Note taking on the N800
 

I am new to this forum and this device. I was currently considering buying the Nokia N800, I already have an Archos 605, but was looking for something that was also able to take notes offline. I see the N800 has this ability. How is it really for inputting small/short paragraphs of ideas? How does it compare to a cell phone or PDA? Better/Worse/Don't bother because it sucks? Please be honest.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

For that application, Maemopad+ is a decent program. It keeps it in a tree format. Only problem it does not sync with anything like MS Outlook and there is no search feature. But you can export the content but I haven't tried it. I like it better than a PDA and much better than a phone. BTW, Maemopad+ like many programs is a free download.

Notes that comes with the N800 is a simple text editor. You can do searches but the organization of notes is what you have to do. Also Notes does not have any kind of sketching feature like Maemopad+. There is another one but can't remember what it is and did not work for me anyways.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

There is a 'new' program for the N800 called Notecase that does hierarchical notes, outline-style. I think it is quite handy. Maemopad+ is also good. If you do much original composition on the N800 you may find yourself learning a new, Steven Hawkings style terseness, because every word is an effort. You can certainly take notes fast in drawing mode in Maemopad+ and figure out how to read your handwriting later.

The Notecase program is difficult to find unless you check Maemo Garage a lot, as I do. It can be found at

https://garage.maemo.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=1434

with the link to the current program provided -- it's at Soundforge.

Certainly I think that taking notes on the N800 is better than on any cell phone I've ever seen, but not as good as on any laptop.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Agreed. I use Notes for taking notes during my weekly meetings. Works well enough for me.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

My choice for note is Xournal. Great for handwriting and sketching, exports in pdf, and also imports pdf for annotating.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Thanks for the info all. Anything else you can think of would be greatly appreciated for a newcomer like me. Where can I get these programs and is there a good tutorial and how to load them on the system?

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Maemopad+ is one of the natural, easy to install programs that you first load when getting your N800. I already gave directions to Notecase, which is also easy to install once you find it.

Xournal is similar to Maemopad+ and is also dead easy to install. It has a bug that has a special fix, as I recall. If you click on the Software icon at the top of this page you will find easy installs for the common N800 programs like these.

You seem to have the impression that many programs are difficult to install, perhaps from going through messages here. Users have to get used to the concept of Repositories and how to set them up. After they learn that, there is no problem with installing practically any program that works normally and that is set up for the N800 or N770.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

How to install here: http://www.internettablettalk.com/wi...epositories%29
770 and 800 are done the same way.
where to get is: maemo.org
You have to look around. "Where to get" is such a basic question people will complain that you are asking for help without looking yourself. With the n800 you have to do a lot yourself. :)

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

An answer to 'where to get' that has worked well for me is to google maemo + name of program.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

This might help

XJournal:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=7179
http://etrunko.blogspot.com/2006/07/...or-it2006.html
http://henryykt.googlepages.com/xournalforn800

Maemopad+
https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_...release_id=485

Notecase
https://garage.maemo.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=1434
http://notecase.sourceforge.net/
Download: http://notecase.sourceforge.net/download.html

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

If you ever buy an N800 I'm sure this will be useful information.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

lol. I guess I got a bit carried away there.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

This post comes at an opportune time. I want to share a little story and lesson with you. I was note taking in class last night using maemopad (not maemopad+) in conjunction with a Stowaway Ultraslim BT keyboard. I happened to have three browser windows open (with at least one AJAX app). I had about 2 hours worth of notes when all of a sudden my N800 froze. I thought maybe the BT keyboard had run out of batteries all of a sudden, but then I saw what might be described as the N800 version of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death: the huge blue on white NOKIA logo.

I ended up having to retype all those notes from memory after I realized that although I was pressing CTRL+S (hotkey for saving) frequently, I hadn't actually done an initial save and provided a filename, so it wasn't saving after all. )-: It's not obvious if you glance at maemopad if you have a saved file or not, and that bit me in the ***.

