Messages

6151

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: March 01, 2006, 12:16 AM »

OK, since I'm already thinking about it, I will begin to post some of my comments about Surfulater:

--Surfulater--

First of all, I read the blog you (nevf) wrote about Surfulater's future and everything, it was excellent.  Now, most of my critique of Surfulater is hinging on the fact that the program will eventually become a full-fledged note-editing program.  If not, that most, if not all, of my comments will be out of context and somewhat useless.  I say this because I just don't see how I can use one program to capture a whole bunch of information, but then I can't add my personal notes about related items and separate items in the same program.  Information is information and I would like it all to be in the same place.  Okay, that being said...

Let me first start off by saying that I'm not a big fan of html/xml/java being used in standalone applications as it's core.  However, it is done right in Surfulater as in A-book (which I reviewed earlier), so even though I don't prefer it, I'm okay with it when it is used in a creative and useful manner.

Part of what I don't like about Surfulater is that it is not yet ready for taking notes in an efficient manner.  Sure it can capture anything from anywhere, but what if I just want to write a little paragraph or list?  I am restricted by the handful of templates that are there (clipboard, contact, code snippet, etc...).  And the templates are too bulky for me.  I don't need all that big title, references, and large borders on the right side.  I just want a blank area to type a little bit of text.  So, that's one of the reasons why I wouldn't use the program at this point.

Anyway, I'm too tired to write anymore right now.  But that is my complaint of Surfulater so far.  It's just not a notetaking application yet, and I need that more so than it's spectacular ability to capture content.  Let me put it this way, if you need to capture a lot of content without traditional notetaking (like you would in Keynote) than Surfulater is a great program for you, as in the case of jgiebeler, who sounds like he has to collect a whole lot of information from the web and other places.  But if you're looking to organize a lot of simple text and little bits of information, you will be frustrated with Surfulater, it's just not meant for that yet. 

So to bring this discussion all the way around to basic note-taking software, I will still assert that Mybase is closer to this goal than Surfulater.  Capturing is only one part of notetaking, and it is an add-in (a luxury) at that.  By that I mean that capturing is not the main goal of notetaking, so that shouldn't be the focus of this software genre.  It could be the feature that makes one program better than the other, given that all else is equal, but it shouldn't be the primary focus.  I think Surfulater's method of organizing it's articles with the multiple folders and (future) tags, is something that should be mirrored in a notetaking program also.  That will bring this genre to the next level.

6152

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 28, 2006, 11:46 PM »

jgiebeler, that's quite a first post.  I want to address all of your points, but I will start with your perprlexed comments regarding Mybase.  First of all, I can totally understand your reasons for asking what's the big deal about Mybase, because sometimes I find myself asking the same thing.  Here's what the good thing about mybase is:

1.  It's a very clean, FAST, efficient interface.  I know you made a point about user interfaces, but Mybase really does have a good interface.  It's not too bubbly and bulky, and buttons and the notes themselves don't take up too much space.  It runs fast, and the screen is kept very clean.  This is obviously subjective, but that's how I feel.  I'll talk about this more later, but I find Surfulater to be much more bulky than Mybase and the notes take up way too much space in my opinion.  And if you look at the other programs available, Mybase really is one of the very few that keeps their interface slim and efficient.  This is also why I think many Keynote users will like Mybase, because Keynote itself was also very slim and efficient.
2.  While it is true that Mybase is just a simple, heirarchy notetaker, the password feature is really holding me hostage to it.  You can assign a password to individual branches, and you just can't do that with Surfulater.  So that's a big plus for me.  I'll admit that Surfulater has a more advanced organization options, but the password can only be applied to the entire file, not to individual branches.
3.  Mybase has a very simple and effective way to link attachments to the file, it just lists it in a separate pane in the note, in a grid.
4.  Mybase also has a clipboard monitor, which I don't use, and it has several little utilities that make the program a little easier to use.  It has a utility to sort notes, it also has a special import/export utility.  There's a lot of little things under the hood that make it really nice.  And they are very practical things, not just fancy doodads.  And don't forget Mybase's web capturing utility, which is nice, although you can't edit the captures like in Surfulater.

