[colug-432] org-mode alternatives?

[Scott Merrill]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Rick Troth <rmt at casita.net> wrote:
> I've been assimilated.
> I use Googoo calendar for tasks, Googoo contacts, and even Googoo docs
> (not as much).  Their search capabilities are fan-tab-u-lous when I
> forget where some item got organized to.

I'm a Google user, too, and rely on them heavily for mail and
calendar. Google Docs is tremendous overkill for the kinds of note
taking I'd like to do more of as a result of last night's
presentation.

> I rarely use "tasks" in any tool, but instead create a normal calendar
> event (with a date stamp which then is either the target or the
> inception).  For notes, again a calendar event and jot down stuff in
> the "Description" field.

I make some distinctions between "todo" and calendar items. For things
which need to occur at a specific time, I do use calendar entries, and
ensure that an alarm is set to remind me about the event 15 minutes
before it's due. Google synch between my Google Calendar and my phone
is a godsend in this regard.

But not everything I need to do needs a hard date associated with it.
"Research and test %include statements in Kickstart files", for
example, isn't something that needs to be done at a specific time. But
it is something I want to remember to do

> The fact that all this stuff syncs to the phone is HUGE.

Evernote is great for some stuff on my phone. They have a decent (but
not great) web interface to all the same data. If I could find a Linux
CLI for Evernote I might use it even more. There's CleverNote
(https://launchpad.net/clevernote), an apparently abandoned Java (!)
app, and NeverNote (http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/index.htm), also
in Java (!). My language bigotry prevents me from seriously
considering a Java app for something so seemingly trivial as note
taking. :(

Todo.txt, as suggested by Seth, does look interesting and I might
explore it a bit more. Alas, Dropbox is blocked by my employer, so I'd
need to jump through some hoops to make that kind of synchronization
work for me. Tomboy has some clever synchronization options (WebDAV,
ssh, and more), so that might be worth exploring, too, though I'd
likely lose phone access to the file(s).

Thanks for the discussion, everyone. Please keep the ideas coming!

Cheers,
Scott