Ask HN: What do you use to organize your knowledge? | Hacker News Reader

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

71 pointstomek_zemla79 comments

What are the tools, tricks, systems you use to record things you learn? Notebooks, text files, software or cloud apps? Do you have any custom, inventive ways to maintain your personal knowledge base?

View on HN

Plain text files in a synced directory (I use sparkleshare, but any dropbox-like system will do the trick).

I tried many, cloud apps, desktop apps, wikis. But in the end, I was never comfortable with putting all my thoughts in documents in a weird format (at best) or in the cloud (at worst). And most apps didn't offer any huge advantage to compensate for that.

I have backups of my notes folder. I can grep through it when I'm looking for something. I can edit it from any computer. And I know it will still be readable in 10 years.

I use the same approach and for the same reasons. Though, now I've started to experiment with markdown.

Did you have a look at org-mode?

I can attest to this, having gone through pretty much the same cycle of apps and wikis. Finally settled on plain text files with cloud sync. Except I use a bit of YAML to give the material some structure.

But I use this to write down things I would consider more 'information' than 'knowledge'. If it's a new cloud app I found on HN that I might need later, I write it down. If I learned something new (for example, I recently learned about phage therapy as an alternative to antibiotics), I resist the temptation and try to integrate it into my existing body of knowledge. In my opinion, if you have a 'fact' that needs to be memorized, then it is either a bit of arbitrary information or it is not yet tethered to the rest of your knowledge and is therefore banging around in your head. I usually find a link to nail it down. I wouldn't exactly call it a 'memory palace' but it's sort of like that.

This is the exact same thing I do. In fact I wrote a little shell script (https://github.com/rmcastil/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/gtd) that I use once a day to get everything organized. It opens up all the files in vim so that I can quickly organize what I'll handle for the given day. When I'm in my shell and think of another task I run another script (https://github.com/rmcastil/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/inbox) that quickly appends it to my todo list. I try to loosely follow the GTD methodology.

People ask me where many of the references come from for my Hacker News comments, and besides the links I look up on the spot, most come from a text file I keep open all day in my text editor. For other writing projects, I have a lot of other text files. Now that text files recognize Unicode, I am very happy with a simple approach to storing information.

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 almost any device and you usually have a wide variety of applications to edit your "calendar events", use different calendars for important vs trivia

* Stuff you read on the internet -> obviously (synced) bookmarks (firefox, chrome, opera and others have builtin sync)

* Ideas, plans, drawings -> A5 pen and paper notebook (most people will advocate moleskine, I prefer Leuchtturm notebooks (to each his/her own)

* Research, papers, references -> good old text files, index + txt + pdf + bib (vim + vimwiki + git + some zsh alias like wiki="cd ~/wiki/; git pull; vi index.wiki; git commit -a; git push; cd -")

So far, this works quite well, although I have to admit that while separation is king, it also hinders creativity at times, so I'm slowly starting to integrate other things into the wiki (write firefox bookmark and caldav importer/parser, thinking about scanning/digitizing notebooks...) to be able to cross-reference things. The long term goal is to create a visualization that allows me to visualize (duuuh) all this data in different ways (especially useful for research and connecting the dots).

Hope this helps and I would really be interested how others manage this, especially regarding research, papers etc (Mendeley and others just aren't flexible enough for me...).

Yip, I tried out vimwiki a while back and have stuck with it. Pretty simple to setup and yes, a git commit generates the html files and rsync's them up to the internet. Pretty bombproof.

After years of writing everything in casebound A4 notebooks, I am currently experimenting with B5 size (in between A4 and A5). It's a bonny little size, still plenty of space on the page and fits on shelves better.

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 <Enter> 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.

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

I do everything with vim/bash/tmux but you still want to be able to click links with a mouse when reviewing notes, and create them effortlessly when writing.

> 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.

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 something more involved, so I can get full text search capabilities from the index page. It's something I play around with every so often as the inspiration hits me. I will not be surprised if this posts leads me back to playing with it for a bit, although I am busy for the upcoming week already.

You can trivially get something similar with something like vimwiki [0]. The only reason I went further was that I wanted greater levels of customization.

