Author and self proclaimed “note-taking geek” Tim Ferriss recently caught my attention with his description of How to Take Notes Like an Alpha Geek.

Tim details his note taking methods, which include his indexing system and his preferences for the proper note pad for the job. Personally, I like Black n’ Red notebooks.

Tim points out that simple but effective note taking enables you to:

-Review book highlights in less than 10 minutes

-Connect scattered notes on a single theme in 10 minutes that would otherwise require dozens of hours

-Contact and connect mentors with relevant questions and help I can offer

-Impose structure on information for increased retention and recall.

What Tim does not talk about is How to Share Notes Like an Alpha Geek? Do you go to the copy machine, a big bulky scanner or share a dark barely legible digital photograph like Tim? Not if you are truly an Alpha Geek of the first degree! A real Alpha Geek pulls out their camera phone (or digital camera), takes a photo of the notes, then sends them to qipit. They can do it all from the comfort of their desk, hotel room or their car.

Take a look at Tim’s picture of his Biology of Sleep Notes.

Now look at the “qipit” created using the source picture. Qipit does all this on the fly in about a minute. A “qipit” in PDF form can be zoomed to make it even easier to read, but it does not improve Tim’s handwriting.

Qipit’s algorithms are designed to make the handwriting as clear as possible, optimizing for reading, printing and sharing. Notice how Qipit removes the shadows, dark contrast and even the blue lines from the graph paper. The result is a crisp, clean ink on white enhanced copy of the original - a “qipit”. Qipit even automatically straightens and crops (aka dewarps) the page if the picture overlaps the edge of the notes and accidentally catches the table underneath.

Once the “qipit” of the notes is created, it can be distributed as a PDF, JPEG, URL link , or a clickable thumbnail blog script (See thumbnail below).

The true Alpha Geek would then give their “qipit” a title, write a description and even tag it with relevant keywords to find the notes later using their Qipit tag cloud or desktop search. If desired they would email or fax it anywhere in the world using their cell phone, email or the web interface. They would even have their friends follow their public “qipits” by having them subscribe to their personal RSS feed, and they would post what is interesting to their favorite social book marking service using the Add This feature.

Ahh, if we could all be as efficient as the Alpha Geek! Please share your Alpha Geekdom note sharing techniques and experiences.

Thanks to LifeHacker, one of my favorite blogs, for bringing Tim’s Blog to my attention!

~ Conrad