Recent Posts

401

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 16, 2009, 05:51 AM »

Thanks iphigenie!
Killer list!

Text-only PIMs like vimoutliner are out, I started with this in 2006 and soon realized I need more than plain text.

Surprisingly enough, none of the tools would work for me, even remotely.
Here are my requirements:

• Keeps indentation, Main text area must be an outliner in itself (discards: scrivener)
• Table support, basic formatting (bold, headings)
• History (back to previous edit location, like a browser, or ctrl+o in vim)
• Does not need much mousing to start notes (discards: basket, treenotes)
• Search must be useful (all notes, highlight all matches). Discards most apps (!)
• Paste html keeps formatting, url location. Discards most apps (!), none keep the url location but onenote and rightnotes. This should be easy to implement
• Import/export keeping most formatting. Prevents lock-in. (discards: onenote)
• Copy/paste to a word processor keeping most formatting (discards: lyX, although no big deal)
• Deals with images by just pasting them
• Good overview and moving items around

402

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 15, 2009, 11:04 AM »

Who here would be interested in bundling together a nice donation for some OSS author to either develop a good notetaker for linux or bring new features of the existing ones? We'd need to agree on which project to support, if we do the latter.

403

General Software Discussion / All Programming is Web Programming

« Last post by urlwolf on August 14, 2009, 02:26 PM »

Atwood at his best:

Computer Science spent the last forty years making languages which were as powerful as possible. Nowadays we have to appreciate the reasons for picking not the most powerful solution but the least powerful. The less powerful the language, the more you can do with the data stored in that language. If you write it in a simple declarative from, anyone can write a program to analyze it. If, for example, a web page with weather data has RDF describing that data, a user can retrieve it as a table, perhaps average it, plot it, deduce things from it in combination with other information. At the other end of the scale is the weather information portrayed by the cunning Java applet. While this might allow a very cool user interface, it cannot be analyzed at all. The search engine finding the page will have no idea of what the data is or what it is about. The only way to find out what a Java applet means is to set it running in front of a person.

I agree, give me data in plain formats I can use rather than fancy interfaces anyday. Ideally both. This is why the unix ideals (everything is a file; config by editing files, etc) are still working.

Pretty soon, all programming will be web programming. If you don't think that's a cause for celebration for the average working programmer, then maybe you should find another profession.

404

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Xara Xtreme Special Version (XS) 4 Free On Gizmo's TecchSupportAlert.com

« Last post by urlwolf on August 14, 2009, 12:39 PM »

 
it doesn't install on windows server 2008 64.
My god, how many problems (!). Many, many apps do not work at all. The installer just dies.
Anyone testing this on any win 64 platform? Just in case it's w64...

405

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 14, 2009, 06:26 AM »

more on the dead of outlining software:

The two main causes of the death of PIMs are,
1) Incompatibility with new operating systems and the failure of developers to update their PIMs to operate in the new OS, and
2) Complete discontinuance of development of a PIM.

My discussion here is limited to PIMs used for information, collection, storage and retrieval, as opposed to those, such as single-pane outliners, used for authoring.

If one uses a PIM only for short-term projects, the obsoleting of a PIM may not be critical, although there will be the aggravation of finding and learning to use a replacement PIM.

But for long term use, the possibility of PIM death can be devastating, unless the PIM has the capability to export its stored information into files using standard formats such as rtf, html and jpg.  Even with this capability, such exporting can be an exceedingly long-term, tedious task, UNLESS the PIM has a batch export capability, or one can use a macro program to create the equivalent of batch export.

Is there, or could there be, an alternative approach?

What about saving information in standard file formats and using other tools to simulate PIM capabilities?  (This would enable cross-platform compatibility.)

406

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA - Macro to Convert OneNote Output to Word Headings (Styles)

« Last post by urlwolf on August 14, 2009, 05:43 AM »

I'd love to have this too. I'd also pay for it.
Maybe we can bring it to the office2010 developers. I posted it here:
http://makeofficebet...note-and-word-easily

If you like the idea, please vote it up.

