Modern note taking software

[Dan Dubeau]

Does anybody use any of the fancy note taking software out there like Onenote?

Currently I'm a notetab on my computer, "notes" (on my android), pictures and primarily paper scribbles either in a notebook, or standalone pages I sometimes scan/take pictures of and save into project folders on my computer. But I rely on memory a lot, and well, sometimes it's not the greatest anymore.

Not a great system, but it works (kind of). Sometimes ends up a jumbled mess. My workload is increasing at work and home, and I'm honestly having a bit of trouble keeping it all straight sometimes. I think it might be time to get with the times. I'm curious if anybody has adopted some of the higher tech options out there, or if most are still paper and pencil these days.

[Rich Carlstedt]

I use Dragon Naturally Speaking to record my thoughts on a book i am writing.
It takes some time to get it the way you want .
It is Artificial intelligence learning my speech pattern,
The correction of words mis-spelled takes time mostly IMHO
I tried it 10 years ago, and the modern version is far better at interpreting words... I gave up on the earlier version.
I am interested in anyone's One Note experience as well
Rich

[lugnut]

Iv'e used Microsoft's OneNote for several years. Even if it is a Microsoft program, I have it on all three of my Mac computers. I treat it like a diary, with sections for cars, yard, house, shop, maintenance . You can down load photos and scans of documents. You can make simple drawings also. I really like the program and it is FREE. Try it and see if it of use to you.

[Dan Dubeau]

I should add, I work on a wide variety of jobs, and projects, so I doubt I will find a one solution fits all.

Somethings are artsy that start with a sketch on paper and get digitized, others are weldments, that get fully 3d designed, all the way up to large fixtures for work. It kind of hit home when I started cleaning my desk off today after a couple months of scrambling and the mountain of paper scribbles, and other notes and drawings etc are getting out of hand. I used to scan them/take pictures etc, but there never seems to be time for that anymore. They all went in the trash.

[Rich Carlstedt]

OK Dan, so can you talk to One Note to record comments or do you type ?
I just checked my PC One Note for the first time---- Win 7 and I have no speech recording and no touch screen, so writing /sketching is out

Rich

[Dan Dubeau]

I'm not sure if you can talk to one note yet, I still have a bunch of research to do on it, and will probably download it tonight to get it a trial. I honestly didn't even consider that, but can see the uses already. I do some of my best thinking while driving .

One of my many other side hobbies/creative outlets is writing songs. I've pulled over many times to get an idea out of my head so I wouldn't lose it.

Took a break while typing this to download/sign in, and there IS an audio button. Waiting for the d/l on my phone to see how it works.

Edit: YES, it works. Made an audio recording on my phone, and was able to immediately play it back on my work computer. I've only been poking around for about 5 minutes so far, but so far so good. I'm sure I'll figure some more stuff out as I go, but One note looks to be pretty use full for what I need. Now if I can just remember to use it, and not revert to my old ways.....lol

[Dan Dubeau]

15 minutes of playing around so far, and It's been seamless integration into 3 work jobs I've got on the go right now. It's pretty intuitive, and I can see way more potential in the future too (If I use it). Dead simple to take pictures of my sketches and save them to job folders with notes, and spreadsheets and pdfs as well. I also was able to upload some cad files i'm currently working on to onedrive and link them to their respective job folders. I'm impressed. That should help with the forgetting to bring thumb drive problems that always seem to happen at the wrong times.

I'm sliding back into a design role at work, on top of my programming and machining role, and will be working from home quite a bit more. Add in a growing small home shop business, and busy family life I've been fumbling and dropping the ball a lot lately and in need of better organization than my current system. I think this will help tremendously.

