Memory Spring

As far as I can tell Springpad has been available for about two years.  This service, free (must be over 13 to use), provides an application for saving and accessing anything that a user wants to remember with the ability to do so on a computer or a mobile device; syncing the information between the varied formats.

You can sign in using your Google, Yahoo, Twitter or Facebook account.  If you prefer simply register with an email address and by creating a password; listing your first name and last name are optional.  At the next screen new users are asked to select a theme for their home page (design), change your username and add a photo to your profile if you desire.

The following screen provides an explanation  for Your Springpad Home; where to change your account information and privacy settings, the ability to view all of your saved information (All My Stuff), displaying created notebooks for filing similar bits of information, and the ability to view Public items in your friends' Springpads.  The final screen in this introduction points out how to go Home, Navigate Your Stuff and how to Add New Stuff.

From there click the Let's Get Started! button.  You are taken to your Springpad Home page.  When you click the alerts button you are taken to the navigation screen. (You can also get there by clicking on the notebooks.)

 Springpad provides a note on how to access the apps for smartphones.  Anytime a note is made five icons beneath (depending on the display selection chosen via icons in the upper right hand corner) that note allow for toggling the flag status for the note, toggling the note's privacy, adding the note to a notebook, adding more tags to the note or deleting the note.  A note can be edited and filtered (this I need to explore more). 

Springpad has a checklist of steps to get you started with some of the features.  Checklists can be edited, shared or deleted.  Notes, photos, videos and files can be attached.  As with a note toggling is offered for privacy and flag status, a reminder and tags can be added or a checklist can be added to a notebook.  If the user desires a checklist can be sent via email or printed.

To create a notebook just click on the notebook icon on Your Springpad Home screen.  In the upper left hand corner of the notebook screen is what looks like a tiny wrench.  By clicking on that you can name your notebook, choose to make it public or private and delete it.  If you make the notebook public a URL appears; you can always change the notebook back to private.  When the settings for a notebook are completed and saved, Springpad begins to search for useful links based upon your notebook title as it does when items are added to the notebook.

Items can be added to a notebook by clicking on the plus sign in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
When you Add a Note text in notes can be bold, in italics or underlined.  Margins can be justified left, center or right.  Lists can be numbered or bulleted.  Links can be added or removed to the note as well as images.
Attachments such as those added to a checklist are available; notes, links, photos, videos and files.  Quick links appear such as adding the note to Facebook by making it public.  As with a checklist editing, sharing or removal of the note are options.

When a Task is added the screen asks for a title to that task, due date and description.  All the other options are the same as for notes and checklists.

Look it up allows the user to search the web for whatever they desire to remember.  Add by Type in addition to checklist, note and task includes for example TV show, contact, alarm, recipes, packing list, event, shopping list, bookmark or book.  Add Nearby is for adding locations to your Springpad. 

When items in a notebook are listed they can be sorted by added, modified, popular, name, rating, date, type and tag.

The Board option where you can move items around in a notebook would not work in Internet Explorer.  It was suggested that it works best in Google Chrome.  A Browser Extension can be added to the tool bar in Google Chrome and Firefox so pages can be added as found on the web as well as accessing your account.  I added a Web Clipper to my Favorites so I can perform a similar function in Internet Explorer.

Adding the Springpad application to my smartphone was as simple as going the the Android Market.  It installed successfully and all my work completed on my computer can be now accessed from my Samsung Galaxy. 

Here is a link to one of my created notebooks, Children's Books to Read, Review or Purchase.  I've got to say, having just spent time navigating within Springpad and remembering back to the day when we got our first black and white TV at home, I continue to be amazed at the advances in our technology.

Note:  This site is official closed as of June 25, 2014.