Blogs, wikis and note-taking apps

[Peter]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 17:46:11 -0800
tchomby <tchomby at bluebottle.com> wrote:

> A friend of mine is doing a university course and needs a good way of
> keeping notes. Some way to write down all the thoughts she has as
> they flow and before they end up in something highly structured like
> an essay or dissertation, and a way to organise and edit them so she
> can refer to them later.
> 
> For myself, my university provides me with linux shell access and a
> webserver. I installed pyblosxom (a weblog) and git (a version
> control system) and checked my pyblosxom posts into git. Using git I
> can copy my blog content to the individual computers I use (my laptop
> etc.) and view it locally there, make changes, and when I want to
> publish them I push the changes to my central git repo. I keep the
> online copy of the weblog itself behind a .htaccess file or at an
> unreachable URL so that the notes remain private. But I can read them
> from anywhere and download them onto any computer. 
> 
> The chronological and categorical organisation of notes that a blog
> provides has been a really useful way to structure all my thinking.
> But my approach involves a lot of command-line usage, understanding
> many different programs and how they work together, and the ability
> to fix things when they go wrong (which has happened a number of
> times). It is not easy enough for my friend who is not so
> computer-literate.
> 
> It doesn't have to be a blog. A wiki would do. Or generally, some
> sort of note-taking and organising application. Originally I just
> used text files and folders. But one not-so-obvious feature of the
> blog is that is seems to motivate and compel me to develop a writing
> habit, even though my blog will not be read by anyone other than me
> and sometimes my immediate supervisors.
> 
> So how can I provide something equivalent that is easy and fool-proof
> enough for my non-computer-literate friend? She happens to use
> Ubuntu. 
> 
> There are lots of free blog hosts on the Internet. But do any of them
> allow for private blogs? And would they allow her to easily download
> a local copy of all the notes, structure intact?
> 
> I could consider getting her an account with some webhost and
> installing a blog software. This might be the best thing. But again,
> privacy and backup are priorities. I don't want some random webhost
> losing her notes.
> 
> Or she could use Tomboy notes. The problem with these is that they're
> local to one computer. The always-available centralised nature of a
> web server is important. I noticed that Tomboy now has a
> synchronization feature and I could setup the SSH folder for her to
> facilitate this. But there is still the trouble that she has to be on
> a computer with GNOME and Tomboy to use them, she has to remember to
> sync often, and if a sync operation goes wrong it can destroy both
> copies, unlike with a version control system where any change can be
> reverted. Also I don't know how stable that feature is in Tomboy yet.
> 
> It's very important that it be extremely difficult for her to lose
> her notes. I know my notes, taken over a number of years now, are so
> valuable that it'd be a disaster for my studies if I lost them. But
> since I have mine in a git repository that is synced on several
> computers, one of which is backed up by the university, I'm not gonna
> lose them. But like I said this is too difficult for her.
> 
> As you can see I have the beginnings of a number of possible
> solutions but don't quite know how to complete them. Any hints? Any
> other possibilities I missed?
> 
> Oh, and free software is strongly preferred ofcourse!
> 
> Thanks
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> 
If she has access to the Internet during note taking, give Google
Notebook a try. It's a plugin in Firefox, stores the notes in your
Google account, not locally though but in Notebook you can export to
Google Docs and there save the doc locally.
You can have several notebooks, I'm not using it myself, but your email
made me think about what's out there.

-- 
Peter van der Does

GPG key: E77E8E98
IRC: Ganseki on irc.freenode.net
Blog: http://blog.avirtualhome.com
Jabber ID: pvanderdoes at gmail.com

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