Things I Love: April 2014

Let’s kick off the second quarter of 2014 (gulp) with a review of the things I love this month:

Levenger Page Nibs

My tin of Levenger Page Points, which they now call Page Nibs. April 6, 2014.

When I purchased them many moons ago, Levenger called them Page Points. Whatever you call these thin slivers of bronze, they sure do fit a number of purposes: place holders, line and paragraph marks, research tags for quick reference, and more.

These little nibs don’t poke beyond a book’s perimeter, yet their hue makes them effortless to find and their rigidity makes it easy to quickly turn to the pages they mark. They hold pages firmly, without sliding or falling off. Their points can demarcate specific lines of interest. And their thinness ensures they don’t damage your pages when slid into place.

Office Lens

I first heard about Microsoft’s Office Lens app in a blog post that I found by chance and can no longer find (apologies!).

Though I felt skeptical that it would work as well as advertised, I downloaded the free app onto my phone and used it to take a photo of a whiteboard in a meeting later that week. As promised, it made the whiteboard snapshot readable, searchable, synced it across all my devices via OneDrive, and paired it with the meeting notes I’d taken in OneNote.

I bow to you, Microsoft.

If you use Windows products—and few of us don’t—download Office Lens post haste.

Screenleap

A friend in Oregon introduced me to Screenleap when he used it to get my feedback on his new software project.

Anyone in business has attended or conducted teleconferences that require downloading programs and logging in to view someone’s screen. Many of these programs have more functionality than anyone actually uses—question-and-answer technology, audience surveys, videoconferencing, and even the ability to see whether attendees pay attention. Sometimes, you need these features. Most of the time, you don’t.

Enter Screenleap. Without any setup or installation requirements for anyone on either side of the interaction, you can share your screen. The site gives you a URL that you can provide to anyone you’d want to view your screen for any purpose—teleconferences, demonstrations, presentations, and more.

Pretty nifty. And the simplest service (for limited viewers and hours per day) costs nothing.

What do you love this month?