(If you know what a wiki is, just skip on down...)
Ever want a tool to keep notes without losing them. Want a way to link them together without copying and pasting? Want it to look decent? Compact and cheap?
I suggest "Notebook" a really nice freeware note/diary/journal/project bit of software. Can't hardly recommend it enough! Works on Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix!
"Notebook is a personal notebook application. It's for storing notes, to-do lists, daily logs, things you want to remember, neat ideas you might do something with some day, cute things your children said, bad jokes--all the kinds of things you would write down now if only you had a place to put them where you'd remember to look for them.
But Notebook is more than that. It's almost like a personal website. Whenever you enter notes into your Notebook, you effortlessly create hyperlinks to them, just like in a Web Page. The links allow you to find things again; and if they fail you there's a "search" box that will find every page containing the information you desire and an "Index" page that lists all the pages you create
If you've ever used a Wiki on the Web, Notebook is much like a personal Wiki. But it goes beyond that, because it's programmable. You can embed "Magic Buttons" in any page that do almost anything you can think of. And you can put "Embedded Macros" in any page to automatically include text into your pages. "
http://notebook.wjduquette.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
(I have no association with the author, etc.)
Interesting David:
Do you have any links to what others have done with it?
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "what others have done with it"...?
Hi David,
Just saying hello. How you feeling?
I think it might be too much for me, David. I don't know what I would do if I could find all my lost thoughts--- it may be overwhelming :-/
QuoteHi David,
Just saying hello. How you feeling?
Feeling somewhat better - they've changed my meds and that seems to be helping.
On the other hand, I'm quite stressed - could be living on the streets by this time next week if my "boss" lets me down. :(
Ah David. The corporate life sucks, doesn't it?
We retired early, 1999, when everyone thought they were rich and it would last forever. Didn't.
We were somewhat lucky. Rolled over our 401Ks when the stock was $80. Think it's about $4 now. Lots of our younger friends are totally trashed. Lots got "down-sized" after we left.
And, of course, we're not doing as great as we thought we would do.
Bright side. Most of our friends whom we felt sorry for, have other jobs, maybe making less $$, but seem to be happier.
We, don't have as much as we hoped. Having no children, all we hope to do is "die broke" like the book.
Don't mean to sound like a Pollyana, but it generally works out. Surprising, but it does. Angst involved, but it does. You can always come down here. I'll show you how to build a sweet little adobe casita. Just like the video. Better than the video. Like the sound of running water? I'll show you how to build a fountain with a little stream if you want. But, you're a tree lover, huh?
In fact, most of you all seem to be tree lovers. A clearing in some talllllllll trees. No one will appreciate my progress pics....if we ever get progress. Whenever I get in the tall trees I find myself humming that old Carter Family song...the refrain...."in the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines"
Having grown up in the Ky bluegrass, lived in Colorado and one interesting winter in MN, wouldn't give a nickel for all the Ponderosas I could find. That's what makes the world go round, huh? ;D
I was unemployed for 3 years before I was diagnosed with cancer last year. At this point there's nothing left and being put out on the street was not a metaphore.
I guess I'll know my fate on Friday. If the guy I've been doing website development for doesn't come through by then, I'm toast. I don't even have enough money to put my personal stuff in a storage locker.
Keep us posted, David -maybe with our massive collective brainpower we can figure out some way to get something going for you. The CP think tank ;D
Feel free to instant message me or e-mail so you don't fall off the edge of the earth.
The very best wishes, David.
This too shall pass...
Yes to Glenn's thought.
But we'll probably sound awfully nosy and prying while we do it.
Wheelchair bound friend of mine is very very big on teaching people how to treat her. She sounds dictatorial when she does it, but is a good friend when you get past that.
Thanks for all the good wishes - they're quite appreciated!
Looks like my flakey client is actually going to send me the promised money after all and he's just been busy.
HOWEVER, please don't stop brainstorming on my behalf. I'm still hanging by a single thread and I'd rather have a few so I'm not at the mercy of a single point of failure! :o
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
John; What was your question about Notebook? I think if you want to know what people do with it, you'll have to look over the website and maybe read the (rather sparse) email archive. Alternatively, if you have any specific questions, i'll do my best to answer them...
