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OneNote 12 Trial
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Posted by Stavros Grivas
Dec 18, 2006 at 06:24 PM
Has anyone tried the new Onenote 12? The new version seems to have some nice new features like:
Better user interface
Share notebooks and Sync bertween multiple computers
Page/notebooks templates
PPC version
Better clipping from Web and apps
Better note management including full drag & drop etc.
.. and the most important to me, feels quite lightweight!
Like many of you, I’ve been trying to find out (for years) the ultimate notetaking software and I know how difficult that is. I’m just wondering if others have tried the new version of Onenote and found it worthwhile.
Here are a couple of links:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/onenote/FX100647161033.aspx?CTT=96&Origin=CL100626961033
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/onenote/HA101672671033.aspx
Best Regards
Stavros Grivas
Posted by Ray Cosner
Dec 18, 2006 at 10:46 PM
I don’t know that OneNote 2007 is the ultimate note taking tool, but I’ve been using it since early October (got it in the beta program) and I am using it exclusively now. It has been substantially improved in the different means for importing data, and for organizing data - now handles multiple notebooks, and a new concept “sections of sections” which can be nested one inside the other in creating a storage structure. Also, good coupling with Outlook 2003 for tasks defined in OneNote, for e-mail in Outlook, and meetings defined in Outlook.
I have tried a lot of them, the major one I have not used is Zoot. I have tried ADM, InfoSelect, Evernote, and Ultra Recall. Gave up on ADM when they got fixated on Skype (which I can’t use at work). Every time I upgraded InfoSelect, I felt afterward like I should have known better - minimal improvement for substantial license cost. I found Evernote confusing, guess I’m wired in favor of a more hierarchical method. Ariadne reminded me too much of InfoSelect with a more attractive interface (emotional reaction). Ultra Recall is what I was using prior to One Note - the improved integration with Outlook tipped the balance for me. Right now as I mentioned I’m using OneNote 2007 exclusively, and I have stopped checking out the web sites for other tools in this category.
You can download a full-featured trial version from the Microsoft Office site - my copy will expire on Feb 28, 2007. Big download, a little over 200 MB.
Ray Cosner
St. Louis, MO
Posted by Jack Crawford
Dec 19, 2006 at 04:40 AM
Hi Ray
I’ve been waiting with some anticipation to the next version of OneNote too.
However, I’ve never really thought of it replacing all my PIMs, especially in the data storage department. If I moved everything from UltraRecall and Idea! to OneNote, I’d be very nervous about the file sizes.
Do you store everything, such as archived emails and attachments, in OneNote? What are the file size(s) like?
TIA
Jack
Posted by Ray Cosner
Dec 19, 2006 at 05:35 PM
I’m on the staff of the VP-Engineering of a large technology-driven manufacturing company - 30,000 engineers, 150,000 total employees. I’m involved in dozens of projects at a time. Being well organized is simply a survival requirement. I use OneNote (and Ultra Recall before that) to manage information associated with current projects, information that is likely to be important in the future, and general needed background information. I mention this as context for how I use a personal information manager - currently OneNote.
I do not use OneNote for archival retention, in general. I have set up one notebook to drag/drop items for archive, but there is not a lot of stuff in it. Typically our projects build upon each other, rather than simply ending. In my usage, the value lies in capturing and having fast access to recent data, and archival data is of little value to me. The half-life of the info I save in a PIM is probably 4-6 months. I’m pretty aggressive about deleting records once a project has ended, after delaying a month or so to be sure an activity is really finished.
One thing I really like is that it’s much easier to reorganize pages, sections, and notebooks than in OneNote 2003 (drag and drop). It is very good for keeping detailed records of a project, for example, in OneNote and generating tasks in OneNote that are synchronized with Outlook 2003. It is much easier in this version (compared with OneNote 2003) to set up a hierarchy, and then change it quickly as projects evolve, split up, combine, etc. Hyperlinks also are much easier to set up - links to files, or Outlook items, or web sites including links across our internal network.
To answer your question, right now I have 12 notebooks, with combined 64 MB storage (accumulated in two months since I changed to OneNote 2007). At this level, OneNote responds as quickly as the day I installed it, and complete searches across all my notebooks run in about 3-5 seconds. Searches don’t seem as fast as InfoSelect, but with OneNote searches running in single-digit seconds the difference is not meaningful to me. I generally put links to files into OneNote, rather than the actual file.
Capabilities in OneNote 2007 that I am not using: (1) OCR of images, and search including text from images via Windows desktop search, but I am not using that capability as I don’t have a lot of image files and I use X1 for desktop search. In effect you can attach unstructured metadata to an image file by putting text notes on the same OneNote page with the file (or the link to the file). (2) Audio files can be captured via microphone and attached to a page of information, but I am not using that. (3) Also, it has a lot of features for a tablet PC, but I have a traditional notebook and so I do not use those features.
I hope this helps. I do not consider OneNote to be the ultimate tool. Personally, I loved Ecco and still consider it to be the closest to fully meeting my personal needs. However, my employer is focused on Outlook, and OneNote meshes very well with Outlook. I tried to straddle the fence with both tools for a few months, but that was futile so I reluctantly stopped using Ecco.
Ray
Posted by Ian Goldsmid
Dec 19, 2006 at 07:04 PM
Hi Ray
I have tried OneNote on and off throughout this year, and now with this recent production release it seems well worth taking seriously. I have also used UltraRecall (UR) extensively, but in essence, even though the functions and features of it all seem very conducive to info organization efficiency - and it integrates quite well with Outlook - I find that quite soon into adding stuff in UR - I can’t see the wood for the trees so to speak.
I’d be interested know why you prefer OneNote to UR - in terms of its relative ability to keep you organized and with priorities easily seen and processed? Did you find UR wasn’t so “Ultra” in its “Recall” after all - or was the switch to OneNote mainly again the Microsoft standardization thing?
Regards, Ian