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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?

#51

Post by Paul12345534 »

Paul12345534 wrote: post #38

I used to use KeyNote also but I didn't really care for the underlying RTF storage format especially when it came to images... and the program had some other limitations. http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html

I think my other comment got lost. I use OneNote and UltraRecall now.

I used to use Macropool ContentSaver (now known as WebRecall) and gladly bought a license, but I didn't upgrade when their browser extensions quit working in newer browsers without paying to upgrade. I had also moved on because of breaking changes to the underlying storage/functionality.

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

#52

Post by cynik_ »

Deft in emacs synced over dropbox. I get notational velocity like UI for searching/manipulating notes, evil mode so I have vim key bindings and I can pull stuff up on my phone whenever required. It's also easy to just send a link to someone to share a file because it's all on Dropbox.

Pen and paper when I'm thinking through something.

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

#53

Post by linhat »

intractable wrote: post #46
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…

I use Gitit [1] as my personal wiki for notetaking. I've been pretty happy with it so far, as it uses the excellent Pandoc as the backend. I have not heard of Vimwiki until now - can you tell me your favourite features? [1] http://gitit.net/

Favourite features:

* plain text edited in vim ;-)

* links (to other wiki pages and content), move cursor over link and will open wiki page, link in browser, image in image viewer, pdf in ... all from your console

* manages todo lists (including status indicator auto update for sublists: [.]->[o]->[O]->[X])

* headers (mostly useful when exporting to html)

* table creation and management

Overall a very lightweight and tightly integrated vim plugin, but gitit looks quite interesting, might give it a try.

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

#54

Post by lallysingh »

mrfancypants wrote: post #23

Emacs (naturally), with org-mode[1]. ssh replication along with the mobile org-mode app on Android [2] meets all my needs. [1] http://orgmode.org [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.matburt.mo... (there are others... /search?q=orgmode&c=apps for more)

How do you use MobileOrg? I've tried several times. It's hard to tell what works (capture widget?), how to use the parts that do work, and how to use it effectively. I paid for the 'donate' app with no real intent of using it further -- just a "thanks for trying" donation.

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

#55

Post by naiquevin »

NhanH wrote: post #31
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?

Org-mode[1] has support for embedded latex math fragments[2] which might be worth trying.

[1]: org-mode is a mode for the emacs editor - http://orgmode.org/

[2]: http://orgmode.org/manual/LaTeX-fragments.html#LaTeX-fragmen...

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

#56

Post by lelf »

servowire wrote: post #25
tdicola wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it too, but it needs a constant supply of caffeine or it crashes.

Try the hidden feature, it's a defrag storage procedure called "sleep". You can start it up by putting the brain in a dark room, and make it count an array of the species Ovis aries. Does wonders.

Unfortunately it takes, like, 8 hours (I'm not kidding) to do it.

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

#57

Post by subsection1h »

parallelist wrote: post #20
suhrid wrote: post #18

Emacs org mode and Dropbox. I also keep a notebook for sketchnotes and mindmaps.

Yep same here. org-mode FTW! You can use it as a personal wiki only able to keep all your data in plain text: no web server or database required. I still use filesystem as my primary organization so I only use hyperlinks occasionally. I put the whole load in dropbox so I can access any of it from my phone.

> org-mode FTW! You can use it as a personal wiki

Yeah, I use Org mode for my personal wiki. I previously had notes in hundreds of files of various formats, and I eventually moved all of my notes to an Org mode wiki. Also, my wiki has replaced my collection of thousands of bookmarks. I couldn't imagine living without my wiki at this point. It's such an important part of my workflow.

Years ago when I decided to switch to a personal wiki, Org mode met my requirements far better than the dozens of other wiki solutions that I evaluated. I'd be interested to know if there are any new wiki or note-taking solutions that have as many features[1] as Org mode.

[1] http://orgmode.org/manual/

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

#58

Post by stayparanoid »

iamwithnail wrote: post #48
stayparanoid wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hi, you do know that every single word you submit to the evernote service becomes their intellectual property and can be used without your consent, do you?

That's simply not true. In fact, it's explicitly excluded in the TOS.

So what exactly this means? "... This means that by using the Service and uploading Content, you grant Evernote a license to display, perform and distribute your Content..."

Source: https://evernote.com/legal/tos.php

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

#59

Post by subsection1h »

chubot wrote: post #44

I wrote a personal wiki like 10 years ago... In addition to being a great productivity boost for me, it helped me learn a lot about web programming. It's continued to evolve over the years. I have 1899 active pages now (some pages were deleted over the years). I try to keep it very close to plain text, and don't have a lot of doodads in the wiki syntax. I don't think plain text is sufficient for taking notes, because…

> I don't think plain text is sufficient for taking notes, because it lacks hyperlinks.

Org mode files are plain text and they support links:

http://orgmode.org/manual/Hyperlinks.html

> Hyperlinks are incredibly important because they are associative and non-hierarchical... that is exactly what you need for note taking and brainstorming.

I organize my Org mode wiki like Wikipedia: each document/topic can be linked from multiple parent documents/topics. So documents/topics are organized using a combination of both tagging and hierarchies. I've heard this type of organization referred to as hierarchical tagging.

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

#60

Post by szymon_k »

Dropbox + plain text (markdown) in ~/Dropbox/Notes, where every file starts with some simple categorisation ("personal-", "snippet-", etc..). I keep everything in there, from personal thoughts to terminal commands I use very rarely (and don't want to add to aliases), code snippets for simple things, meeting notes, etc. I have one important file called "drafts", that's always opened in vim/notational velocity, and to which I can append from drafts app on iPhone. It acts as scratchpad, and almost everything nowadays starts in this file.

I can edit notes in terminal (vim), gui (notational velocity), ios (I use byword, but there are multiple dropbox-syncing text editors). I have command in vim called :Notes, that displays Unite window with my notes, so I can access them quickly when I need to, and I have zsh alias "ns" (note search), that displays notes which match my search ("ns mongo" displays snippets-mongodb.txt).

I store links in pinboard, articles to read in pocket, and inspiration images/videos on pinterest.

For tasks I have very similar system around taskpaper file format and listacular on iOS, with :Tasks command in vim. All project related notes go into taskpaper file, and if project is finished, and there are some notes I'd like to keep for future reference (but not in my notes folder), I typically store it in project root as notes.md, this might be setup instructions, notes on bugs, etc.

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