Thanks, David
I'm always amazed when tech sites talk about how great their product is and then so little about what it actually does.
Show me examples of what useful things others can do with it. How does it save them time, keep them organized, etc.
Coolness of concept is only talking to a very small market - and not one that generally gets out the checkbook all that often. The market that will spend money is only interested in benefits and results not features.
Ah, well, at least Notebook is free! :-)
Interesting. Do you know if it is all online or is it all offline or a combination of both?
Notebook for Windows is a single stand alone file that's not too big to download.
Bit more complicated if you want to use it on Mac or Linux, but not insurmountable. Fortunately, I doubt any/many people from here are going to be on Max or Linux ;-) There's really nothing to set up either, although there are a few user preferences you might like to adjust.
The really nice thing about Notebook is that you can type, using an easy notation, somewhat fancy text. Lists and headers and, maybe best of all, you can type in a link to a new page just by putting square brackets around it:
[Link to my new page] - will show up looking like a hyperlink when you're done editing. You can then click on it and it will open the new page in editing mode!
Oh yeah - about "all online, all offline or both" - at any time you can export a page, a range of pages or the whole notebook in one of several formats, the most interesting of which is probably HTML. All of the page cross-references, as well as the links and tables and other formatting are made into HTML. Quite a nice, easy way to maintaion a website or the like.
I'm slooowly working on my own version of this, which is likely to be a lot better. My version may or may not be free, but it will be free to anyone who acts as a guinea pig and expecially to folks that provide lots of feedback and/or ideas!
Thanks for that explanation David.
Having a text editor with internal file linking that can be quickly exported to HTML or a blog is very useful.
I have used Info Select for years because of its speedy search features and structured outline format. I've often wished it had the feature you just mentioned.
David, I used to beta test a lot of software, Norton, original MSN etc. and don't mind being a guinea pig however I have stopped doing most testing due to lack of time to play with it.
I do however refuse to be a gerbil. ;D
Well, gerbils are chubby cheeked, long legged, long tailed rodents that live in holes in the ground in the desert, so, if the shoe fits... far be it for me to mention the fact! ;-)
I DL'd Notebook today and am giving it a try. Lets see if it is possible get things a bit more organized. ;D
Got it loaded and working and was even able to display an in line jpeg with no slowness as the author of the help file indicated there would be.
Cool! New version 2.1.3 just came out today!
That's the one I loaded-- created a jobs page to keep track of jobs I may forget - possible contracts=possible money - Will see what happens - Thanks, David. :)
What about printing-- ??? There doesn't seem to be a direct print method.
I created the self updating daily log- Called it Stuff to do. Example of page - colored items are links to other pages - macro makes new page each day if you want it- just click stuff to do page and click Edit Todays Entry (automatically creates new daily page and appends to the top of the list below).
STUFF TO DO
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Edit Today's Entry
TUESDAY, MAY 31, 2005 (edit | view)
* Go to Kasco-Manchester - bid 1200
MONDAY, MAY 30, 2005 (edit | view)
* check with county about Hornitos job
So far to print I have had to export to an HTML file. Any better way, David?
Printing is a requested feature by other users. Here's what the author of Notebook has to say:
"Printing is difficult in any event, but it's even more so in Notebook's case, given that Notebook is a cross-platform application and printing is different on every platform. I'd love to get printing working some day, but it's not likely to happen any time soon."
In addition to export as HTML, you could export as plain text and then use a text editor or the like to print your document. You could even import the text into a word processor and embellish it if you really want fancy printing and not just a working document.
BTW, I'm very impressed that you created that ToDo page thing!
How about posting the macro code(s) here please? ;)
Thanks for the print info, David.
The author put the instructions for Creating a Daily Log in the help menu under Basic Features.
The macro that makes it work is this [@logpage@].
The instructions seem a little complicated but even with my meager mental abilities I was able to do it.
