kate_nepveu: *note

Kate (

kate_nepveu) wrote,
@ 2012-12-15 10:05 pm UTC

Entry tags:

*note

I have recently started using two tools that probably everyone but me knows about, but just in case!

Simplenote. Straightforward text files that you can access and update in your web browser or through various clients, that sync automatically. For instance, I have a pinned "to do" note that I keep open throughout the day and jot down anything that comes to mind (shopping list, stuff to do at home, etc.); "hobbit reviews I am not reading yet"; the most recent book added to the NYPL's ebooks site, so I know if anything new has been added; boilerplate HTML for the Tor.com Hobbit posts; and so forth. There are lots of clients; I'm using ResophNotes with no complaint at home.

Yes, it's true that this means I'm using three different web-based services to organize my life: Simplenote; Remember the Milk for recurring or future-dated tasks; and Google Calendar for appointments. [*] This seems inelegant, and yet they all do what I need them to do—which includes setting recurring tasks, sharing appointments with Chad, and being available in a browser (as I neither have nor want a smartphone), so hey.

[*] I have the last two open all the time in GMail, using the RtM for GMail gadget, the Google Calendar GMail Labs gadget, and a CSS trick to give them more room (in Opera I can do this with a user stylesheet and no add-on).

Evernote. This is kind of the philosophical opposite from Simplenote, and is designed to store and tag basically everything. I use it for a very specific purpose, which is to keep fanfic: my prior find-it-later system was too much work and never got done, but now I use Evernote's bookmarklet on a fic's web page (the HTML download page on AO3 is good for this, but you can also highlight just the text on an LJ/DW journal entry), and then it's saved to my various computers and can be tagged and full-text searched within Evernote. I can also occasionally export from it to put on my ereader, though if I get a tablet (as I'm contemplating), I can use their Premium feature for offline data availability.

What are your go-to online services to make your daily life less chaotic?

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	no subject thistleingrey 2012-12-16 03:22 am UTC (link)
	Nice. I knew about Evernote but not its bookmarklet, which sounds much handier for fic than Pocket (half the time Pocket thinks LJ needs a login even for unlocked community posts). Thanks. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-16 05:15 am UTC (link)
	I've not had an issue with Evernote for that, yet! But then I haven't tried it extensively either for LJ/DW stuff. Hope you find it useful. ETA: just clipped something behind an f'lock, worked great. One data point only, but. Last edited 2012-12-16 09:04 pm UTC (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject thistleingrey 2012-12-16 11:14 pm UTC (link)
	Cool. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject damerell 2012-12-16 03:55 am UTC (link)
	co -l ~damerell/public-html/elidedpathtoprivatefile ; vi $_; ci -u $_ (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-16 05:16 am UTC (link)
	Well, yes, if you have the resources and ability to do something like that, sure! (I was actually thinking about figuring out a way to run something like Simplenote on steelypips, because draft emails in GMail and text files in Dropbox weren't cutting it, but this saves me the trouble.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject rosefox 2012-12-16 04:34 am UTC (link)
	I use Taskpaper, a Mac application that styles simple text files in useful ways, and have been mightily wishing there was a version of it for my smartphone. I'll definitely check out Simplenote. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 8 comments) (Show 8 comments)

	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-16 05:17 am UTC (link)
	Simplenote does Markdown formatting, but that's it, so if styling is an issue it may not serve. But it amazes me how much having a place to just type whatever turns to out be so useful. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 7 comments) (Show 7 comments)

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rosefox
2012-12-16 05:28 am UTC (link)

I really like Taskpaper's implementation of checklists. Crossing things off is very satisfying, and each individual item gets a tag (rather than the document as a whole being tagged).

Simplenote's learning curve is rather steep, isn't it? I had to Google to find their help center so I could see that people ask questions about Markdown, which led to a question about Markdown not being turned on by default, which led to me clicking around a note until I figured out that the info "i" is actually a place to change settings. And then it put me into preview mode, which I didn't realize, so I kept trying to edit the note...

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kate_nepveu
2012-12-16 05:36 am UTC (link)

Ugh! I haven't actually used Markdown so I didn't know it was like that.

I'm not sure how I got to the little "i" as a place to pin/unpin notes and turn Markdown on, honestly. If the learning curve is steep it's also short, at least for me, because that's the only thing I've done with it. (I haven't even bothered tagging things.)