[0] https://code.google.com/p/vimwiki/

Edit: The full text search from the index is just a nicety given the way I like having the notes displayed. I can already grep from the command line, of course. I have other ideas about nice-to-have dynamic behaviour, but a lot of the stuff falls into the lower percentages of the 20% of the 80-20 split.

In The Pragmatic Programmer, one of the tips advocates keeping knowledge in plain text:

> Keep Knowledge in Plain Text

> Plain text won’t become obsolete. It helps leverage your work and simplifies debugging and testing.

The full text expands on the benefits, such as searchability and other stuff I can't recall at the moment.

I try to stay as close to possible to plain text as I can. Even Markdown is a bit heavy for the task, although I have given some thought to adopting it and avoiding needing any custom parsing.

Lastly, I wasn't clear why I output to HTML. I put them up on a server so that I can access them remotely. I can also upload notes, or input a quick note to a textarea and submit it. It's device-agnostic; I just need a browser. I haven't bothered to implement making currently existing notes editable.

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...

Four parts:

== Emacs Org Mode ==

  - all capture

  - all notes in general that I take while working (live) on a computer

  - all meeting notes

  - all drafts - usually via org-babel

  - planning

Also, a type of code analysis where I make the code column 1 in a table and use columns 2+ for notes

This is sync'd via git across machines. Version Control + diff's are useful, but multiple branches for this hasn't been worth the additional complexity.

I've got a specific emacs daemon just for org. It's got a special -name argument that tells my window manager (xmonad) to bring up each window as a pop-up. That integrates with chrome and org capture to capture web bookmarks right from the chrome bookmarks bar.

== A paper notebook (leuchtturm 1918) and a grossly expensive fountain pen (MB) for all deep analysis. ==

  - Good thinking is a lot easier when you look at paper instead of a screen.

The tactile feel of that pen on that paper feels so smooth and free that I write substantially more, and faster. I can only explain it like typing on your favorite mechanical keyboard vs using a blackberry to write long essays.

== MindJet for brainstorming. ==

So far, awkwardly on a Nexus 7 and a BT keyboard. I'm still looking for a better mind-mapping setup.

== GTasks (android app) ==

With Google's "Tasks" list for my to-do lists and random thought capture on topics I'm still not ready to properly sit-down and mind-map.

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.

Hmm, I haven't had much issue with it, although the functionality is pretty bare bones, I don't use the capture widget thingy... no need to. I can create and transition (todo) items in my existing .org files, use the agenda, and that's about as complicated as I want to get on my phone.

For anything more, I use my laptop where I can take advantage of all the proper org-mode functionality.

It might come down to how you use org-mode, as well. I create a .org file for each client/project. If I'm using org-mode to write a document (beats markdown IMO), I'll create a separate file and store it in the client/project registry (my own mgt system, outside of org-mode scope but implemented with org-mode knowledge).

Having lots of relatively sparse but easily identifiable (and discoverable) .org files makes mobileorg quite usable, for me.

ps: I see you commented on org-mode elsewhere in this topic. I also make heavy use of a notepad (unlined paper please - you're not the boss of me!), but prefer pencil to pen. I have about 6 or so high quality pencils I keep on high rotation, nice and sharp courtesy of a burr sharpener.

Prepare yourself... [1]

I have quite a system, but it works. I'm a student, and I utilize Evernote, Google Keep, Microsoft OneNote, Pocket, 8x11 ringed notebooks, and a small field book.

Evernote is for items I may need to a long time: recipes, guides from the internet, personal notes, etc. I'm finding I don't use it much, actually. :-/

Google Keep is incredible for to-do lists, quick notes, this sort of thing.

OneNote is my primary note-taking program, for meetings, for class, anything. I just bullet everything and go at it.

Pocket for saving articles. It has an incredible search function.

8x11 ringed notebooks for times where a laptop is inappropriate, or when I need to physically draw something.

The field notebook was a gift. I use it to host my big ideas and inspirations.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okIAAeb2WVA

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.

I use text files with tagging and a simple naming convention to manage my web development projects, my house rentals, car insurance, vacation plans, contacts, and more. Most projects have the same core things to keep track of... analytics, adwords, ad campaigns, webmaster tools, hosting details, etc... I use txt files that are backed up with Dropbox.

I add tags within each file like project-businessName tag-adwords tag-campaign priority-high etc.

