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article - The Best Tools For Universal Note-Taking
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Posted by Gary Carson
Jan 27, 2012 at 08:43 PM
I’m completely sold on using voice recorders to make fast notes. I carry one around with me all the time and I’m constantly dictating reminders, task lists, memos, etc. It’s really fast and efficient and I’ve found that I don’t even need to save ninety per cent of this stuff since it’s all transient material that I can usually delete after a day or two. If I do need to save a recording for longer than that, I can usually just leave it on the recorder, which has 4 gigs of internal memory and also takes 32-gig microsd cards. One interesting result of using a recorder like this is that I’ve realized that I don’t really need computers and PIM’s and the like as much as I thought I did. I also realized that I’ve been saving a ton of “information” in OneNote that I’ll probably never need again. I’ve been obsessed with collecting information for years and I’m starting to wonder if I’m really all that different from someone obsessed with collecting string or rubber bands. That’s just me, though. Everybody has different needs.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 27, 2012 at 09:35 PM
Seems to me he left off Simple Note, which you can have on your mobile device (I don’t know if there is an app for all devices or just Apple’s). On a Mac computer, you can read these with the free application Notational Velocity. On a PC you can use the free ResophNotes.
As for hand-written notes, I am really bad with these because I lose them. I mix up notebooks and can’t find the notes I’m looking for.
Steve Z.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 27, 2012 at 09:38 PM
A question and a comment.
Gary Carson wrote:
>It’s really fast and efficient and I’ve found that I don’t even need to save ninety per
>cent of this stuff since it’s all transient material that I can usually delete after a
>day or two. If I do need to save a recording for longer than that, I can usually just leave
>it on the recorder, which has 4 gigs of internal memory and also takes 32-gig microsd
>cards.
How do you actually find something in there? I can’t imagine fast forward audio working for the ear as images do for the eye.
>One interesting result of using a recorder like this is that I’ve realized that
>I don’t really need computers and PIM’s and the like as much as I thought I did.
An important point. My experience is the following: I can actually conceive and develop ideas orally much faster than in writing. However, IT tools are built mostly around tactile input and visual recall/presentation so these are the interfaces that I rely on.
Why do I have to use IT tools in the first place? For me it has mostly to do with the question I asked above.
Posted by Gary Carson
Jan 28, 2012 at 02:06 AM
>How do you actually find something in there? I can’t imagine fast forward audio working for the ear as images do for the eye.
Good recorders have digital-pitch-control playback which lets you play a file back at two or three times its normal speed (or faster) while keeping the dictation legible.It works pretty well, but obviously it’s not as fast as doing a search in a personal information manager.
In general, though, organizing and searching through audio files is a problem. As far as I know, there’s no way to search a recording for a specific spoken word or phrase. I’ve been looking for something like this for years and I don’t think it exists.
Good recorders let you create folders on the recorder and move files around and professional-grade recorders let you attach custom keywords to files, so that helps keep things organized. Also most decent recorders have some kind of index-mark capability so you can jump directly to a specific point in the file. They also have a preview feature so you can hear the first five or ten seconds of a file while you’re scrolling through a directory. You can also download audio files into audio management applications like Olympus Sonority or DSS Player Pro and attach annotations to them which explain what’s in the recording. The best way I’ve found to minimize the problems with searching files is to keep the recordings as short and as concise as possible.
Personally, if I have a long recording that I know I’m going to want to search later, I’ll transcribe it in Dragon Naturally Speaking and dump it into OneNote. That’s probably the best solution to the long-file problem. I dictate drafts for essays and books that are sometimes several hours long.
Using recorders is a trade-off. Finding things in audio files can be time-consuming, but dictation is so productive that it makes it worthwhile. At least, it does for me. I guess it all boils down to what you’re doing. I still think they make great tools for note-taking.
Posted by DaXiong
Jan 28, 2012 at 03:31 AM
Tossing in my 2 cents ...
I love outliners - I’ll buy omnioutliner the first day its available for windows. I still use Inspiration, as it just works well for me.
But lately, I’ve moved more to plain text files and dropbox. I find I can access them from anywhere, on any device.
My current favorite is actually not an editor, but personal wiki (hold the groans) ... Ema
http://jwbs-blog.blogspot.com/2010/09/ema-personal-wiki-for-android-and.html
It is an android app, with a windows version available - all free. It can use dropbox to store/synch notes, and uses markdown format for its text files. Ema is simple, intuitive, and good enough for quick notes - while adding structure and organization at the end of the day.
Just my thoughts ...