a lot larger but became much easier to read.

As I scan down through this webpage now, there's a much sharper contrast between the images, and the text is that much easier for me to read.

How do website visitors know about accessiBe

Now, I'm sure some of you may be asking, how does someone with a disability identify that this is a button that is for them and it's gonna help them navigate your website?

Well, this symbol that you see here has become a universal symbol for web accessibility.

For those who use a screen reader, or those who perhaps need to navigate by keyboard alone, are used to and becoming more accustomed to finding this on the web.

So if you have this on your website, there's a good chance that they're going to find it immediately because it never goes away.

It's gonna be floating in either the bottom left or right-hand corner.

But for someone who is blind or visually impaired and needs a screen reader, no problem, by having accessiBe installed on your website, the screen reader will alert the visitor that this is an additional option to make their navigation so much easier.

Let's take a look at a quick example. So when I first visit this website with my screen reader.

• [Computer voice] Press alt plus one for screen reader mode. Stop this message with alt plus zero.

It's letting me know there's some enhanced functionality, just for me. If I press alt plus one.

• [Computer voice] Screen reader mode is on. Alt plus zero to cancel, button, heading three, a good looking, comfortable, traditional collection. Heading three, list item. Woman in gray denim jeans. Woman in black tank top with black tattoo on arm. List item.

What accessiBe is doing is enhancing my picture tags, my image tags, so that people who are wanting to view that information can see it.

Even if they can't view it with their own eyes, they can access it with their screen reader with the help of accessiBe.

Custom options and accessiBe features

Now, keep in mind that even though accessiBe has these six different profiles at the beginning of its menu, if you scroll down, you've got so much more available to you.

So, for example, a user could simply click the readable font and just change the text, the font on the page here.

Maybe you want to be able to align all the text on the page to the right-hand side so that's easier for the way that you like to read.

If we go down a little bit further, we can choose a higher contrast, which if I close this down for a second, here you can see, it's a much higher contrast between the lights and the darks.

And for those who may suffer from color blindness, again, color blindness is different for different color blind people.

So what is the proper text color, depending on your color blindness?

Now, as we continue down the accessiBe interface, we come to orientation adjustments, and again the user can tweak this and make adjustments depending on their needs.

Here's one, for example, is hide images. So if you just want to be able to focus in on the text and not be distracted by videos, GIFs, and other images, you can turn that off as well.

There's also the option to increase the size of your cursor. Maybe I want a big black cursor, which is going to help me navigate and follow along where I am and make sure I know what I'm clicking on and where it is.

Another feature that I find most helpful is where are the actual links? So here, under content adjustments, I can select highlight links.

And now this is going to tell me what is clickable and what is not.

You can see the little orange around these buttons here, I can see that there's orange around these images, I can clearly see what is clickable and what is not as I scour and browse this website.

So if you want to make sure that your website is accessible to all, be sure to check out accessiBe at accessiBe.com.

Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you subscribe right here to the Simpletivity Channel, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Why a writing editor app is important

There is a very good chance that you spend more time communicating via text than by any other format. And no, I'm not talking about text messaging.

I'm talking about things like email, social media, or perhaps your website. It's important for us to be able to convey ourselves in a clear and concise manner so we can get our message across.

So in today's video, I want to show you why it's important to use a writing editing app and how I've been using a particular one over the last few weeks to help improve my online messaging.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. A few weeks ago, I was on my own website, and I was reviewing some of the content that I had included on my About Me page, and something really stood out to me.

As I was reviewing my existing text, I identified a spelling mistake, a spelling mistake which has probably existed on this page for the past two years.

But beyond just that small mistake, I also realized and discovered, with the aid of a tool, that I could really improve my communication. I could be a lot more specific and get my message across to my potential clients.

So what I've been using is a tool called ProWritingAid, and it's so much more than just a grammar and spell checker. It's actually helping me improve my readability and it can help improve yours as well.

How to use the ProWritingAid browser extension

I want to show you three different ways in which you can use ProWritingAid, and let's start with the first one, and that is right within your browser. Now, this is probably the easiest one, especially when we are crafting our email messages or perhaps our social media posts.

