MS OneNote 2007
 

I've been using Microsoft OneNote 2007 for about two months and have found it to be very useful for both work and personal data. I keep a general work notebook for small projects, individual notebooks for larger projects, and another notebook for personal data. (Within the Personal notebook I have a section for travel. Within that section I created separate groups for Ludwigsburg, Germany, [for a trip I took in August] and for Puerto Vallarta, Mexico [for a two-week vacation in November]. The Ludwigsburg group includes tabs for the flight, directions to the town from Frankfort, relevant e-mails, and a journal of daily events.)

I'm just starting a new notebook for organization of research on all renewable energy topics.

My goal is to eliminate paper notes, or at least eliminate the storage of necessary data in paper notebooks. Before this I had four or five different paper notebooks that I was using in the same way that I'm now using OneNote, and I've always found it very difficult to find information in them.

Also, with OneNote, it's easier to turn project notes into progress reports for the client.

It's fairly simple to bring data into OneNote, including e-mails, clippings from web pages, PDFs, etc.

Does anyone else have experience with OneNote?

I have been wanting to give it a try, but thought it would be more cumbersome than my paper method. You really like it better? I like being able to have my paper notes handy anytime with out having to crank up the laptop.

Yeah- there's nothing like scratching through something you just completed with a big black marker.
Like you've won or something.

There is that. Often I'll get a call first thing in the morning while the computer is booting up. In that case, I'll take notes on scrap paper, then transfer them to OneNote. When I'm in a meeting I'll often take paper notes, then go to a restaurant and have breakfast or lunch and type up the notes while waiting for the food. This avoids the distraction of phone calls, e-mail and the Cellar, and I can expand on the notes while the meeting is still fresh in my mind.

I would recommend trying it. You can download the program and use it for free for 60 or 90 days (I don't remember which). That's plenty of time to decide if you want to continue using it.

I just saw the demo @ http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/on...672671033.aspx. Most impressive.

I have been looking for an option to digitize and put my notes into a search-able database. Would one note fit the bill?

It looks like it would fit the bill.

If you have a way to scan the notes in, this is definitely a good way to do it. OneNote can even recognize text in pictures (like street signs), or hand-written notes.

del.icio.us is great for organizing internet research

If it can understand my writing it will be a gift from Microsoft. I can't read my writing half the time