Easy cross-linking notes and the ability to categorize with tags are essential to note taking apps. A fast and powerful search is as much important. If the note taking app can be turned into a Zettelkasten system, then you definitely should have a more detailed look at the app. https://passfindr.com does exactly this. Passfindr also lets one encrypt user generated content so it can be used as a password/secrets store as well. It needs to work on every internet enabled platform and devices. So your choice must be the best maintained application: the web browser.
As an everyday user for my micro documents, articles, secrets and all kind of resources and ideas, I'm definitely not tired of Passfindr.
Tired of note-taking apps
201–210 of 481 posts
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#202> helps me stay in touch with my handwriting
What does this even mean?
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#203The best note app I found is a journal app. I’ve been using Day One for more than a year now, and it’s holding Evernote’s promise of remembering everything. I do use Apple Notes too beside Day One for temp notes (email drafting, edit texts, links to check & trash, etc), but it’s on my journals where my knowledge-notes reside. What people like from real notebooks is that you don’t have to think about organization, you…
I am also an avid DayOne user. It is great. My process is to have three journals in DayOne Todo, Done and Workouts. Every time I have an idea I write it down in the Todo journal. Once a week I do a GTD on that notebook. Any actionable tasks if it follows the two minute rule I do immediately or if it a longer task I move to the context specific locations in Notion, GitHub, Gmail Tasks, the CRM, org-mode, etc. so I can get them done when I am doing my context specific tasks (project management, coding, email, sales, knowledge base, etc.) then I then move the entry to the Done Journal.
Yes, it is a lot of processing things twice but I think it has some benefits. Most things aren’t actionable so it is just great for refreshing my memory. It forces me to write everything I think of down so I don’t forget anything and DayOne is great for that. I have nearly 10,000 entries. I don’t worry about note size. Some are “send contract to Ashley” others are longer thought out ideas. I’ve been using this system for the last few years and it has worked well.
One size fits all note apps never worked for me and I figured the reason for that is that a lot of what we do are context specific. We want the notes / todos for a particular type of task to live where we do the task when we are doing the task.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#204I find the Things.app very convenient (and worth the one time cost for macOS and iOS since I use it 10-100 times per day).
The key part of using inbox-oriented task apps is to have a process to review the inbox and fold it into some shallow hierarchy of “folders” or “projects” etc. I didn’t realize this was the key part of all systems like bullet journaling or GTD (or the different org mode flows or NV as I understand them).
It’s basic data structures. But after a certain point it’s not efficient to access things linearly, so you need to introduce some sort of tree.
Recently I took the time to go through my almost 1000 inbox notes and fold them into ‘promo notes’ or ‘startup ideas’ or ‘startup resources’. All of which can be usually grouped into one more level for even faster access (‘no code resources’, ‘design resources’, etc).
It all comes down to caches being fast for writing and reading but then there needs to be maintenance to preserve access speed.
It took me three years (and 1000 unfinished notes) to realize this. But you just need that process to organize periodically and then the structure in place is there (now I daily just move things to the right project/area; and assess whether to create new projects / refactor maybe once a month).
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#205I write a lot of notes in a notebook with pen. But I never see them. Very rarely I may revisit something. And I have often found that even if I read them they don't seem to matter to me now. So is all the hype of taking notes justified I wonder?
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#206Nothing has been as frictionless as nvALT[1]. Plain text, full text search, and point it at iCloud/Dropbox/Drive and now you have your notes fully synced. I’ve spent far more time than I care to admit trying out new note applications... [1]: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/
Agree.
Hotkey popup, it's free, you own your data, and just enough of a feature set to be useful without a learning curve.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#207Emacs org-mode (Desktop) + syncthing + Orgzly (mobile)
And I have pretty much everything to take a note when I want to + it's plain text so I don't even need the apps to write, very convenient if for one reason or another I don't have access to one of my devices.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's amazing that people can witness POTUS 44→45 and still make "well I have nothing to hide" arguments :/
Regardless of any political situation, it's a rather stark lack of imagination when one can not realize that there are people who are doing things entirely legal and reasonable that absolutely require privacy from the state for their own safety and success, such as labor leaders, political organizers, civil rights leaders, reporters researching state corruption, war crimes, or human rights abuses by the state itself,…
Yes, but let's not conflate this specific use case with every day usage.
I'm a gigantic privacy advocate and probably senselessly cautious about tons of technologies, but that's the result of a conscious choice. Set and forget encryption, or programs that advertise they can skip the first step, are dangerous in my opinion/experience. It can give the wrong impression about security and lead to dangerous decisions/actions or lack thereof.
The concept behind thoughtless encryption is noble, but for all encryption models/schemes I know of, it has to be a concentrated and intentional decision else you end up with:
- Lost data due to key mismanagement (not a bad thing, but extremely inconvenient)
- Incomplete or ineffective encryption
- Vehicles for intentional deception that allow bad actors to get you to share sensitive/personal data under the impression that it's protected
and much much more.
Steve Yegge said it best when he said that Security and Usability are constantly at odds, and from my perspective, this is a good thing to some degree. With so many FUD apps that promise security, for the time being is a very convenient litmus test for laypersons to know "how much should I trust this app?"
I know that it's popular on HN to shit on Telegram, but in my current country of residence, Telegram is the most popular messenger program...for normal non-secretive messaging. It is extremely well known not to trust TG for secret conversations, illegal purchases or any other illegal activities, and so on. Not even on the basis of the security model of secret chats, but the discoverability of them. Basically the thought is "If you could find it without being a member of some ring of trust, so can the police". It's one reason why the conversations that frequently happen on HN about Telegram feel so misguided to me -- those who have conversations that may put themselves at risk __aren't using the app for such conversations__. They're not using any such apps, and either doing disposable communications (burner phones, pen and paper convos, etc), or they're arranging meetings in other ways.
Encryption/security has been commoditized by app and platform creators and packaged into a marketing tool. I wouldn't trust Telegram or Signal any more than I'd trust WhatsApp, Messenger, Messages, or whatever Google's monthly name for their chat app is to have such conversations in most countries.
To wrap it back to the GP's comment, I get the complaint about Apple Notes not being E2E encrypted -- but, if you've got sensitive data that needs to be recorded, why are you cloud-syncing it in the first place with a company that has frequently been investigated/prodded by the US Government, and even more frequently probed/violated by data exfiltration companies that work directly with the aforementioned government?
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#209Yes this is self promotion, but its also under a thread about people frustrated with note taking apps so I think it is ok - I made NitroNotes[0] because I was annoyed at even the slow startup speed of Apple Notes.
You have 7 Dots, each one corresponding to a separate note. You swipe between each note (or on macOS you can Click Cmd+1, 2, etc).
The app is less than a MB on iOS, and just over a MB on macOS.
It syncs using your iCloud account between macOS, iOS & iPadOS.
Its like the Sticky Notes app for Mac, but cross platform and with zero-friction sync.
Email me @ adam@adamfallon.com if you can't afford the $4.99 and I will send you over a promo code.
Re: Tired of note-taking apps
#210I've tried dozens and none work better for me than $EDITOR $HOME/txt/note where $EDITOR is Good. The only thing I want from a notes app is to sync txt with my phone, let me edit the files and do exactly nothing else. They all fail. Side note: there was a laughing emoji in the previous text but HN removes it. Anyone know why that might be?
store txt/note in Dropbox, then you also have the sync.