As you're writing, as I'm showing you here in this example, it's gonna highlight certain errors but also suggestions here as well. You can see there's three different colors it's highlighting here in front of me.

I've got a yellow, a couple of blues, and a red. The red is probably the most obvious—it's a spelling mistake here.

Yeah, "forgotten" does not have a zed at the end, but I've got a few other suggestions here as well. My readability may be enhanced if I removed "that."

When I read the sentence, yeah, "that" is just a filler word. I don't need to include that here.

And then, the blues in this particular case have a little more to do with grammar and some punctuation here as well. So yes, that's not the proper form of "know."

There should be an S on the end, and "details" in this particular example should have a comma at the end. However, there's a good chance that you may be writing longer form content, such as a blog article or perhaps your own website, like in my own example.

How to use the ProWritingAid web editor

That's where the online editor comes into play. So here we are. I haven't downloaded anything.

I'm just within the ProWritingAid site, and here I can either copy and paste content, I can upload a document, or I can just write right within this window. In this particular case, I've chosen to use a blog article that I wrote a few years back to see if I can improve on it with ProWritingAid.

Now, when you first input your text, your realtime editor may be off, but let's turn that on and see what it has found. And I've got about nine different suggestions waiting for me here.

So we see some of the same colors that we saw on the extension version when I was writing my email. In this case, there's a few different things that I should be looking to improve upon.

But you'll also notice up here, at the top of the menu, I have a large number of different reports where I can dive into in a lot more detail.

So let's take a look at a couple of my favorites. One of the ones that I've been using a lot is called Sticky.

Now what Sticky is referring to are sentences which may trip up some of my readers. Perhaps I'm using words or language that is just not as smooth for someone to digest as they're reading this content.

Think of how important that is when you're trying to convey your message. Maybe you're creating a sales page and you're trying to sell a service or a product.

Or maybe it's just the landing page of your website, and you know that you only have a few seconds to get your message across before they move on to something else.

So the last thing you want is to trip them up by including a confusing sentence or maybe too many filler words where you don't need to here. So here, I've got a few different things highlighted.

If I go over here to the left and click on this, I've got some examples here, such as "When I," "I don't," "It allows," "So select." These are things that I could maybe tighten up a little bit, use different words or fewer words, so it's easier for people to understand.

The other one that I use a lot here within ProWritingAid is Readability. So in this case, it looks like I'm pretty good.

If I hover over these different paragraphs, it says that, hey, great, this has a Flesch Reading Ease score of 84.9. However, if I come down to the bottom of the screen here, this is my last sentence or my last two sentences, and it may be a little bit difficult for some of my readers to wrap their heads around or understand me correctly.

And keep in mind, you don't always know your audience and their background. You don't know what their reading level is.

You don't know what their native language is, or perhaps what country they are coming from. So it's so important that you have clear and concise language so that they're not confused and they understand the message that you're trying to get across.

How to use the ProWritingAid Microsoft Office add-on

Now, the third way in which you can use ProWritingAid is with your favorite word processor, such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word. So in this case, I've downloaded and installed the ProWritingAid extension from Microsoft Office.

So I can use this within my own desktop setup here. Here, I've got a different article that I've been working on, and you can see that Microsoft tries to help us out with a few simple suggestions here.

You may see some of these blue underlines and red for a spelling mistake, but here in the top right-hand corner, I've got my ProWritingAid icon. And if I select this to turn on Realtime checking, it's gonna take a look and give me a variety of different suggestions.

Here again, we see those blues, some yellows, and some reds as to where we can improve upon. But if we want to go even further, at the very top of the menu, I can click on ProWritingAid, and now I've got all of these reporting options available to me again.

Helpful reports to improve your writing

So let's take a look at two more that I think you might find helpful as well. The first one is called Echoes.

If I click on Echoes, it's gonna take a second to analyze my text. What Echoes does is it highlights any words or phrases that I may have repeated within a short timeframe.

Maybe I've repeated it one after another in a few different sentences or short paragraphs. So if I open up this option here, the first one is "exercise."

Now in this case, this article is about exercise, so that's probably okay. But the second one here is "first thing," and let's take a look at that.

