Giveaway: Tag your annotations for free!

TagNotate – the ONLY app that allows you to tag annotations across your PDFs, and the ONLY app that I have ever developed – got several (5-star!) reviews across the UK, US, and German app stores, but when you go find the app on the app store, the stars are dimmed out, and you get this:

We have not received enough ratings to display an average for the current version of this application.

Apple require a critical mass of ratings before it displays an average rating. No one seems to know what that critical mass is. So... we need reviews. Honest reviews. Though to be as honest as those reviews, I'd be happy even with dishonest reviews! Actually, we don't even need reviews. Just ratings.

So here are some promo codes that will allow you to download the app for free (it's just like paying for the app - you get updates when they come out, etc. Just paste the code into where it says Redeem on the App Store. You'll save yourself $2.99). We don't get to see which promo codes have been used, just that some number have been used. So I'll post more if it looks like they get used up. Or, if you find that none of the codes work, just email info@tagnotate.com and say you saw this on my blog. There is some legal stuff that I have to post, from Apple, but I'll put it in very tiny print...

Tagnotate – Innovation in Annotation ™

EP4TJYEKYEHF

4TJ3R69KPHLJ

JLKM334KLK3E

XRJEKH3XRF7P

HEX674M9XFT3

Thank you! And do please write a review or click the stars to rate it! Not that I'm begging... but let's face it: Flappy Birds was rubbish as a PDF reader, and you certainly couldn't tag your annotations with it... but if necessary, I will rename the app Flappy Tags...

Codes expire on 22nd April 2014 and is redeemable only on the iTunes Store. Requires an iTunes account, subject to prior acceptance of license and usage terms. To open an account you must be above the age of 13. Compatible software and hardware, and internet access (fees may apply) required. Not for resale. Full terms apply; see www.apple.com/legal/itunes/ww/. For more information, see www.apple.com/support/. This app is provided to you by Tim and Gerry Inc.

TagNotate 1.2 waiting for approval!

It's been a hectic time:

On the domestic front, my father and I are each moving house (the two overlap to the extent that I've been helping sort through the layers of family possessions which, rather like geological structures across time, get put down gradually over an extended period, with each new layer of things covering up the previous layer). While planning my own move, I'm also planning the house into which I shall move - it's being built right this minute... er... well... no... not unless they're working through the night out there in the sub-zero temperatures of Connecticut. I had no idea that choosing appliances for the kitchen is so painful, or that 15% of refrigerators break, or that the phrases "contemporary staircase" and "made in Connecticut" do not co-occur on Google. Or anywhere else.

As exciting as all this is, I find it hard not to extol the virtues of that other big 'thing' in my life just now: TagNotate. Version 1.2 is with Apple waiting for approval before it can go live on the App Store. It's hugely improved. And we have a new marketing tagline:

Among the changes - iOS 7 look-and-feel, and importing of files and folders in zip archives. I used it recently for a grant panel that I had to prepare for, and it took me less than half the usual time it takes me to read, annotate, summarise, and review each grant. It's such a shame that I can't review it myself on the app store! So if anyone's reading this... please download and review it! Better still, tweet about it, or post about it on your own blog! And once you've done that, you could even consider using it...

Other major changes in my life: Cognition has an Editor-in-Chief-Elect who will replace me from Jan 1st 2015. I daren't look at how many manuscripts I've made decisions on during my time on the journal. I think that by the time I leave it could be around 4,500. Which reminds me: I'd best get back to working on #4269...

Subliminal advertisement:

Buy it. Download it. Review it. 

Annotate your PDFs. Tag your annot... nah... just buy it, and review it.

TagNotate: almost a review, on Gizmodo

The excitement continues. People are actually using the app, even though it was released less then a couple of weeks ago. Gizmodo said:

If you read a lot of articles, whether as eBooks or research articles, then this app is essential

TagNotate was selected as one of the best 5 apps for iPad released the week ending January 20th. Over one 4-month period towards the end of last year, 100,000 native iPad apps were released; that's around 4,000 per week. So Top 5 isn't so bad! Hopefully we'll get a few more reviews. Otherwise TagNotate will be in danger of blending into the darkness caused by the collective shadow of 500,000+ other apps on the iPad App Store. Ugh.