I use xplorer2 ( a windows explorer replacement $40 ) to filter by tag and or filename.

Example: Say I want to see all outstanding campaigns for a certain client.... I apply the following filter ( alt+h ) then type +tag-campaigns,+project-businessName . Same works for to do lists.... +priority-high,+project-businessName .

I also use a file name convention for super quick opening of whatever customer file I need.

Example: Say I want to check on a clients adwords situation... I hit alt+h to invoke the filter tool.... type adwords businessName to see the exact file I need.

I use two extra free software apps to speed things up further... FindandRunRobot - a launcher Everything ( from voidtools ) - plugs into the above launcher for super fast file opening by name. For example: Say I'm in my browser and want to open up my main file for my client.... I hit alt+space to invoke the launcher tool... then type any part of the file name ... hit enter to open.

I've used wikis before as well as enterprise crm... this is a breath of fresh air!

90% of my knowledge is in a bunch of text files handled by nvalt [1], a fork from notational velocity [2]

It is so convenient and quick to make notes and hyperlink notes between them and do full text search.

[1] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2] http://notational.net/

Combined with Dropbox, this is a fantastic setup for the desktop. On the iOS side, I use Notesy[1] to access the same data on-the-go.

[1] http://www.giantyak.com/notesy/

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/

Out of interest how does your wiki integrate with your workflow? Or, in other words, what do you use it for?

I'm the founder, so I'm biased, but I use Fetchnotes for storing most things like this: links, things to check out (books, music, movies, apps, restaurants, places etc), ideas, resources, random thoughts, knowledge/trivia I come across, reminders/tasks and a ton more.

We built it to be simple, lightweight and flexible. Just add a hashtag to a word in a note, and it groups that thought with anything else with that hashtag. Involve another person? I just @-mention their username, email or phone number, or I can send them a link to the note. There's no system to learn — when you want to find something, just click on the tag you used.

Specifically for things I learn, I have a #randomfacts tag that I add things to when I come across an interesting piece of trivia (mostly from articles or audiobooks), and a #thoughts tag for things I think of on my own.

Check it out at www.fetchnotes.com and let me know what you think! I'm at alex@fetchnotes.com

What a good question.

Personally I curate a directory structure served off an old linux box in my house. Items created on other machines get synced in by hand. Data is stored in whatever source format it was created in, and obscure formats get a pdf version stored alongside.

The thing is, it's absolutely stone age - not automatically synced with my laptop or phone, not available remotely, and not conveniently set up to be able to share files or offer use of the server to my partner or family. It also only has 'files', there's no calendar-type data and things like mail and contacts only get placed in by hand as backups. I could totally cobble things together to provide extra features but I am thinking of starting again with a server 'in the cloud'. I would love to know what people do, with a longer term view than just stashing stuff in the popular note-taking app of the moment.

For notes, I rely 100% on paper. I don't remember things as well when I type them out, and keeping it on paper gives me a sort of spatial awareness on where to find what I need.

However, with research papers now, I've started to use Mendeley. Imports downloaded pdfs and automatically has author, title etc filled in, can download pdfs from a number of the major publication websites and automatically add to your collection, allows sorting via author, year, etc., allows you to take notes and highlight, and has a search bar that searches through all of the papers you have. It additionally can keep your pdfs synced between computers, creates BibTex entries and I believe can help you find related papers, although I haven't used that function. It's a great way to keep semi-organized, and works a lot better than any file-naming system I've tried.

Obsessive note-taking lab-journalling knowledge organizer here.

* For years simplenote, first using RespohNotes under Wine, then writing https://github.com/cpbotha/nvpy - a cross-platform and open source simplenote client in Python with tikinter. Currently looking for a new maintainer, because:

* Currently in an in-between phase editing Gollum wiki markdown pages with emacs 24 (sometimes I also use gollum to access and edit), all synced with unison, and using Google Keep on my phone.

* Currently working on hobby project, which will be the non-linear super visual (spatial perception and memory FTW!) cross-platform (large displays!!) note- and file-organizing interface I've been dreaming about for months now.

> Currently working on hobby project, which will be the non-linear super visual (spatial perception and memory FTW!) cross-platform (large displays!!) note- and file-organizing interface I've been dreaming about for months now.

That sounds like what I've been dreaming of for years - and be something with multiple views of the same data too. Keep us informed!