In this paragraph, I've got "first thing" right after one another, then I've got "first thing" in the following paragraph, and "first thing." It doesn't need to be that way.

I might be boring my audience by using that same phrase, that combination of words, time and time again. So it's highlighting where I can improve my writing, not just the readability but make me a stronger writer over time as well.

The other one that I think is most helpful, regardless of what type of thing that you're writing, whether it's email, social media, or otherwise, is sentence length. Sometimes, if you write too long of a sentence, it is very difficult for someone to follow your train of thought and what you're trying to convey to your audience.

So in this case, I'm pretty good. Most of my sentences have received a blue here, but I've got a couple of reds which are highlighting sentences that are perhaps a little too long.

Maybe I can shorten them up. Maybe I can break them into two to make it that much easier for those people who will be reading this content.

Now, if you'd like to learn more and try ProWritingAid for yourself, be sure to click the link in the description below. And I'd love to know from you, what type of writing are you involved with on a day-to-day basis?

Are you producing articles? Are you revising sales copy, or is most of your writing related to email or social media? Be sure to let me know in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

Where to find the Google Side Panel

- Have you ever been using Gmail or Google Calendar and then wandered over to the right-hand side and wondered what this side panel is all about? Or perhaps you have opened it up yourself and said to yourself, "Okay, that's nice, "I can see those things, but can it do "anything else for me?" Well, in today's video, I'm gonna show you everything you need to know about the Google side panel, including how you can make connections between different apps.

Hello, everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress. And if you're wanting to get more out of your technology and your applications, I invite you to subscribe right here to the Simpletivity channel.

So, first and foremost, what is the Google side panel? Well, it's available in three different Google apps, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive. Specifically, within Drive, Sheets, Docs, and Slides. And you should see this panel by default whenever you're within one of those apps.

How to view the Google Side Panel

But just in case you don't see this panel, come all the way down to the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. It may look something like this, where you have nothing here. All you need to do is come down here and say, Show Side Panel, and then you should see this little sliver on the right hand side.

Now, in most cases, you're gonna see either keep tasks or maybe something like your calendar on the right-hand side, but it does depend on what you're viewing at the moment.

So here I am within Google Calendar and the great thing here is that I can take notes, I can search through my notes, for example, I can go to my tasks and I can check things off all within the same screen. I don't have to go back and forth between different apps.

I find what's really helpful, if you do use Google Tasks is that you don't have to crowd up your Google Calendar with the tasks up here at the top, you can uncheck that calendar view and just manage your tasks over here on the right-hand side.

But let's go back to keep, because I wanna show you

How to connect Keep Notes to Calendar Events

how you can actually make a connection between these things. So, for example, let's say I'm gonna open up this HR interview and maybe there's some questions that I have for this meeting, but they're specific to me.

I don't wanna add them here on the description of the meeting, 'cause I don't want everyone else to see it. If I come over here and say, Take a Note, even before I start writing that note, look what happens. I've created a link to this particular event.

So I'm just gonna type in just a few pieces of sample text. I'm just gonna say New Note, and I'm gonna say, Done. Here at the top, you can say it is now related, New Note. I thought I said, note, new note is related here

at the top of the screen. So even when I go to close this, you can see it's added that note and I can go to a different event and so to speak, but when I opened this one up, once again, here, you can see the related note.

No matter when I've created this note, it's gonna jump the top and show me that note, whenever I have selected this particular event. So this is fantastic for creating your own agenda or even taking meeting notes when the meeting is in progress.

How to use Maps Side Panel with Google Calendar

Now there's another side panel app, which I find very helpful here within Google Calendar, and that's the Maps View. So if I come over here to Maps, I can do many of the same things that I would do in a new tab. I can search for a place and I can see this miniature view of the map, but it gets better. Let's look at this event over here,

which is titled Walk with Kevin. Let's say, for example, I have forgotten exactly where we were walking and how to get there. If I click on this event and then click on the location, it's going to immediately show me that location here in the side panel view.

So, no, I don't have to go to a new tab, it's not gonna launch anything new for me, I can read about it, I can view this location here. I can even click Directions and get those directions brought up in front of me and remind me, "Oh yeah, it's only gonna take me about 12 or 15 minutes "to drive to that location."