Yeah, if you need checklists, this isn't going to be your thing, I don't think. Remember the Milk has lots of apps etc. but, despite its name, doesn't _feel_ very grocery-list to me, and I can't quantify that. Maybe it's just because I don't have a smartphone and so I don't check grocery items off on it. =>

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	no subject rosefox 2012-12-16 05:41 am UTC (link)
	People have been recommending Remember the Milk to me for ages, so maybe I'll try it now that I have a decent phone. I use Taskpaper for non-grocery lists, mostly. To-do lists, but also reading logs, lists of movies X and I want to watch together, plotting out novels, that sort of thing. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 4 comments) (Show 4 comments)

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kate_nepveu
2012-12-16 05:47 am UTC (link)

Yup, I'm sure there are other things that would do the same, but I think Remember the Milk could do all that--it allows for tasks without due dates, custom views (so I have a "home" view and an "office" view that show different tag lists), etc. Also if you are a text-based person like me you can set dates, tags, priority, and recurring status all in the "add task" field with text shortcuts, which I love.

Last edited 2012-12-16 05:50 am UTC (URL added)

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	no subject rosefox 2012-12-16 05:50 am UTC (link)
	Neat, I'll check it out! Thanks! EDIT: Okay, those text shortcuts are hot. Last edited 2012-12-16 05:51 am UTC (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-16 05:54 am UTC (link)
	Somehow I suspected those might appeal to you. => (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject metaphortunate 2012-12-16 08:44 pm UTC (link)
	I have just this week started trying out RTM. There is a bit of a learning curve so far. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

	no subject yhlee 2012-12-16 06:07 am UTC (link)
	I use Pinboard for bookmarking. It is not for everyone, on top of the one-time registration fee I am paying the additional annual archiving-pages fee because I am used to pages vanishing on me, but I like it a lot, even if my tag scheme is pure chaos. I used to use Delicious and then went away for reasons I don't remember very clearly. (Reply to this) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-16 09:03 pm UTC (link)
	Delicious got sold, I think, to people who broke a lot of features in the promise of eventually upgrading them or something. I'd mostly stopped using Delicious anyway because I've come to realize that tags alone aren't enough for the way my brain works. But I know a lot of people really like Pinboard! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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the_shoshanna
2012-12-16 06:33 pm UTC (link)

I swear by Dropbox, which lets me keep all my working materials completely synced and with me at all times. I keep looking at task managers and to-do list managers, and then shrugging at their complexity and going back to a plain old Word file titled "To do" that I keep in Dropbox and cross stuff off as it gets done (every now and then I delete the old long-crossed-off items), plus Busycal for appointments and events and timed reminders (pay tax installments, medicate the cat), which synchs across devices via iCloud. (I adore Busycal, and their support, on the occasions when I've had a question or problem, is the fastest and most helpful I've ever seen.)

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kate_nepveu
2012-12-16 09:00 pm UTC (link)

I love Dropbox, but unfortunately I can't install its client behind my work firewall (I've tried, many different things) and they disabled a hack where I could edit text files online, so I would have to download and re-upload ongoing things. I still use it for the occasional end-of-day bringing files home to work on, but for day-to-day to-do lists, it just wasn't working.

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cofax7
2012-12-16 10:24 pm UTC (link)

the firewall thing is my major complaint: I can access Pinboard at work only because it's so low-profile our webnanny hasn't identified it. Delicious was blocked until I squawked at them, and then it became so helpfully broken by Yahoo that I never use it anyway.

I do like Evernote, and wish I could use Evernote at work, but see above re: firewall. We have an extremely restrictive and locked down version of Windows Vista running on our systems, and are not allowed to make any changes to our workstations other than change the wallpaper. (Our version of IE is so old most websites give me that horrible banner telling me to change my browser, and most Flash or Javascript applications don't work at all...)

So I'm stuck using Evernote at home and Outlook at work, bah.

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	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-17 01:26 am UTC (link)
	Ugh. I use my preferred browser at work via a portable install, just because I'm so much more productive that way, but under your circumstances I can see how you'd not like to attempt it even if your motives were pure. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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castiron
2012-12-17 12:28 am UTC (link)

I also use Google Calendar for appointments, and I use Toodledo for general to-dos that don't have to be done on a particular day. I haven't been able to settle on a notes service, probably because I overcomplicated all the ones I tried by importing all several hundred of my old Palm memos into them.

Other than that, the main site I can't live without (besides Ravelry for my knitting/crochet stuff) is Google Reader; I'd have given up on following many blogs without it.

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	no subject kate_nepveu 2012-12-17 01:24 am UTC (link)
	Google Reader, absolutely! (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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