So lessons learned: When you start note taking, do an initial save. OR ... find an editor that autosaves. Anybody know of one? Or at least know of an editor that makes it obvious that you have an unsaved file?

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Thanks again everyone for the info and help. I do have another completely different question, but will post as a new topic. Thanks again.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Autosaving: Emacs. Or XEmacs. They're huge though.. don't know if anyone tried building one of them for the tablet. I think I saw one emacs reference that may have been an emacs-compatible thing, but I'm not certain.

EMACS used to be spelled out as 'Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping', but that was back when Emacs was small and computers even smaller.. it's certainly larger now! Maybe 'Eighty' would fit. Nice editor though, if you like it. And it's almost impossible to lose any text.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Since the post about Notecase, I have been really impressed (thanks for the post btw). Notecase does a lot that Maemopad+ does not do and it does autosaves.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

I was just taking notes in meetings during the last week (3 of them), and here's what I found lacking:


A) Notes can't do sketches

B) Sketch can't do plain text (it can do drawn text, but not typed text)

C) The only conventient "bullet", for Notes, on the on screen keyboard is an = ... which just doesn't look right to me. If Maemopad and + can do actual outlines, that'd be nice, though.


It looks like maemopad and maemopad plus are like Notes in this regard, and a brief look at the Xjournal page looks like it is more like Sketch in this regard.

I want me text to be _text_, and I want to add drawings as they're needed.

Also, I noticed that Notes didn't save in plain text format even though I said to only use plain text. So, here's what I want, two applications:

1) A plain-text editor at the graphical level (sure, I can open an xterm and do vi, but I'd rather not). Should be able to generate plain NVT ascii text files that any 40 year old unix sysadmin would be proud to work with (cuz, that's what I am .... well, 39), but at the same time, to stylus based highlighting, cut and paste (heck, in this day and age, highlight and drag would be nice). Options for column wrapping (soft during editing, option in preferences for it to be saved as a hard or soft colum wrap), and setting the text width for that.

1.5) small bonus points for automatically supporting different styles of code indention (Pascal, C/Perl, and Python), and having the choice to have tabs generate spaces or control-i (so you can use the tab button to do code indention at 3 or 4 spaces, so you don't have that awful style of mixed space and tab indentions that turns up in some C code).


2) A note taking application that can do bullet/number/alpha lists, or free paragraphs .... AND drawings. Could be separate tool bars (one for lists, one for paragraphs, and one for drawings) to keep the tool bar from getting too complex; you just switch modes as you move from making a text notation to a drawing, etc.

2.5) Bonus points: it doesn't have to record and save sound, but it should be able to run comfortably alongside another application that will just record whatever is on the mic while I'm taking notes in the note taking app.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

I'd like to try notecase, but you experienced people are a little cryptic for me. If I understand correctly:
First, I have to install GTK+ 2.0 on my n800. Where do I find that? And, does it have its own prerequisites?
Second, I think I go to sourceforge and install the standard notecase for linux? Is that right, it will download and install just like an app I get from maemo?

Thanks in advance for your advice.
- tobyr21

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

You don't understand correctly.

You don't install gtk whatever. At the Soundforge site there is a version of Notecase expressly for the n800. You doubleclick on the install program and live happily ever after.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

The .deb you want is towards the bottom of the download page. You need the one that refers to the OS you are using / device. ie OS2008 N800/N810. 2nd or 3rd from the bottom

http://notecase.sourceforge.net/download.html

Notecase has replaced my collection of palm memos/outlook notes. It took some time with cut&paste in the win version, but well worth it. Also gave me a reason to purge old memos ;)
I don't remember GTK being a problem during installation, but ymmv.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Johnkzin: what, is there a strike against trying out free programs? If your time is that valuable, I recommend that you hire a scribe to take notes for you.

Otherwise, I recommend that you TRY xournal and maemopad+ and THEN complain about their lacks, rather than writing about what it 'looks like' their faults are.