So I completely understand your comments about Mybase.  The bottom line is this:  Mybase does simple notetaking very well, that's it.  It doesn't have the advanced options of Surfulater nor it's capturing ability, but that is where we might differ in what we need and how we want to use it.  When I collect information, it's just simple text, I'm talking minimally formatted (mostly unformatted) notepad-style text.  It's just information.  I don't capture too many webpages or other things that have pictures and styles to them.  I don't even use attachments all that much.  So, Mybase is better for me in that respect.  Now, like I said before, I am becoming weary of the tree structure because I'm feeling the need for something more progressive like in Surfulater, but until my other needs are satisfied first, I can' switch over yet.

Anyway, I will soon mention some more about Surfulater and my thoughts on it.

6153

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Windows system tray clock replacement

« on: February 28, 2006, 11:53 AM »

Yeah, hopefully app103's will be nice.

I don't think Alfaclock has a free version...it "expires" after a certain amount of time and you can't open it after that.

6154

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« on: February 28, 2006, 11:48 AM »

Ok, thanks.  That works.

6155

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« on: February 28, 2006, 11:02 AM »

How do I get rid of that bubble sound when I paste?  I unchecked the box to turn off the sound when I copy something to the clipboard, but I can't find the one for paste.

6156

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 28, 2006, 10:59 AM »

I mostly agree with you... except I think that trees should still be an option.  If you're trying to write a book or write an outline you want only certain nodes in a certain order.  The final implentation should allow both.  You should be able to throw things in, but then "hard assign" them as needed (they would still be in the database pool for other groupings, but that one group would always contain it).

Kevin

True...no one can complain if both options are available.  I'd love having the flexibility, that's for sure.  I think Surfulater kind of is an example of this sort of flexibility.  You can view the notes in the typical tree with all folders and notes displayed in the tree, or with just the folders displayed, and you can even see it in chronological format.  So it offers several different ways of looking at the same data.  In that respect, Surfulater offers a solution to the problem I have with Evernote, where you can really only view the data in chronological sorting.

6157

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 28, 2006, 10:15 AM »

Surfulater works this way. There is only ever one physical instance of a 'note', but it can be in as many tree folders as you want.

Surfulater also lets you link related 'notes' together so you build a web of related information. This is very useful.

Ah!  I didn't realize this about Surfulater at first.  Now I see some of the sophistication in the program.  Very cool!

I don't see a tight connection between the hierarchical tree and tags (labels, keywords whatever).

Tags are separate organizational method which can be used in a variety of ways. For example you get a list of all tags and selecting one shows all notes which include that tag. Tags could also be used in conjunction with filtered tree views. In this mode the tree would only include notes that included a certain tag or tags. With a good implementation of tags some folks might not even use the tree.

Time to go get some sleep.

You know, I think I agree with you here.  As my notes grow more and more in number, I'm becoming weary and tired of the whole heirarchy system.  In fact, when I'm too lazy and can't figure out exactly where a note is supposed to go, I place it in a temporary branch called "unorganzied notes".  Then I go back and place them in the correct branch later.  Of course, I wouldn't have this problem if I could assign the note multipe tags.  So, I think you've hit the nail on the head here.  But that being said, and correct me if I'm wrong here nevf, Surfulater doesn't seem to use a strictly tagging system.  It seems that Surfulater has the ability to place the note in multiple folders, but the folders are still arranged in the typical tree structure.  Maybe I am understanding this concept differently than you.

The way I am thinking about it is like in the PowerMarks program (for bookmarking internet sites).  I'll post a screenshot of it later, but in that program, there is no tree structure at all anywhere.  Instead, for each bookmark, you assign keywords (optional), and you can have the keywords displayed all in an alphabetical list in a pane on the left.  Once you select a keyword, all the bookmarks that match it will be displayed in the main pane on the right.  You know, PowerMarks might be a really good example of how to make a powerful notetaking program!  It would be kind of like Evernote in function, only better, because it would handle large amounts of notes a little more traditionally like Surfulater or Mybase and Keynote.

6158

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 28, 2006, 10:00 AM »

"PS  I wasn't aware of Keynote's capturing abilities!"

Sorry if I misunderstand your sentence here, but I'm interpreting it as you want to know more. (?)  If you already know or have since found out, please disregard this post!

If you go into the Keynote options, there is a whole panel for clipboard capture.  Basically Keynote watches the clipboard and captures the clip as it comes in.  There are some format modifying that can be done, and then the clip is sent straight to the active Tab in a new note.  My main problem is that the new node cannot be named on the fly.  Even if a dialog box popped up that you could type the name in would make it more useful in my opinion.

Kevin

Now that you mention it, I do remember that clipboard feature.  I guess I never used it at the time.  Thanks!

