Ask HN: What application do you use to take/store notes?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1188487

by sushi • 16 years ago

10 22 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I had lost hope in every kind of notes-taking app until Evernote came to the scene and made me hooked to it. I loved it. I recommended everyone to use it.

The latest version of Evernote however changed it all. It sucks hairy balls as they have gone the Microsoft Office/OneNote way and made it a bloatware. I have totally stopped using it.

What do you guys use to take simple notes which can be easily synchronized with a web version and have everything that Evernote once was.

corruption• 16 years ago

org-mode. Nothing else even comes close.

sushi6• 16 years ago

Looks like an awesome hacker app, will have to try it out. Thanks.

elviejo• 16 years ago

Here is the video of the Google Tech Talk about Org-mode http://orgmode.org/talks/index.html

limist• 16 years ago

Agreed. org-mode is simply perfect, and alone is worth knowing and sticking with emacs for - that is, if you already mostly use plain text in your life, for speed and simplicity. Be sure to get and use the cheat-sheet at http://orgmode.org/orgcard.pdf

hollerith• 16 years ago

I don't know: dozens of new key combinations to learn even if you already know emacs.

nedwin• 16 years ago

I've been using xPAD for a while. It's simple but very useful. My housemate swears by Evernote but I'm not convinced yet.

sushi6• 16 years ago

Since I am using Windows 7 my options are rather limited. I think xPad might serve my purpose if only it had an alternative for Win 7.

cianestro2• 16 years ago

Google Wave.

sushi6• 16 years ago

Google Wave? Really? Care to share how you do that.

cianestro2• 16 years ago

Yes. I'm a big note jotter and have experimented with different apps; Wave is the best so far. Whenever I have a thought I need to record I just open a new wave, write it, and move it from my inbox to an appropriate folder within the Wave client. All wave contents are searchable, so finding stuff is easy. Plus, when the note/wave is business related, I just add a contact to the wave to get feedback on what I wrote or to start a fully treaded discussion. If you don't already have Wave apply for an account or ask for an invite--it's worth a try. Plus it's free.

ScottWhigham• 16 years ago

Oh man - what's wrong with OneNote? I've used it for years and can't live without it. What is better on Windows?

sushi6• 16 years ago

There's nothing wrong with OneNote as such but I have to check my notes online quite often(from other systems) which is kinda hard with OneNote. As a matter of fact OneNote is an awesome app for windows but until they come up with synchronization and a web version like in Evernote, I'd rather not use it.

soyelmango• 16 years ago

Have you tried Google Notebook? It's no longer in development, but it does the job for me - it's fast, clean, shareable. [However, I suspect that if you haven't used it before, Google doesn't let you start using it... I might be wrong]

Good luck in your search, and let us know what you choose in the end!

sushi6• 16 years ago

Yeah I have used Google Notebook but I want some local app. There are already some very good ones as an extension on a web browser.

Zoho Notebook is also good enough now that Google Notebook is no longer in development.

santry• 16 years ago

Notational Velocity http://notational.net/

From the description on the site:

The same area is used both for creating notes and searching. I.e., in the process of entering the title for a new note, related notes appear below, letting users file information there if they choose. Likewise, if a search reveals nothing, one need simply press return to create a note with the appropriate title.

If a note's title starts with the search term(s), that title will be "auto-completed". This selects the note and consequently displays it. Correspondingly, selecting a note places its title in the search area (De-selecting the note restores the search terms).

To create a new note, just type its title and press return. Edit the note as needed in the bottom pane.

To view or edit an existing note, type one or more words contained in its body or title. Reveal a note's content by using the up/down arrow keys to select it. To make good use of NV, try to maintain one detail/fact/item per note. Notational Velocity's strength, note-filtering, is diminished when only a few notes contain most of the content in the database.

jaxn• 16 years ago

OmniOutliner on the Mac is awesome for note taking.

Being able to take notes in an outline format allows me to order the information as it comes in. People often jump around and come back to a point or say they will speak more about something later, with an outliner I am able to keep topics organized better.

rlpb• 16 years ago

I use Tomboy. It has some sort of sync function, but I don't use it.

alanthonyc• 16 years ago

I just picked out some wiki software (I use DokuWiki) and start logging everything on there.

Raphael• 16 years ago

a few options:

notepad.exe with DropBox

Google Docs

Etherpad

sushi6• 16 years ago

Dropbox is awesome and it has single-handedly made me a backup freak.

thinker• 16 years ago

We've been working on a productivity app for researchers (currently only have a web dashboard). We're finding it great to organize notes/links/files within our own startup as well. Would be awesome if you guys could give it a try and give us some feedback!

Check it out here: http://thinkpanda.com

scorpioxy• 16 years ago

I tried to write my own because i wasn't satisfied with all the different ones i tried. But as free time kept getting shorter and shorter, I abandoned the project and reverted to using Tomboy on my Ubuntu desktop.

Not exactly cutting edge, but I yet to overcome the information overflow that i suffer from.

Ask HN: What application do you use to take/store notes?

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