Macs In Life

I am not a very organized person by nature. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be, it’s just that I find it takes more time to use some of the organizational systems than it does to actually do the project. Particularly when it comes to the daily grind type of things. Call this person, write an article for that blog, test this software. I end up having ToDo’s and notes all over the place.

On a Mac, there are numerous software answers to keeping my data funneled into one area. Then I would have to go to that app, review all of the stuff, open another app and complete the task, which usually involves writing. This doesn’t work for me. I want all of my stuff in one place that I can then access and complete from within that app.

This is where NoteBook comes in. It would be nice to say that Circus Ponies NoteBook is a digital notebook and be done with it, but that would be missing 80% of what this program can do.

When you open NoteBook for the first time it opens an untitled notebook. Change the name and get ready to customize. You can change the look of the paper, the binding, the fonts, the page tabs and so on. The interface is appealing but not distracting. All of these settings can be adjusted at anytime via the inspector and made global to the whole notebook.

There is also a toolbar that you can attach to the top of your notebook that gives you access to all of the commonly used functions within the program. Which is , of course, customizable.

You can add a variety of page types. A note page, which is cell driven with the cells being hierarchal. This also turns into a todo list by adding a checkbox to the cells. There is a writing page, self explanatory. A Cornell note page. For those familiar with this note taking system. And a divider page. You can add a page tab and assign it a color

Within the cell context of the inspector you can add or remove a checkbox, assign due dates, add tags and change the background color. Because of the nature of the cells it makes a great nest-able todo list.

Hit return once to complete a cell, hit it again to create a new cell. Press Tab to nest the new cell.

The clipping service is what I find most useful. You can add clipping to an entire page, so that when you clip something it will create a new cell within that page. Or you can add clipping to a specific cell. This can become a hairy mess if you use clipping everywhere and then forget to turn it off once you are done with that page. The clipping is under the right click menu services and that list will grow and grow. I tend to enable clipping for whatever I need but once I’ve completed the task associated with it I turn off the clipping service. (If I type “clipping” on more time I’m going to shoot myself in the face.)

NoteBook also has a variety of sticky notes and flags that you can place anywhere on a page. If you place a flag at the edge of a page it will stick out of the edge of your notebook regardless of what page you are currently on. A cool effect and useful for bookmarking.

There is also a voice note function, in case you just don’t feel like typing. If you have a tablet device NoteBook takes advantage of Ink and allows you to draw and doodle all over the place. There is a highlight feature as well. The programers at Circus Ponies have also included mind mapping. If you decided to use most of these functions on one page it might look something like this.

I’ve used shoebox apps and have always wanted them to do more. With NoteBook, it stores all of that stuff, searchable too, and puts it in a format that I can then use without having to open additional programs.

Although NoteBook is not free, $49.95 for a standard license, it is well worth the price. Think about it, that console game is going to run you $60.00, and this software will actually be useful. If you qualify for the academic version the price drops to $29.95. It has a 30 day demo so you can test it out before you plunk down your hard earned cash. Be warned, if you try it, you will part with your money.

I mentioned searchable. I mean REALLY searchable. It catalogs every word, number, snippet, and sound. It then indexes all of this and allows you to root through it. This is without tagging anything manually. Add tagging and you have a whole new search criteria.