So again, I don't have to go anywhere if you have any event or appointment, which has an address on it, you can pull it up and view it right here within the map view on the side panel.

How to use Tasks Side View with Gmail Messages

But let's jump into our Gmail because I'm sure you wanna get the most out of this when you're dealing with your email as well. So, as we said before, the same functionality exists with Google Keep, you can create a note and attach it to a specific event here, or a specific message within Gmail.

I'm not gonna show you how to do that again, but what I do wanna show you is how you can take advantage

of Tasks here within the email view. So let's say for example, I'm gonna open up this email and I wanna create a task around this message, but I wanna come back to this message, right? I don't wanna just create the task, I wanna be able to come back to this message and make an identification, be able to link it together.

Now, what we don't wanna do is actually come up here and say, Add a Task. If we add a task up here, it is not gonna have a connection with this email. And that's fine, not all of your tasks need to have that connection, but if you do want that connection to be made,

you need to come up here to the top of the email and say, Add To Tasks. And what's gonna happen here is down here under No Date, because we haven't given it a date yet, you can see that it has brought in the subject line of this email and it has created that link.

So now I can come in here and I can edit this name, right? I can say that this is a new task for me to accomplish here. I've given it a different name here, but I've created that link to this email. And you can see I've got a few other examples here as well.

If I wanna go directly to this task and say, "Oh, what was that all about?" I can click on that and it's gonna bring me to that email. Can we meet on Thursday?

What was that task all about? I can click on that and it's gonna bring me directly to that email. Let's go back to that one that we just created, I can click on it, and here we go. Now I remember now I know what I need to do with accomplishing that task.

So not only can you view your task list on the same screen as your email, but you can create those connections as well.

How to create Events in Side View from Gmail

If we open up the calendar view, this is also very helpful if you're about to set up an appointment and say to yourself, "Oh, I don't know if I'm busy. "You know what, today might not work, "let's look at tomorrow, tomorrow is a lot more free."

I could probably create a meeting for this individual here, but it gets better. If I say that I want to create this meeting, let's say at 2:00 p.m, I'm gonna click on 2:00 p.m. on my little calendar here.

Again, it's gonna bring over the name of that email, the subject of that email, which I can edit if I want to, but this is what I find really handy is if I come down here to Add Guests, I can add anyone I want, but the very first option it says Based On Your Email.

Well, yeah, I want this meeting to be with myself and the person I'm talking to here. So I'm just gonna say, yeah, add that person. Here we are, I'm the organizer, here's the other individual. I can edit all of my other changes, all of my other options as I would, if I was in Google Calendar and then hit Save.

I'm going to say, Don't Send it This Time and there's my calendar appointment created directly

from within Gmail, including some of the information that I have here with this particular message. But maybe the best tip or the best option here

How to view Contacts in Gmail Side Panel

with the side panel within Gmail is the contact form. So here you can see I'm still within this email and it's showing people in this thread. Now I could always go back to all of my contacts and I could hit the search bar and search for a particular contact.

But by default, when you open up an email, it's gonna bring up the contacts that are related or are a part of this message. So if I click on this person here, now, I've got

all of their contact information at my fingertips. I've got their email address, work number, I've even got notes here at the bottom. If I want to use this as sort of a mini

or a simple CRM system. But here's the one that I find most useful, is Recent Interactions. I'm going to click on the More here, and you can see, I've got a couple of calendar events that are coming up.

I can click on those and it's gonna launch the calendar right away, but I can also see some of the messages that we've been involved with as well. So if I go here to let's get the team together, it's gonna immediately pull up that message.

Oh, September 2nd, did we have an email on that day? I can click on it, and immediately it's gonna bring up that message as well.

So you can see, you can quickly go through your history and review other calendar events and other messages right here on the right hand side.

How to send Drive Text to Google Keep

Now let's jump over to Google Drive. And in this example, we're gonna look at a document at a Google Doc, but again, these same features and functionality are gonna be available in Sheets and also in Slides.

