Here's yet another reminder of how you can't rely upon an single software app to store your information forever. Catch, which was sort of an Evernote wannabe, has announced it is discontinuing service. I tried Catch several months ago, like it, but not enough to switch to it. Got this e-mail from them this morning (funny it came in on a Saturday):

Dear Catch user,

Catch has made the difficult decision to take the company in a different direction. As such, we will be terminating service next month. We value our users and have greatly enjoyed providing Catch to you and millions of others over the last several years.

Catch will no longer be available after August 30, 2013. We apologize for the disruption this may cause to you. We've created an export tool to help you keep your notes and transition to another service. Please follow these directions to download your data before that date. Afterwards, you will no longer be able to access your notes on the web and our mobile apps, Catch Notes and AK Notepad, will no longer sync content across devices or allow collaboration. Click here for help and information about other note taking apps.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@catch.com. We apologize if we are not able to respond to all emails.

Thank you again for your support,
The Catch Team

At least these developers are ethical. Many programs are moribund but the developer continues to sell them to the unsuspecting. Example: Jot+.

The popular task manager Astrid is also being discontinued after having recently been purchased by Yahoo: http://blog.astrid.com/topics/news/

Unlike Catch and many others before it, Astrid provides some kind of transition route for its users, leading to Wrike, Wunderlist, Sandglaz, TickTick, 24me and Any.do which can import its data.

Not entirely fair to Catch! They do offer various ways of exporting all your notes, and I've successfully done so to e.g. Evernote. I've re-exported them to the iOS 'As Noted' app, too, which happily imports .enex files.

The opening-up of the Evernote API to other developers is a very interesting move. An increasing number of apps now support Evernote (such as iOS's 'Awesome Note', also available on Android, if you have one of the latest Samsung devices). This means you're no longer constrained by Evernote's free account limitations - you can download and synchronise your Evernote content to a variety of different clients, all of which will happily preserve your notes offline.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Not entirely fair to Catch! They do offer various ways of exporting all
your notes, and I've successfully done so to e.g. Evernote.

I'd say that there are three levels of support provided by vendors of web services who go out of business or change direction, to their users:

1. Do nothing, i.e. one day users enter the website to find an "end of service" announcement and have no access to their data anymore. Examples: Peerpong, Twine.

2. Provide a way to download one's data, but with no direct route for re-using it. Examples: Catch.com, Google Notebook.

3. Provide a simple route to migrate to another service. Examples: Astrid, Amplify.

Then there are third parties who might step in to help the disillusioned userbase. Example: Evernote providing a migration utility for Google Notebook users.

I hope this is more fair :-)

Alexander, I was most disappointed when Twine closed down.

However, Twine did provide advance notice, and instructions on how to download data.

What was most unfortunate about Twine is that Nova Spivack had developed a truly unique way for curators (before that term was in common use online) to create collections of information on topics of interest to them.

While it may be said that other programs do that more or less, I am aware of nothing which permitted the kind of depth which Twine did. In any event Spivack sold Twine to an outfit which was to use Twine technology to make their own offerings better. I never saw evidence of that happening.

Evri, the company to which Spivack sold Twine, eventually went belly up.

Any how, I am way off topic, and still missing Twine. Nova, if you're reading this, perhaps consider bringing Twine back.

Daly

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

MadaboutDana wrote:
>Not entirely fair to Catch! They do offer various ways of exporting all
>your notes, and I've successfully done so to e.g. Evernote.

I'd say that there are three levels of support provided by vendors of
web services who go out of business or change direction, to their users:

1. Do nothing, i.e. one day users enter the website to find an "end of
service" announcement and have no access to their data anymore.
Examples: Peerpong, Twine.

2. Provide a way to download one's data, but with no direct route for
re-using it. Examples: Catch.com, Google Notebook.

3. Provide a simple route to migrate to another service. Examples:
Astrid, Amplify.

Then there are third parties who might step in to help the disillusioned
userbase. Example: Evernote providing a migration utility for Google
Notebook users.

I hope this is more fair :-)

Impressively fair - in fact, a nicely ranked analysis of typical die-offs.

Dearie me. If all these extinctions aren't a good argument in favour of the hybrid Cloud, I don't know what is!