So... if YOU would like to evaluate the app with a view to writing a review, let me know (it shouldn't take much effort to find my email address) and I'll send you a promo code that will allow you to download the app and evaluate it for free. But at only £1.99 ($2.99) it won't break the bank.

Tagnotate: Annotate your PDFs and tag your annotations

Four years since inception...two years in development. Today's the day that TagNotate goes live. It's for annotating PDF documents on the iPad and it does something no other app does: it allows the user to assign tags to individual user-added annotations (notes, highlights, sketches, etc.). These user-definable tags can then be used to collect together annotations containing the same (one or more) tags, across single or multiple documents. No other application allows tagging of annotations, or the use of such tags to filter and aggregate notes and highlights across those files (and yes, the patent's pending and the trademarks also). You can even use the tags to filter your files so that only files containing annotations with the selected tags are shown in the file browser. And when you've aggregated the annotations you care about, you can copy them onto the clipboard, or email them directly. It sounds like an obvious thing to do, but surprisingly, no one else has done this before.

Buy it on the App Store...

Phew... that's just too much excitement for one day.

PhD positions (2) at the University of Connecticut

I shall be accepting applications for two PhD positions starting in the Fall of 2014 at UConn. If you'd be interesting in working with me, please send me an email with a brief description of your experience and interests. UConn has much to offer, including a graduate training program in Language Plasticity (broadly construed) and a vibrant inter-departmental cognitive science community. If you want to find out more about what I do, there is a reasonably accessible summary of my work over the past however many years that can be downloaded here - the last few sections describe my more recent work, as do my most recent papers with Yuki Kamide and with Nick Hindy (available from my website, or via google).

I'm back!

Yep... it's been a long time coming. And as I've said before: A lack of posts here is a real cause for concern: If you spot my absence for an extended period of time, you should send, as a matter of urgency, any of the following: money, chocolate, coffee, alcohol. Experience tells me that each of these crucial ingredients is useless on its own, and each works far better in the presence of the other (except for the coffee which should only be consumed with alcohol if in a Galliano Hotshot). A quick run down of what I've been doing in these past few months:

• editing (never ends...)
• despairing (about editing)
• caring (my dad was seriously ill, but is now recovered. I'd forgotten how much time it takes to cook three meals a day for someone!)
• researching
• despairing (about data)
• celebrating (other data)
• vacationing
• conferencing
• grant planning
• future at UConn planning
• entering into a contract to build a house in Connecticut!
• planning that house (with help!)
• admining (not mining for ads, but doing admin)
• despairing (about futility of admin)
• teaching
• despairing (about teaching)
• writing
• despairing (about lack of time in which to write)
• publishing the 2nd paper to come out of an amazing collaboration with the folks in Philadelphia
• patenting an 'invention' which will shortly see the light of day (we release the iOS App in January)
• despairing a bit more (about the difficulties of managing the development of an app while simultaneously trying to hold down what feels at times like three jobs: York, UConn, Cognition)

It sounds like a lot, and were it not for some fantastic support (from family, friends, King Richard (not the one under the carpark), James (not King James, but close), Brian (not the Life Of... but similarly life-changing) and colleagues scattered here and there) I wouldn't be nearly as cheery as I am! So stay tuned for more regular updates.

time has flown, and I'm about to...

The past few months have been a whirlwind of activity that has kept me away from here. Most notable amongst the flurry of excitement (can a flurry last for so many months?) has been the decision to move to the University of Connecticut (starting August 2014). So what with the visits, job talks, interviews, etc. etc. it's been a busy time. I'm also on the home-stretch to releasing an app for the iPad, a venture that has taken three years to reach this point. Stand by for more regular updates, and sneak peaks at the app.

Even more notable... by the time I leave on Sunday for the airport (taking the kids to New York and beyond) I shall have cleared the queues at Cognition. The first time since probably the middle of last year. I intend to celebrate in NY!

So... to that future me who will one day look back on this online diary, you will already know whether the app is as hugely successful as we all predict it will be, and whether my office at UConn will double as a bike store for the other faculty (I did indeed dream that the other night)... but for the current me, these are both still unknown. Please don't spoil it by reaching back into the past and telling me now what the future holds...