| I write between ten and a hundred notes each day. Sometimes I add to an existing note or document. I have trouble working with notes, documents, ideas and streams of thought. Do you recognize this? How do you handle it?<p>Do you keep notes in one place? How do you accomplish that? How do you handle physical notes and non-physical notes? Do you try to gather all notes online? Where and how? |
How do you handle notes and ideas?
Tags: Notes, APP, ideas on 2009-07-03 and saved by 2 people -All Annotations (16) -About
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I don't.
Like you, I probably have about a thousand different ideas and streams of thought during the course of a day. Unlike you, I don't write any of them down.
I do this because there is no way I'd get anything done if I didn't. I don't mind forgetting some key insight, because if it was important or relevant enough, it'll translate into sometime I will write down when the time is right. If not, it's probably something that I shouldn't bother wasting my time with. (That's not to suggest it isn't valuable).
You only have so many hours in the day to work on so many things. People like us need to ignore our own brain 80% of the time to be productive. It's a curse really.
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Org-mode is nice for two reasons: first, it gives you a way to organize projects and sub-projects and meta-projects. Second, it's a reality check -- if you gave yourself a task that in no way advances any goals you've already stated, org-mode's organization scheme means that you end up either creating a new goal or admitting that a new project isn't worth your time.
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I wasn't happy with any of the solutions out there so we built our own.
We treat notes as a stream and you categorize notes using hashcodes.
We have an iPhone and Android client so you can easily include pictures in your notes.
We aren't live yet, but will be in a few weeks. =)
If you want me to contact you when we are live sign up below,
https://3banana.com/doLogon.action?s=hn
</blatant self promotion :P>
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jott.com and reqall.com - both have iphone and blackberry apps
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Thanks, we've looked at those before and they still seems a bit too complex. I do like their audio-text bridge.
We are building something even simpler, a personal syslog synced across phone/web/command line.
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Fundamentally we view notes as a stream like a log file or Twitter.
You will have one place to easily and quickly dump everything, then be able to grep out the relevant information, and then late bind the decision on what to do with that information.
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I have 744 "Drafts" to myself in GMail.
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Ditto. But I manage (somehow) to loosely categorize them: there is an (ever expanding) message with Music, Movies, Books and other media that I want to look at.
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EVERNOTE!
I can't say enough good about this program. i use it everywhere (mac, web, macbook, iphone). it's certainly not perfect (auto indent?, the ability to copy check boxes) but it is certainly good. I use a moleskine too, but for searching and loading up data, and keeping task lists, with pictures! Evernote has made me very happy.
this question was asked awhile back on HN and that is how I found out about. I've tried various things in the past, but evernote has worked great for me. evernote.com.
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I second or third that. Great on the mobile phone for uploading quick notes and pictures.
Evernote is to my memos what dropbox is to my work in progress files.
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Onenote is great indeed. Possibly underrated because it is a MS product, but it is great for note taking and syncing those notes to pda or mobile phone.
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Warning, Mac-centric answer:
For task lists, I tried a bunch of things at one point, and only one that stuck was Taskpaper (http://hogbaysoftware.com/products/taskpaper). It's so simple that I actually use it. I've been using it for about a year now on a sustained basis. It has simple emacs keybindings, like other OS X text editors, so that's nice for me too.
For ideas best expressed by complicated freehand drawings, I use pen and paper. I always carry an unruled (no lines) notebook for this purpose.
For a while I was using a small drawing tablet and Curio (http://www.zengobi.com/products/curio/) for drawings, but it didn't stick. The GUI was a little too slow, and plugging in the tablet was too much of an extra step. A tablet Mac would solve this. (Yeah, yeah I could get a PC, but I'd rather avoid it if I can.)
When I take notes at a meeting or a talk, I use TextEdit (again, w/ simple emacs keybindings), and depend on spotlight to help me relocate things. I prepend all filenames with the date in <2 digit year><2 digit month><2 digit day> format, so by default things sort by date across filesystems etc. This is surprisingly useful.
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Luminotes.com or Google Notebook.
On the go? Moleskine
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I was in the same boat, taking at least 10 notes in a session, several times a day. I work best by blasting notes in and sorting through them when I come up for air. There wasn't anything that allowed me to work this way very effectively, so I did what any of you would have done - started a startup, of course!
We are live, you can check us out at the link below:
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I'm currently trying different systems, and to be honest, I'm not 100% happy with any of them.
Started with the lovely and simple Notepad textfiles, but after a bit they are too simple and too hard to maintain, thus not good.
Then I used Google Notebook for a long time, was easy to add stuff, but not so easy to find it later. Plus it's still too simple for my liking, can't categorize ideas too well.
