January Perennially Popular/ PIMs & Calendars Tutorials 

NoteTab Pro
ClipMate
Maximizer Lite
Amigo! Pro

NoteTab Pro

Using Outline Documents in NoteTab Pro NoteTab Pro's outline documents are a great way to store information so that you can retrieve it quickly. Outlines can be up to 2 GB in size, and can have over 5,000 headings. 

1. To create a new outline document, choose New Outline from the File menu. You'll be asked to name the new outline. Then you'll be asked for a Descriptive Name for the outline-this is actually the first heading, so type in the name of the heading you want. (Clip: nphead.bmp) If you'd like the outline heading to take its name from the first line of text that you type into it, rather than typing a heading, right click in the Headings area, and choose Show Headings from the menu. 
2. To add a new heading, right click on the left side of the screen under your first heading, and choose Add Heading. You can also add a heading via the Document menu: choose Outline Headings. 
3. Your outline document can soon become large, with lots of headings. To make navigation within the outline easier, add some hyperlinks, to link to other parts of your outline document. You can also link to other outline files, other documents, an Internet URL, or to programs. To create a hyperlink, place it between square brackets: "[n]". To link to a heading in the same file, open square brackets, put the name of the outline file, double colons, the heading, and close brackets. For example, this would be the link to the heading "Appointments" in the file To Do.otl: "[to do.otl::appointments]". 
4. To reorder headings in your outline document, just drag them with the mouse. 
5. You can make your outline documents easier to read by changing the background colour of the headings window. Right click in the headings window, and choose Background Colour. (Clip: npback.bmp.) 6. Using outline documents, NoteTab Pro becomes an effective information database.
   

ClipMate

Power-user's ClipMate After you've installed ClipMate, try out some of ClipMate's special features: 

1. Two views: you can switch between two views in ClipMate, the Traditional View (a small icon strip) and the Explorer View, which resembles Windows Explorer. (Clip: cmtrad.bmp.) (Clip: cmexplor.bmp). You can quickly toggle between the views by using the View icon, which shows a clipboard and a magnifying glass. 
2. Powerpaste: this feature lets you quickly paste a group of clips. Each clip is pasted individually, so it's a fast way of filling in computer forms. First select the collection you want to paste items from, then select each item you want to paste. (Press and hold the Shift button to select consecutive items; press and hold the Ctrl button to click-select separate items.) The Power Paste icon is the one which looks like a double powerpoint. Press the bottom powerpoint to start pasting down the list of items you've selected, the top powerpoint to paste up the list. Next, switch to the document into which you want to paste your group of items. Press Ctrl+V and the first item is pasted. Keep pressing Ctrl+V to paste each additional item, in precisely the location you want. 
3. Glue: this feature collects individual items together, and pastes them all into your document at the same time. Locate the collection that you want to glue items from. Select your items. Now switch to the document you want to glue the items into, and press Ctrl+V. All the items appear in your document. You can also use Glue automatically. For example, when collecting information from the Web in Auto-Glue mode, as you select and copy each item, it's pasted into your document automatically. 
4. You can edit clips within ClipMate. This is handy, because items often need some tweaking before you can paste them. For example, perhaps you've copied an address from a Web page, and you want to paste it into your word processor, but it has some leading spaces that you want to remove. Just switch to ClipMate's Explorer View, and click onto the clip. You'll find that you can edit the clip in the Preview/ Edit pane. You can even create new clips within ClipMate. Click on the File menu, and choose Create New, Empty Clip. An untitled clip is created, and you'll find yourself in the Preview/ Edit Pane, ready to create the clip. Type your clip.

Maximizer Lite 

Getting started with Maximizer Lite Maximizer Lite is a powerful PIM/ contact manager. Here's how to get started with it. 

1. If you have a file of contacts, you can easily import them into Maximizer Lite. The simplest way is as an ASCII text file. Choose Import from the File menu. (Clip: maxport.bmp.)You can choose from Comma-delimited, CSV, or Tab-delimited types of files. Choose the type you want from the drop-down list, and then browse to locate the file on your hard drive. Click OK to open the file. When your imported file opens, you will need to associate a Maximizer Lite field with each field in the import file. If you make a mistake, simply begin the import process again. 
2. If you don't have a contacts file, you can start building your own within Maximizer Lite. To create a new contact, press the Insert button on your keyboard, or choose Add from the Edit menu. the Add Client dialogue box opens. (Clip: maxadd.bmp.) Fill in the details of the contact on the Basic information tab. Click on the User-Defined Fields tab. An e-mail address field has already been created for you. You can customise the other fields as needed; no need to create them immediately you begin using the program. Note that an individualised ID number is created for each contact. 
3. Create a task for the contact you've just created. Choose Schedule a To Do from the Actions menu, or click on the Hotlist icon-it looks like a finger with string tied around it. The Hotlist opens. If you find that you've lost your Contacts list-all that you can see on your screen is the Hotlist and the Notes list, choose Tile Horizontally or Tile Vertically from the Window menu to make your Contacts list visible. 
4. Make sure the Hotlist window is active, and press Insert. 
5. You'll see that you're about to schedule a task for the client you selected. If you want to schedule a personal task, click on the Personal Hotlist Task radio button. You can change the date by right-clicking in the date field: a calendar drops down. If you right-click in the Time field, your Planner opens, showing you your free time. Set an alarm if you wish, and fill in the details of your task. You can also choose an icon to make the task stand out in the Hotlist. 
6. Maximizer Lite has a mile of features: don't try to learn them all at once. You'll find that after you've used the program for a couple of days, the "list" format of everything in the program will make perfect sense to you.

Amigo! Pro 

Entering your data into Amigo! Pro Amigo! Pro is a freeform information manager. However, you can structure your data in Amigo! Pro if you wish, and you can enter data in many ways-even automatically. Explore these ways to enter your data into Amigo! Pro effectively. 

1. All information in Amigo! Pro is contained in a note, which can contain various sections, such as labels, bullets, and numbers. You can combine sections to create Styles, which are templates for your notes. Various Styles are included with Amigo! Pro. In the program's shortcut bar, click on the Styles icon. (Clip: apstyle.bmp.) Click on the Download Style, and then on the various sections of the note. You'll see that each section of the note (File Name, Web Page, etc) is a separate section. The Download Style has many sections, but the Note Style only has one section. 
2. Let's create a new Style, so you can enter information about the books in your home library. Click on Styles in the shortcut bar. Select New Style from the Styles menu. A dialogue box opens, asking you for a name for your new Style. Type "My Books". Click OK. 
3. My Books appears in the Styles list, and it's ready for you to edit. Type "Title:" in the Note heading. Click outside the section. Right-click, and choose Add Section, Copy Section Above. In the heading, type "Author". Keep adding sections in the same way. You could add sections for Publisher, Year Published, Bought From, Cost, and Notes. Add as many sections as you need. When you've finished adding sections, your new Style is ready to use. 
4. To use your Style, choose New Note from the Note menu. The Style Selection box pops up. Choose My Books from Available Styles, and click OK. (Clip: apnew.bmp.) 
5. Using Styles to enter your data into Amigo! Pro is efficient, but you can even enter data automatically, using the Amigo! Link feature, which captures data from the clipboard. Use the hotkey, Shift + F2, to activate Amigo! Link. All the data you copy to the clipboard will now be deposited in Amigo! Pro. 
6. You can also enter data into Amigo! Pro via drag and drop from Windows Explorer: any text in the file will optionally be entered into a new note.

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