Google Notebook v. Diigo Update
Mark Forster
in Note Taking Software, Productivity
|
7 Comments
Well, it didn’t take long to decide whether I preferred Google Notebook or Diigo. As I said when I started the comparison, the real test was which of the programs I would end up using.
There’s no doubt which program has won. I’m still using Diigo and not using Google Notes at all. In fact I’ve transferred all the bookmarks I made with Google Notes into Diigo.
What were the factors that led to this?
I found Google Notes a bit slower to use, especially when entering tags (called labels in Google Notebook). Tags are the key to both programs, so the ease by which they can be used is crucial.
Since I often use Diigo as a way of summarising long documents and keeping my place in them, I was irritated that I could only highlight one passage per entry in Google Notebook. In Diigo you can highlight as many excerpts as you want and also add your own comments as sticky notes. It is much more flexible.
I also missed the filtered drop-down bookmark list, which is a real time saver in Diigo for frequently used bookmarks.
The plus for Google Notes is that you can enter your own separate notes as bookmarks. But then do you really want to keep your personal notes on-line? I use EverNote for that purpose and there is no clash at all between it and Diigo. To my way of thinking they are different functions and there is no problem having different programs for them.
As I am not interested in the social sharing side of either program, I have not compared them at all from that point of view.
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (7)
I also use 'Remember the Milk', which is a great online 'to do' list manager but I'm worried that I'm going to over-organise myself and end up creating more work by using all these different resources!
Do you think it's feasible to dispense with browser bookmarks altogether and just use Diigo's tags? I think I might give that a go.
I use Diigo for websites only - so basically everything else goes into Evernote.
Diigo has a useful feature called the Filtered Bookmark List, which provides an icon on your browser with a drop down list of your bookmarks. So I have a category called "Reference" and filter the bookmark list so that it shows the bookmarks that I use regularly.
Another useful feature of Diigo is that you can set it to make a browser bookmark whenever to make a Diigo bookmark. The bookmarks are arranged under the browser "Favorites" icon (in IE6) in folders according to each Diigo tag. That makes a useful backup if for some reason you can't access Diigo.
More here, FYI:
My Big-Arse Text File - a Poor Man's Wiki+Blog+PIM
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-big-arse-text-file-poor-mans.html
Photo Blogs, Wikis, and Memories for Life
http://ideamatt.blogspot.com/2005/04/photo-blogs-wikis-and-memories-for.html
I moved them the hard way - went to each site using Google bookmarks, then bookmarked it using Diigo.
Fortunately I didn't have too many to do.
My advice with things like this is just start afresh with the new system and whenever you use something from the old system put it into the new system. That way you will very quickly get all the ones you actually use into Diigo.
Works a treat on other things too, like starting a new address book or a new filing system!