I switched recently to Evernote, which seems to be an improvement over Google Notebook, but for some reason I still don't feel comfortable with it. The fact that I can type offline and sync with different computers or read my ideas online is really welcome and handy, though.
Everytime I fall back to my paper notebook, which is also too simple and not search friendly, but I like handwriting and for some strange reason, ideas flow much better than when I write rather than type them. The real only grudge I have with it is that there is no backspace key and no "insert a new line in the middle of the text" either :(
The Mobile Challenge | Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing
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The challenge for startups (and investors!) has been identifying opportunities that are "native" to the new platforms. By "native" we mean opportunities that simply did not exist previously and cannot exist without the phone. For instance, we would not consider delivering breaking news to a mobile a native opportunity, as a startup rarely has a better chance of being "CNN for mobile" than CNN does.
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We don't know which native applications will emerge as ones that combine these unique capabilities and new behaviors into true breakout services, but here are some categories that we find interesting along with some of the challenges that they face:
* Location-based social networking, such as Loopt, Brightkite and foursquare. The big question in this category is whether these new networks will gain enough scale that they can compete effectively with the mobile offerings of existing social networks, or if the mobile networks differentiation in value proposition will be insufficient to overcome the current gap in scale.
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* Shopping applications will likely be interesting and there has already been an early exit with SnapTell being acquired by Amazon. Most US-based mobile shopping applications simply supplement the real-world shopping experience with more information (barcode scan sending you to Google, BBB, Consumer Watch info, price comparison, etc...). This behavior contrasts with Asian markets where actual commerce/checkout via mobile is far more prevalent. We're interested in seeing if the unique capabilities of smartphones will accelerate mobile shopping all the way through checkout on the phone.
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There is a good chance that the truly breakthrough application category is not on this list. It will be obvious in hindsight but a lot harder to anticipate. If you are working on a native application, please tell us about it.
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In addition to the native categories you listed, I'm interested in the idea of my smart phone as an internet gateway for "dumb", cheap, bluetooth-enabled sensors and devices. The Nike+ iPhone app is an early example of this. It doesn't make sense today for your running shoes to be fully-featured, internet connected gadgets on their own. Instead, you have a cheap, dumb sensor in your shoe that simply transmits data to your phone, then your phone does the more complex work of getting that data onto the web and providing an interface for the experience. I can picture a ton of other businesses emerging from this idea of dumb sensors plus smart phones. I might wear a wristwatch that transmits my heart rate to the web. My car might send maintenance updates to the web via my phone's internet connection. Retail merchants might transmit data and offers to / from my phone when I walk into their stores. I see lots of business opportunities in this area.
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That's exactly what our solution was designed for. It essentially a mobile app with an Open API. You can attach a sensor to the phone via Bluetooth, transmit that data to our app and then we send that data (you have complete privacy controls) to any web server. The way we do this is to take the meta data and add it to the outgoing HTTP headers. So now all you have to do is read the incoming data at the server. We even have a windows mobile version that you can now access any device side data using JavaScript all from within the mobile browser.
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Great post. One key "native" functionality I think you forgot to mention was the fact that our mobile devices have access to our contact list. I know in my case my BlackBerry often times contains the most current set of contacts I have (I can't wait until they put Xobni on BB--should be similar to how Palm's WebOS can auto-detect details from Exchange, Facebook and LinkedIN).
It's the intersection of your media assets, location data, contacts list, audio/video/touch inputs and data connectivity that make the mobile device the ultimate "social tool". -
I'm a believer in the intersection of touch & ubiquitous connectivity as the combined killer-feature. It's not just about content consumption- you can do really amazing (rich, detailed, structured, intuitive) human-powered data capture on these devices.
At GameChanger we use the term "User Collected Data" to distinguish that from unstructured UGC. Things that used to require paper input, laptop tabulation, or heavy/expensive/complex recording equipment can now be accomplished on-location with one hand free. -
However the cell phone (mobile phone) is also notable as a notification and billing platform. Mobile platforms have been able to charge for content, where the web has failed miserably (pics, vids, music). Customers don't blink at the idea of paying to send a 140 character message, when email is free for almost unlimited characters.
Put it all together and you have viable business models in paid proximity notification.
Ronan
Locle.com -
Food for thought - it's important to keep in mind that mobile apps do not always require human involvement. The amount of interest in machine-2-machine applications is set to explode. These apps do not need a GUI/browser at all and can be based on net-connected CPUs running from within mobile assets such as trucks, ships, golf carts, etc etc. I expect to see some very interesting apps emerge from this space.
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I believe one of the key difference of the mobile web is context which can drive impulse behaviour. It is not necessarily a technical difference via fixed web ... but a mental one.
