DorkoTech Contest!
Help celebrate the 6 month anniversary of the DorkoTech blog! To give a little something back to all those that have supported me and DorkoTech the past few months I am running a contest with prizes everyone I think will enjoy!I am a technology DORKo! I love technology, gadgets, software and everything that has to do with them! Technology even helped in the inspiration of the name DorkoTech! As much as I enjoy the smell of opening a new gadget or turning on a toy for the first time, I also enjoy hearing about others and their experiences with technolgy. Because of this I want to hear all about the devices and tools all of you are using! I also want to hear how it has made an impact on your life as I know technology has touched my life in numerous ways.
So what do you have to do?
All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, with your name, occupation, and tell me about the piece of technology that has made the greatest impact on your life. This can either be a hardware device like a Tablet PC or software related like my favorite tool MindManager. Actually I dare you to be creative with your choice and there are very few limits on the actual piece of technology that you can write about!
What will I win?
Up for grabs is a fully licenced copy of MindJet MindManager Pro 6! If I recieve a lot of great entries I may also give away a copy of TechSmith's Camtasia Studio and a copy of TechSmith's SnagIt as well, so everyone should enter!
Check out the DorkoTech Contest Page for more details!
To Get You Started...
To get the ball rolling I'll share one of mine and you can use it as an example to see what I mean. You can share as much detail as you want about yourself but I always like to go a bit beyond and would like to share a little bit about myself for those that are new!
Jason Dorko of DorkoTech
Student at Oakland University: Studying Biology with a minor in MIS; plans to pursue career in pharmaceutical/medical sales after graduation in 2007.
I have a lot of gadgets and toys but for me software is often at the heart of it all. Software unlocks the full potential of any device!. My recent discovery of MindManager has made this quite apparent and changed the way I go about my day in almost every way!
MindManager is not the only program I use and I feel there are other programs that are better at doing particular tasks but MindManager is still one of the first programs I start every morning. It houses almost everything I need to do (or links to it) on any particular day (thanks to GTD and ResultsManager.) It organizes all my information for classes, my website, and pharmaceutical research that I conduct on a daily basis. It allows me to "flush" everything out of my mind and store it in a secure and reliable destination. It then does all this and is able to report back all of it in a visual, free flowing mind map. Common goals and tasks start to reveal themselves and complex information becomes organized and easily managed. Projects can be easily worked through from start to finish and again it accomplishes this in a way that is more natural for my brain than previous methods permitted.
MindManager now assists in all of these daily activites. The GTD methodology and ResultsManager now play a big part of this, but MindManager has always remained at the center of things. Without MindManager everything else would seem to fall apart. I honestly don't know how I managed everything before MindManager!
I could go on for days about MindManager but if you've read my blog at all or viewed any of my Dorko Demo's then you are already aware of its impact on my life!
Since MindManager is so key to my everyday tasks I am very excited to be able to offer the same piece of software as the grand prize! It has had a monumental effect on my life and even if you don't win I suggest you try out the product for yourself! You can download a free 21 day trial to give a test for yourself. If your a student make sure to check out the education discount price as I have seen it on sites like journeyed for only $129.98! Figuring it's regularly $349 that is quite the deal!!
Also make sure to check out the DorkoTech Contest Page for more details!
posted by Jason Dorko at 12:23 PM
16 comments
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16 Comments:
My name is Troy Howard and I was an airline pilot, but due to a medical problem, I am now an entrepreneur starting several new ventures. The technology that made the biggest impact in my life is the Samsung Q1. Starting new ventures with new partners who are located all over town, it is great to have a small device for all my email, meeting notes and planning. I now have everything with me when I need it. It is a great technology for the person on the go.
My name is Troy Howard and I was an airline pilot, but due to a medical problem, I am now an entrepreneur starting several new ventures. The technology that made the biggest impact in my life is the Samsung Q1. Starting new ventures with new partners who are located all over town, it is great to have a small device for all my email, meeting notes and planning. I now have everything with me when I need it. It is a great technology for the person on the go.
My occupation as an Osteopath means that I have to have my patients medical notes & treatment notes accessible at any of my clinics. In the past this meant carrying countless medical cards between clinics during my working week. Luckily, I then stumbled upon the hp tc1100 tablet pc. Now my practice life has been turned around!!
What has this technology enabled me to do?
(A) I no longer have to worry about carrying heaps of medical cards between my clinics as I have all my patients medical records & treatment notes on my tablet.
(B) My ugly grey filing cabinets have been relegated to my basement.(excellent)
(C) No more patient indexing, which used to take up a considerable amount of the end of my work day.
So the mix of the tc11OO and my clinic software (rushcliff: Private practice software) has made my fulfilllng job, that much more easier.
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My name is Bryan Pollack. I will be a freshman at FSU this fall with a major in Meteorology. Not having entered the "real world" yet, I have not had any great benefits from technology just yet, but I predict that once I start school, my M400 tablet PC will be of great benefit to me.
Having all of my stuff, hopefully text books included, kept in one easily portable place will make life so much easier. I have OneNote and will be using that for notes, but I've seen how much you've benefitted from MindManager and I hope I'd be able to the same way you have.
When I first started my business 4 years ago, I did not have the resources (employees, office space, multiple phone lines) that I have today.
I had seen a Motion M1400 tablet PC at a vendor show and bought one as soon as I saved enough money. If I didn't have this tool, I wouldn't have been able to have a family life and a business.
Here is just one example:
While on vacation, I was told to go buy corn. Enroute to the market, I was paged by my answering service that took phone calls while I was out of the office. They gave me the name and phone number of a gentleman who wanted to buy a tablet. At that time every sale was crucial. I pulled over and called him back. We discussed what he wanted and I created a quote. Using my Verizon card (my 2nd choice for critical technology device), I was able to email him the quotation and he had it within a minute. He agreed to the pricing and gave me his credit card information. Later that evening (after a great cookout), I logged onto our credit card processing site and charged his card. I then sent a purchase order to our distributor and the customer's tablet was shipped.
