Your current PIM software portfolio - November 2008 Poll

Posted by grapeshot
Nov 22, 2008 at 01:24 AM

My list for tracking notes and ideas:

Keynote
I use this to capture my thoughts and ideas for a specific writing project. Usually this is just a simple collection of jotted down ideas, or a sort of scratchpad for me to work out my ideas. That venerable old software is simple enough for me to figure out, yet versatile enough for me to incorporate images, or link to other files and web urls. I think if I were doing a project that required me to keep track of lots of research and documents I might think about shopping around for something that can encompass a larger variety of file types. Even so, from the hunting around that I’ve done, it might be hard to find something to match Keynote for it’s ease and ability to organize the information. I am also able to run Keynote on a jump drive, and now I use it both for my weekend writing projects, and my day job.

TiddlyWiki
I tried to use TiddlyWiki for capturing and tracking my notes, but found Keynote more to my liking. The ability to tag items was interesting, but the way my mind works, I need to be able to see the overall organization of how all the pieces of information and other snippets fit in with the whole thing. TiddlyWiki instead has become a sort of diary and free-for-all way for me to get my creative mojo started up when I’m staring at a blank page and am stumped for words. I use the tagging feature as a way to look back on the evolution of various ideas that I’ve toyed with, which can sometimes spark another idea.

Compendium http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/about.htm
I discovered this free mind-mapping software a couple of years ago, and from what I gather, it’s a little like MindManager or FreeMind. It allows me to explore possible scenarios when I’m developing my stories. I tried FreeMind some years ago, but found that developing my diagrams required too much formatting just to do the diagraming work. Compendium, with it’s 8 or 9 standard symbols, allows me to keep my focus on the ideas, and not on the diagram. As for MindManager, well, I’m not too keen on the price. Although Compendium has some limits on how it exports its diagrams, because I’m usually trying to develop plot points and scenarios, and not necessarily trying to keep track of a huge decision-making tree, it’s just perfect for my needs.

Palm Desktop
I use my Palm T|X for jotting down any notes and ideas about my personal project that occur to me during my day job. Sure, I could just as easily use a notepad. That’s what I used to do, but I was forever having to track bits and pieces of scrap paper, and somehow they would never be at hand when I needed them. The Palm syncs to its desktop software on my computer, and the notes are always there—and easy enough to cut and paste into my Keynote file.

Firefox and Extensions:
I use Firefox as my browser, and it has a couple of extensions that I find indispensable for helping me hunt for ideas, inspiration, and for keeping notes. Firefox can also run from a jump drive, so on my work computer, where I am prevented from installing software, I can still operate Firefox.
QuickNote extension: This is the quickest and easiest way for me to jot down a note of any kind while surfing. It creates one very long text file, which can make it hard to find a particular idea, but there’s a lot to be said for the simplicity of this extension.
Google Notebook: I work on several computers, and I travel a lot on business. I’ve found that anything that I want to take note of when I’m on a computer far from home, particularly if it’s a website, Google Notebook lets me note it, and it’ll be available to retrieve no matter where I am, as long as I can get on the web.

Other tools:
MS Word
MS Excel
yWriter4