So if we come over here, we can view our calendar if we want to, but I think keep is the real winner when you are using Docs or something within Google Drive. So for example, let's say that I want to get some of this bit of text from the document and I want to inject it or bring it into Google Keep.

Maybe this is a lengthy document, but there's some really good nuggets in there, that I wanna keep, or I want to review for later. All I need to do is come over to my document and highlight the piece of text that I want to bring over.

I'm gonna right click, and I'm gonna say, Save to Keep. Now, you don't actually have to have the Google side panel open for this to work, but it just a, this is a really great example of how we can see this in real time.

So I'm gonna say, Save to Keep, and here you can see on the right hand side, it's brought all of this text directly into my Google Keep.

And so now I can go and review it later, I can edit it, I don't have to be here within Google Documents. I can go over here and change that text and do whatever I want with it outside of Google Docs.

How to bring Keep Notes into Drive Docs

But the other nice thing is that it works both ways. In that example, we saw how we could take information from the Doc and send it to Keep, what about the other way around? Let's say I come down here to my team meeting notes and maybe these are things that I want to add to an agenda, or I want to add to my document.

Well, all I need to do is select that note, come up here to the menu and I'm gonna say, Add to Document, and immediately it is brought into my document. So I could have a large collection of notes, I could even have images over here in Google Keep,

and now I can bring it directly into my document. So another great way in which you can sync those two things together. Now, the other thing that I wanna

How to add more Side Panel Apps

point out when it comes to the Google side panel is that you can add more apps

than just these standard Google ones that you see here. You'll see at the bottom of the Google side panel, there is a plus button which says, Get Add On. So if I'm here within Google Docs and I add that or open it up, you're gonna see that there's a large collection of additional extensions that I can add to this.

Now, keep in mind, these are unique depending on where you launch this. As you can see in this case, I've got things like charts and Doc to Form and Easy Bibliography, things that are pertaining to a document, right? Things that are gonna help me here within my document.

But if I go back to Gmail and I hit that plus icon, I'm gonna see a completely different set of extensions. Here I've got things like Zoom, right? If I wanna create a Zoom meeting really quickly and add that link here, I've got like a Trello extension, If I wanna quickly convert an email into a Trello card.

So each one has its own set of extensions really useful so that you can be more efficient with your Google apps.

Now, if you're wanting even more tips on how to get the most out of Gmail, I invite you to watch the video down below where I show you seven settings you need to know and maybe change, to get the most out of your email.

Thanks so much for watching, and remember, being productive does not need to be difficult, in fact, it's very simple.

Why a database can help you

- Sometimes a project management tool, or a task manager is overkill. Sometimes all that you need is a good list, table, or simple database. So in today's video, I wanna show you an app which is going to allow you to customize anything that you want,

no matter if you're using it for business, or maybe even for personal use. I wanna introduce you to Memento Database. So, let's look at this on my mobile phone. Now, Memento is also available for desktop, but I think I have found it more convenient

using it on my mobile app, especially when I'm taking pictures of inventory, and other things that I wanna keep track of.

Overview of Memento Database

So let's launch Memento here, and right off the bat, you can see the libraries,

or otherwise known as databases here. And I've got a few different examples here that I'm gonna show you here today. The first one here is Office Inventory, because I'm setting up a new office, and I wanna keep track of my expenses, I wanna keep track of everything that I'm adding, and also maybe when it comes to things like maintenance, I wanna see how long I've had something as well.

So if I open up Office Inventory here you can see my simple list so far. A few different items, which I've purchased over the last few weeks. Now, the great thing about Memento is that you can add as many, or as few fields as you like.

And as your lists, or as your inventory grows, you can go grow with it, and you can add more complex features, you can add relationships between different tables or different libraries.

One of the things that I love the best here is that I can sum up certain fields as well. So, even before I dive into one of my entries here at the very bottom you can see I've got three entries,

and it's a total of $965 dollars. So for example, maybe I want to set a particular budget, and I don't wanna exceed that budget, I can always see that running total here.

Editing Fields in Memento

So let's take a look at an example here. I'm gonna open, put up my standing desk for example, and I can categorize it by furniture type, I can input the cost here. And what I really love is you can even take a photo of these things on the fly.

