note-taking
Latest
Ask Engadget: best note-taking tablet / laptop for under $200?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Max, who seems to be putting his old scattered life behind him in an attempt to get organized. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I am a student looking for a second portable computer for taking notes in lectures, as I am ridiculously unorganized at the moment. The thing is, I only have a very small budget, and I need a tablet / touchscreen computer. I have at most £150 ($228) to spend." Max isn't even opposed to buying second-hand, but we just know someone out there has a delightful option on the new market as well. Don't bother putting off your answer in comments below -- that Fall semester is just about the bend, you know?
iPad corners 22 percent of ebook market, iBooks gets iPhone version and PDF reader
Apple has just announced that the iPad has collected 22 percent of ebook sales since its launch and is about to get new features too. A PDF viewer is going to be thrown into the iBooks app later this month, and will be accompanied by new bookmarking and note-taking functionality. Yeah, they're basic enhancements at best, but we're still trying to wrap our minds around this idea that Apple is already responsible for nearly a quarter of all ebook sales. Then again, as Steve points out, a cool five million of the darn things have been downloaded in the first 65 days of the iPad's availability. Update: Seems like even five mill ain't gonna be enough for Apple, which is set to massively expand its iBooks user base by bringing the app to iPhone and iPod touch users. You'll be getting the same note-taking, same bookmarking -- same everything -- just on a smaller screen, and at no extra charge. Users will be able to purchase a book on one device and then consume it across the full range of iDevices, with bookmarks and progress getting synced across the ether.%Gallery-94570%%Gallery-94595% Check out more from WWDC 2010 in our liveblog!
ASUS Eee Tablet preview
Alright, stick with us here. For some reason, ASUS decided it best to name its freshest e-reader the Eee Tablet, while its downright magical tablet goes by Eee Pad. Got all that? Good. The Eee Tablet (again, not to be confused with the Eee Pad tablet) is half e-reader, half note taker, and it's an interesting twist on a played product category. We took a few precious minutes to experiment with the device here on the Computex show floor, and overall, we like what we're seeing. Gone is the painfully slow E-Ink page refresh that Kindle owners are so accustomed to, with this particular LCD proving deliciously quick at changing screens. The only hang-up comes when you attempt to flip through too many pages, too fast -- we managed to harness a loading wheel on two occasions, both of which took around six or eight seconds to vanish and the next page to finally appear. We also confirmed that the screen only works with the included stylus, much like pen-enabled Wacom tablets. That said, the bundled stylus was perfectly weighted, and the Eee Tablet responded well to our doodling. Speaking of weight, the model shown here in Taipei was shockingly heavy (at least iPad-level heavy), while the 10-inch EP101TC was markedly less hefty. Enough chatter -- have a look at our hands-on video just past the break. %Gallery-93961%
ASUS Eee Tablet: a notepad with impressive 2450 dpi touchscreen sensitivity (updated)
Don't call it the Eee Pad, this is ASUS' Eee Tablet -- a digital notebook with a 2,450 dpi touchscreen and lickity quick 0.1 second page turns on a backlight-less TFT-LCD offering 64-levels of grey. As such, ASUS is calling its Eee Tablet one of the world's most accurate and sensitive note taking devices available. The other being paper and pencil of course. While the Eee Tablet will serve up texts and ebooks for reading just fine, ASUS is really pushing the note taking feature with built-in notepad templates and the ability to store, sort, tag, and annotate your notes on the fly. It comes packing a MicroSD slot and 2 megapixel camera for snapping lecture slides which students or professionals can then annotate and then sync back to a PC over USB. Battery life? 10 hours -- so yeah, it's not E-Ink... but then again it's not E-Ink. Update: Uh, ok, we've received clarification here at Computex. Apparently, when ASUS says "a 2450 dpi touch resolution screen" they actually mean a 2,450 dpi input sensitivity. In other words, annotations probably will feel like writing on paper, or an 8-inch 1024 x 768 pixel panel, anyway. Update 2: We've just been told to expect the Eee Tablet to cost somewhere between $199 and $299 of the green stuff when it launches sometime in September. Update 3: Lookie here -- we've got a hands-on preview up, video and all. %Gallery-93955%
Notable iPad apps
The iPad is great for a lot of tasks, but one area of potential appeals to me more than any other: brainstorming and note taking. I'm not alone, judging from the outcropping of specialized apps for doing just this. I haven't had the time (or money) to hunt down and experiment with every note-taking app in the App Store jungle, but I wanted to highlight a few that have stuck out in my search for the quintessential app for idea capture and retrieval. I'm skipping over some of the apps that I consider to be obvious (albeit excellent) choices (e.g. Evernote), mostly because they've already been covered on TUAW, often repeatedly. This is not to belittle them, just to keep things fresh. Mind Mapping The first few on my list are mind mapping applications. Mind maps are the easiest and most intuitive way for me to take notes and brainstorm ideas, so that's what I look for first. It's hard to beat a pencil and paper, or even a screen with a full keyboard and keyboard navigation, but some touch-based apps do it just about right. One of the best I've found is iThoughtsHD (US$7.99). It makes it relatively easy to jot notes in a mind map format, with options for node color, icons and organization. It can expand and contract nodes, branches can inherit their parent's options, and you can manually or automatically organize and space out your map. You can add new child and sibling nodes by tapping and dragging, or use handy buttons at the top of the screen. It can import and export maps via WiFi transfer, Box.net and email attachment. When it comes to formats, it handles just about everything I can personally think of, including Novamind, MindManager (6 and 8), iMindMap, XMind, Freemind, and others, as well as multiple image formats. Read on for more mind mapping and note taking apps for you and your iPad.
