Brett Terpstra

I love tiny note taking solutions. My favorite app of all time is (was?) nvALT [1]. The simplest in-browser solution actually requires zero pages or apps, see this bookmarklet [2]. It opens a full-page text area. No saving, but immediate and does not need a network connection. Alternatively, not as easy as a publicly available web page, but if you want to have a very fast and minimalist self-hosted note taking app (with fast search and the ability to attach files and download websites), check out my small project called Textpod [3]. [1]. https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2]. https://bookmarklet.one/bm/quick-note/ [3]. https://github.com/freetonik/textpod

Note nvUltra, the successor to this program, has been in development/private beta for several years[1,2]. I've been meaning to make my own web-based version of Notational Velocity that adds a few novel features of my own. (Plus inspiration from apps like TaskPaper and Drafts) There are a lot of Notational Velocity clones; currently my favorite is: https://simplenote.com/ [1]: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2]: https://nvultra.com/

> As someone who uses the keyboard for everything, my experience so far has been that macOS is much weaker at this. Based on what I’ve seen, this isn’t true. macOS supports an amazing amount of keyboard mapping capability. There’s a serious rabbit hole of macOS keyboard remapping; you’ve been warned: https://brettterpstra.com/topic/keybindings/

Probably worth noting the actual project page: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

nvALT: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ Ubuntu's Unity Slackware (not technically dead at all, but it was so great, back in the day). Google Reader

On Desktop Safari the reading list is stored in a Bookmarks plist file you can grab and filter out Reading List items from, might be worth having some little desktop util for a 1 time sync to move people onto your platform? It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing. Here is an example with some code showing how someone did it so they could upload it to Pinboard: https://brettterpstra.com/2015/01/06/reading-list-catcher/

For anyone that hates resizing windows in general on a mac, I've found the combination of using a Hyper Key[1] + Moom[2] to be amazingly ergonomic. Here's a quick demo[3] of what this looks like on my machine. [1] https://brettterpstra.com/2017/06/15/a-hyper-key-with-karabiner-elemen… [2] https://manytricks.com/moom/ [3] https://my.supernotes.app/share/wire+unaware+noble+meadow

This looks great, and obviously the website does one thing well too. One of the entries is for Bunch [1] which is something I spent years hoping to stumble upon only to do so now when I've moved to Linux. Oh well. [1] https://brettterpstra.com/bunch/

I am very surprised nobody has yet mentioned Notational Velocity, or better yet the fork nvALT [1]. I hate any _friction_ to writing a note. I just want to get it out of my brain (or find it, if a previous thought) as quickly as possible. With nvALT you start typing and it is searching immediately, but if there is no match and you hit enter you are now writing a new note. Each note is stored as a text file, and so is findable via other search methods on your machine, and is easy to sync via your chosen technology. I have tried a variety of approaches as I love the idea of linking between notes, and adding images, and tagging and all that stuff. But in reality all of that adds friction, and so prevents me from making the note (which is the critical part). [1] https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

I have recently started using Fsnotes [1]. Its based on nvAlt [2]. If we are focusing on networked notes, fsnotes supports it out of the box and best part, it is offline; stores files as markdown on my local machine, which I really want. Not sure if Roam or Athens are offline apps, didn't dig too much into them. [1] https://fsnot.es/ [2] https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

Even better, hyper key: https://brettterpstra.com/2017/06/15/a-hyper-key-with-karabiner-elemen… (Functions as ESC if pressed alone, otherwise acts as hyper key which is great to use for keyboard shortcuts)

I like plain text backed in google drive. I use The Archive [0] but Notational Velocity [1] is popular as well. I don't have a bookmark system though. This book is an excellent explanation of a plain text knowledge base system [2]. [0] https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ [1] https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/1542866502/

I kind of wish I was in that boat right now. I made a highly praised window manager[0] for macOS that some people[1] have reported some performance issues with. But I can't reproduce the issue, possibly because I have 16GB of RAM and don't use it all. Maybe I don't have enough Electron apps running and should install Slack and others (I run Slack in Safari when working with clients), not joking that literally seems to be the main environment difference. [0] https://sephware.com/autumn/ [1] http://brettterpstra.com

Some other reviews: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/8rnr8l/uhk_revie… http://codingsupply.com/ultimate-hacking-keyboard-review-worth-the-wai… http://brettterpstra.com/2018/08/17/i-wrote-a-review-of-the-ultimate-h… Franky, the UHK has received extremely positive reviews with the exception of Jamie's.