;D
Oops - you'd think I'd know all the features of something I'm recommending! ::)
I hope you'll let me know, sooner or later, what you think of it and any features (beyond printing ;)) you'd like to see.
I'm making a little bit of progress on my own version. I'm currently wrestling with WYSIWYG input rather than all the weird notation one enters in a special edit window.
There will still be some of that, especially macros and the like, but I hope to make general input far more transparent than it is now.
So far, ctrl-b is bold, ctrl-i is italic and hitting each one of them will turn off the text decoration (ctrl-b to turn on bold, ctrl-b to turn it off). Available decorations will be bold, italic, underline and overstrike, plus font name, size and color (foreground and background). Also, justification, sub/superscripts and margin settings.
That one was interesting to me so thought I would give it a try. I'll keep checking it out as I have more time to play with it and see what I can come up with. I haven't had time tocheck out many other features but the log working was a major accomplishment for me.
:)
I played with ----edit/copy page as---- a bit to print, then decided on ---copy page as MediaWiki Markup then pasting it into Word or Word Pad to print it out fairly quickly and trouble free. Updated input only takes a few seconds - output is rtf -rich text format - so looks pretty good for a list of things to do. I understand after 7 days it links to older days putting them as a menu item, but still available.
Todays example below
Edit Today's Entry
=== Wednesday, June 01, 2005 === (edit | view)
* finish shop roof-
* Work out time to get tree from Lee Haley - etc.
* sprinklers to top of shop garden - window garden -potatoes
=== Tuesday, May 31, 2005 === (edit | view)
* Go to Kasco-Manchester - bid 1200
-job complete- bill Kasco
=== Monday, May 30, 2005 === (edit | view)
* check with county about [[Hornitos job]]
I like your ideas, David. I don't want to have to type that code to get bold, italics etc. Heck -- I have enough trouble just remembering how to type let alone try to remember some code to make my stuff look cool. ;D
How's it going?
I've made some basic progress on my version - it will have a "tree" of topics along one side for faster navigation - sort of like an outline or table of contents (think of it either way!)
I've gotten the text entry area to take "control-<something>" to do the basic styling - I just have to get it to not undo all the stylings when a single style is removed (like bold+italic going back to normal when only bold is removed).
Still miles and miles to go though.
BTW John - is it ok to have this discussion on your website?
I am using Notebook to keep track of daily projects - printing is now fairly routine and relatively painless - I leave a Word doc. on the desktop titled Glenn's notebook. Copy current info as mediawiki markup - open the word doc then hit control "a" to select all of the old text then hit paste and the new replaces the old then print the word doc with current stuff to do. You can edit each previous day separately so can mark off or put an x at the end of finished tasks. I leave a copy of Notebook open on the task bar for instant editing whenever I get an idea or thought -- so why no entries you say ??? :-/ No brain-no pain
Hopefully the relevance to this forum would be that someone may want a way to organize their house or cabin building project - keep list of materials - update lists of things to do or wants for keeping the project running smoothly. A few quick notes and you don't forget anything. I'm sure all the DIY home builders keep a laptop running in their pickup on the job site for just such a thing- --sure (although I do take mine and a small inverter to every job and pop in once in a while). ;D
David - I'm still extremely new to the forum - building & all.. but I'm not necessarily to Cancer - or a corporate life change. I hope it is ok on the site - but I don't know how to manuever it well yet, but I work in Heme/Onc at UAB Birmingham.
Also - on your software - I've beta tested a lot of touch screen & tax software - will look at the notebook tomorrow. Used PDAs for "life" a long time --> shifting now. Would love to be a "guinea" for your stuff.
carolne
Hi Carolne;
Thanks, I'll mark you down for guinea pig #2 right after the cave dweller ;)
Re: cancer. I've got papilary cancer of the thyroid. Thyroids been taken out, but I'm still worried about the metastasis into my lungs. It will be another few months (September) before they're willing to do a CT to check (for some reason having to do with the I-131 treatment I had in March and the iodine in the contrast they use). I still have cramps in my chest and shortness of breath that bothers me a lot!