Just noticed this today at Google Labs:
http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html

Google Notebook - Clip and collect information as you browse the web.

• Clip useful information.

You can add clippings of text, images and links from web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.

• Organize your notes.

You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes to stay organized.


• Get access from anywhere.
You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.


• Publish your notebook.
You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public.

Seems like a lightweight solution compared to some of the apps discussed here, but an interesting idea anyway.

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I've been trying TaoNotes but oy vey! The UI is definitely a big speed bump, but there are some other things about it that drive me right up the wall.

1. You can't get rid of the standard databases "todos" and "clips" or even rename them. The program keeps rebuilding them. There are just some weird gaps in file handling in general - creating & managing tabs is a bit difficult and inconsistent.

2. The balloon tips! Please make them stop! "I have saved my file again!" "An hour has gone by!" It's like having a 3-year-old hyped up on cola and candy bars living in my system tray. Looked and looked for an option to configure or just disable these, but no such luck.

3. In the list view, you can change some attributes directly by clicking on them (priority, flag, progress, label) but others just bring you to the editing form. For example, click on "context" and you're suddenly in the editing form - but you're not on the right tab to set the context! So just by looking at what comes up, you can't really see where the information you requested/wanted to enter is supposed to go.

Vadim, I can see you have a lot of creativity and good ideas. Tao Notes shows a lot of promise. But I fear you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your app's UI design. We're all used to certain conventions in the UI of an application. It's OK to break those expectations once in a while, if there's a definite benefit. But Tao Notes breaks so many of them, and in such unexpected ways, that it becomes inscrutable. Yes, it's faster to mouse over a part of the screen to close a window rather than clicking a small X box or a button, but it's also easier to do this accidentally and interrupt your workflow. And the first few times it happens, the user gets hit with a "what just happened?" experience where it looks like the data they were working on just vanished.

If you don't have the time to really document the app, perhaps you could just be a little more judicious in your default settings. Turn off as much of the "gee-whiz" as possible by default. Let your users get used to the basic features. Then, IF THEY WANT TO, they can track down and enable the more "out-there" kind of stuff.

BTW - I still can't quite figure out how or why you'd "execute" an item. :-[

And PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE add an option to disable those balloon tips!  :D

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I've used a PDA for years. I've always used Windows-based handheld units - stylus only, no keyboard. They are great for jotting quick notes - shopping list, that great idea that hits you out of the blue - but not so great for any kind of extended text entry. It can be done, it just isn't fun. I wouldn't want to take meeting minutes on a PDA, for example, unless I had an external keyboard.

I have never bought a NEW organizer. My rationale was always that I didn't want to spend $500+ on something that would be garbage the first time I dropped it on the sidewalk. Buying 2nd-hand PDAs on eBay is definitely the way to go. The things depreciate like mad, so you can get great deals. This seems to be an item that people use once or twice, then put in their closet for a year or two before they decide to sell it. Also, the market has shrunk of late, with Palm and Treo merging and a bunch of manufacturers abandoning Windows Mobile/CE. So you get a better selection if you shop among all the units that were ever available, instead of just what's being made now. And there have been some interesting devices made over the years. Some options to google include:

CASIO Cassiopeia - This is the model I have always used, and it works fine. Despite its small internal memory, my old E-115 can play movies and MP3s from a compact flash card, although doing so whacks the battery life. The battery is just now starting to flag after about 2-3 years of service. I think it cost me $60. Bonus link: Play videos on any PDA with the Core Media Player (http://www.tcmp.org/)

Psion 5MX - If you prefer a keyboard, this has one of the best PDA keyboards ever made. It's a grayscale unit, and good ones are hard to come by and still rather expensive (relatively - about $150 - $200.) It's also a NON-MICROSOFT piece of tech, if that matters. I think this unit probably provided the best compromise between a laptop and a PDA. Fits in a coat pocket or belt pack, instant on, etc. but has a full suite of productivity apps as well as the PDA basics like datebook, voice recorder, etc. Not sure if it plays MP3s or not, though. Bonus link: Just the ones you'd want on eBay.

Vadem Clio - This was one of a small number of PDA's based on Windows CE that ran at full 640x480 resolution, offering another angle on the laptop/PDA compromise. (The Psion 7 also went this route.) It combined a touchscreen and keyboard in a "flip-over" design that let you use the unit as a laptop, a tablet PC, or something like a digital picture frame. Bonus link: Egregious Clio pictures.

And yes, the first thing you do is load it up with freeware. That's the fun part! One of my personal favorites for this is PDAGold: http://www.pdagold.com