6159

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Windows system tray clock replacement

« on: February 28, 2006, 09:49 AM »

AARRGH!!  Alfaclock 2 just become shareware.  I can't bring myself to pay $30 for a freakin clock replacement.

6160

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« on: February 28, 2006, 12:58 AM »

Alright mouser!  You've done it again.  I am ditching ARSclip and using CHS now.  What can I say?  Good job, and I really appreciate it. 

6161

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 27, 2006, 11:05 PM »

I like where this discussion is going... because I too am in favor of the note-side of things!  Real quick note:  Keynote did have capturing capability.  It was a fledgling start but compared to many other apps of it's time it was special.

But, I have to jump back on my soapbox, sorry!  Note programs need to be able to store and relate information... this ought to be the primary function.  I should be able to build very rigid structures (a la Keynote) but I should also be able to build weak relationships and strengthen them over time.  And now, before I go off on a wild-eyed tangential dream (and repeat myself!)... I go.

Kevin

Ah yes, the tag/label thing.  I do agree with this also.  It would be extremely powerful to be able to build relationships instead of just a simple heirarchy.  I think the fundamental difference here is that a note won't be restricted to one location, but can be shared between several categories.  Like a note about Screenshot Captor can be under the categories of "Windows Utilities" and "Graphics Utilities", but the note itself is a single note, not copied in two places.  That is powerful indeed.

This is what Evernote can do, but Evernote is still somewhat restrictive in it's approach because while you can have categories like you mentioned, the fundamental sorting method in it is strictly chronological.  So if you have, say, hundreds of notes, it can be a bit messy to use because even if you go to a single category, it's difficult to find a note if their are a lot of them, because they will simply be displayed top to bottom in chronological order.

So I guess we want our cake and eat it, too!  We want to be able to have the traditional heirarchy, but we also want the notes to be governed by relationships.  Here's what I propose:  the categories or labels can be structured in the tree/heirarchy format, but the individual notes can be placed in multiple branches of that tree.  Again, I think Evernote is a living example of this right now, if you want to try it out.  Maybe Gmail can do this also...confirmation BrotherS?

PS  I wasn't aware of Keynote's capturing abilities!

6162

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard manager

« on: February 27, 2006, 07:16 PM »

I've used ARSclip for the last 2 years, I love it.  It's pretty full featured, unless you are doing advanced things with the clipboard besides just copying and pasting.

6163

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 27, 2006, 07:14 PM »

True, vegas...I totally think TexNotes is bloat and does way more than is necessary.  I was impressed with OneNote at first, especially considering it was a Microsoft product, but then I discovered these other smaller sharewares and I thought they do it much better.  (Funny thing, I actually got a free Onenote from MS last year...that was pretty cool).  WinOrganizer is okay also, but it does too much also, and I feel like it has a bit too much emphasis on style rather than content.

Mybase and Surfulater seem to hold the most promise at this moment, as far as the future of these programs is concerned.  I know mouser was interested in tackling this category (bold move!), so you know if he did it, it would be done right.  I'm a Keynote fan, so as it stands right now, I feel that Mybase is "there" more so than Surfulater.  But after reading about Surfulater's future, I have a feeling that it will be there in the future also.  (Like I mentioned before, I will have some additional comments about Surfulater later.)  Surfulater is far more advanced as far as capturing information than Mybase, but since I'm not doing too much more than just text clips anyway, I'm not at a point where I need to capture a lot of complex type of information.  Sometimes, if I can't capture a webpage, all I need to do is copy the text usually.

But, the last couple of days, I've really become convinced that the capturing tool has to be complemented by a full-featured notetaking application...and with me, personally, the note-taking features take precedence over the capturing.  What I mean by that is that if I had to choose between one or the other (notetaking or capturing), I would give up capturing before I gave up notetaking.  And I think a lot of former Keynote users would feel the same way, because Keynote had no capturing abilities whatsoever, and it is considered one of the best applications in this genre. 

6164

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 27, 2006, 11:03 AM »

Hi nevf, glad to hear you're open to discussions.  Cool!

