An Interesting Use for NoteTaker

For a while I've been using NoteTaker, from AquaMinds. It's an outliner/notebook software where you can keep snippets of information collected from anywhere, from email to websites to pdfs. You can use it for keeping tabs on research for that dissertation, or to collect information you'll be teaching on for your students. Right now, it's available for OS X only, but they'll be releasing a Windows version later this year.

Well, now they've released version 1.9, with a plug-in technology that uses Java. At first glance, you may wonder why do that - oh, it's just some other gimmick they've come up with to keep themselves in business. But when you download their demo and take a look at the What's New notebook (by going to Help menu and clicking on What's New, then on Technology Preview), the more it is really impressive what new uses they've come up with.

Here's an example:

Basically, what this database plugin does is to query the database server and then give you a list of what is in that particular table. Now, I'm sure you're starting to get an idea of what one could do. If you can get a simple list of animals, why not be able to automatically get a list of all the yarns you purchased during November, 2004 that cost between 5 to 7 dollars per skein? You could set up a notebook page with details about your project - one entry of your thoughts, another entry for your sketches, and an entry for the database query. It's one of those things that make you go “gee, why didn't I think of this before?”

Hopefully, I can get my database issues resolved when my BIL comes over to take a look at laptop so I can get going with cataloguing my yarn and fiber collection.