Ask YC: Anything better than Google notebook out there?

I use a plain text file.

gmail, using self-addressed emails and labels as folders.

Being able to search and "reply" to your own thoughts is really nice.

I use Google Docs. It works well for the most part, but the long load time is mildly irritating, and I don't need most of its features. I've been thinking of writing something like this from scratch for fun.

If you are a Windows person, I find OneNote to be indispensable. screen clippings, random thoughts, notes - whatever, really - are sorted, searchable, etc. It comes with certain versions of MS Office. http://www.onenote.com/

Use the extension Foxnotes while online. You get six separate notes, all of them .txt files. When offline use your text editor to access any of the six. Use the editor's MRU list for instant access, or a shortcut(s). It's a simple, superfast online\offline setup. If you're not using PsPad you don't know what a top class free text editor is.

Moving from gmail to my own email hosting, I discovered that horde had really nice notes/calendar/etc. modules (horde-webmail has them integrated).

The only problem is that it is somewhat of a pain to set up, but if you want a complete self-hosted solution, it's great.

I also discovered recently that the next version (rc now) has syncml support so you can sync with your mobile phone.

I have a folder on my desktop called buckets with individual plain text files called:

Blog Topic Bucket Books to Get Bucket Business Todo Bucket Daily Task Bucket Domain Bucket Idea Bucket Link Bucket Music bucket Personal Todo Bucket Quote Bucket Scrap Bucket Travel Bucket

I then add to those buckets with Quicksilver by pressing .[text here] [tab] Append to... [bucket]/name of bucket

It takes a couple of seconds to put anything I want into them, though it probably sounds more complicated than it is written out.

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Evernote is awesome. Although sadly currently only invite only while it's in beta, but you can easily apply for an invite on their site:

http://preview.evernote.com/

It has a great clipping tool so you can easily clip snippets from websites and has built in OCR capabilities so if you snip a photo/image you can filter your notes by text actually contained within the photo. It also syncs between your desktop client and web version so you are never without your notes and currently supports mac, windows and mobile windows, with an iPhone version coming soon.

I had the same problem some time ago, so I built this to support my needs: http://scribbl.net/

To amplify a key point: I think the core of your issue is "findability". It's not hard to collect a lot of internet stuff, or even your own ideas using different software - finding it again is the difficult task.

I'm in the http://twine.com beta, and it works pretty well if want structured notes/data about your research/ideas.

Along those lines, you can also try: http://diigo.com http://clipmarks.com

I also use a personal wiki or blog with lots of tagging. Wiki's are very powerful for organically growing ideas, but I find navigation difficult and tagging with most blogs provides easier content organizations. Drupal's taxonomy can help. Flickr's concept of machine tagging is pretty useful for fast organization of thoughts.

For offline there are more options like OmniOutliner for Mac. Here's more mac software for idea management: http://members.optusnet.com.au/charles57/Creative/Software/s...

If more specific goals you have, the easier to solve the problem. But the general problem of note taking in turning it into a valuable collection is the hard part.

I also use paper. :) Old school.

I find mind maps to be much more useful than a list of notes. You can always add notes to the map and attach/link to documents.

If you browse with Opera then it has a nice 'copy to note' feature which is handy for clipping bits of the web and adding your comments etc.

I'm using xPad on the Mac and it does well for me. I do miss OneNote on Windows (about the only thing I miss).

evernote is awesome

try also tomboy (part of gnome)

I am using keynote (http://keynote.prv.pl), I keep my file (single file) in a small flash disk and put it in my wallet, so I do not have to worry about sync the file between my home desktop, laptop, and office desktop. Keynote allow you to have tabs and folders within tab.

I'm on OSX and I use VoodooPad + email. Voodoopad is a really good program for creating "wiki-like" notes. It can also embed, links to files, rich text copied directly from safari, etc. For online viewing you can either use the built in web server or export as HTML periodically.

I use email for updates when I'm away from my laptop. It's easy for me to type things up in a rough form for processing later and I can use it almost anywhere (I took 6KB of notes during the startup school on my blackberry)

I didn't find GN or similar products useful. I just save the whole URL on del.icio.us, using the tags I can remember later.

There is also TiddlyWiki [http://www.tiddlywiki.com/]. Its a single HTML file that you can carry on your flash drive. You create tiddlers, tag them, search, the whole gambit. I use it for maintaining my work reports, and its pretty cool.

You can even go as far as customizing the tiddlers (think of them as index cards). I created one for work that automatically puts the date, and adds "dailystatus" as a tag, and has two input areas, "Tasks completed" and "Hours worked".

The file can get large, but if you feel the need to host it so its accessible from the web, there is tiddlyspot.com that lets you host these files for free. So you can have a local copy as well as one on the web, and you can synchronize between them easily.

I'll second (or third) the vote for OneNote. I find it to be indispensible for dealing with unstructured information, and perfect for imposing structure as you go. It's not a web app, but has good mobility support (easy enough to share a Notebook, or keep one on a USB stick). And, the browser integration is great-- one click saves an article, ready to be filed away.

If you have mobile phone with full keyboard, it not a bad idea to keep your notes there. You have your phone with you all the time, whenever you come up with something to write about, you don't even need a computer.

Are you looking to store web pages along with your annotations, or just your personal notes? Also, does it necessarily have to be stored online? Firefox's ScrapBook extension and OneNote are two excellent tools I have used.

Semi-justified self promotion: http://www.awesomehighlighter.com

Evernote is pretty good.