Category Archives: Notes

Note-taking with Ulysses: beside NValt and Byword

Posted on June 22, 2013 by

Following Csaba’s post on Ulysses, I have been trying it for over one month. Somewhat surprisingly, I have used it quite often. For example, for drafting  grading rules, evaluating research proposals, writing a report for an Academic Board, preparing a … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Writing | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Custom Academic Searches on iOS

Posted on March 20, 2013 by

As a follow-up to my earlier post on academic searches on the Mac, here’s an easy way to replicate most of those custom searches on iOS. The key app is Drafts, which recently received a massive update. Among many other … Continue reading →

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Byword – an ideal tool for plain text writing on a Mac

Posted on March 16, 2012 by

I often need to write a piece of text between 200 and 2000 words: an abstract of a talk, a blog post or an administrative memo. This is longer and more complicated than an occasional note but much simpler and … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Writing | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Note-taking on a Mac revisited

Posted on August 21, 2011 by

David Sparks just explained in Macworld once again why plain text is best. This prompted me to update several entries from April and March on taking notes on a Mac. In this post, I describe some recent software developments and share … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Tags and folders | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Note taking software part 2: tango with a twist

Posted on April 9, 2011 by

In this post I focus on the practical side of my note-taking. The main application I use is called Notational Velocity (NV). I started to use NV with Simplenote following MacSparky’s excellent post on Simplenote – NV Tango. After a … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Tags and folders | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Note taking software part 1: what works and what does not

Posted on April 4, 2011 by

Academics need to capturing ideas and pieces of knowledge while doing other things: processing emails, sitting in meetings, listening to students’ presentations, reading books or articles, listening to podcasts, surfing the web. This capture process should be on the one … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes, Writing | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Notes: what’s in the name?

Posted on March 31, 2011 by

Naming notes is very important. Inconsistent naming can really contribute to your fears about note taking. Having to think about a name can interrupt your flow. Messy names will greatly complicate organizing and finding your notes. Thus, names of your … Continue reading →

Posted in Notes | Tagged , | 6 Comments