407

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 14, 2009, 05:37 AM »

I'm reading the forums here:
http://www.outliners...com/topics/tlist/608
(nice resource)

Looks like lots of companies making outliners are going out of business (e.g., Ultrarecall), partly because Microsoft entered the scene with oneNote and pretty much outclassed everyone (!). Others reacted by increasing prices (e.g., surfulater) or cutting them down (TexNotes)... There are some interesting developments (zoot coming back with version 6, connectedText, etc) but things look bad.

This is a pity. There is lots of talent in this subclass, I'd hate to see innovation die.

Under linux, the situation is even worse. Nothing comes close to a working solution for me. This sentiment is echoed in those forums. So after spending 2 days seaching for substitutes, I'm sticking with onenote and forgoing the possibility of something portable and open. If it's difficult to surviving in the (commercial) windows world, chances of a strong linux app are smaller even. BasKet had no main developer for more than a year, and just recently picked up speed (still, light years behind onenote, and several design decisions make it not useful for me, e.g. one has to click to start a note, no tab indentation etc).

408

General Software Discussion / Re: notetaker that uses odf as default?

« Last post by urlwolf on August 13, 2009, 06:37 AM »

Thanks Zaine, superboyac.

I tested both TexNotes (Baroque as hell) and AM textnotes (too basic). None would substitute onenote.
I've spent a few days already, I think I'll end my search emptyhanded...

409

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 12, 2009, 08:23 AM »

ok after tesing under wine and crossover, rightnote is not a good solution.
It doesn't keep formatting when copying from the web, nor the url the snippet came from.

Anything that works on linux for web snippets and has a good search?

410

General Software Discussion / notetaker that uses odf as default?

« Last post by urlwolf on August 12, 2009, 02:02 AM »

Is there any notetaker that uses odf as default? or any open, portable format...
I'd like a notetaker that works on any OS, and saves to a format where there's no vendor lock-in and that supports equations (that takes out rtf). It must be easy to open with normal word processors. (that takes out latex, lyx).

Any ideas?

I know surfulater uses xml (nice) but I cannot get used to it, plus it's not multiplatform.

Thanks

411

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« Last post by urlwolf on August 10, 2009, 07:55 PM »

ok, I found a solution to break free of onenote and thus windows
rightnote is good enough. It should run on wine fine (note: I haven't tried yet)

here's a quick rundown:

rightNote
positive

• can edit/search an External file (example html); this is killer for sharing
• portable; stuff inside a sqlite db
• search is fast
• has excel-like tables
• code highlighters
• makes a line break like jedit
• better visibility
• can bold, tag the notes
• icons
• wrap note title

negative

• no "print to onenote", no good for filling pdfs
• no in-line sums (but google does that) also one can create a spreadsheet table
• no different notebooks
• could be abandoned
• no folding
• no roundTrip export/import. Loses indentation, headings
• not very fast creating a table

Everything stored in a sqlite db, so push comes to shove, you can retrieve your notes brute-force. No more vendor lock-in.

412

General Software Discussion / Re: TreeSheets - an interesting and innovative note taker (freeware)

« Last post by urlwolf on August 06, 2009, 12:44 PM »

I just found rightNote and it might be my ticket out of oneNote dependency.
Should work well under wine too...

413

General Software Discussion / Re: Life with Linux: The series ... [Bob Sutor, IBM]

« Last post by urlwolf on August 06, 2009, 02:31 AM »

Personal opinion follows...

Yes, the thing is that negative feedback is useful (I think).
I religiously read everything Zaine posts here.
I always like it.
Since he has 'clout', I keep reading every single article from sutor, not believing that they were just fluff.
If I find something that Zaine has missed, it's my duty to give him feedback ASAP.

414

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 evaluation

« Last post by urlwolf on August 06, 2009, 02:26 AM »

Gizmodo reviews the 'master CD'...

