Rightnote and Evernote

Posted by WSP
Apr 17, 2013 at 01:05 AM

I’m certainly not ready to take the plunge on Rightnote, but I do think it’s worth watching.

May I offer a somewhat cynical dissent about “synthesis” (which seems to be increasingly the Holy Grail of this forum)? There are certain kinds of data that lend themselves to analysis through a spreadsheet or a heavy-duty database program, but the sort of information that I collect—mainly historical and literary in nature—really can only be interpreted by the human mind. I like a two-pane program because it makes simple hierarchical relationships clear, and through cross-linking and tags I can work out other connections. But the interpretation of what it all means (i.e. its synthesis) is a strenuous intellectual task that I’m not prepared to outsource to any software.

At a more practical level, I should add that I wrote my last book using MyInfo (an excellent two-pane note-taker), and right now I’m working on another book with most of my notes in Evernote. There’s no doubt that Evernote is organizationally challenged (despite its other virtues), and I’m struggling a bit with it. But I do believe and hope that eventually someone will create a better front end for my thousands of notes in Evernote.

Bill