commonplace books?

jogrebe
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commonplace books?

Postby jogrebe » Sat Jun 30, 2012 1:08 am

Has anybody used CintaNotes as a commonplace book? (google "commonplace book" if you don't know what it is)

I've been getting serious about wanting to get my notes from the books that I've read which are 99% quotations into order in the form of a commonplace book and am still deliberating between hardcopy or software. I'm giving it serious thought from how the tagging function can make a very nice index to make it easy to find things, but I am just a bit paranoid about long term accessibility. I know that it is possible to export it to txt or html so worse case I would only lose the organization interface, but I also realize that the longer I use CintaNotes the more of a pain this worse case situation would be as 50 quotations vs 5,000 would make a very big difference. Regardless if I end up going with an electronic commonplace book as of now CintaNotes would be the clear winner for the software package solution. I'm just a bit uneasy if I can depend upon entrusting my data to a project that will last for decades as compared to the safe route of plain text files or paper with a manual index.

If anybody has some insight about long term archive I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Midas
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Midas » Mon Jul 09, 2012 1:18 pm

I share most of your concerns, as I have seen applications come and go, as well as OSes and even system platforms (Amiga, anyone?)...

My main rule of thumb while evaluating any application is to check for the existence of BOTH an entry and exit path, AKA Input and Output, or even more to the point, how easy it is to import/export data -- as crazy as it might look, there are applications that won't allow you to export your data to a common format (s. Lock-in).

A second level for this concern is to check how separated the application is from the data -- and how human-readable it still remains after processing. Markdown and Pandoc are relevant pointers here, as is (on another level) the Rosetta Project of the Long Now Foundation.

CintaNotes has generally solved this by allowing for text export from day one. 8-)
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Noddy330
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Noddy330 » Mon Jul 23, 2012 2:25 pm

Midas,

I’m in full agreement with you on this. I also operate this way. I prefer not to trust my data to anything where it cannot be extracted as plain text or some widely used format. CintaNotes scores a big plus on ths aspect.

I avoid utilities that use a proprietary format – e.g. with backup utilities I like to be able to see what I’ve got backed up and able to extract files manually as required.

Nod
Midas
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Midas » Sun Jul 29, 2012 9:44 pm

Thanks, Nod -- it's good to know I'm not a solipsist weirdo... 8-)
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jogrebe
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby jogrebe » Mon Jul 30, 2012 8:22 pm

Thank you Midas, I was thinking about the file formats of the programs as compared to the ability to export the data into a plain text file format. You are right about the ability to export your data out is the most important feature of a program as compared to the file formats that the program uses.
Mark S.
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Mark S. » Tue Aug 14, 2012 3:59 pm

Why not do all 3 -- hardcopy, CN, and file.?

If they're just quotations, then they're not going to take up much space.

Get a three ring binder and a 3 ring hole punch.

When you find a quote, save it as a file inside a directory structure like ~/commonplace/book01/ . Give the file a page number. Open the file and then clip it into CN. Add the file reference to CN so you can recall it quickly later. Print out the quote, punch it and file it per its page number.

Make periodic backups of CN and the files (probably will fit on a small flashdrive).

The thing with hardcopy is that it is difficult to make back-up copies. And its pricey. With electronic format, you can stash copies off-site and in multiple places with little difficulty. You can carry a copy on your key-chain if you want.

Mark
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Midas » Wed Aug 29, 2012 10:29 pm

Great tutorial there, my dear Mark S. :)
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Guest » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:31 am

Thanks Mark for your further insight. To be quite honest I've come to a slightly different middle of the road solution of my own. Initially despite the plain export feature that was present the feature that made me the most uneasy was that tags were not included in the plain text export, so worse case if CintaNotes dies as a product and a new version of windows is not able to run it I am left with random bits of text in plan text files. Sure I could do an individual export on each tag if needed or use the less human readable xml export file. BTW does anybody know if the HTML export in the pro version exports the tags or not?

Although what I later realized is while CintaNotes may not be suitable for a long term Commonplace book it still has great value as a quote collection device with more complicated tags. Commonplace books are traditionally hand written as there is value in how the act of hand copying meaningful quotes into a book gives one a deeper connection to them as compared to a simple copy and paste, yet the biggest pitfall of commonplace books is that people early on get a bit too overly zealous of adding everything that it becomes too bloated and loses its meaning over all. Yet the ease of access of the tags of CintaNotes makes it ideal for capturing meaningful quotes as I encounter them to keep them safe for later as a safe filing system from which to later on pick out the best of the best that is what a Commonplace book is really about. Although for the actual Commonplace book I think I will be going with using SimpleNote, which I can sync to windows with ResophNotes and to my Android device with JadeNote, with each category in its own text file of numbered quotes. That way I will be able to have my Commonplace book with me at all times, yet if I really want to dig deep into a certain topic I can pull out CintaNotes to have the complete collection of my notes on the topic. Although at the same time I'd probably also add a commonplace book tag to CintaNotes so I can more easily keep track of what is the most valuable to me long term.

If anybody has any insights or suggestions I welcome any further feedback. It is wonderful to see that I am not the only very long term range data thinking person when it comes to my data.
jogrebe
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby jogrebe » Thu Oct 04, 2012 3:33 am

Opps did not realize that my session timed out on me in the middle of writing my response, the above was written by me.
Mark S.
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby Mark S. » Thu Oct 04, 2012 11:58 pm

If you had my hand-writing, you wouldn't think that copying it by hand forged a deeper connection!

I'm not sure why you would consider SimpleNotes to be more of a long term solution than CintaNotes. You have no idea what the people at SN are doing with your data, or how they are doing financially. You could wake up one morning and find it all gone.

Ok, so I'm not a real "cloud" person. Call me paranoid. ;-)

If you're going to use the cloud, then you could upload scans of your Commonplace book to Evernote. That way you'll be able to view your CPB online just like in the original.

CN pro does include tag info, but its all in HTML format. It would be a handy way for someone to carry and share, say, a list of contacts in a work place that won't let users run their own executables. Or to use on a linux based machine.

CN exports in XML format, which is the current universal text-based way of saving data. Its likely that you'll always be able to find some one or something that can convert the XML into some text format including tags.

Mark
jogrebe
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Re: commonplace books?

Postby jogrebe » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:27 am

Actually I do not have to worry about my data evaporating overnight with SimpleNote because they they have an open interface so third party apps can sync with it. ResophNotes is a freeware program that is a bit similar to CintaNotes in how it lets one create and tag notes each of which are stored as an individual plain text file with the option of choosing to keep them synced to a SimpleNote account. So even if SimpleNote was to die overnight without warning there would be no danger of lost data as I would have a complete copy of my SimleNote account data as a local folder on my computer. In many ways using ResophNotes to have a local copy of SimpleNote is no difference between people placing their CintaNotes data folder inside of Dropbox to sync between their home and work computers. I actually have both my ResophNotes and my CintaNotes data folders inside of my Dropbox folder so my commonplace book is on my local computer, on my external backup hard drive that is updated weekly and doubly in the cloud via Dropbox and SimpleNote.

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