personal wiki/notetaking software

[ph0rk]

I've been toying around with voodoopad lately, and with my phd comps looming on the horizon, I figured I'd give some sort of interlinked notetaking system a try. (Since that just seems smarter than dealing with a 300+ page word file... for each exam)


At any rate, before I get going full steam, I thought I'd poll for suggestions. Searches with "wiki" in the keywords are quite useless, and I don't believe most notetaking applications are designed to deal with the mass of data I'll be compiling.

embedded pdfs and/or images is a plus, and I'm not opposed to shareware, though free as in beer is better.

 

[LizKat]

Sometimes i think i'd just be better off with a gigundo MyStuff.rtf document and clip everything into there and then just search it and build some filemaker or whatever relational dbs out of stuff in it later on.

But, I have used NotePad Deluxe ( i think that's its name, it's on another machine) and also Yojimbo. My problem with both is failure to remember to use them often enough to remember i have them. Sometimes I think I have major case of CRS. Other times I know I just don't give a damn, I'm perfectly happy clipping something to a file and dragging the file to some folder(s) created to house my junk for a project.

I remember liking Notepad Deluxe for ability to create separate databases for major categories (News and Politics / Music / Fabrics / Scribbles ) and pop back and forth among them. An optionally floating menu IDs what they are so you can click one open. Inside each DB, there can be Topics like folders, and individual notes. It handles assorted image filetypes but I'm not sure what else besides dragged or input text. Some releases seemed a little glitchy or slow but the last one I installed was great.

I do kinda like Barebones' Yojimbo for being able to select stuff off a page and just drag it to that tray tab, it simply gets a datestamp and is tossed into the db with some default categorization if you didn't drag it to a specific folder. You can sort it out later or just search. You can encrypt items. I am a little reluctant to use the thing on my main workhorse computer because I haven't really looked into how it handles edits, saves, trash, etc with respect to metadata and encrypted data. Trying to develop attitude that there's no such thing as privacy anyway, but I'm def not there yet.

What I hate about all of these notetaking apps is their proprietary db formats. Such that if they don't migrate their app up to your next OS, then eventually you have a problem unless you decide to dedicate a computer and backup media and a frozen OS to the thing for as long as you figure to need the data.

If you only need the stuff for a couple of years that's not really a big deal.

 

[chatoyer]

I use DevonThink Pro Office for keeping notes, etc. for writing (I'm an academic). For something like comps, which I've lived through myself, I bet it would be quite useful. Expensive, yes, but you'll work with it for your Thesis as well, I'm guessing.

 

[ph0rk]

Its amazing how much stuff is out there to do roughly similar things.

data longevity will eventually be a concern, but at least for my comps, 4-5 months is all I need. I suppose if I -really- wanted it to last forever I'd make proper web wiki for it (though locked down and not advertised).

I suppose one minor issue is there is no open document standard that can really handle this sort of interlinked data, save a database (mysql, postgres, etc). However, there are some free personal wikis that do exactly this: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PersonalWiki

I sort of wish apple had spit-polished some form of personal wiki (pwiki?) to throw into iWork - but oh well

 

[OldCorpse]

Seconding DevonThink Pro Office. The issue Voodoopad and Yojimbo and the like, is that their databases are not reliable enough when they get very big. Plus, DTPO is just a very powerful and versatile app. Unfortunately, it'll soon be updated for Leopard, and most likely it'll be a paid upgrade.

 

[ph0rk]

Seconding DevonThink Pro Office. The issue Voodoopad and Yojimbo and the like, is that their databases are not reliable enough when they get very big. Plus, DTPO is just a very powerful and versatile app. Unfortunately, it'll soon be updated for Leopard, and most likely it'll be a paid upgrade.

Do you by any chance have a url to a discussion of these reliability issues?

Thats sort of lame though, the whole point of a wiki is that it can grow huge.


Edit:

as of version 3, voodoopad uses SQLite rather than a monolithic XML file, so that may fix some of the large database instability.

I've capped my trial version of voodoopad already (15 pages), and yojimbo doesn't wikify, devonthink is next on the chopping block.

 

[ph0rk]

Actually, I think wiki linking (whether or not it uses CamelCase word links) is a must - searching alone isn't good enough, and even so, voodoopad is searchable (and plugs in to quicksilver), as would a more traditional wiki.


Devon and yojimbo seem to be more whole-life-organizing apps, which isn't quite what I need, though they'd work with a wikification plugin/module.

 

[dhelfman]

Luminotes

You should check out Luminotes at http://luminotes.com/

It's a personal wiki notebook that doesn't require you to use any markup to organize your notes. And it supports file attachments, so you can track your research support materials within the wiki.