War of the Worlds: Evernote vs. Earthlings

The role of invading aliens will be played by Evernote

In September 2012, T. J. Luoma, a writer for TUAW (a/k/a The Unofficial Apple Weblog) posted a pungent, well-reasoned article about Evernote's absorption of the highly esteemed Mac application,  Skitch.  You can read Skitch 2.0 is like Skitch 1.0 without all those pesky "features" for yourself.  Go ahead, you'll be glad you did.  The story of Skitch's dismantling demonstrates all too vividly what happens when the vision of creators, users, and opportunistic buyers clash.  "Creative disruption" can be a good thing.  Mutilation, not so much.

Today, I re-encountered Luoma's article.  It still resonates.  This time, I'm pausing long enough to respond and add a history update -- what broadcaster Paul Harvey called "the rest of the story".

Bring Down Your Wall!

Building the Berlin Wall, August 1961

Don't you hate it when you read an article, blogpost, or book you know you shoulda-coulda written (but didn't)?  Yeh, this is one of those times for me.  I hope you'll permit me a short ramble, fellow entrepreneurs.

Today, I came across a nifty CNET article by Dennis O'Reilly, How to Use Powerpoint Effectively.  I started kicking myself.

The PDF Lottery

A couple of weeks ago, a friend whose antiquated desktop computer will have to keep plodding along with Microsoft Office 2003 (MO 2003) until she wins the lottery, wrote asking how she could create PDF's without upgrading to MO 2010.

Here are a few solutions we found; we hope they'll help other harried netizens facing a similar challenge.

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Dear J,

With apologies for how long it has taken me to reply, here are some FREE options which will enable you to create & use PDF files from MO 2003 without updating to 2010.  The solutions fall into two principal styles of PDF'ing:

1. Create & store PDF's online, or
2. Create PDF's offline via freeware.

The solutions at #1 don't require you to download new software, will be compatible across multiple operating systems, and even if your computer crashes or you're away from your own computer and on the other side of the planet, the website has your documents and images safely filed and available to you via the internet from any computer anywhere.

It doesn't take a degree in rocket science to understand these "in the cloud" and "on-the-fly" web services are a godsend for computers with older OS, with limited memory capacity, or computers tottering along on their almost-obselete legs.