So let's say you are keeping track of inventory. Maybe you have a small warehouse, or maybe you have something else that you're wanting to keep track of, you can quickly and easily add that photo here as well.

But I can add other fields. I don't have to always be looking at them at the same time. If I hit the Edit button here, here you can see I can add a serial number, I can add a barcode so I can actually scan the barcode directly in here if I like, I can add other information that I want at any particular time.

Let's open up another one here on my list here. It's my mechanical keyboard. So again, similar to what we saw before, I've got a picture and some basic information, but let's say I wanna add the purchase date 'cause I wanna know when I purchased this item.

So I'm gonna open things up, and if I scroll down to the bottom, I've already added this earlier. It's a purchase date. So I'm gonna open up my calendar, and I purchased that last Tuesday, so I'm gonna hit Next. If I want to, I can select a particular time,

or you can just leave it at the default there, and then save that particular entry. Now, you'll notice that it actually didn't allow me to save that's because there's a required field on this page.

It's something that I added not too long ago, and that is the cost of that device. So again, every single aspect of Memento is customizable. I can go in and actually edit that and say, no, no, no, I don't need to make that a required field, but if I'm using this for budgeting purposes, yeah. I wanna make sure that I add the cost.

Creating a new database in Memento

So in this case, I think this keyboard was about $65. In this case, I'm gonna enter in 65 and hit Enter. So now that is added, if I go back to my entries, yeah, now I've just exceeded a little over a thousand dollars just on these three items.

Most of them were that standing desk. Okay, let's take a look at a few other examples here as well, and how quickly and easily we can create our own libraries from scratch. So Memento actually gives us a number of different templates so that we can get started off with them.

So here you can see they've been categorized in a few different places. I'm actually gonna click on Personal here for a second, and I'm gonna come down and I'm going to say, maybe I want to keep track of all the restaurants that either I've eaten at recently, or that I would like to start eating at.

So I'm gonna select Restaurants, I'm gonna select Next, and here I already have my table, or my library ready for me to enter. If I click on it, you can see that I have no entries yet, but because we're basing this off of a template, I'm going to assume it's got some great information there ready for me already.

I'm gonna hit the plus button. And let's just say, I ate at a place called, Macks the other night, what type of cuisine? Again, this is all pre-populated. So I can go in here, and edit this or change it as I like.

It was a cafe, I'm gonna give it a four star rating. I said it was last night. So I'm gonna say it was last night and average price. Now this is kind of interesting, you know, what was the price of my meal, for example? I also like this feature that when it comes to adding in certain numerical fields, you actually get a calculator, built right into the application.

So let's say, I do have to figure out either the tax, or I need to break it out of a receipt

or something like that, I can do that. I can say, well, the, you know, the total bill was $67, but then I have to subtract the other person's entrée. And then we shared an appetizer, for example. So let's take out another $8 there. And so, okay, it's 36, and it inputs it right there in that numerical field. So I'm gonna hit Enter there.

Adding new fields to Memento Database

There's my first entry there. But let's say I wanna change things up a little bit. Let's say that there, that was a little limiting the number of fields that we added there, maybe I want to say quality of service, not just the food.

Maybe I wanna break out the difference between the food and the service. So in the top right-hand corner, I can go in here and edit my library. So here you can see the number of fields, you see the about the five different fields that we already have in there, but let's add a new field ourselves.

So I'm gonna hit that plus button here, I'm gonna select Field, and now, here are all of the different field types that I have to choose from. And we've got everything from color, to a map,

a barcode, hyperlinks, a variety of different things here that we can add to this particular entry. I like that star rating. So I'm gonna choose a star rating in this case.

And when it comes to service, maybe I want more than five stars. Maybe I wanna go all the way up to 10 stars. It's also gonna help me maybe differentiate between the food and the service when I go to rate it, I can select default stars. I can say required.

There's that required field. I'm gonna leave it off in this case, but everything from my display options, to the font size, all of these great things here. Now, before I create this, remember I've got to give it a field name.

So, I'm gonna say, Service. I'm just gonna call this one Service just alone. So you can rename any of these fields, customize them the way that you like. I'm gonna hit Enter on this case.