So, thanks for the description of your software, that really helps.  However, from playing with surfulater and reading your description and plans for the future, I have to say that I'm pretty much convinced that you are going to be in pretty much direct competition with Mybase.  I just don't see it otherwise.  The only major difference so far is that you started out with the idea of capturing content as the basis for the program, and the other features were added later...whereas Mybase went the other way, where they started out as a information organizer, and the web capturing tool came later.  So needless to say, Surfulater is more advanced as far as a capturing tool, and Mybase is more advanced as an information organizer.  TO the end user, though, the two programs perform almost identical tasks, and hopefully, one of them will become the undisputed leader (hopefully!  So at least we can have some peace of mind! ha).

Personally, I like the direction you're headed with Surfulater, and your philosophies behind it.  I will use Surfulater a bit more, and then I will write more about what I feel is missing and what are it's strengths right now.  I wasn't too clear from your blog, but it looks like you're not going to be able to avoid making Surfulater a full-fledged notetaking program.  My reason for this is the following:

Let's assume Surfulater is the best way to capture information from the web.  Unless Surfulater is ALSO not one of the best notetaking programs, then where are we going to store and organize the information?  Are we going to use Surfulater to capture the information, but then port it somehow to another program that is a more powerful notetaking application or organizer?  I don't think so, that would be very frustrating.  Anyway, I'll have more thoughts on this later.

6165

What's the Best? / Re: AddressBook Utility

« on: February 27, 2006, 10:44 AM »

I don't remember BeOS, but it sounds cool, having it integrated into everything like that.

As far as Phonedeck, a few years ago, i thought that was the answer to my addressbook search, but now it's just too old to be of much use.

6166

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 25, 2006, 10:45 PM »

Yes, BrotherS, I thought of what you said about Google Mail when I read the description about FreeMind.  (and I remember your passionate posts on the subject when I was migrating my email to the Bat!)  FreeMind is a cool program, I was just playing with it.  I don't think it falls into this notetaking category, but it is a nice program.

I think mind mappers and notetaking are distinctly different subjects, and as such, I think we can rule those kind of programs out of the notetaking category.  I mean, there's so much gray area as it is about what kind of features should be included in a good notetaking program.  Mind mappers like Mind Manager and other programs serve a different purpose, in my opinion.  however, I think notetaking programs can benefit from some of the creative ways that mind mappers organize information, just like brotherS and Rover mentioned, about using labels instead of categories.  There have been a few programs that have done this and it's interesting to see how it plays out when you amass large amounts of information.  For example, EverNote uses labels (or categories) instead of the typical tree/folder heirarchy, and that presents an alternative to notetaking programs.

I wonder if it would be useful or even practical to combine the typical heirarchical system with the labeling system somehow?  Or have both options available in the same program?  Does anyone think that's even possible, without causing mass confusion, or a breakdown of the organizational system?

(PS thomthowold just mentioned what I said about Evernote while I was typing, so excuse the redundancy)

6167

LaunchBar Commander / Re: early screenshots

« on: February 24, 2006, 03:15 PM »

Could this possibly act as a start menu replacement?  Or perhaps this can also take the place of the start men organizer that I started a thread about.  Whatever happens, it looks good so far.

6168

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 24, 2006, 10:43 AM »

Hi nevf, I hope I didn't offend you with any of my comments...

Let me ask a couple of questions:
1)  Could you provide a more detailed description of what Surfulator is specifically designed for?  It would help us sort out it's role among all these information collection programs.

2)  Just like you didn't intend Surfulater to be a note-taking program, I don't think Mybase intended to be a web collection program, until their web capture plugin came out.  So, even though it was not intended, now it's there, and we (as users) are in a place where we see two programs with a similar featureset.  So we need to know what distinguishes one from the other.  This will help users pick the right program for themselves.

6169

Official Announcements / Re: Revitalizing the Reviews - Everyone Read in Please

« on: February 23, 2006, 04:15 PM »

Sounds good, I guess I will simply write it in my favorite text editor.

6170

Official Announcements / Re: Revitalizing the Reviews - Everyone Read in Please

« on: February 23, 2006, 03:31 PM »

To bring this thread back on topic...
Mouser, for those of us planning on doing some in-depth reviews, what's the best way to submit them?  For example, if I were to do a long, detailed review, I don't want to type it all up in this forum's posting box.  So, should I do it in a Word document or something, organized and formatted just right?  Or should I use some special format that is DC-worthy?  I don't want to give you something and make more work for you, by having to reformat and change fonts, etc.  So if you tell me beforehand, we can all learn the "proper" submission process.

