Macintosh How To » GTD

How to use Notational Velocity with Simplenote

Ph7jKLD — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 07:29:07 +0000

My search for a good notetaking app has been a little on the obsessive side, but to me, the one thing a computer should be able to do well is take notes. I have spent 2 years on this one. I’m talking about an application where I can make a short note to myself and come back later and find it easily.

The combination of Notational Velocity on the mac, synced with Simplenote on the iphone, is for me the winner.
Step 1. Install Simplenote on your iphone.

Step 2. Sign up for a Simplenote account.

Step 3. Download Notational Velocity

Step 4. Enter your simplenote account details into the preferences of Notational Velocity.

Step5. change Notational velocity preferences to store the notes as rtf files in a folder instead of a single database file so that spotlight can find them.

That’s it! Now all the notes in simple text on your iPhone will be synced with notational velocity on your desktop computer.

Why I like these apps.
Simplenote is very SIMPLE, and Notational Velocity is soooo FAST. They are both elegant, and the best thing of all – they don’t get in the way.

Notational Velocity is a bit of a head spin the first time you use it. It’s so simple and it only has one box to type in – whether you’re writing a new note or searching for an old note you type in the same box!

And it is so FAST to search – the results appear INSTANTLY. It’s almost as if it’s reading your mind!

I use notational velocity for all kinds of things…

- writing down how I did something so that next time I need to do it I can remember.
- storing trivial information like the ranking of poker hands, or a list of things to take on holidays.
- lists of birthday present ideas for people
- poems and song lyrics
- lists where things are stored
- menus, letters, vision-setting, bits of computer code and so on.

I currently have 355 notes in it, and I don’t need to remember note titles, keywords or anything, I just type a word and it finds the note. It’s great.

For a long time SOHO notes was my favourite, but the worst problem is that you have to manually sync the iphone with the desktop app – I never remember to and get caught out looking for a note that is not yet synced to!

Likewise, Shovebox is a nice app to capture notes into, but harder to search and browse them once they are in.

Shovebox review – a new notetaking app.

Ph7jKLD — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 05:55:28 +0000

There is a noticeable lack of any notetaking app for mac that will sync with an iphone. By notetaking application I mean an application that you can use like a notepad: Write down thoughts on a topic. Come back later and find them. Add a few more notes when you want to. A new application, Shovebox seems to be OK, although it’s still early days…

Firstly to appreciate how seemingly hard this is to do, consider the following apps:

FAILED CONTENDERS

Evernote:
Great for capturing information, but you can’t edit notes on the iphone. STOP PRESS: Evernote can edit notes from the iphone now! Evernote rocks.

Apple Notes app:
Good on iphone but you can’t edit the notes on your mac.

SOHO notes:
My favourite I’ve been a user of SOHO notes for many years, but you can’t even read notes from iphone let alone edit them.

Yojimbo:
again great app but no iphone application apart from webjimbo is too complicated.

Together:
again, it may be a great app but no iphone access to notes and they say they have no plans to develop one.

Devonthink:
again, it may be a great app – a lot more than just notetaking but no editing of notes from the iphone

So there have been various workarounds. Some people have been using contacts to store notes, some have been using draft emails. It’s embarrasing to be a mac user and hear about this, so it’s nice to finally have a solution.

Shovebox:

Shovebox is a new piece of software just for taking notes. It’s got great potential.

Pro’s:
It syncs with the iphone.
You can edit notes on the iphone.
There are rules that automatically sort notes by keywords if you wish.
Amazing selection of hotkeys to grab data instantly.

Con’s:
On the iphone you can only edit the files as text files not RTF (not sure if this will be addressed in the future or not?)
On the iphone app you can’t search notes – only browse.
It’s complicated to actually read a note on the mac! There’s no preview, and I’ve found that sometimes when you click to open the note it doesn’t work.
It cost’s $25.
It’s still almost a beta version. There are some things that are a bit messy, and/or missing.

It will be interesting to see how shovebox develops.
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How to integrate things and ical and mail

Ph7jKLD — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:12:48 +0000

1. To integrate things and ical, look here. This will put all your things next and today items into ical.

2. To integrate mail with things, use this script. Place it in your mail scripts folder (User/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail), or put it anywhere and use the free beta version of Mail Act on from here or you can download the latest full verion from here). It will take the current email and turn it into a things todo without you even leaving mail.
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