Ask Slashdot: Life Organization With Free Software?

BigZee writes "For many years, I've used a page-a-day diary as both a planner and a method for taking notes. While not perfect, it's proven to be an approach that's worked fairly well for me. Conscious of the limitations, I want this to become more electronic. In principle, I want to be able to use my Nexus 7 for this function. There are some limitations: My workplace uses MS Outlook. However, I am not able to use Evernote (or similar) on my workplace machine. This limits possible integration along the lines proposed with GTD. What I want is to be able to take notes that are organized by date as well as being integrated to a calendar (preferably Google). Additionally, I want to be able to prioritize my work along lines similar to GTD. I'm not averse to spending money for the right software but prefer to use free software where possible. Can anyone suggest what could be used?" The above-linked Wikipedia page lists some relevant Free software as well as closed-source options. If you use such organizing software, though, how do you use it, and how well do you find it works?

Comments

ActiveInbox

[hawkinspeter]

http://www.activeinboxhq.com/index.php/ works with GMail to bring GTD into your email. It works really well, but if you're stuck on outlook then it might not be suitable for you. You can use it for free or pay for more features.

OneNote

[jones_supa]

Why do you need the source code?

Just slap Microsoft OneNote to your Nexus 7 and be done with it. For your work PC, it comes bundled in MS Office.

Re:OneNote

[SQLGuru]

Yes. If your company already runs Microsoft products, One Note will work, can sync to SkyDrive, has Apple and Android clients, can be viewed and edited on the web (via SkyDrive). There are arguments of Evernote vs OneNote, but both are considered best of breed. Since your company limits you to OneNote, the choice is made for you, but it's a good product.
   

Re:OneNote

[wiggles]

Whoever modded you a troll should be chastised for misuse of mod points. OneNote is exactly what he needs, and will work with his office software.

Open Source is great, preferred in many situations, but nothing else will satisfy the poster's compatibility requirements. End of story.

Re: OneNote

[ModernGeek]

The parallels here are so obvious it is laughable. He is trying to take control of his life and you're saying that the control should be handled over to a corporation known to abandon support for it's products as people are still making use of them. All due to a broken business model. GNU/Linux and vi should be enough to get such a simple job done.

Or, stay low tech ...

[gstoddart]

I know this goes contrary to what a lot of people here will think, because it ignores the technology aspects we're all so obsessed with.

Me, I still use the same black lab-books for persistent note-taking I've been using for 20 years.

I've got a stack of them, numbered and with dated pages. Every time I've looked at an alternative, I've found it cumbersome and less useful, and sooner or later you discover whatever technology du jour you're using has gone away, and you're left finding yet another alternative.

By all means, apply technology as you see fit. But for some things, many of us have found that old fashioned pen and paper is still superior. Everything else is a temporary solution which will eventually fail on you or go away completely.

Re:Or, stay low tech ...

[gstoddart]

I good middle ground is when the page is full take a picture and put it on evernote which will do OCR (so long as you don't write too bad) and then you have an index of all your notes somewhere.

I've found that over the years I've know people who have tried variations on that.

Eventually it becomes something they deem too cumbersome, or the technology just doesn't work, or any number of things.

Me, I just keep using old-school lab books. Unless I lose them in a fire, I can usually track down something quickly enough to not bother with anything fancier. It also allows me to have my notes be fairly unstructured, include diagrams, and lots of other things I don't always find a good analog for in digital things.

Then again, I'm too damned old and cranky to be too much of a slave to technology when I can avoid it. Eventually, with a lot of technology I find it simply more work than going with pen and paper.

Re:Or, stay low tech ...

[Necron69]

I'm likewise still using lab notebooks for taking notes at work.

As a bonus, said notebooks are resistant to all known forms of remote NSA eves dropping. For extra security, encrypt it with the 'cursive' algorithm. The kids these days will be completely baffled. :)

Necron69

Re:Or, stay low tech ...

[gstoddart]

You know, if you've found something great, a bit of specific information would help share that. Brand? Supplier? Buler?

The vast majority of the ones I have are just the standard Blueline hard-cover black lab books you can buy at any Staples or even Wal-Mart.

Occasionally I'm stuck and can't find one of those, and end up using the store brand, there's not a whole lot of difference. You can stick those little Post-It tabs onto pages you need to find quickly.

Just a hard-cover, notebook with ruled pages and a 3/4" or so margin at the top and a ruled margin on the left. Not the ones with the perforated pages to be torn out or the coiled binding, the ones with the fully bound pages which are meant to stay put and a pressboard/cardboard cover. Most of them seem to be around 192 pages or so, and are about 9 1/4"x7 1/4" (23.5cmx18.4cm).

Draw a line from the previous day, write today's date, and get on with it. Always keep a few extra ones on hand for when you reach the end of the one you're working on.

Slap a label on the spine, put 'em up on your shelf. It really is about as low tech as you can get, but it's been how I've kept notes for a very long time.

I've heard them called engineering notebooks, lab books, scientific notebooks. They're pretty common and easy to find, and several different companies make more or less the exact same thing.

Why be more electronic?

[Gothmolly]

Your planner and notebook dont run out of batteries, work when (mostly) wet, are readable in sunlight, and offer many advantages over electronic forms. Analog is sometimes better than digital.

Try Google Keep

[beenThereBefore]

I have been using Google Keep. https://www.google.com/keep While not great it is adequate. Integrates with google account, although better integration with calendar would be cool. Works with google drive. Posting because some organizations are more open to letting you use google apps. Google keep is relatively new and seems not a lot of people have found it. Here is a pretty good review of Google Keep. http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/google-in-the-enterprise/five-things-worth-noting-about-google-keep/

Re:Try Google Keep

[Chemisor]

I don't know about you, but I have no intention of letting google know what I'm doing on a day to day basis. So no, I won't try Google Keep.

Re:Try Google Keep

[Fencepost]

I don't know about you, but I have no intention of depending on any Google product for something that I wish to have available for long periods of time.

And yes, I know about their export capabilities. It only marginally improves matters.

I use Zim plus Dropbox

[hduff]

I use the Zim Desktop Wiki http://zim-wiki.org/ plus Dropbox.

Zim is a graphical text editor used to maintain a collection of wiki pages. Each page can contain links to other pages, simple formatting and images. Pages are stored in a folder structure, like in an outliner, and can have attachments. Creating a new page is as easy as linking to a nonexistent page. All data is stored in plain text files with wiki formatting. Various plugins provide additional functionality, like a task list manager, an equation editor, a tray icon, and support for version control.
If you need version control, Zim supports Bazaar, Git, and Mercurial as backends.

Zim is not network aware, so I just keep its ~/Notes files in my Dropbox folder, install that and the desktop Linux/Windows/OSX Zim client as needed and I'm good to go.

Unfortunately, there is no smartphone version of Zim, but I have little need for a smartpone app of this sort. I do email myself info as needed to integrate into Zim later.