[Baz]

I just opened One Note on my work computer and found it had a note "test blah blah may 2016" yeah that long since I tried it and I've had at least two possibly three changes of laptop in that period so it and its entry all got transferred. Then after a few seconds it deleted itself. Eh? Must try it out I suppose.
On one of my personal computers I have "sticky notes" which is like putting up post-its as you can have lots of separate ones. It is crap. Things delete themselves, it has wasteful margins that I haven't tried to get rid of, and worst of all you can't copy and paste a URL.
One work group I was in had a dweeb who kept wanting to use a collaborative whiteboard. It was either Microsoft Whiteboard or dashboard.google can't quite remember which did what. It allowed notes all over the place and they shrank to the size of a pinhead so were impossible to find again.
In the end I just prefer Word as things mostly work, though of late the ''smart editing" has become a real pain trying to select everything all the time.

[lugnut]

I think one of the best things I like about OneNote is when make an entry on one of your computers/devices, It is automatically updated on all your devices you have the program on.

[Paul Alciatore]

Inspired by this discussion and with a desk where I can not see more than a square inch of it's top, I just tried to open Onenote to see what it could do for me.

The first thing it wanted was for me to sign in using my choice of accounts. That sets off the alarm bells in my bell tower. LOUD ONES! Why is this program free? Who or what pays for it?

The cloud services that others above have touched on, like instantly on my other computers and devices, is a clue. I fear the answer is that Microsoft is gathering user's thoughts and selling them to advertisers for "targeted"* advertising. I don't know about you, but my e-mail IN basket is perpetually running out of storage space. Not to mention the "targeted" ads I get in the snail mail and on web sites I visit. I am certainly not going to expose myself to any of that.

And if you encrypt your data before uploading it to the cloud, you must ask yourself WHO wrote the encryption software. Programmers are notorious for creating back doors. What they encrypt only you and the author of the encryption scheme can read. And anybody else that author has shared it with. And please don't tell me these things don't happen.

And that is only one possible use for the data that they gather with these cloud services. The others are probably more nefarious. Frankly, if I were running a company I would absolutely forbid anyone from using any cloud service without my explicit permission on a case by case basis.

* I put the word targeted in quotes above because their efforts at doing that are so pathetic. You mention something once or a few times and people like Google immediately put you on a list as a buyer of that thing. Worse yet, you make a one-in-ten-year purchase and then get bombarded with ads for that product. What that purchase really indicated was that the buyer is supplied with that product for many years to come and it is a total waste of resources to target him/her for another such purchase. Advertising people are STUUUUUPIIIIIIDDDDDDDDD! Actually super stupid.

[Dan Dubeau]

I've had a Hotmail account as my main email account since the late 90's. That is my Microsoft onedrive login. If I'm the product and they're stealing my ideas, I hope they let me know and at least send me a few of the completed items. Actually that's a great idea, let them steal all my project ideas so that I can buy them months later on aliexpress for pennies on the dollar. Yes its a cloud storage, and instantly updates to all your signed in devices. That is the point. How else is that supposed to work? really fast carrier pigeons? I don't have the technical brains to setup my own personal cloud and software to do it, nor do I have any highly technical and secretive documents I'm storing on it. I'm just a guy with too many irons in the fire, trying to keep them straight and make some forward progress once in a while.

They can also try and sell me targeted stuff all they want. I'm making diamonds in my wallet. I'm not really a "consumer grade" Human. Although I did just spring for a new lighted headband on JRouches suggestion. gasp, maybe he is an AI bot sent here buy big tech to get us to buy stuff from amazon.....PStech Paul must also be a bot for Banggood too. It's all starting to make sense......

While you might be right that a nefarious plans to harvest the gen pops ideas and other thoughts etc is going on...... sometimes you just gotta take stuff at face value and learn to use it for what it will do for you. You do you though.

So far I've taken about an hour to add a few of my current projects to my onenote/onedrive this afternoon, and will make a conscious effort to work with it as I go. I honestly see the value for what I need it for, and think it will work great IF I can stick with it.

You can also link with others on it, and have real time updates to projects etc. I can see the value in that for some collaborative stuff I have going on, and some other stuff like the baseball league I help run for the kids.

[R.Bolte.Jr]

I think one of the best things I like about OneNote is when make an entry on one of your computers/devices, It is automatically updated on all your devices you have the program on.