Pear Note: note taking for the best of us
Though I graduated from college (Go Bears!) not so long ago, in computer years it seems like ages: notebook computers have almost completely replaced spiral-bound notebooks, and PowerPoint and Keynote are increasingly supplanting the chalkboard. The changing dynamics of teaching demand a change in the way students take notes and learn, and Useful Fruit's Pear Note (available for free trial for 30 days, or $39.99 for purchase) addresses these changing dynamics for students. It's like TiVo for note taking.
Ask Engadget: Best mobile note-taking device?
Like it or not, the spiral bound notebook is going the way of the Dodo. Okay, so maybe that's absolutely incorrect and totally sensationalistic, but you catch our drift. If not, take a whiff of what reader Allan is cooking:"My boss is a prolific note taker, filling many spiral bound notebooks with notes. As I deal with more projects, I find myself moving in the same direction. I would love the ability to search my notes, something not available with dead tree software. Is there a simple relatively cheap device that would allow me to take notes (preferably using hand writing), and then search them later? Ideally, I'd like something the size of a small internet tablet, but no smaller than an iPod touch. I'm looking for something far cheaper than a full-blown tablet PC, by the way."So, ladder climbers -- what's the deal here? What device would you recommend for wowing that suit in the corner office while making your note taking all the more efficient? When you're done answering, shoot us a question of your to ask at engadget dawt com.
VoodooPad 4.0 provides WebDAV sync
VoodooPad got a major upgrade today; after an intense beta period, version 4.0 is live. For those of you not familiar, VoodooPad is a personal wiki, a brainstorming and note-taking tool and the ultimate "geek's notebook" (my term, not theirs). With the ability to import a variety of files and link others, it also makes a great project management hub. I use it in combination with one of my other previously-mentioned favorites, Curio. It's had a fair number of mentions here in the past, and the 4.0 update is certainly something to talk about. Among the new features is the ability to sync using WebDAV. You can sync pages or entire documents in both directions, allowing for collaboration or just providing the ability to work on multiple machines. There are instructions available for setup on the Flying Meat wiki. I've been testing the sync feature for a while, and it works superbly. The web-publishing capabilities have been expanded, including iPhone-optimized output. There's also a new feature called "The Bucket" for gathering text -- via a system-wide hotkey -- from any application. PDF output, faster speeds, and a new layout for palette windows all add up to a great release. Organizing notes and files is simple, and linking together pertinent pages, snippets, Address Book contacts and more is a breeze. For those of a scripting persuasion, the reason I call it the "geek's notebook" is VoodooPad's ability to execute pages as scripts (Python ... Lua is being deprecated), and also the ability to extend via a plugin API. This can be used to work in HTML, Markdown and Textile support, set up GTD systems, even publish a blog. VoodooPad 4 is going for $29.95USD, and version 3 users can upgrade for $14.95USD. The Pro version is $49.95USD, upgrade for $19.95USD. There are free demos of each on their respective pages, and there's also a "Lite" version available for free, no strings attached. VoodooPad customers who purchased version 3 after August 1st, 2008 get a free upgrade. Check the full release notes for version 4 (and prior releases), as well as the features page for more information on VoodooPad and the 4.0 update.
Curio 5.3 is out
I'm currently working on a piece detailing exactly why Zengobi's Curio has become a favorite of mine, especially in the area of project management and brainstorming, but also in general as a truly enjoyable-to-use application. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd better get an announcement out for version 5.3, released today. For those unfamiliar, Curio is a note-taking, brainstorming, to-do managing, file-gathering application which works in a (surprisingly productive) free-form manner. It's similar in concept to Circus Ponies Notebook, but I find it to be even more flexible and powerful. Version 5.3 adds to an impressive feature list with customizable print headers and footers, the ability to convert lists to mind maps and vice versa, as well as an importer for AquaMinds NoteTaker. Detailed release notes are available here. Version 5.3 is a free upgrade for all Curio 5 users, and upgrade pricing is available at the Zengobi store. The regular version of Curio is $99USD, and a Pro version is available for $149USD (find out what the difference is here). Academic discounts are available, and a free 15-day trial can be downloaded on the Curio page.
Omni Group posts OmniOutliner screencasts
OmniOutliner is arguably the Photoshop of the note-taking industry; it's endowed with a plethora of powerful abilities that are wrapped in a well-designed experience, and it wears many hats for its many users. It only makes sense, then, for the Omni crew to team up with ScreenCastsOnline to produce a series of free tutorial videos that demonstrate some of OmniOutliner and OmniOutliner Pro's key features. If you've ever needed a crash course on everything you can do with this powerful app, these videos range in topics from a basic introduction, levels and styles, columns in notes, embedding files and exactly what's so special about the Pro version. As one would expect from a website that makes a living out of producing screencasts, these tutorials are very well produced and a great resource for users both old and new.
Notae 1.1
Notae 1.1 has just been released bring with it a slew some new features that compliment this already useful note taking application. You can now drag and drop items you want to import into Notae, as well as dragging things into and out of notes. Search has also been improved as it is now word based and it highlights the term you are searching for.Notae costs $15 and is a Universal Binary.
OmniOutliner, OmniOutliner Pro 3.6 released
The Omni Group has finalized version 3.6 of OmniOutliner and OmniOutliner Pro, their "amazingly flexible program for creating, collecting, and organizing information." The final version itself doesn't usher in any mind-blowing new features aside from the built-in help being fully localized, but check out their release notes for all the new features they rolled out in previous 3.6 beta releases if you haven't been keeping up.Version 3.6 is a free upgrade for existing 3.0 customers, and is available from the Omni Group's site.
