I’m an avid fan of Evernote, and I’ve been watching with great interest for what useful tools might be showing up in the new Trunk feature. Trunk is the part of Evernote where you can find applications that integrate and play nice with the note storage program. Today they unveiled a working relationship with a PDF editor called PDFpen.

My last job involved dealing daily with a lot of PDF files. I always hated the time and steps involved to get one copied, edited or signed, copied again, returned…..it was endless. Wish I’d have had PDFpen at my disposal.

This one is for MAC users, so if you use that OS, then you now have the ability to annotate any and all PDF files. PDFpen is the product of the people at SmileOnMyMac and here is what they say it can do:

• Need to make corrections in original PDF text?

Just select the text you want to change and click "Correct Text" – PDFpen replaces the original text with an editable text box.

• Need to sign that electronic fax?

Open the fax in PDFpen and scribble your signature with the mouse or drag in a scanned signature image. Scale it to sign on the dotted line. Return it via email, or use PageSender for a paperless turnaround fax solution.

• Need to edit a scanned original?

PDFpen can perform basic OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on your scanned document to make the text editable.

• Need to merge pages from several PDF files together?

Open the files in PDFpen and drag the pages you need from each into a new document

• Need to cut a PDF document down to size?

Open a copy in PDFpen, select the pages to remove, hit delete, and save. It’s that easy.

• Need to repurpose PDF content?

Now you can search, select and copy the text of PDF documents.

That all, in and of itself, is terrific, but this is where it gets really interesting. Once you finish your editing, you can send them to Evernote and your annotated PDF gets synchronized to all of your Evernote applications on all your devices. This will likely cut down or eliminate the need for copying many documents.

Within Trunk you will also find devices and services for scanning that also play well with PDFpen and Evernote. Check out all the additions to Trunk to see what else serves your particular needs, but for now until August 6th, PDFpen is 20% off (Code: EVERPDF),  either from SmileOnMyMac or via Evernote TRUNK.

After a recent experience, I have been reminded about how important it is to back up data that one deems important.  But making a simple copy of a file isn’t enough.  Data redundancy is needed.  Here’s my simple advice:

1.  Make a copy of the file in a temporary backup location on the actual computer.

2.  Burn a copy of the file(s) to a CD or DVD.

3.  Export a copy of the file(s) to a USB flash drive and / or external hard drive.

Now, here’s another important aspect.  Back up the data off site.  Let’s imagine something catastrophic was to happen to the location you stored the computer, the discs and drives.  Off site server solutions are available for free, and for fee, depending on your needs.  Dropbox is a great option, as one can easily store up to 2 GB of data.

And finally, the all important final step to backups.  If the data is crucial to you in some capacity, don’t trust the computers, servers or media that the information is stored on.  Make paper copies.  Yep, print the data as a means of backing up.  If its that important, do it.

So, there you have it… my simple advice to backup data.  While it is probably not much in news to most of you, maybe it will be helpful to one or two of you.

During a day of shopping with my wife, I was blessed to be allowed to visit some brick and mortar retail stores, with the hopes of finding a gadget or two to catch my eye.  We stopped at Best Buy and Office Depot.  Were they friendly?  Sure. Did they have anything I really *needed* to look at?  Nope… not really.

But what was nice while looking over the netbook accessories was the opportunity to reminisce about some favorite tech store experiences.

There was the CompUSA store that was a thrill to shop at while I was a Palm and CLIE user.

Prior to that there were the Staples stores in my hometown and another.  What a rush to view the handhelds on display.  From salivating over the Palm Treo 90 and being oh so thrilled when my wife purchased me the Diamond Mako – the US badged version of the Psion Revo Plus.  Oh, to reminisce.

What are your favorite brick and mortar tech stores, present or past?  Share your thoughts with us below.

Deals are great, but free is definitely better.  That’s why were really happy to report on today’s offer of Handango’s Free App Friday.  They are offering Chess Pro II for free today.  It’s available for Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android.

You can check it out here!

Today’s JAMM Store Deal of the Day is Pocket Informant 9  for Windows Mobile.  You can register Pocket Informant for half the regular price, so be sure to check it out.  The sale price is $9.99

You can download a trial and/or register your copy here.

The programs details and specifications are below:

Pocket Informant™ is the only #1 Personal Information Manager (PIM) on Windows Phone that has been around since 2001. For years Pocket Informant™ has won every productivity award, every sales record, and most importantly – our customer’s hearts.
Pocket Informant™ 9 furthers our lead over the built-in Pocket Outlook and continues to improve your productivity by focusing on getting out of your way and letting you do your work. 9 polishes the user experience, adds “Getting Things Done” (GTD) support, and on Windows Phone 6.5 devices adds full Touch Gesture support throughout.
We don’t simply let you work with your daily events through lists and grids, but with the new Events and Journal views you can also look at your life’s past and future in an easy cohesive environment. You can even have Contact Links directly in the subject of any task or appointment!

When you have the best PIM on the market you may wonder what else could we do to make Pocket Informant™ even better? You won’t be overwhelmed by a new look/feel just for the sake of change or by dozens of new options or a dizzying array of new views. Instead we focused heavily on the user experience with hundreds of improvements throughout the application. All your favorite features are still there such as the innovative 12-Key Search Pad, interface scalability with our Roles including a “Pocket Outlook with Benefits Role).

Features:

• Windows Phone 6.5 Support
• Getting Things Done (GTD) support in Tasks
• Inbox – Collect your tasks quickly
• Context Groups
• Project Groups
• Next Actions
• Starred Tasks
• Bounce Scrolling
• One month Date Picker based off the full month view
• Month View Free Time Finder
• Editors are now touch friendly
• 6.5 Only: Swipe left and right in Day, Agenda, Month View, Week, Task View, and Date Picker to navigate between time periods
• 6.5 Only: Swipe left and right in Editors to navigate between the editor tabs
• Many more Touch mode improvements throughout the app
• Full PNG support within PocketInformant and for icons
• Over 1200 icons (VGA, QVGA, square screen) now included as a separate download within Pocket Informant
• Icon picker now has a size filter to see only the icons you want

Minimum Requirements:

• Pocket PC 5.0/6/6.1/6.5 with a 32MB RAM device minimum

Display Dimensions
240×240, 240×320, 240×400, 320×240, 320×320, 400×240, 480×480, 480×640, 480×800, 640×480, 800×480
Operating System
WM5, WM6, WM6.1, WM6.5