* Brain

* Bullet Journal (http://bulletjournal.com)

* Instapaper -> Pinboard.in

* Research Diary in LaTeX (http://www.writelatex.com)

* Markdown (pandoc) and git for each and every project

I just use Google. Keep, Gmail, Calendar for most things. I have a few text documents for recording important information I keep in Google Drive as well. Emails and sometimes even pitches / speeches I keep in gmail as a draft. Used Evernote for a while, but it's just bloat, I don't need another app.

I often have a text file open on my computer that I write quick notes in. Most of my knowledge that isn't like a random reminder note lives in my head though, I'm pretty solid on my memory.

We use Trello for business, so I keep anything business related in there, so other people have access to it if need be.

I have discovered, before the recent studies, that when I take paper notes during anything, I remember the meeting/lecture/whatever quite well.

So I use paper notes as a backup, but as someone else noted, good old fashioned Brain 1.0.

But when that isn't enough, paper files are good for formal stuff.

On the computer, well, it's kind of a disaster. Gmail has helped here. But there is no compelling note organization system. And I'm not sure you'd want one, I think we've learned is that 'findability' is the most important feature, and organization isnt the only way to achieve that.

I use Workflowy (https://workflowy.com/) for everything: note-taking, planning and even project management (see https://medium.com/no-label-inc/4e911278c902). I always have it open on my desktop and with their mobile app I'm always in sync. Workflowy is an excellent app and it keeps my thoughts organised.

For longer documents that don't fit in the bullet-organized workflow of Workflowy I use Markdown.

I've recently (this year) taken to writing more blog posts[1]. It helps me make sure that what I'm writing will be readable by me X years from now and also could help other people. For more private thoughts or thoughts I haven't developed into posts yet I use text files and Dropbox or Evernote.

[1]: http://www.christopherbiscardi.com/

I dump stuff in one big TextEdit/Notepad file that sits on my desktop. It is really easy to arrange stuff in it, take notes for meetings, etc. TextEdit/Notepad loads really really fast. I can move stuff out of it easily (say contact information into my phone) and every once in a while I clean it up.

I've tried so many other things but a single text file sitting on my desktop just seems to work really well.

I wonder what will it look like after a year, when you work on mutiple project,multiple poeple.

I spent a long time looking for my ideal knowledge organizer, and eventually settled on Notecase Pro (http://www.notecasepro.com/).

It's cross-platform, with a functional free version. I have no problem paying for good, useful software, especially (as in this case) when it's produced by a dedicated individual or small company.

Evernote is overrated...

I don't know if I agree that Evernote is overrated, but I personally don't like them for what they did to one of my favorite apps, penultimate (iOS notebook app). I specifically bought that app so I could have my notes always with me. Then Evernote buys the company and makes it so I can only access my notebooks if I am online, or if I pay for a pro version. So I buy something for a specific feature, and they take it away but offer to sell the feature back to me.

Shame, as I really liked penultimate.

I throw every random information in an Evernote notebook. For more complex stuff, like what are my priorities this month, I draw a mindmap using MindNode. Also, I've got in a habit of reviewing all my important notes and trim them every month.

Finally, I put all the interesting web articles in Pocket, because I search them later.

I tried to make flashcards in Anki for random stuff, but it didn't work out.

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

You ignored the important qualifier at the end of the sentence: ...to enable Evernote to operate the Service.

And the preceding clause: In order to enable Evernote to operate the Service, we must obtain from you certain license and other rights to the Content you submit so that our processing, maintenance, storage, technical reproduction, back-up and distribution and related handling of your Content doesn’t infringe applicable copyright and other laws.

You can't read half of a line of a TOS and assume it means something separate from the totality.

exactly right. Under US copyright law, Evernote could be deemed to violate your exclusive right (as copyright holder of your content) to make copies whenever they made a backup. So to avoid any opportunist litigation, you grant them a limited licence to copy your work. The same goes for your right to display/perform.

Manpages!:

https://github.com/pjungwir/manpj

You don't even need to learn man macros unless you want to (and I have `man pj man` for that). I usually just give text files a .pj extension and add formatting later if I need it.

I bet someone has even written a markdown-to-man converter, now that I think about it.

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.

