There's an interesting article by James Fallows in The Atlantic Online about data managers (Nov. 2006). It may be that this strikes you as a strange topic for a blog on blooking. But when I wrote about LifeHacker Gina Trapani's use of DevonThink Pro to suck her blog and help her sift gazillions of posts into something manageable, I noted that the commenters had offered alternatives to DT. I wanted to follow up on that.
Fallows writes that we're looking for three things in a data manager: "effortless data collection, tagged and untagged storage, and flexible retrieval options." The programs he looks at are "less ambitious than OneNote [mentioned by one of the commenters] and Chandler and come from smaller enterprises."
- EverNote - recommended as a starting point
- Net Snippets - quick and effective, especially for text-based research projects ["As of March 2007, we have decided to discontinue the development and marketing of the Net Snippets line of products."]
- Surfulater - good for comments, classifying, editing
- Onfolio - acquired by Microsoft, now part of Windows Live Toolbar
- Google Notebook - bare-bones
- AskSam - “free-form database” programs.
"retrieve according to precise, structured queries. ('Show me all notes from June 2001 that belong to the following two categories and contain these three keywords.') - Advanced Data Management
Mac programs
- DevonThink - so-so incollecting data, but it is superb at organizing and searching what you have amassed.
- Tinderbox - a wonderful tool for arranging ideas, seeing, and changing the relationships among them, and generally doing creative work.
Note, I have tried none of these and have no idea whether they would work with your blog-to-blook project. If someone has used one of the above or knows of some other software, please share :-)
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