Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#1

Post by stakkur » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

Years ago, I had a local mediawiki installed, but didn't seem to use it. Now, I store all my knowledge, ideas, etc. in markdown text files, manipulated with Emacs.

But, I'd like to have a more visually organized, full-text searchable system that's (a) local/private, and (b) accessible when away from home office.

How do you organize your knowledge/notes/learnings?

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#2

Post by tomTheBom » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

I have thought about this idea of a personal "knowledge base". There are so many important bits of knowledge that are scattered among things like Evernote (and its like), browser bookmarks, emails, blog posts, articles from newspapers, periodicals, etc. I don't know of any solution to this "knowledge hurricane", as least not yet.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#3

Post by brettkromkamp » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:28 PM UTC

Yes, I use my own topics map-based solution, Contextualise: https://brettkromkamp.com/projects/contextualise/. In simple terms, you create topics, attach resources (e.g., PDFs, markdown text and notes, images, etc.) to those topics and establish semantically meaningful relationships between the topics. The resulting map of topics can be navigated by means of a visual network graph. Contextualise is a MIT-licensed open source project.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#4

Post by rman666 » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 6:34 PM UTC

I use (Apple) Notes on my iPhone and MacBook. They are always in sync. The notes don’t use MarkDown, but they are plenty of styles and features. I highly recommend checking (Apple) Notes out. I’ve used MS OneNote, which is also very good and available and syncable on/across several platforms. For me, (Apple) Notes has a slightly better UI. If you just want a cross platform syncable to-do list, and the above are too heavy, you might look into MS ToDo 2.0.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#5

Post by digital_voodoo » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 9:35 PM UTC

brettkromkamp wrote: post #3

Yes, I use my own topics map-based solution, Contextualise: https://brettkromkamp.com/projects/contextualise/ . In simple terms, you create topics, attach resources (e.g., PDFs, markdown text and notes, images, etc.) to those topics and establish semantically meaningful relationships between the topics. The resulting map of topics can be navigated by means of a visual network graph. Contextualise is a MIT-licensed op…

THIS. OMG, if my lifelong quest would end here... Thank you!!! This idea of central topic + attached resources in various formats is what I've been looking for, for ages.

I might test it asap, and later see how to adapt my ecosystem (Android + macOS) for quick/best access. Offline would be great.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#6

Post by brettkromkamp » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

digital_voodoo wrote: post #5

brettkromkamp wrote: post #3

Yes, I use my own topics map-based solution, Contextualise: https://brettkromkamp.com/projects/contextualise/ . In simple terms, you create topics, attach resources (e.g., PDFs, markdown text and notes, images, etc.) to those topics and establish semantically meaningful relationships between the topics. The resulting map of topics can be navigated by means of a visual network graph. Contextualise is a MIT-licensed op…

THIS. OMG, if my lifelong quest would end here... Thank you!!! This idea of central topic + attached resources in various formats is what I've been looking for, for ages. I might test it asap, and later see how to adapt my ecosystem (Android + macOS) for quick/best access. Offline would be great.

At some point I will make the application publicly available. Let me know if you need help installing it in the meantime.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#7

Post by mkott » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

I have been using Notion and Evernote for this purpose. However, I am not really satisfied. Unfortunately, there is no solution that does exactly what I want and need.

Therefore, I am building my own system.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#8

Post by kratom_sandwich » Sun, Sep 29, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

This is a question that comes up semi-regularly and a search of HN might yield threads that are interesting to you.

On thing that I haven't seen mentioned so far is an idea of mine which might be useless but I want to share it anyway: Maybe you should think in bigger terms and not consider a single application (or a set of applications) your knowledge base, but an entire computer set aside for this purpose. The advantage would be superior flexibility when dealing with a large number of different files and file types; plus you can use operating system features such as tagging on Mac OS X.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#9

Post by tenzo77 » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 3:06 AM UTC

brettkromkamp wrote: post #6

digital_voodoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. OMG, if my lifelong quest would end here... Thank you!!! This idea of central topic + attached resources in various formats is what I've been looking for, for ages. I might test it asap, and later see how to adapt my ecosystem (Android + macOS) for quick/best access. Offline would be great.

At some point I will make the application publicly available. Let me know if you need help installing it in the meantime.

I really like it, but to be honest, I’d be nervous to commit my data to a bespoke database maintained by one/a few people.

Re: Do you use a personal 'knowledge base'?

#10

Post by psv1 » Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 6:39 AM UTC

I don't keep a general knowledge repo but recently I realised that I've gone through a bunch of books on math, statistics and machine learning that approach the same topics in different ways. I started a "knowledge repository" just as a way to solidify what I already know. I throw in a bunch of definitions, theorems, formulas, algorithm explanations - from easy and obvious stuff to more advanced concepts. I use Jupyter for this because the markdown is simple but still supports MathJax/LaTeX equations.