I use Http://www.teamgum.com, I just gum whatever articles and web pages I like. I import content from my pocket, twitter accounts as well. And it automatically builds a knowledge base. Then when I do a google search for any knowledge bit. It shows all relevant gums from me and my team on right side. Bingo! Do give it a spin.

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.

I simply use a dedicated Gmail box with many different folders like "events", "todo", "links" etc. where I send emails ("notes") to myself. This way I can easily access them using any platform and it doesn't require any additional software.

http://www.mymundus.com

I am the cofounder of MyMundus, so my opinion is quite biased. We started MyMundus because conventional note taking apps such as bookmark services did not suffice, especially when you forgot to create a bookmark.

I use https://rawgit.com/lollipierre/react-bullet-app/master/index... - based on bullet journaling concept

Github repository, I wrote a simple app to pull in a repo and I can view, edit and delete and also create new files. All the files are markdown so I can export to PDF or HTML if I need them outside the app.

Brain 1.0

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.

I use Mindown (http://mindown.com) on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.

(Sorry for the shameless plug, but it's true)

Wow. What I haven't tried before... One html file wiki (tiddlywiki i think). Something like 3 self written web task editors before DropBox happened. Mori (kind of evernote from the past), Google Wave (still missing it), made couple of money tracking apps with couchdb, remotestorage and other offline capable but syncing apps for personal use on mobile.

Currently

Notes: Plain text notes with markdown elements synced via DropBox edited in NvAlt on Mac, and Notesy on iOS.

Sketches: Moleskine notebooks of various sizes (mostly Reporter). Currently experimenting with even smaller ones (Cahier journals)

Visual References: After years of screenshots on my desktop and reference folders full of unnamed images I made lightweight pinterest clone https://github.com/vorg/kollektor

Articles: Pocket as 'todo readme' solution but currently working on and app for hyperlinking pdf's for computer graphics papers.

ToDo: Gave up on per project hierarchical task list as they always get old and dusty. So instead I split information into long living stuff and references (links, project requirements, hardware specs etc) that goes into notes. And one task list for MIT (most important tasks) daily similar to Autofocus system (Autofocus system - http://markforster.squarespace.com/blog/2009/1/6/autofocus-s...) + smaller ones for bug lists per project, TaskPaper for Mac, and TaskMator / Listacular for iOS. I even wrote custom editor for TaskPaper notes that takes advantage of fullscreen (think TweetDeck for todos).

Bookmarks: Everything after delicious got bought http://pinboard.in/ (but moving to Kollektor more and more)

Mindmaps: For notetaking (FreeMind on Mac, MindNode on iPad) and monthly planning where I list all my current projects, incoming ones, ideas, goals etc.

Limitations: - NvAlt search is fast but sucks if you have long notes (hard to search inside them) - Still haven't found good outliner for iOS. Taskpaper was promising but died (discontinued on iOS). - Plain text is cool and durable but missing possibility of dropping images here and there

Dreaming: - not sure if one size fits all will ever happen but something like pinterest mashup with workflowy with one data structure but multiple editing modes (list, outline, mindmap, spatial) - i'll call it RAM (Remote Access Memory)

> Dreaming: - not sure if one size fits all will ever happen but something like pinterest mashup with workflowy with one data structure but multiple editing modes (list, outline, mindmap, spatial)

That would be amazing!

Pretty simple - I try to put them on my Blog. It's public, I know I'm backing it up always, and it helps others.

I have been using google keep for a bit and it seems to just work for me, but its just for simple notes really.

I have used evernote for a long time.But Onenote is my new fav after they release a free desktop app.

Notational Velocity, Dropbox, and Workflowy

There's a lot of synergy between the three.

www.CleverNote.co, kinda like Evernote over Google Drive. The cool Android app allows notes to float over whatever else you're doing.It's currently free while in beta.

Evernote, works perfectly for me.

Evernote is perfect for me.

Google tasks + dokuwiki

Paper notebook.

simplenote + notational velocity

Simplenote for me too on all my devices.

Me too.. until recently, because there's no way to switch to a fixed width font. So I've moved to the built in mac Notes app. You can hack the resources files to set a plain background and better default font.

As soon as Simplenote allow font changes, I'm going back though for the Android cross platform support.

Evernote

Github wiki

Reply on news.ycombinator.com