Note taking CGI?
 

Hello,

I have a need for a certain program, and wonder if it exists....

First, the problem space:

I run three businesses out of my home office. Let's call them Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. As I sit and work, periodically the phone rings. It's generally about one of the businesses. I punch up Notepad and start typing
as they talk. If I remember, I type which busines it is, and the date at the top. e.g.: "Charlie 7/3/09".

On my linux box, I have an Alpha directory, a Bravo directory and a Charlie directory. Buried in each of these is a Notes directory. Buried in the Notes directory are year directories, in those there are month directories and inside the month directories are the actual notes files. I name them names like "7-3-09".
The linux box serves this whole hierarchy to my Windows desktop via Samba. My motto:
"Don't put anything on a Windows box that you can't buy at the store!"

As the days pass, my Windows taskbar becomes full of Notepads. When it gets to be too much, I start saving them. Problems with this system include:

* I have to hop back and forth in the file hierarchy to get them saved. It's a surprising lot of work.

* Sometimes I forget to put the date at the top, and then have to make my best guess.

* Windows XP is not very robust. It occasionally
crashes. Then I loose whatever notes I was keeping.

What I'd like is:

An application that automatically saves my notes occasionally as I type them. It would also automatically
log the date when I typed them. It would also recognize whether I was typing about Alpha, Bravo or Charlie and save them in the right places.

I envision this as a CGI application. But before I
haul out my text editor and start writing Perl, I'd like to know if something already exists.

Anybody know of anything like this?

- Jerry Kaidor

Tomboy
 

Perhaps you are looking for something like tomboy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomboy_(software)

Tomboy is dependent on Mono (Microsoft .net frame work).
For a faster and smaller footprint you can have a look at GNote. It's a rewrite of Tomboy in C++ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnote).

As long as you're in Wikipedia®, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...aking_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki
& maybe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasKet_Note_Pads
(if you like KDE, it may or may not be equivalent to Gnote)


However, it sounds to me that at least half your problems are personal habits & organization. -- No rudeness intended, I suck at both too.

My last "Winders" box crashed in May of 2005, I moved its data drive to my Linux box & never looked back. BUT, I still remember this much about Notepad:

1. F5 inserts the date.
   
   
2. Any Notepad file whose 1st line is exactly '.LOG' will automatically insert a date stamp every time it is opened. Unfortunately, it's in the form "H:MM XM M/D/YY" (on my GF's US 2k)

Make a notes file template on your desktop named, say "notes_template.txt":
If you always use this for business notes, you will be sure to get a date stamp, & might be lucky enough to remember to indicate the business.

Make sure the template is read only, so that it can't get overwritten.


If you make your filenames "YYYY-MM-DD Business" or "YYYY-MM-DD Business - Subject" or "YYYY-MM-DD [A|B|C] - Subject", they will always sort nicely & will be easy to scan in a directory listing.

You might look at either simplifying your hierarchy or automating your filing.


Does this structure work for you when you are retrieving data?


Automation -- Doesn't XP have a cron equivalent? (Possibly named AT?)


Simplification or automation, both addressed (at least briefly) above.

1. My .LOG file notes template should minimize this.
2. Don't forget that "Winders" (even in NTFS?) saves the file create time, use this if all else fails. (Remember that "Winders" create time is NOT the same as Linux ctime.)

1. Then don't use it. ;) :-J (tongue-in-cheek -- emoticon not yet available as a smiley :()
2. Frequent saves, preferably automatic.

I don't know if XP can autosave a Notepad file while it's being edited. I do suggest learning to use ^S reflexively; but the other desktop choice to accomplish this is something like OOo Writer.


See comment directly above.


Addressed above.


Unless you're going to write a script (Lin or Win) that will scan for key words, you're going to have to learn to do this automatically as part of the note taking process. You can give yourself reminders.


Answered by others.

[QUOTE=archtoad6;3674342]As long as you're in Wikipedia®, check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...aking_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DokuWiki

*** Thanks. Yes, I found this. Haven't found the time yet to go dig into the packages.

& maybe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasKet_Note_Pads
(if you like KDE, it may or may not be equivalent to Gnote)


However, it sounds to me that at least half your problems are personal habits & organization. -- No rudeness intended, I suck at both too.

*** I do my best :).


My last "Winders" box crashed in May of 2005, I moved its data drive to my Linux box & never looked back.

*** Unfortunately, at this time, there are still specialized applications on the Windows machine that I cannot do without.

BUT, I still remember this much about Notepad:[list=1] [*] F5 inserts the date.

*** That's a good one!

[*] Any Notepad file whose 1st line is exactly '.LOG' will automatically insert a date stamp every time it is opened. Unfortunately, it's in the form "H:MM XM M/D/YY"

*** Another good one. The only thing is, when you bring up Notepad and start typing, no file is opened. I might be able to write an Autohotkey script to pop up a window, ask me the business name, then save a blank file in the appropriate place and sic Notepad on it.

In fact, I do believe that would solve the whole problem. My only beef with autohotkey is that it's
not Perl :).


I don't know if XP can autosave a Notepad file while it's being edited. I do suggest learning to use ^S reflexively;

*** Done that for years. Doesn't work with Notepad when you haven't done the initial Save yet, because there is no file.

WRT dates in the form yyyy-mm-dd : I have hundreds, maybe thousands of files with names in this format. I use it when I expect to have a large # of files in one directory. When subdirectories have alread divided things down to the month, I don't see the need.

WRT finding the data in the Notes: "grep -R" is my friend. Need the phone # of a vendor I used once, two years ago? "grep -R"!

Thanks for your help,

- Jerry Kaidor