For example, you're at a concert and you want to share the moment with people that aren't there through twitter, pictures and video. Much less interesting the next day through your PC. You want to find your friends at the concert so you use location. You decide to buy a shirt and text a payment so you can just pick up your shirt after the show or have it delivered.
The point is context + impulse is a really big deal and if done right, can be a significant opportunity. At favequest, we're applying these concepts to the events market and are adding such capabilities to our platform.
@isfan
CarsForaGrand.com: Simple idea that's generating big bucks - (37signals)
Tags: ideas, money on 2009-05-20 and saved by 2 people -All Annotations (1) -About
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Hi guys, thanks for the cool writeup and feedback. All I can say for now is Shoe was correct in stating the income from the site. I have an email in to ebay asking how much I am allowed to discuss the numbers, and look forward to posting a detailed article on how the site makes money and how much.
Search Y Combinator
Tags: ideas, search, Ycombinator on 2008-12-24 and saved by 3 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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Yahoo! Search Gallery
Tags: search, ideas on 2008-11-18 and saved by 11 people -All Annotations (1) -About
in list: Search Application research
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The BOSS Mashable Challenge
Tags: Yahoo, Boss, mashup, ideas on 2008-11-18 and saved by 3 people -All Annotations (0) -About
in list: Search Application research
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Yahoo! BOSS in the right direction, but only BOSS Custom goes far enough for radical search innovation
Tags: search, ideas, future on 2008-11-17 -All Annotations (14) -About
in list: Search Application research
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- self-service API
- BOSS University for academics
- BOSS Custom, designed for companies with their own ranking and/or presentation methodologies. Or alternative, companies with proprietary data that can help as an additional signal that factors into relevancy.
Three levels, but only BOSS Custom has real potential for a highly differentiated service offering.
There are three levels to the BOSS program, according to SearchEngineWatch:
I’ll go over all the aspects of the BOSS program below, and then come back to BOSS Custom as evidence that Yahoo! just might Use The Force. But the basic features looks like a free version of Google Custom Search Engine.
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Crawling and Indexing: Not the real barrier to vertical search
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Building a repository of documents is only the beginning. The key is extracting meaning from the documents (and the relationships between the documents) to power your ranking algorithm.
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Me.dium is the example highlighted by Yahoo! Silicon Alley Insider points out that Me.dium is adding social signals to Yahoo! ranking and calling it “Social Search” which ironically is “using a name Yahoo! has already attached to a failed product.” VentureBeat has a more positive spin on the Me.dium demo application, although Dan Kaplan concludes:
The question that hangs over Yahoo, BOSS, and Me.dium is whether or not any search player will really be able to change user behavior and get people to consistently use something other than Google; the results would probably have to be a noticeable leap forward, and even then, it would be hard to break Googling habits.
Dan is absolutely right, and BOSS will have to go a lot further to deliver a true “leap forward.”
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As an added plus, Yahoo! is providing the BOSS Mashup Framework. According to Yahoo! Search Blog: “We’re releasing a Python library and UI templates that allow developers to easily mashup BOSS search results with other public data source”
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Real-time indexing is appropriate for time-sensitive information like news and blogs. This could be an advantage over other wholesale crawling and indexing methods that other private label providers are providing.
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Integrating query suggestions (Search Assist technology)
Query parsing services is one of the most interesting aspects of BOSS Custom. Search Assist is very well done already, and if it could be integrated with our custom, industry-specific ontology.
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There are many ways of making search results more relevant. One is to understand the user intention better and refine the search, which structured search addresses. Another way is to build the ontology/taxonomy/directory to classify queries and documents, which can benefit from the categorizer.
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Crawling is not a barrier to vertical search engine. It is true. However, first, it still makes an under-funded startup to get start easily; second, Yahoo data helps on time-sensitive data; third, some startups may want to try semi-horizontal market, such as content for kids and shopping, which is more costly to crawl.
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Huanjin: In general, I think this is a very important event for all search startups. It opens new opportunities. Google has pushed search relevance to the limit that the current approach can achieve. To significantly improve the search relevance, we have to take drastically different approaches, i.e., not solely by keyword matching, not solely by statistical signals, and not treating every user the same. My take on the direction of search technology is
(1) Meaning based (semantic and/or syntactic).
(2) Context aware. The same word means different things in different contexts.
(3) Must be able to treat different users differently
(4) Opinion based.
(5) Leverage human knowledge base
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The BOSS Custom roadmap needs to envision supporting these innovative approaches, because that is the only way that new startups can create a reason for people to leave their horizontal search engine like Google and adopt an alternative.
