Scrapbook: Scrap your old note-taking method
“In day-to-day life, there are all sorts of little bits of information that you might want to make note of for future reference. However, the sheer number of such notes could clutter up or clog a basic note-taking application such as “Memos” (which comes built into the Palm os device). If you were to make a note of 3 interesting tidbits per day, after 5 years, you would have almost 5,500 notes. Distributing these among the 15 categories that are available in Memos would result in an average of 365 notes per category – and there could easily be twice that many in some categories (and far fewer in other categories). Instinctively, users of Palm os devices know this and, as a result, probably don’t use Memos in this fashion.”
Thus begins the user manual for ScrapBook, from Slow-Cooked Software. ScrapBook turns your meaningless notes into a searchable database. It even offers an encryption solution on a per record basis. But my favorite feature is the “auto-completion” feature, which lets ScrapBook auto-complete words that have been used before in note titles or in keyword lists. You only need to enter enough letters for ScrapBook to correctly guess the rest of the word.
Organizing your notes, exactly as you would your file cabinet, Scrapbook allows nested folders. But unlike your file drawer, where your only choices are from the largest (the drawer itself) to the alphabetical division, to a hanging folder, and then down to plain file folders in the hanging folder, there is no limit to the depth of the nested folders. Despite this organizational structure, searching for the smallest amount of information is lightning fast.
You can enter notes directly into ScrapBook, or you can import directly from Memos. You can also export from ScrapBook back to Memos. The only downside I can find to using ScrapBook is the necessity for regularly exporting back to the Memos application for backup purposes. If ScrapBook had its own desktop conduit, there would be no further need for Memos whatsoever.
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How is the exporting done - via HotSync?
Sounds like an interesting program, but in spite of the little blurb underneath about joining The Treo Discount Club, this item is not available at the store. The price is reasonable, but I don’t think there should be a note about the discount club if such item is not available at the store.
Exporting is done with an option within ScrapBook to import/export. ScrapBook doesn’t sync.
When a HotSync is performed, ScrapBook’s databases do get backed up to the
PC. If you need to reset your PDA, a HotSync will restore ScrapBook and its
data. It’s not necessary to go through Memos for these backup-related
functions to work.
However, if you want to view and/or edit your ScrapBook notes on the PC,
then it is necessary to go through Memos (and HotSycn’ing) so you can access
the notes through the Windows Desktop version of Memos. This is because
ScrapBook has only been implemented on Palm OS (no Windows-based counterpart
has been implemented).
“Import” and “Export” refer to transferring notes between ScrapBook (on the
PDA) and Memos (on the PDA), so these operations don’t depend on HotSync’ing
(but they would be likely to be used in conjunction with HotSync’ing).
Hope this helps! — Stephen
It just sounds too complicated to maintain the notes. If I need to make a note that I want to keep, I don’t want to through all sorts of machinations to sync them, edit them and/or file them. Perhaps it’s a function of the Palm OS or — like many of these applications — programming that failed to take into consideration the customer and how he or she works from day to day.
I agree with mutreo. The only way this could be useful to me would be to have a Windows version that had identical functionality to the Palm version so that I could search for and expand on ideas with my keyboard. That would make the program a no brainer.