And the last thing that I'm gonna do here, is that I wanna move it up, right? Because here it's gonna be the last one here. I think I'm gonna put it under Ratings. I'm gonna drag this up here to under Rating, and then I'm gonna hit that check mark again. So this time when I go into Macks, you can see there's that service rating, but now, I need to go in,

and actually give us a service rating. So I can say, you know what? It was a, it was pretty good, I've had better. So I'm gonna give it about seven stars out of 10 there.

Now what I can do going forward, like you saw in my office inventory, is I can calculate that data. So if I want to average out the quality of the service, or that my food rating amongst these different items I can do so as well. Memento is going to give me that power, it's going to give me that ability.

Viewing relationships between database tables

Let me show you how you can create relationships between these different tables as well. So for example, you'll see here that I've got a library called Team, and maybe where, this is where I've kept a collection of all of my team members.

I want to keep their either addresses, or maybe I wanna know what inventory they have, at their home office as well. If I'm a business owner, I wanna keep tabs on who has a laptop?

Who has other pieces of equipment, as a part of working remotely, for example?

So here, if I click on my own name, for example, you'll see, I've got my role as the owner. I've got my photo and down below, you can see that I have my Yeti microphone, and the dollar amount as well. Now, where did we see that before?

We saw that in the office inventory. So if I select that, it's actually gonna open up

that entry and now you can see I'm actually in that inventory library at the moment

down below, you can see that I'm the owner. So, I can and make these custom relationships between these tables within these databases.

Pulling in data from the web into your database

Again, another great feature, you can make it as complex or as simple as you like. Now, the last thing that I wanna show you here within Memento database is how you can actually pull in information directly from the web, if you like.

And this is particularly useful if you're wanting to use things such as product information, or maybe if you are collecting a personal list of data or a personal collection.

So for example, here for example, I've got a list of movies to see, for example, and I've put a few different things here on this list. Now I didn't go in and grab the year that the movie was released. I didn't go in and grab that screenshot of the poster. No, I let Memento do the work for me. It's pulling in that information all at the same time.

So for example, if I hit the plus button here, let's say I'm gonna add a new movie

that I would like to watch. So in this case, I'm just gonna start in typing in the name of that movie. And in this case, I'm gonna type in "Vertigo", for example, and when I typed that in immediately, it's bringing up the one that I want, the Hitchcock classic "Vertigo".

So as you can see now here, it's not only brought in the poster, it's brought in a link, to some ratings, it's given me a tagline, it's told me the genre, it's given me a description where it was made, the duration.

All of that information is just brought in directly. In fact, if I go to the cast, it's gonna show me the cast as well. I'm just gonna hit Enter here. Here you can see that it's been added to my list, but now I've got all of that information at my fingertips.

So I can go and use this whenever I like, I can keep track of things and give my own personal rating as a part of my list. So, if you're looking for a quick, easy, and customizable way to keep track of your inventory, or your own personal list, I would encourage you to check out Memento Database.

You can find out more information in the description below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video. Be sure to subscribe and give this video a like, and remember being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.

What you will learn

- If you wanna get the most out of your Zoom meetings, you need to know how to annotate, and use the whiteboard feature, whether you're a teacher, a trainer, or you just wanna make your presentations that much more engaging.

I'm gonna show you everything that you need to know, about annotating and using the whiteboard right here in Zoom. Hello everyone, Scott Friesen here at Simpletivity, helping you to get more done and enjoy less stress.

How to launch the Zoom whiteboard

And let's get started with how, we launch annotation or a whiteboard here within Zoom. So down below, we need to start by selecting Share Screen, and here you have to make a decision.

Do you want a plain canvas that's for that purpose, we would choose the whiteboard, or do you wanna share your screen and maybe share a file or a website, and start to mock up things or allow your participants to contribute as well? Let's start with the basic version first.

We're gonna click on Whiteboard and then select Share. And essentially this is going to give us a complete blank canvas.