They BOTH allow you to type text AS TEXT if you want to. It's just faster to sketch notes, in my experience.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

@geneven: what, is there a strike against looking at post dates? ;) Or perhaps weren't using Xournal back then; it didn't have text capabilities...

mpad+, of course, did and does support pages of sketches, and pages of text, and pages of to-do-ish lists (and maybe another type) in the tree; but not all on one page, which could be an issue, and last I used it (a while ago, to be sure) it had singularly weak editing and reorganizing capabilities, so I ditched it for Xournal...

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

indeed, Conan is world renowned for his leet note-taking skillz

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

I'm still looking for suggestions that will enable me to share files between my pc and the n800. The "google docs" solution's not good for me, as I often use the n800 where there's no connectivity.

On the PC, OpenOffice places left and right double quote signs (hex codes in the 0x90 range) in the files, so pure text edtors like "notes" can't handle them on the n800.

My best solution so far I thnk is to keep my data in rtf files, and I want an rtf-aware editor on the n800. notecase and (I think) maemopad+ do not handle rtf.

I'm trying to enter the abiword closed beta, but do not know where to send my abiword-request email to get a reply. Suggestions?

Thanks,
-tobyr21

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

There are many ways to txf files betw pc and n800 without connectivity:

1) BT txf for PC with BT; or stick in a USB/BT to PC
2) Physical media txf; take the SD card from the N800 to the PC
3) Connect the PC to the Tablet with USB cable
4) Put the tablet into USB host mode and connect with thumbdrive/flash drive

bun

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Here are my thoughts on note taking on the N800...

Personally i have tried taking notes on my N800 using the stylus, but i find that writing things with a stylus on the screen is really awkward (as most other PDA's). The most common problem i have is that the stylus slips along the screen, making it very difficult to write properly.

Factor in the bumper bars and well... it's just like going ice skating.

So i think for note-taking out-of-the-box, the on-screen keyboard is the quickest and most reliable option. Still, there is a snag even with the keyboard - it only seems to accept one key press at a time, so i have to peck the keys very slowly to make sure everything gets entered correctly.

So for ultimate speed and reliability, you really need to use an external keyboard ( which consequently means you have another piece of kit to lug around).

Of course, even with its flaws i find note taking on my N800 infinitely easier than on my mobile phone. :)

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Bunanson and JamesU, you're not paying attention. My question is, how do I edit files on the n800 that contain characters in the range hex 80 to ff ?
My PC editor uses two of those codes for double quotes, and the notes program on the n800 strips them.
"rtf" format is a good way to preserve these codes, but what program on the n800 edits rtf? (Abiword will, but I do not know how to get into the closed beta for Abiword os2008. suggestions?)

Thanks,
tobyr21

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Okay, I admit that I'm not suggesting a good solution to your problem, but have you considered configuring OpenOffice so that it uses "standard" quotes rather than left/right quotes?

I'm using OO.o v2.3 on Linux. I go to "Tools->Auto Correct...", then select the "Custom Quotes" tag and uncheck both "Replace" checkboxes. That gives me regular quotes in my docs.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Snoshrk - could you be more specific? Sourceforge download page for notecase has no notecase files labeled for any Nokia tablet model, in version 1.9.1 or 1.8.8 at least. What is the actual file name for the n800 version?

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

It's the .deb file in downloads with both armel and os2008 in the file name -- I just tried it to make sure.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

It took me less than a minute to find the os2008 version with geneven's link. Thanks for the heads up btw, never saw this one before.

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

It is the 2nd from the bottom:

1st col: notecase_1.9.1_armel_os2008.deb

2nd col: Nokia N800/N810 (Maemo OS2008) binary .deb package

:)

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Terrencegf,
I must be awfully finicky. I knew that I could tell OO too give me standard quotes, but from time to time I print my documents for people to read; I LIKE the left and right quotes. I'd rather find a program that understands them. Thanks for trying.
- tobyr21

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

Are you sure ?

=> http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/n...8.deb?download

Re: Note taking on the N800
 

By the way doaes any of you know if a port of wikidpad is available ? wikidpad is a wiki notebook which I love using at work. I miss it onto the tablet ;)

Regards