I switched to this: http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ Now, if I could just find something as brilliant for this Surface Book 2.

It really is great, I've been using it for years -- and all my notes are stored as plain-text (markdown) files. Only downside is images really. If you want to try it, check out this more-recently-updated fork. The creator of the fork is apparently working on a replacement that I'm rather looking forward to trying. http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

And Brett Terpstra -- the programmer of nvAlt -- uses 1Writer as well. He reviewed 1Writer in 2015 and continues to recommend it. http://brettterpstra.com/2015/01/28/my-pick-for-best-ios-nvalt-compani…

nvNotes[1] was great, but the latest version removed Dropbox syncing (because the developer was using an older API that is being deprecated) and now it's... no so useful. Combined with nvALT[2] on the Mac, this used to be a great combo. [1] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nvnotes-note-taking-writing-app/id7006… [2] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

Just wanted to throw out there for any macOS users I use nvALT [0] as a client for simple note on my macbook and love using it as a scratch pad for holding data while working on a problem or just a general "I need to make a quick list on the fly here and then copy it into something else later". I have mine set to a hotkey so I can hide/show it quickly and it's great. [0] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

I went with one not on your list - nvALT, backed by an encrypted Dropbox store. Love the minimal UI. http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

I tried this years ago (it's been around for quite some time) and found better results with his Marker[0] bookmarklet. It only converts whatever is selected on the page. It eliminates 1 out of the 2 issues I had with markdownifier, which is it's inability to figure out what to keep and what not to keep on the page. The second issue I have affects both. Neither locally downloads linked content. Not having the images come down with the article means if the article were to go away, your local copy would be worthless unless you manually saved those pictures and altered the links pointing to them. [0]: http://brettterpstra.com/2013/12/22/marker-web-selections-to-markdown/

I can strongly recommend Notation Velocity for these use cases (or rather, nvALT[1]). It's perfect for creating massive amounts of short snippets, stores them as plain text files, has a pretty novel full-text search and navigation interface (using basic vim bindings even!), and a whole bunch of other features that doesn't clutter things up (markdown, for one, as well as basic wiki-like linking between notes). My current NV 'library' contains more than 1600 files, ranging from command snippets to journal entries to on-the-go wifi passwords to project meeting notes and lists and whatnot. On top of that I have two separate libraries that contain more sensitive data. Oh, and using Dropbox or the like, you can sync the notes between computers, and with SimpleNote (as well as some other apps) you can access all of it on your mobile device. [1]: http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

For note taking I use the open sourced Notational Velocity [1] (actually I use nvAlt [2] which is a fork that has some extra features like Markdown support). My two favorite features are that it can store your notes as plain text files in a folder of your choice, plus there's syncing through Dropbox or Simplenote. Notational Velocity is a Mac app, but with Simplenote you get x-platform support. [1] http://notational.net/ [2] http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

I use Bartender[1] for ~the same purpose. I love the idea of a minimal menu bar there's just too much stuff I might want to check occasionally. So Bartender just shows me my time tracker (important for client work), Fantastical (I could probably ditch this) and battery status; everything else is in the hidden Bartender draw until I need it. Just one hotkey away - I bind it to Hyper-B[2] [1] http://www.macbartender.com/ [2] http://brettterpstra.com/2012/12/08/a-useful-caps-lock-key/

Those are exactly my complaints about Evernote. I'm on OSX most of the time, and I use nvAlt: http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ It's blazing fast, moving at the speed of thought. You can also set it up to sync notes as plain text on to Dropbox. I still use Evernote for its great web clipper and for saving PDFs (though I suppose I could save them in Dropbox instead and search them using Spotlight).