Reminds me of two bits of hardware I've been looking at: SanDisk's new Wireless Media Drive (a very elegant, portable micro-server) and Drobo's (or rather, ConnectedData's) new Transporter device, which does for hardware what Dropbox does for software. Apparently the newer version of the Transporter software will make it pretty much equivalent to Dropbox, but entirely private.

These are "private Cloud" solutions I like the sound of!

Thanks for the heads up on these hardware solutions.

And, of course, it is now possible to create one's own web applications if they are so inclined. Among others, check out Qrimp http://www.qrimp.com/home.html which might well have been named as a tribute to this here forum :-)

(Steve Z., having introduced the term CRIMP to the webography, if you haven't still received your royalty check, you might want to claim it...)

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

(Steve Z., having introduced the term CRIMP to the webography, if you
haven't still received your royalty check, you might want to claim
it...)

Just waiting for our definition of CRIMP to get into the Oxford English Dictionary. Long wait!

I am going to spare a long post about my disappointment as I really liked Catch's design and cross-platform compatibility and cut right to the chase. My initial response is that I have two easy to implement options. First, I can start using Evernote, as I have it on my Anadroid phone and iPad. Second, I can find an Android client that syncs with Simplenote. The former gives me an interface that I never really liked, and possible concerns about exporting my data (if that is still an issue). The latter leaves me with searching for a reliable Android App, and the concern that was raised here about possible data loss (also reported in some reviews as well).

I am open to comments as well as any other similar cross-platform programs (including web access).

Very frustrating, as their closure comes at a time when I need to be focusing on other software issues in need of attention.

--Ken

Ken wrote:

First, I can start using Evernote, as I have it on my Anadroid
phone and iPad. Second, I can find an Android client that syncs with
Simplenote. The former gives me an interface that I never really liked,
and possible concerns about exporting my data (if that is still an
issue). The latter leaves me with searching for a reliable Android App,
and the concern that was raised here about possible data loss (also
reported in some reviews as well).

Hereby my 2 cents:

1. It is my impression that Evernote has reached and surpassed critical mass, and that it is a relatively safe bet in the information management tool world (whatever this may mean in such a fluid arena). Also, the fact that it has opened up its API, and that other tools like Nixnote (Linux), TuskTools Calendar and even Rightnote can directly read/write to its database, means that vendor lock-in is unlikely. Last but not least, I understand that its SQLite databases remain accessible by, well, SQLite, which remains Open Source software.

2. Re Simplenote: I used the premium (paid) version for quite a few months. After the third extensive data loss during the Resophnotes/Simplenote sync I decided to quit. Upon non-renewal of my subscription I was asked why I didn't continue: I wrote about my experience, explaining that I am unable to whether the fault lies with RN or SN, but that I simply can't rely on it anymore (being on Windows, I really didn't have a choice at the time; nowadays Cintanotes Pro supports Simplenote sync). I never received a reply of any sort, which made me all the more confident in my decision.

I should add that I have replaced Resophnotes/Simplenote with Denote (Android), Dropbox and TEA (Linux/Windows) --though anyone's favourite text editor should do the job-- and I've never looked back.

Hi Alexander,

Thank you for the advice. I am probably going to try out Evernote as well as the notebook features of Toodledo (I currently only use the task portion of the program). Both have Android and iOS clients, as well as web access. My needs are not really extensive, but I really want a program that is quick to open and use. If I have to fiddle around to enter a simple note, then it is not the program for me. I liked Catch because it was easy to use when I needed to jot down totally unrelated information that I normally would put on a scrap piece of paper. For more formal notes, I have plenty of other options.

Thanks,

--Ken

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

2. Re Simplenote: I used the premium (paid) version for quite a few
months. After the third extensive data loss during the
Resophnotes/Simplenote sync I decided to quit. Upon non-renewal of my
subscription I was asked why I didn't continue: I wrote about my
experience, explaining that I am unable to whether the fault lies with
RN or SN, but that I simply can't rely on it anymore (being on Windows,
I really didn't have a choice at the time; nowadays Cintanotes Pro
supports Simplenote sync). I never received a reply of any sort, which
made me all the more confident in my decision.

Update: I received a very honest and straightforward message from Simplenote, acknowledging issues with the service and pointing me to this recent announcement http://simplenote.com/2013/08/22/simplenote-relaunch/ I must say that I appreciate this kind of initiative. I won't be putting any mission-critical info on the service just yet, but I will be testing the new releases.