Dear reader, if you liked this article, do you use some kind of note-making system?
If no, then stop procrastinating and do it now! Right at this moment, download and install some note-making software and start using it. Because you already agree that using it is better than not using it, so most likely it’s only akrasia that stops you. If you don’t overcome that akrasia now, is there any reason to think it would be easier later?
Stop reading, start installing. Use the system for a month, and then report the results on LW.
I don’t use one. Which should I use? My requirements: Must be usable on Ubuntu, substantially less useful if it can’t be shared between that and Windows.
Wikidpad. You need a part of disk where both Windows and Linux can write.
When you create a new wiki, there is an option “only use ascii in file names”, I am not sure what it means, but it would be probably a good idea to use it, to prevent possible problems with different encoding on different systems.
If you choose an option “Sqlite compact”, all wiki pages will be in one file; the default option is one file per page. It depends on what you want. I prefer less files. But with the one file per page, you could use external tools to search in the pages; as a Linux user you will probably want this.
Evernote is pretty useful, it has no own Linux client, but there are third-party clients (e.g. Everpad) and you can use it in a browser window. Opinions differ on how much a pain this is.
Dear reader, if you liked this article, do you use some kind of note-making system?
Yes, a text editor. For every project I do on the computer, there’s a file, usually called something like 00-notes.txt, in which notes accumulate, in the order I write them, with date stamps. Typically, it records things done, things thought about, and things to do.
I once installed Evernote, but I couldn’t see what it was useful for, despite the fact that it even has conferences devoted to new and wonderful things to do with it.
Any suggestions for something that improves upon text files? For my purposes it would have to run on OSX with native UI, and however it stores the data, the data must be searchable from outside the application, i.e. plain text files or something not far removed from that, like HTML or Markdown.
ETA: I’ve just followed the link to nvALT, which satisfies the OSX and text files requirements, and might even be useful.
The Notational Velocity codebase that nvALT is built on has aged to a point where it’s nearly impossible to continue development for modern versions of OS X.
For every project I do on the computer, there’s a file
How about general knowledge, unrelated to projects? Contacts, tasks, random ideas, programming knowledge, other knowledge...
Any suggestions for something that improves upon text files?
Text files with convenient hyperlinks to other text files. And maybe pictures; they could be hyperlinked using the same mechanism. -- That’s probably all.
The simplest solution would be something like plain text editor, except that there would be some special syntax for links to other files (the syntax should be easily legible, but something that doesn’t normally appear in text). Those links would be highlighted, and clicking on them would open the other file (or just give focus to the existing windows, if it is already opened).
wikidpad is more or less Markdown files with hyperlinks + some optional metadata
I’d say that the most important thing may be how you use the system, not how it is implemented. (The implementation is important only to the degree it makes the use more or less convenient.) For example, your contacts database will be more useful if you put many contacts in it. If you have a system that allows to put hundreds of random people there, but you can still easily see the important ones, but you can also find people will specific skills when necessary. And meaningful descriptions, so it’s not like a year later you just see an unknown name with a phone number, and have no idea who that is. -- A system of plain text files where you really put all the info, and can run search queries using a command-line tool is better than having Evernote with lousy organization where you don’t even bother write most of the data, so of course there is nothing to find, which in turn makes you less likely to write there anything.
How about general knowledge, unrelated to projects? Contacts, tasks, random ideas, programming knowledge, other knowledge...
That is indeed a problem. Perhaps nvALT will be a solution. One possible showstopper is that as far as I can tell, it can’t display more than one note at a time. As an indication of how I work, right now I have 14 browser windows open. This is typical. Possessed of the ability to count higher than one, I find Single Document View pretty much impossible to work with, and programs that snatch away the document I was looking at just because I wanted to look at another one as well are thoroughly obnoxious.
ETA: nvALT doesn’t itself allow multiple windows, but it supports invoking any external editor to edit notes.
Dear reader, if you liked this article, do you use some kind of note-making system?
If no, then stop procrastinating and do it now! Right at this moment, download and install some note-making software and start using it. Because you already agree that using it is better than not using it, so most likely it’s only akrasia that stops you. If you don’t overcome that akrasia now, is there any reason to think it would be easier later?
Stop reading, start installing. Use the system for a month, and then report the results on LW.
I don’t use one. Which should I use? My requirements: Must be usable on Ubuntu, substantially less useful if it can’t be shared between that and Windows.
Wikidpad. You need a part of disk where both Windows and Linux can write.
When you create a new wiki, there is an option “only use ascii in file names”, I am not sure what it means, but it would be probably a good idea to use it, to prevent possible problems with different encoding on different systems.
If you choose an option “Sqlite compact”, all wiki pages will be in one file; the default option is one file per page. It depends on what you want. I prefer less files. But with the one file per page, you could use external tools to search in the pages; as a Linux user you will probably want this.
Try wikidpad.
Evernote is pretty useful, it has no own Linux client, but there are third-party clients (e.g. Everpad) and you can use it in a browser window. Opinions differ on how much a pain this is.
Yes, a text editor. For every project I do on the computer, there’s a file, usually called something like 00-notes.txt, in which notes accumulate, in the order I write them, with date stamps. Typically, it records things done, things thought about, and things to do.
I once installed Evernote, but I couldn’t see what it was useful for, despite the fact that it even has conferences devoted to new and wonderful things to do with it.
Any suggestions for something that improves upon text files? For my purposes it would have to run on OSX with native UI, and however it stores the data, the data must be searchable from outside the application, i.e. plain text files or something not far removed from that, like HTML or Markdown.
ETA: I’ve just followed the link to nvALT, which satisfies the OSX and text files requirements, and might even be useful.
ETA2: Although this strikes an ominous note:
How about general knowledge, unrelated to projects? Contacts, tasks, random ideas, programming knowledge, other knowledge...
Text files with convenient hyperlinks to other text files. And maybe pictures; they could be hyperlinked using the same mechanism. -- That’s probably all.
The simplest solution would be something like plain text editor, except that there would be some special syntax for links to other files (the syntax should be easily legible, but something that doesn’t normally appear in text). Those links would be highlighted, and clicking on them would open the other file (or just give focus to the existing windows, if it is already opened).
wikidpad is more or less Markdown files with hyperlinks + some optional metadata
I’d say that the most important thing may be how you use the system, not how it is implemented. (The implementation is important only to the degree it makes the use more or less convenient.) For example, your contacts database will be more useful if you put many contacts in it. If you have a system that allows to put hundreds of random people there, but you can still easily see the important ones, but you can also find people will specific skills when necessary. And meaningful descriptions, so it’s not like a year later you just see an unknown name with a phone number, and have no idea who that is. -- A system of plain text files where you really put all the info, and can run search queries using a command-line tool is better than having Evernote with lousy organization where you don’t even bother write most of the data, so of course there is nothing to find, which in turn makes you less likely to write there anything.
That is indeed a problem. Perhaps nvALT will be a solution. One possible showstopper is that as far as I can tell, it can’t display more than one note at a time. As an indication of how I work, right now I have 14 browser windows open. This is typical. Possessed of the ability to count higher than one, I find Single Document View pretty much impossible to work with, and programs that snatch away the document I was looking at just because I wanted to look at another one as well are thoroughly obnoxious.
ETA: nvALT doesn’t itself allow multiple windows, but it supports invoking any external editor to edit notes.
wikidpad supports more tabs.
(right click on the node and choose “Activate new tab”, or mouse wheel click on the node)
Some supporting materials :-)
I use it mostly as a universally available information dump. It’s hard to throw images, PDFs, webpages, etc. into a text editor...