I used Notational Velocity but I switched a couple of years ago to one of its forks: nvALT: http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ Which adds a lot of very useful features, I can heavily recommend it.

Brett Terpstra has a great post on how to do this in Mountain Lion: http://brettterpstra.com/fixing-virtual-hosts-and-web-sharing-in-mount…

This simple idea changed my life: yyyymmdd-topic-title I derived mine directly from a comment [1] on a writer (as in book authors) oriented forum. That one comment is worth a full blown website on its own. I don't need tags. Willing to come across patronizing and say you don't either (not for personal knowledge management). Pretty soon you need to sort tags, find tags, cluster related tags, create tags of tags and other goofy gunk (see tiddlywiki to scratch this itch) I keep things organized under 10 topics (so far used just 7). All plain text files. At the moment it lives in simplenote [2] (thats how I found the link above as a demonstration of its utility). I found notational velocity [3] and its alter ego NValt [4] useful when I had a Mac. Did not look for alternatives on windows. I just email myself these days. Look in my comment history for some tip around how I use that. All of this is good for digital stuff. But for the deep, analog stuff that really matters, nothing, nothing beats the utility of taking notes in a 1 subject college notebook with a Pilot G2 ( i use a .38). I use the right side only (trade off for using cheap books). First page is the index. Each page numbered. I just make clusters of related words on each page. The main topic is circled to draw attention (4-5 per page). Anything related to it gets words around it. Details, references, long thoughts, go on the backside. Stacks well. I take pictures of good stuff. Don't fret if I lose any books…

My blog and podcast feeds go around these few main interests of mine: software, art, design, music and Apple. Podcasts: Varieties, science, design. * This American Life. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ * Radiolab. http://www.radiolab.org/series/podcasts/ * Planet Money. http://www.npr.org/planetmoney * Stuff You Should Know. http://www.howstuffworks.com/ * The Infinite Monkey Cage. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w * The Weekly Briefly (Shawn Blanc). http://feedpress.me/weeklybriefly * Actuality (from Quartz). http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/actuality-marketplace-and-quar… * Anticast (for Portuguese speakers out there - the best Brazilian podcast I know). http://www.brainstorm9.com.br/anticast/ * 99% Invisible. http://99percentinvisible.prx.org/ Technology, programming, Apple, etc. * Debug. http://www.imore.com/debug/ * Mac Power Users. http://www.relay.fm/mpu * Accidental Tech Podcast. http://atp.fm/ * Overtired. http://www.esn.fm/overtired/ * The Vergecast. http://www.theverge.com/verge/verge_archives/show?mode=EntryGroup&… * What's Tech (also from The Verge, fun show). http://www.theverge.com/whatstech * Pragmatic. http://techdistortion.com/podcasts/pragmatic * Iterate. http://www.imore.com/iterate * The Changelog. http://5by5.tv/changelog * Build Podcast (each post is actually a screencast about some technology). http://build-podcast.com/ * The Talk Show With John Gruber. http://daringfireball.net/thetalkshow *…

I use a set of plain text files in a directory that is synced between all of my machines. This is flexible and basic enough that it can be adapted to any use case or productivity system as necessary. When I need a more specific workflow, I can develop something on top of it. Staying with plain text and having reliable file sync is just a foundation. I access the files with a fluid interactive interface and full text search provided by Notational Velocity / nvALT (http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/), for when I'm in a graphical environment, or my own NV-inspired shell script(https://github.com/lfam/n) for when I'm in a console. My primitive script has Bash and Zsh completion and gets out of my way pretty well... could be improved a lot, though. I use Syncthing (http://syncthing.net/) to sync this directory between my devices. Syncthing is a FOSS decentralized file sync program that works on Linux, OS X, Windows, FreeBSD, and Solaris. Plus there is a work in progress Android app. I recommend it highly if you are looking for a FOSS alternative to Dropbox or BitTorrent Sync. It works right now which is saying a lot compared to its competitors, and it is truly decentralized (no server / client architecture like Seafile). If anyone here is an Android developer, they could use your help, especially with the filesystem. I've been meaning to explore org-mode. Maybe next time I take a long plane ride.