They like it.

415

General Software Discussion / Re: Life with Linux: The series ... [Bob Sutor, IBM]

« Last post by urlwolf on August 04, 2009, 03:45 PM »

Same feeling here. zero content. Please refrain posting similar stuff in the future (although I appreciate the effort). I go back and forth between Linux and win and appreciate good posts on this.

416

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon System Backup 2010 Release Candidate (free)

« Last post by urlwolf on July 24, 2009, 05:36 PM »

no windows server 2008. I'm still looking for a system backup tool that doesn't cost an eye and a leg...

417

General Software Discussion / Does MySQL care about Windows users? in short, no

« Last post by urlwolf on July 23, 2009, 08:27 AM »

  Does MySQL care about Windows users? in short, no

This is very sad.

If you want to program, then linux offers the best environment (as l long as you stay with OSS). The windows ports are horrible to work with.

But in my experience, everything else -not programming- is worse under Linux (text editing, word processing, video, sound, etc).

When is this going to end? I'm tired of having to run VMs just to get the best of both worlds...

Other than python (that sorta works ok on windows), most programming tools from OSS get only passing attention on Win. Windows Ruby is really a disgrace.

Possible solutions:
1- convince OSS guys to test on windows... not gonna happen.
2- get Linux to a point where all the other things are tolerable. Not gonna happen either. Commercial software has the edge, and it doesn't make business sense to move to linux.

Anyone feeling creative bold enough to post a solution that could work?

418

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by urlwolf on July 21, 2009, 01:59 PM »

to set bookmarks within a page, i use the aptly named: Book Text Mark.

-lanux128 (June 30, 2009, 10:52 AM)

I use diigo. It's a killer app. Beats delicious.

419

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by urlwolf on July 21, 2009, 08:31 AM »

got mine!

420

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by urlwolf on July 20, 2009, 04:00 PM »

I just got my Google Wave account... anybody want to wave with me ? (ha! ha!)

Sandbox Wave account name: [email protected]

-PPLandry (July 20, 2009, 11:49 AM)

Me neither. How did you get yours?
When did you put in your application, and what did you say there?

421

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« Last post by urlwolf on July 19, 2009, 02:23 PM »

This is Marvin:

422

General Software Discussion / Making portable firefox my default browser. How?

« Last post by urlwolf on June 27, 2009, 02:02 PM »

This is a silly question, but I cannot find an answer.
I've spent a while trying to make portable firefox my default browser.
Right now it's IE, even though it says in options that it's not, and it says in FF's options that it is.
How the hell did I get into this mess?
I bet there's a registry hack to fix this...

Anyone knows?
PS: this is for my laptop. My desktop, with a parallel config, does the right thing. windows server 2008 both.

423

General Software Discussion / Re: COMPLIMENT: Liquid Story Binder XE - Black Obelisk Software

« Last post by urlwolf on June 26, 2009, 07:37 AM »

@Curt: thanks for the heads-up.
I tried it, and it crashes when I start typing. (windows server 2008 64bit  may be the problem). Anyone having this problem?

424

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Actual Window Manager mini review

« Last post by urlwolf on June 26, 2009, 07:28 AM »

I'm using WinSplit Revolution. Althoug a lot more basic, it does all I need and it's free.

425

Developer's Corner / Re: What (programming) languages are represented?

« Last post by urlwolf on June 23, 2009, 04:02 PM »

Has anyone used AIR or Silverlight?  Can anyone comment on the language structure?

-wraith808 (June 23, 2009, 10:16 AM)

AIR is (I think) a way of packaging your actionScript code. ActionScript is close to javascript, but with strong typing and better OO features.

I do R, python, ruby, perl, ActionScript. Never realized the list would be this long. Dabbling with many others. Need to learn java seriously, but I'm afraid it'd be a huge effort for a language that people critisize so much and, quite honestly, looks like crap and needs humongous IDEs.