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article - simplenote alternatives
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Posted by jimspoon
Oct 29, 2013 at 05:36 AM
http://shawnblanc.net/2013/01/simplenote-alternatives/
thought this article might be of interest to some - rather detailed account of the journeys of a Notational Velocity / Simplenote user.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 29, 2013 at 03:32 PM
Interesting that SimpleNote is no longer accepting Premium licenses. They had a recent “re-launch,” but they’ve got to come up with some revenue source or we’ll be back to the unbuyer beware scenario, won’t we?
I’ve looked at SN a few times in the past, but was not sold, but the new version may entice me, especially since I really, really don’t like Evernote (but I use it). Every time I open Evernote, I just have this deflated feeling, like “Oh, no, I’ve got to navigate this mishmash again!?” I liked the analogy given in that article, that you don’t open a letter with a chainsaw. “Chainsaw” is the perfect analogy for Evernote, I think. Necessary when you need it, but a lot of noise and fury when you just want to make a damn note, and find it and use it later.
Steve Z.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Oct 29, 2013 at 05:44 PM
My favorite note-taking solution used to be AsNoted, which works as a Chrome extension that talks to Dropbox. This means you can sync with the iOS version of the app. Unfortunately I’ve run into certain problems with the Chrome extension, which has a nasty habit of failing to synchronize properly with Dropbox (despite asserting that it has!). This is a real shame. The amiable German programming team are currently working on this issue (apparently rather rare), so I have high hopes of being able to return to it.
In the meantime, I find myself using OneNote more and more. I’ve rationalized my plethora of OneNote notebooks and created some carefully labelled sections, and I’m starting (somewhat reluctantly) to find it a very pleasant working environment. I maintain a profound suspicion of Microsoft - not least out of concern that at some point or other, they will make it impossible to run OneNote anywhere other than through their Cloud services - but the quality of the iOS (and even the Android) clients has eroded some of my doubts.
OneNote also has an astonishingly powerful OCR facility; when combined with the extension discussed elsewhere in this forum, it can read more or less any language with remarkable accuracy. I regularly use this feature to OCR copy from scanned newspaper articles/whitepapers sent to me by clients who want me to translate them. Combined with the simple “Window Key+S” shortcut for taking screenshots, it’s a great solution for all sorts of things (I also use it for tracking online orders, for example). But OneNote also handles text copied out of web pages fairly well; another nice (and amazingly convenient) feature is the automatic inclusion of the originating URL. CintaNotes does that too, of course, but doesn’t handle formatting as well as OneNote.
I much prefer OneNote to Evernote, I have to say!
Posted by Ken
Mar 17, 2014 at 06:25 PM
Now that a bit of time has passed since Automattic re-booted Simplenote, I think that I am going to give it a try since Catch is no longer in service, and I cannot seem to warm up to Evernote. I have not seen any recent posts about syncing issues, but I am curious to know if that issue is a thing of the past. There is a role for a program like Simplenote in my life, but it needs to be free of any significant glitches like the sync problem. Hopefully Automattic will keep focusing on the basics as they move forward with Simplenote. I am keeping my fingers crossed. Anybody have any recent reports of significant problems?
—Ken
Posted by Lucas
Mar 17, 2014 at 09:49 PM
I assume we’re talking about Simplenote for Mac here. In that case, I would say that the app shows significant promise, but I still find the nvALT app (which sync with Simplenote) somewhat superior. The main issue I have with the official Simplenote app is that it often crashes on my system. (nvALT sometimes crashes, but less frequently.) The other thing is that the Simplenote app doesn’t seem to have a way to show tags in the list of note titles (whereas nvALT does). That said, I’m hoping that Automattic will polish the app soon. I like the aesthetic.