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Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

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Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#31

Post by NhanH »

dmunoz wrote: post #15

I have written a few scripts to manage my abundant note taking. In a specific directory, I arrange notes according to subject in directories, and the script parses them and spits out HTML files that displays them in a fashion I find useful. With MathJax, I can render LaTeX. It also spits out an index files so I can see at a glance my subjects and notes on those subjects. I've been giving some thought to doing somethi…

I've been trying to take note in plain text. One issue that I have is math note, I ended up having to use markdown + pseudo latex for the note + math symbol, and output to HTML. I'm definitely not happy with the current setup. Is there any good solution for math symbols in general?

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#33

Post by rm445 »

linhat wrote: post #19

After playing with various (note-taking) applications/apps I found all of them severely lacking (for several reasons). I was always for the lookout of the one-size-fits-all application, which I obviously never found. Realizing that there is no such system/app I split things out: * Important Stuff as well as trivia -> CalDav... believe it or not, but CalDav beats most other systems/apps out there, it's accessible on a…

After years of writing everything in casebound A4 notebooks, I am currently experimenting with B5 size (in between A4 and A5). It's a bonny little size, still plenty of space on the page and fits on shelves better.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#35

Post by patrickg »

90% of my knowledge is in a bunch of text files handled by nvalt [1], a fork from notational velocity [2]

It is so convenient and quick to make notes and hyperlink notes between them and do full text search.

[1] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2] http://notational.net/

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#36

Post by Wilya »

Plain text files in a synced directory (I use sparkleshare, but any dropbox-like system will do the trick).

I tried many, cloud apps, desktop apps, wikis. But in the end, I was never comfortable with putting all my thoughts in documents in a weird format (at best) or in the cloud (at worst). And most apps didn't offer any huge advantage to compensate for that.

I have backups of my notes folder. I can grep through it when I'm looking for something. I can edit it from any computer. And I know it will still be readable in 10 years.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#39

Post by rkwz »

Wilya wrote: post #36

Plain text files in a synced directory (I use sparkleshare, but any dropbox-like system will do the trick). I tried many, cloud apps, desktop apps, wikis. But in the end, I was never comfortable with putting all my thoughts in documents in a weird format (at best) or in the cloud (at worst). And most apps didn't offer any huge advantage to compensate for that. I have backups of my notes folder. I can grep through it…

I use the same approach and for the same reasons. Though, now I've started to experiment with markdown.

Re: Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge?

#40

Post by nekopa »

fractallyte wrote: post #5

I spent a long time looking for my ideal knowledge organizer, and eventually settled on Notecase Pro ( http://www.notecasepro.com/ ). It's cross-platform, with a functional free version. I have no problem paying for good, useful software, especially (as in this case) when it's produced by a dedicated individual or small company. Evernote is overrated...

I don't know if I agree that Evernote is overrated, but I personally don't like them for what they did to one of my favorite apps, penultimate (iOS notebook app). I specifically bought that app so I could have my notes always with me. Then Evernote buys the company and makes it so I can only access my notebooks if I am online, or if I pay for a pro version. So I buy something for a specific feature, and they take it away but offer to sell the feature back to me.

Shame, as I really liked penultimate.

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