Thats the best part of "Notes" on Apple products...
Start a shopping list on my laptop, stop for coffee and update it on the iPad, bust out the iPhone at the depot and check off stuff as I go.

[Paul Alciatore]

Dan, I see your point. And if it works for you, then go for it.

Perhaps you have a suggestion for cleaning out my IN box?

[Dan Dubeau]

I don't have a suggestion for you Paul. I must be an anomaly. I've had the same Hotmail address for over 20 years, and barely get any spam. It's mostly from sites I've signed up for, and they usually have an unsubscribe link down near the bottom somewhere. If you stay on top of it, it doesn't get out of hand. The rest go to my junkmail folder, and I might get 3-5 a day there. Most times less. It's honestly barely a problem.

I'd start by opening the emails, and looking for the unsub link. The ones from Nigerian princes, go straight to the trash, don't open those ones... It's all empty promises

[qwerty12345]

Inspired by this discussion and with a desk where I can not see more than a square inch of it's top, I just tried to open Onenote to see what it could do for me.

The first thing it wanted was for me to sign in using my choice of accounts. That sets off the alarm bells in my bell tower. LOUD ONES! Why is this program free? Who or what pays for it?

The cloud services that others above have touched on, like instantly on my other computers and devices, is a clue. I fear the answer is that Microsoft is gathering user's thoughts and selling them to advertisers for "targeted"* advertising. I don't know about you, but my e-mail IN basket is perpetually running out of storage space. Not to mention the "targeted" ads I get in the snail mail and on web sites I visit. I am certainly not going to expose myself to any of that.

And if you encrypt your data before uploading it to the cloud, you must ask yourself WHO wrote the encryption software. Programmers are notorious for creating back doors. What they encrypt only you and the author of the encryption scheme can read. And anybody else that author has shared it with. And please don't tell me these things don't happen.

And that is only one possible use for the data that they gather with these cloud services. The others are probably more nefarious. Frankly, if I were running a company I would absolutely forbid anyone from using any cloud service without my explicit permission on a case by case basis.

* I put the word targeted in quotes above because their efforts at doing that are so pathetic. You mention something once or a few times and people like Google immediately put you on a list as a buyer of that thing. Worse yet, you make a one-in-ten-year purchase and then get bombarded with ads for that product. What that purchase really indicated was that the buyer is supplied with that product for many years to come and it is a total waste of resources to target him/her for another such purchase. Advertising people are STUUUUUPIIIIIIDDDDDDDDD! Actually super stupid.

Paul, your concerns are right on the mark. In order to get out of the web of perverse incentives that cause these problems, you should do two basic things:

1) Use open-source, ideally "Free" and open-source (FOSS) software. The "free" here is free as in Freedom, not free as in beer ("gratis", though it is usually free-as-in-beer too!). Sometimes called FLOSS (free/libre open-source software).

An ".exe" file is usually a binary file--all 1s and 0s. You and I can't read the code, and many companies distribute only binaries specifically *because* they don't want people to know what it's doing. If you and everyone else have the source code, it can be inspected and you can see exactly what the software is doing. FOSS gives you that. Security by obscurity (what Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. practice) is a bad plan, and incentivizes those companies to abuse their users. Don't trust them.

A good start here is trying out a Linux distribution, like Mint or Ubuntu. You don't even need to install it, you can run it from a DVD or flash drive. They are modern and easy to use, and they won't hit you with ads, steal your data, or pester you constantly trying to get you to open your wallet.


2) Don't use non-free network services like gmail, Facebook, etc. That's how they get you in to their walled gardens (escape is difficult!)

3) Block all ads. You should almost never see an ad on the internet. Surf using Firefox and install uBlock Origin.


As far as note-taking software, here are some non-abusive solutions:
Bookstack
Vikunja
Joplin
Cryptee
Dokuwiki + Argon
Tiddlywiki

Check here for more stuff:

https://www.privacytools.io/

https://codeberg.org/LinuxCafeFederation/Delightful-Privacy