6171

Official Announcements / Re: Revitalizing the Reviews - Everyone Read in Please

« on: February 22, 2006, 10:57 PM »

this is definitely getting off topic, but i'd just like to add that i disagree with this.

i'm learning more and more over time about the price that has to be put on TIME and SUPPORT.

it seems that companies who buy these thousand dollar software products are buying the support system associated with a company as much as they are buying the software itself.  maybe someone like sentinel who does enterprise level purchasing can jump in here, but it seems to me that a company would rather pay $5000 for some software and be confident that if they have a problem they will be able to pick up the phone and get some tech support, than pay $0 and then end up with no one to contact for help.

this is why youll see a lot of the open source business models that are basically all about suppot.  the software is free, but you can buy a support contract for major money..

OK, this will be my last thread here to keep it on-topic, but just to finish the thought...

True, mouser, I wasn't even thinking about that at the time.  Yes, the companies definitely do buy the support that comes with this software.  I think your exactly right.  For example, if SKM didn't give the support they do, I can see their software being pretty worthless, given some of its specific complexities.  Thanks for that last bit about open source business models...I always wondered (was amazed) by how companies can just write some of these complex programs for free and just give it away.  But if they get money for their support, I can see the value in it, so that makes sense to me.  I like that, because it gives the opportunity to an individual to play with the program on a personal basis, but also provides serious companies with the reliability and support they need to use the software on a professional level.

Ok, end of discussion (at least in this thread!).

6172

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 22, 2006, 07:17 PM »

my my my, how did I not try this program before now?

1.  is there a way to dock the search results window on the right like in Keynote?  I found that to be much more useful. (a can't seem to move this winodw

2.  also what about having tabs within each document file?  is this available or planned?

3.  what about import/export functions?

where is this yahoo group you spoke of superboyac?

Like I said, for some reason, no one knows about Mybase.  The word hasn't spread, I guess.  But to answer your questions:

1)  No, I don't think there's a way right now to dock the search results like Keynote (which is cool).  However, I just tried out the "test" version 5, and it seems like the author has completely redone the search method.  ALthough it's really buggy right now, here's what I can tell:  He's implementing the search-as-you-type filter feature (YES!) so that be able to override the feature you are asking for.  This new search feature autmotically generates a list of search results as you type, and I can't tell for sure, but this window may or may not be dockable.

2)  A lot of users have asked for this feature, and the author has decided not to do multiple tabs.  His reason for it is this (and it makes sense):  In version 5, he is going to allow having multiple database files open at once, and each file will have it's own tab.  So, funcionally speaking, you will be able to use it exactly the same way as Keynote's multiple tabs, only in this case, each tab is a separate file.  He said that being able to do multiple files AND multiple tabs are not only redundant, but would also be an organizational nightmare (and I agree with that).

3)  Mybase has pretty good import/export cabability, I know there is a special add-in for it.  I was able to bring in my AZZ information into it, using some kind of rtf export feature.  Can you import/export from Keynote?  I think so...but I don't think it's a direct method, I think a few steps might be involved.


The yahoo group for it is this:
http://groups.yahoo....m/group/MybaseForum/

6173

Official Announcements / Re: Revitalizing the Reviews - Everyone Read in Please

« on: February 22, 2006, 05:44 PM »

You know, since the LateLate 90's to EarlyEarly 2000's I haven't really heard much about lately is Music Software. No, not mp3 encoders or the latest "yet another mp3/ogg/flac player with playlists, skins and cddb" but real, hands-on music creations software. I'm talking the likes of Acid, ReBirth, Cubase, Fruityloops, ProTools, and the scads of free-and-shareware projects that sprang up around them. For that 4 years or so, a few well known names came up and are now almost forgotten due to being snatched up by bigger fish (e.g. Sonic Foundry = Sony orca-bait) or disappearing altogether. Superboyac mentioned a few and it made me wonder... where are they now? Who are the big players? The up-and-comers? The Open Source renegades (Okay, okay... I know the answer to THAT one... Audacity) Is the desktop DAW a dead subject? It's been a long time since I've been in "the scene" but curiosity kills me sometimes... If I had more time I'd do a Mini-Review of "DAW-Tools of Yester, er, uh... 6 Years Ago!! but, you know, if I had the time... I'd still be interested, though. Maybe even help out a tad...