Being able to take notes during our conversation and having such a lightweight device made the tablet the perfect device.
The technology that made the largest impact to my life is without a doubt the Timex Sinclair ZX81 computer. My father and I would sit up late at night and type programs out of magazines for endless hours on end (only then to spend twice as long debugging). I was hopelessly hooked and could never get enough. I went to work in the high tech industry after getting an undergraduate degree in IT and to this day am enamored by computers of every shape and size. I have owned many computers since, but that ZX81 given to me by my father when I was 10 was unquestionably the catalyst and holds a very special place in my heart today.
Thanks for the contest and thanks even more for the trip down memory lane!
Hello Jason,
Thank you very much for sharing your thought and experiences with MindManager and for hosting this contest. You've brought up some very interesting view on MindManager and I couldn't help it but wonder if you would mind sharing some pitorial displays of your using MindManager to organize your class materials.
Anyway, my name is John Lee, a student at OU. Close to a year now since I first discovered EverNote and have been fascinating with it since. I thought no other software could be better for a student to organize classes' and life's challenges until I read your brief but specific notes on MindManager.
Not sure if you are familiar with EverNote, but basically, it resembles an endless tape (note) where the user can scroll the note up or down. To the left of the note is the category pane where users can assign these categories to the notes to make locating these notes that much more efficient. To the right of the note is the date pane where users can also locate the notes by date. Anyway, I won't go into more details than this here; if you or any one here have not seen it, EverNote can be found here: http://www.evernote.com/en/support/. (Disclaimer: I have no financial benefit here, just a happy user.)
My experiences with EverNote: prior to finding it, I was very disorganized with many things in my life and was constantly losing notes and thoughts. But eversince I found EverNote, my organization has improved exponentially. There's still room for improvement, but I don't have the same worry feelings of losing stuffs that I had prior to EverNote. Today, I havec a centalized place for my journal, contact, my todo list, my short and long range goals, my research notes (be it from the web or books), my pictures (if I want to), and pretty much anything and everything that I can digitize, I can put in EverNote. I am a very grateful EverNote user. By the way, EverNote has one of the most faithful webclipper that I have seen.
Having said all these, EverNote is not perfect. It has its short comings, which I hope that its developer will improve upon in the up and coming release of new versions. Three of the greatest EverNote's weakness for me are: 1) inability to have both text and ink notes in the same note; 2) inability to create links within EverNote, 3) Inability to type anywhere in the note as found in the new OneNote 2007. There are other minor weaknesses, but I can live with.
Overall, I am very happy with EverNote right now, considering its cost, but I could always expand my horizon with the aid of MindManager. Once again, thank you for your generosity and best wishes. (My email is: wildapple67(at)yahoo.com)
Should have posted my email... Stormchaser46 (AT) GMail (DOT) com
Hi there, great contest.
Alberto Reyes, Civil Engineer.
I guess the commodore 64 was probably the first and has had the most impact in my life, I believe I read that manual and those sample programs hundreds of times. It taught me to embrace and learn technology, I didn’t follow a career in technology field but it has been a great part of my professional career, and those days typing away those sample programs I also learned to in a way think outside the box to be creative. Those were great days, thanks again.
areyes@gmail.com
The single most useful invention to me is programming. I have a Tablet PC, and that's pretty useful, too, but programming is the one ultimate tool that in the end is the reason we're all so productive with our computers. If I need to do something that hasn't been done yet (or at least not in the way I want to do it), I can program it. Specifically, languages and IDEs that assist in rapid application development are particularly useful to me. This technology grants anyone willing & able the ultimate power to make their computer do exactly what they want it to do when they want to do it. In the end, that is the most important part of what we use computers for.
My name is Dennis Field, and in case you hadn't guessed by now, I'm a software developer by hobby and trade. You can reach me at dorkotech at flurffmeister dawt com
John Lee,
You were asking for some examples of how I use MindManager to organize my class information...I was wondering if you took a look at my first Dorko Demo. It was my first and somewhat long video but I did go over how MindManager holds all my class data and allows me to links to notes, the syllabus and online companion sites. If you would like more than that please let me know and I would be more than happy to try to make something for you if you're willing to be a bit more specific.
Here is the link to the post of that first MindManager Dorko Demo
Dorko's MindManager Video
Jason,
Really appreciate appreciate your effort at helping me and other fellow students to expand our horizon using MindManager as well as your blog to centralize what available opportunities or electronic resources that are out there. Congratulation for excellent work!
To answer you, no, I have not seen the demo prior to your direct link above. I've just discovered your site when I posted for this contest. I had a few chances spending time at your blog since, but will be looking forward to spending more time there. I had also downloaded the MindManager viewer to view one of your MindManager blog. I am impressed and grateful. Keep up the great work. You make the difference. Similiar to you, I am one of those who aim at becoming as paperless as possible and crazzy about technologies that support this aim.
I love what you are doing with MindManager, especially the ability to link and export to other word processing softwares. I can't agree more with you that MindManager is phenomenal. Between MindManager, EverNote, OneNote and MS Word, much can be accomplished.
Thanks again for the link above and other great info at your blog. For now, you've shown me what I was looking for. I am sure there will be more specific questions later on. Until then, excellent blog!
Regards,
John L
It's comments like that John that make all this worthwhile!!!
Thanks!
Jason,
You are very much welcome. We all need one another's support. I am just grateful for your generosity and kindness.
Much blessings,
John
Thanks...
Dave Kion
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