Just found this forum today, have long been following the discussion on note-taking software on DonationCoder.

I'd like to tap the collective wisdom here on finding a replacement for the no-longer-supported Net Snippets. NS had one wonderful feature for people like me (I'm a research librarian): the report function. I could clip stuff on the web, organize it, comment on it, and make it into a report, and then emailit to someone else in a universally readable format.

I've dabbled with many other information organizers, but none has come close to NS for my needs - at least as far as I know. I have Surfulator, EverNote (my favorite for keeping short notes to myself), and PersonalBrain, and I've looked at TopicScape and TexNotes. Probably I am far from understanding all the capabilities of these other programs, but none of them appears to me to do what NS does so well. I still use NS, but I know that since it's no longer being developed or supported, I will have to give it up someday.

Any advice?

Barcelona,

Do you use Firefox? If so, two possible add-ons (aka "extensions) worth investigating - and they are both free, of course - would Scrapbook, and Zotero. As a research librarian you might find Zotero especially interesting, and it seems to be under active development, unlike NetSnippets.

NS still works under Firefox, mind you, but you have to make it compatible with later versions of Firefox. This can be done by running another add-on called "Nightly Tester Tools". (I run it once and then disable it, as it seems to conflict with Zoot32).

I don't know if Onfolio is still around, but I think probably not. Like Zotero and Netsnippets it also had some bibliographical features, I recall.

Hope that helps,

Derek

Barcelona,

I suggest to check these applications:

Web research from Macropol:
http://www.macropool.com/en/index.html

Inquiry Professional Edition 1.6
http://www.metaproducts.com/mp/mpProducts_Detail.asp?id=30

In companion with Firefox: Zotero
http://www.zotero.org/


I am former NetSnippets user as well and I can't understand why such a great software will not be developed further.
My favorite is Zotero. I have insalled the USB-Firefox version on my stick and added Zotero. So I have my web research tool always with me.

Dominik

Barcelona,

One other thing. Make sure that whatever you use can search doc and pdf files as well as ordinary htm web pages and text files. Almost any web-capturing software can capture and search htm and text files; it's a no-brainer. But most of us want more than that.

Few if any of the programs of the type you are looking for can do full-text searches with highlighted results of either MS doc files or pdf files from within their interface. Usually they skate over this problem. As always, there are workarounds, like exporting all the data and using a desktop search program to do the job - but as the cost of considerable inconvenience.

Web Research has some workarounds, using pdftotext, or allowing access to its database by the Windows Desktop Search. I don't know what other similar programs are doing, but if they can't handle indexing and searching of pdf files then IMO they are no use for serious research.

What's the use of being able to capture and store pdfs if they can't be indexed and searched by the program? At least NetSnippets and Scrapbook store their files in their native formats in the Windows filing system. That way any DTS program can index and search them.

Maybe Ultrarecall or MyBase handle pdf files better. If so they could provide other options.

Good luck, and let us know what you decide to use.

Derek

Barcelona and others,

Check this software as well: Internet Research Scout - it's free and very similar to Net Snippets. Further, it allows to create reports of the collected snippets including academic citation.

http://www.bytescout.com/internetresearchscout.html

Dominik

Derek Cornish wrote:

Few if any of the programs of the type you are looking for can do
full-text searches with highlighted results of either MS doc files or pdf files from
within their interface. Usually they skate over this problem. As always, there are
workarounds, like exporting all the data and using a desktop search program to do the
job - but as the cost of considerable inconvenience.

Just a suggestion that might fit some people's style and which might help withthe searchablility problem. I realized some time ago that most of my data was coming in through email. I also found that whenever I needed to find a document, I was more likely to actually go to Outlook and look for the email than I was to try to find it on my hard drive. For those anti-MS people, many of my friends do the same thing with Eudora. I'd ask them for a document and they'd fire up an email program to look for it 90% of the time.

So I gave in and started storing all of my data as attachments to emails or to posts. The advantages are:

1) All documents are all indexed and searachable.
2) All documents, indeed all electronic information that I collect, come into my system through a single email Inbox from which I can process them GTD-style.
3) Documents can generally be tagged with categories and filed into folders. In other words, they can generally be better organized and cross referenced in an email program than as part of a strictly hierarchical file system.
4) All data is backed up on an Exchange server or some similar email server.
5) Any good PIM that deals well with email will allow you to organize the data in any fashion just like any other document. You can generally create tasks and appointemts from the email data at least as easily.

Just a thought.

Tom S.

Tom,
That's a very neat idea for people who get most of their data via email. Presumably you can also use Outlook's notes and journal entries in the same way. As the documents are attachments, how are you getting them indexed and searched? I seem to recall Outlook's own search features as being none too swift. Are you using X1 or something like that? Since most desktop search programs handle Outlook files, that might work very well.

Most of my data comes in via the web these days, but this is still an intriguing idea. After all, Outlook is quite a powerful PIM in many ways, and the accessibility of its pst files for indexing and searching by external programs is a major asset.

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

Tom,
That's a very neat idea for people who get most of their data via email.
Presumably you can also use Outlook's notes and journal entries in the same way. As the
documents are attachments, how are you getting them indexed and searched? I seem to
recall Outlook's own search features as being none too swift. Are you using X1 or
something like that? Since most desktop search programs handle Outlook files, that
might work very well.

Windows Desktop Search does a decent job of indexing Outlook attachments, at least. Not sure about Eudora.

Most of my data comes in via the web these days, but this is still
an intriguing idea. After all, Outlook is quite a powerful PIM in many ways, and the
accessibility of its pst files for indexing and searching by external programs is a
major asset.

The easiest way to get web content into your email inbox is to email the page to yourself. Internet Explorer does this (under the "Tools" menu) and I'm sure Firefox does as well. The Google browser bar has a button which will use gmail to do this, as well, and will even restrict itself to highlighed content only if you don't want the whole page.

Tom S.

Tom,

and I’m sure Firefox does as well.

By default it can send links. I'm sure there will be an add-on somewhere to send pages.

Thanks very much. I hadn't thought of using Outlook in this way.

Derek