-Edvard (February 20, 2006, 07:31 PM)

I think the open source market tends to be less accessible for these specialized, professional applications.  Most of the freeware and software that we talk about here are more like general "utilities" that help us do things (notetaking programs, little "snacks" to make life easier).  Once you get into the truly professional realm, the market becomes much smaller, and begin we're talking about software that costs hundreds of dollars and are used by professionals to accomplish professional results.  I think the major DAW tools fall in this category, along with software like MS Access, AutoCAD, etc.  So, while it would be nice for this kind of software to also join in on the whole open-source thing, I wouldn't expect too much.  I mean, it's not like a guy like you or mouser is going to spend his free time coming up with a Cubase replacement...that's pretty major.  Second of all, my expectations would be very low that even if someone ventured to make these programs open-source, that it would be as robust as Cubase or the other industry standards.  Sure, things like OpenOffice.org and the Gimp come around once in a while, but:
a)  Can you really say they are as good as the "industry standard" in all the subtle aspects?
b)  You just can't depend on these softwares to eventually go open source, so you're stuck with what's established anyway

It's an entirely different can of worms than shareware/freeware little applications.  For example, I just came back from training for a specific Electrical Engineering software called SKM (which I was really impressed with from a software standpoint, I'd write a review, but no one would care here!) and this software costs thousands of dollars.  Just imagine, if an open source program came out that was truly as good as this program, this entire company would be out of business...and quickly at that!  You have to remember that there are only a handful of users of these kinds of software and the word would quickly get around if something was out there free and just as good.

So what am I saying?  I don't know, really.  I guess when you get to a certain level of software (and you can tell what level that is) you know if you can expect a good open source program on that level or even several reasonable competitors, but for the most part, there are the industry standards, and that's that.

6174

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 22, 2006, 05:05 PM »

i'll admit i've not spent a lot of time with mybase, just a quick click through it, and i'm wondering does it allow editing of captured web content?

i thought the features in surfulater that allowed editing and amending extra notes to captured webpages was/is very handy.

-nudone (February 22, 2006, 02:36 PM)

Interesting...I don't think Mybase can do that, but I'm not sure.  I know this, though.  For each note, Mybase has a text part of the note and a webpage part, so even when the webpage is added, some text notes can be added to the same note, although it's not integrated in the webpage itself.  I would say this is one feature where Surfulater gets the nod, but, again, I'm not sure yet.

6175

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: February 22, 2006, 12:11 PM »

There's something wrong with Mybase's  advertising.  I'm surprised at how few people even know about it, and it's one of the better programs out there.  I think a lot the Keynote aficianados should gravitate towards Mybase more so than other programs.  The reason why I stumbled across it was because I was looking at webpage capturing programs at the time.  After I came across it, I realized that a good notetaking program should have a robust web-capturing capability, since there are a lot of little bits of information on the web you'll want to save.  Now, there are several programs doing this, including Surfulator and Evernote.  But I think in addition to the webpage capturing, Mybase's notetaking features are the most advanced and powerful.  (By the way, Mybase has just released a 5.0 test version, available on their yahoo group; they seem to have added several features that people like me have been asking for).  Surfulater, as far as I'm concerned, seems to be simply Mybase with fewer features.

Now, Evernote is similar to these two in that it can take notes and capture webpages, but that's where the similarity ends.  Evernote is a completely different animal than anything available, and it's very subjective as far as if it's good or bad.  The bottom line for me is...it's very interesting.  Evernote has completely done away with the tree structure of keeping notes.  Instead, you can lump notes into categories and subcategories (sort of like a tree structure).  The interesting part is that besides being able to place notes in categories manually, there are ways to do it autmotically.  For example, if your note contains the word "donationcoder", you can set up a category in such a way that it will automatically be included in that category.  Now, the automatic category feature has very limited detection parameters right now, but you can see how promising this can be as they add more powerful parameters to it.  The other extremely useful feature of Evernote is the fast filter-as-you-type search.  It sits at the top of the program and all you have to do is start typing in it, and it will filter the massive list of notes in real-time until you are left with the few notes that include the word that is being typed.  Not only will it actively shorten the list of notes, but it will also highlight the search word (or characters).  The other quirky feature of Evernote is that it chronological "tape" navigation.  There's a pane at the left side of the window which.  The program keeps track of the date and time the note was entered, and if left unfiltered, the notes are displayed in chronological order.  In fact, there is no other way to really organize notes.  Even once they are organized in categories, the notes displayed will be in chronological order.  So it is a little "inflexible" with respect to that.  But then again, Evernote is approaching this notetaking software with a different philosophy, so it's simply not meant to be used in the traditional manner.