Annotation tools and how to use them

It's pure white, we can do a number of different things here. We can use the Text feature here, and start entering things. Maybe we want people to enter in their name on the screen or tell them how they are feeling today. Something along those lines,

we can use the drawing tool here to, maybe choose a different color here, and we can start to draw silly little things,

or highlight certain things on the screen as well. I'm not gonna go into the details of every single tool here. Most of them are self-explanatory, but I imagine one of the things that's on the top of your mind is,

How to enable or disable participants from annotating

how do I enable others or prevent others from participating, from sharing on my screen? In order to do so, you need to come up to your toolbar and select Security.

And here's a section called Allow participants to. Now there's a long list of things here,

and you can see currently, anyone who has joined my meeting, can annotate on my shared screen. But if I want to prevent them, all I need to do is to click this option,

and now they don't have that option. They can not contribute to this whiteboard sharing.

But I'm gonna go back here, I'm gonna enable it, And I'm gonna just grab my phone as my fake participant here, and let's see, let me grab a different color here, and I'm just gonna do a little squiggly line so you can see, that I didn't use it with my cursor here on my main computer.

I actually used it as a participant. Now, as a host, what you can do is actually hover over, and see who has contributed to what? Now this is maybe not the best example, 'cause I'm using the same user name, on both of my devices.

But even if someone else has shared content on your whiteboard or your shared screen, you can click and drag and move things around. I find that this is most helpful when you're asking people to contribute text, maybe like a brainstorming session, and you can take their texts just like this, and drag it and group it together and put them in a different order.

This is much more effective than using the chat window, which is just linear, and if you have a number of people contributing, it might just get lost, this is a great way to group things together.

Now, note, if you do come back here to Security and say disabled shared content for others to annotate on your shared content, it will not remove what they shared already.

How to clear Zoom annotations

In order to do that, you wanna come over here to the Clear option. Now you've got three choices here. You can Clear All Drawings, meaning you're gonna return,

to a 100% clear canvas. You can say Clear My Drawings, to the things that I have contributed, or you can say Clear Viewers' Drawing. So if I choose this last option here, you can see it's gonna remove that blue squiggly line, because that was from a participant.

So you've got quite a bit of flexibility here, when it comes to controlling annotations here within Zoom. But you know what? The whiteboard is not always as useful, as you may think it is.

How to annotate a shared Zoom screen

So I'm gonna actually start a New Share. In this case I'm gonna share my screen, and I'm gonna open up a file here on my computer, because maybe you have something

That you wanna share with others, and you wanna highlight a few different things, or you want others to participate as well. I find this is often even more useful.

So here I'm gonna come up here in my toolbar, and I'm gonna select Annotate, which is gonna give me the exact same menu, the same thing that we saw on the whiteboard option. So now what I can do is I can use things like this, a Spotlight function, and I can say, well, his shirt is a different color over here. The rocket boosters or thrusters

are a little bit different than over here. The Tesla deco is different over here. I can use that same spotlight feature and use these arrows to click into certain areas. I find that that's a very helpful one as well.

Again, when you're sharing your content, you can allow others to annotate as well. So all of the same rules apply, as what we just saw on the whiteboard side of things as well.

How to undo, redo, or erase annotations

Now don't forget as you're drawing and as you're adding and contributing different things here to your screen you can always use Undo or Redo as well, right? If you wanna go back just a few different steps. The other thing that you can do, of course,

which is very crucial, is that you can come and use the Eraser function. So maybe there's just a few specific things, that you wanna get rid of,

How to save Zoom annotations

you can do so as well. Now, when everything is finished,

when you are done contributing or adding or brainstorming, maybe you'll want to actually save your annotations and everything that's been mocked up here on the screen. So your final option just to the right of Clear is Saved.

And you can choose to either save it as a PNG file, right? That's an image file, or you can choose to save it as a PDF, if you want to use it for later. So a lot of powerful things that you can do with annotation, and using a whiteboard right here within Zoom.

Now I'd love to hear from you next. If you're already using the annotation features, I'd love to know what you're using it for. And I'm sure many other viewers, would love to learn from you as well. Be sure to share your Zoom experiences, in the comments down below.

Thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you give this video a like and subscribe,

right here to these Simpletivity channel. And remember, being productive does not need to be difficult. In fact, it's very simple.