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Andrew: “The extreme approach - well not even that extreme these days, given Facebook - would be to let developers build extensions to the search engine that actually run on top of the *.yahoo.com domain. They can provide an API, do app approvals, and direct only small bits of traffic to each app to test them out - then ramp up the ones that perform better than anything else. There are difficult pieces necessary to make this work, but if done well, it has the potential to change the search game by letting developers target small groups of queries the way that advertisers have been able to.”
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Most niche search engines lack a traffic strategy that envisions coexisting with Google and Yahoo! Getting search traffic from existing engines needs to be a component of their business vision, as it is with Uptake.
Beyond that, discoverability has been the biggest issue for the alternative search engines. ASE’s underestimate the brand loyalty that Google has earned that goes beyond the real advantage in search quality. If Yahoo! could play a role in that discoverability, through Search Monkey and other programs, that could be an advantage to the alts AND also to Yahoo!
This is a two step process. Open up search through BOSS Custom to allow innovation to bloom. Then harness that innovation back into differentiating Yahoo! as a search and discovery platform that leverages this innovation to be different from Google. Yahoo! funnels traffic to BOSS alts, but then consumers use Yahoo! and build brand preference to Yahoo! and its rag-tag Rebel Alliance fleet!
Building a Better Twitter - BusinessWeek
Tags: twitter, ideas on 2008-11-07 and saved by 2 people -All Annotations (1) -About
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How Hard Could It Be?: The Unproven Path | Printer-friendly version
Tags: ideas, startup on 2008-11-04 and saved by 3 people -All Annotations (6) -About
more fromwww.inc.com
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- Open an indoor bicycle parking lot in lower Manhattan, where people can keep their bikes safe and dry. For bonus points, offer gold memberships with showers and fresh towels.
- Make a power strip with a built-in Ethernet hub that clips onto the back of a desk. That way when you bring a laptop into work or need to charge your cell phone, you can plug it in without crawling on the floor. Hotels catering to business travelers have something like this, but it's always custom-wired by electricians.
- Be the Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) of high-end office furniture. Reduce the lead times on nice cubicles and partitions from 12 weeks to two.
All three of these ideas came from needing something and failing to find it in the marketplace. I don't have time to do any of them, so, like I said, if you could, that'd be great. 'K. Thanks!
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Well, yes. There is a lot of competition. But it all struck me as stunningly flawed. I had a couple of ideas about how to make a more useful website. For example, I thought that visitors to the site should be able to vote, giving a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to every proposed answer.
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That was the basic idea: a programming community Q&A site with voting and editing. But like all my other ideas, nobody around here had any time to do it, so the idea went nowhere.
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Second, I'm a big believer in putting everyone in one office, because I think that face-to-face communication is crucial. But the people who set up Stack Overflow are scattered geographically: I'm in New York; Jeff is in California; and he manages programmers who live in Oregon, Arkansas, and North Carolina.
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Of course, I'm not sure how this will work out. The good news is that the site costs almost nothing to run. We're not going to need big racks of computers; it turns out that Jeff and his programmers were so good that they built a site that could serve 80,000 visitors a day (roughly 755,000 page views) using only one server that costs a few hundred bucks a month.
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As for what this all means, I'm still trying to figure that out. I abandoned seven long-held principles about business and software engineering, and nothing terrible happened. Have I been too cautious in the past? Perhaps I was willing to be a little reckless because this was just a side project for me and not my main business. The experience is certainly a useful reminder that it's OK to throw caution to the wind when you're building something completely new and have no idea where it's going to take you.
For his part, Jeff says he didn't want our new venture to feel "like work" -- that if Stack Overflow wasn't fun to do, he didn't want to be doing it. If I had tried to make him play by my rules, I don't think the project would have come together, at least not as well as it has.
The truth is, the three guys who coded Stack Overflow are great programmers. They're smart, and they get things done. And in the end, that's what really matters. Entrepreneurship boils down to the simple fact that a team of really smart people who can get things done are going to get smart, useful things done. Need proof? No problem: Check out stackoverflow.com.
Hacking Education
Tags: Education, ideas, startup, thought on 2008-11-02 and saved by 22 people -All Annotations (17) -About
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Web Services That Cater To Both The Publisher And The Reader
Tags: web, ideas on 2008-09-01 and saved by 4 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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JustHackIt
Hack With New People. Submit Ideas or Your Bio.
Tags: ideas on 2008-08-21 and saved by 5 people -All Annotations (0) -About
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TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » Welcome to Web 3.0: Now Your Other Computer is a Data Center
Tags: ideas, future on 2008-08-02 and saved by 30 people -All Annotations (5) -About
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trendwatching.com: Consumer trends and insights from around the world
Tags: trends, ideas on 2008-07-26 and saved by 158 people -All Annotations (3) -About
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