For many years, I have been a prolific note-taker. Starting in college, I took notes on yellow copy paper, three-hole punched to fit my looseleaf notebook. I liked the broad, open space on the page, unrestricted by lines. I favored the unique color that easily separated my notes from run-of-the-mill white paper. Plus, copy paper was really cheap.
Even after college, I still took lots of notes. For a while, I switched to blue paper, but soon gravitatated back to yellow. After a while, I switched to half-size (5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches) but still bought reams of yellow paper.
Until last summer. Then, I switched almost exclusively to taking notes on my computer. I had grown tired of all the file drawer space my notes took up and the time it took to file and retrieve the notes. While I routinely took notes of long meetings or workshops on my computer, I still recorded notes from telephone calls and short meetings on my yellow paper. I figured it was time for a change.
So, since that time, I have typed and filed away hundreds of pages of notes using Sun’s StarOffice word processor. But alas, I was saving lots of paper and filing time, but retrieval was still questionable. And StarOffice was really overkill for 90% of my notes.
Enter DogMelon, a quirkly little company in Australia. I began to search for a suitable note-taking program that would match my desire for freedom of expression but satisfy my need for easy organization and retrieval. Most programs I tried were too restrictive – like lines on note paper I rejected 35 years ago. Then I found DogMelon Note Studio – literally a personal wiki, where I could take notes and easily organize and retrieve my thoughts, all to my heart’s content. Plus, it brought an unexpected bonus – all my notes could be synched with my new Treo 700p – so I could carry and update all my organized notes in the palm of my hand!
Note Studio isn’t perfect. It has some odd ways of doing things. I have already assembled a short list of features I would like to see in the next release. But in the critical areas of flexibility, organization, retrieval and speed, it really matches my style.
What I really haven’t figured out, though, is what a quirky name like DogMelon has to do with taking notes.
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Congratulations, Terry Gardner, for joining the ranks of bloggers in the outside world. For those of us who know Terry within Sun, we know Terry as a passionate advocate of using wiki and blog technology to build communities and enhance collaboration among many people. It’s great to see that he snagged the “wiki” handle on blogs.sun.com and is venturing beyond the Sun borders.
It just seems that the Participation Age is not yet as portable as I’d like it to be. So, as I await anxiously, but perhaps in vain, for some progress in this area, let me share the photo I tried to post with my Treo last night. It was taken with my Treo camera last Friday evening, but posted this morning the old fashioned way, using 
I’m in the midst of an interesting activity.