Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker

All About My Secret Cyber-Life

Kevin Sheridan — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 12:40:51 PST

And so it is with my bloggy existence--truth be told, I have another cyber-family across town .... .CultureHack has been in mothballs almost from the day I established this little NoteTaker-based beachhead. Recently, however, I've applied the paddles to CultureHack and it seems to be breathing on its own again. Check out the "Honey, I'm Home" post over there for more details.The point's this: I'm feeling pretty spunky over at my first blog, and I'm extending a cordial, self-serving invitation to check-out what I'm up to. I've similarly sent the very patient CultureHack readers to pay a visit or two over here.As for Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker, have no fear--it'll still be around. The only thing that's changed is when I want to let loose with with an essay that has nothing to do with NT, I'll have someplace inherently designed to accept my highly developed brand of stream-of-consciousness .

Oh, And One More Thing . . .
A true tale of a NoteShare-assisted Smart Mob

Kevin Sheridan — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 12:43:53 PST

The longer I work with the NS alpha, the more convinced I am that NoteShare isn't simply the right tool for a certain situation--it's the situation itself; the environment in which highly interesting and productive things can occur.And just as I was pondering this, wham, manna from heaven: NoteShare and I were thrust into a real-world, real-time, real cool set of ad-hoc circumstances.... And further, a summary page was also created, where clippings from the various streaming text reports could be pasted, along with the best of our group commentary.On my end, my lunchtime sandwich now completely forgotten, I began to float what I deemed the most informative MacWorld coverage around the main group chat page of the shared notebook.... It reminded me of the geek equivalent of one of those betting pavilions in Vegas, where suspended telescreens keep players apprised of four or five simultaneous sporting events.At the end of the keynote, the alpha team dispersed as quickly as it had formed, leaving behind a persistent , shared record of the flash-meeting which was somewhat tidied up over the next few hours.... In short, a kinda/sorta emulation of NS functionality might have been had, but in a thoroughly kludgey way compared to the one-stop elegance of the NoteShare approach.And, of course, there would be the whole other problem of after-meeting persistence and archiving the event.NoteShare's flexibility allows it to be used in rigorous workflows and also in a much more casual, improvisational fashion. In the wake of its use there is captured input and discussion that can be later used as informational Lego blocks to construct larger, more formal projects.It occurs to me that what I'm obliquely suggesting is that NoteShare is equally at home with both "workflow" (refined paths that have been codified and paved) and "flow" itself (synonymous with play, inspiration and, of course, a jazzman's conception).

Introducing AquaMinds NoteShare
Pssst--Hey buddy, can I share something with you?

Kevin Sheridan — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 14:44:11 PST

And until I carefully reviewed what I could recall from the previous evening--who I might have talked to and even how I managed to misplace my underwear while still wearing my tux--I was profoundly afraid.I was fearful of a tech version of Plamegate because, Dear Reader, I was one of the only micropundits who had luxuriously played with the Next Big Thing for months leading up to The New York Times spilling the proverbial beans.... And so they sent succeeding alpha versions of the Next Big Thing just to see how I repurpose it.However, on the other side of my less-than-total recall of the previous evening, I was certain that I had not spoken with either Karl Rove or John Dvorak--and so I simultaneously started to feel better and annoyed.... And, conveniently for our little fantasy, Fred’s sitting five tables away in the company lunch room, surfing with his laptop.Now we come to the good part--the thing that raises our little story to the level of Tech Porn: Imagine that NoteTaker had an extra function way up there on the menu bar.... And with a strong ego, you can watch Fred revise the timeless prose on your computer from five lunchroom tables away.I don’t know about you, but just thinking about this gets the inner-geek in me all hot and bothered.End of fantasy.... My job here seems to be done--I’ve done my best to annotate the NYT scoop, I’ve taken full advantage of a loosened tongue because nondisclosure agreements seem to have gone the way of, well, yesterday’s news, and the AquaMinds folks have realized that I’m off my meds and have managed to escape by tying the bed sheets together.

Pond Scum Spotlight:
In Which Idiots Who Pollute Cyberspace
Get the Level of Attention They Obviously Crave

Kevin Sheridan — Fri, 01 Apr 2005 08:10:51 PST

Hi There. I’ve just spent the past hour or so scrubbing spam comments off this weblog. Big, dumb, robotic intrusions into a discourse space with the sole purpose of shoving unsolicited ecommerce past the eyeballs of unsuspecting visitors. Let’s be clear: This is not the equivalent of email spam--which, loathsome as it may be, is merely junk mail with no barriers to entry. Spam comments, on the other hand, can only be compared to annoying, psychotic non sequiturs that interrupt conversation. Imagine yourself at a party speaking intensely with two other people about something all three of you care passionately about. Now imagine this asshole--slightly sweaty, bug-eyed, in a cheap suit--muscling his way in, screaming Excuse me! Excuse me! I want you to buy a prom dress from me!

Plays Well With Others:
How NoteTaker Has Deepened Its Web Connectivity

Kevin Sheridan — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 08:06:41 PST

AquaMinds has from the outset understood what real power means--thus its track record of deepening interapplication connectivity. NoteTaker’s newly built-in AppleScripts are categorized by operational type and I strongly recommend a serious look at the scripts tucked away in the Web Research Agents folder. One in particular is guaranteed to leave you both slack-jawed and instantly unable to remember how you functioned without it. It’s called MegaSearch.

Honey, Has the Blog Been Fed?
Transforming Google Mail Into a
Research Database Embedded In NoteTaker

Kevin Sheridan — Mon, 21 Mar 2005 13:14:16 PST

Like many of you, I'm beta-testing Google Mail, but given my conceptualist nature, I've been doing so in the reasonable belief that Gmail is a shard of a larger master plan for world domination. I mention this because I'm always surprised at the number of people who seemingly Balkanize the Google services, sealing-off Internet search from email from maps. And while they may pay lip service to the "search space," and admit that all Google services ultimately roll-up into a particularly vast iteration of Metasearch, I have little sense that the typical user is looking for ways to integrate various Google services in the course of daily use.

Do You Wanna Talk About It?
How To Run Your Mouth (Or At Least Your Fingers)
Without Leaving NoteTaker

Kevin Sheridan — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 09:12:10 PST

Alright, so I want to cry my heart out about Uma’s very personal St. Valentine’s Day Massacre--what do I need to do? Currently, there are two ways to embed communication capabilities in a NoteTaker notebook: web-based services and Java applets. Further, there are two ways to do said communicating: keyboard and voice. Over the past weeks, I’ve been hard at work at the Banzai Institute in the wilds of New Jersey, blowing up all manner of additive communications solutions for NoteTaker. The following are the ones that I personally like, although no doubt, there are other (and possibly better) answers out there.

Pimp My Notebook:
NoteTaker Metaphor Modification
And Why a User Interface Should Be
A Point of Departure and Not a Destination

Kevin Sheridan — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 15:20:01 PST

If you'll recall, just prior to my flirtation with the Talkies, I examined the myriad ways NoteTaker can be used as a database of other databases. Of course, this was a transparent and, in retrospect, pathetic plan to get Uma Thurman to notice me (which, by the way, forced her lawyers to rewrite the restraining order to include blogging). Desperately playing the Clever Card in my bid to impress her, I compared NoteTaker's ability to become a database of databases--a metadatabase, if you will--to those 400-plus special inserts that FiloFax sold at the peak of its Reagan-Era popularity.

NT Audio Blog Proof-of-Concept

Kevin Sheridan — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 07:34:33 PST

Welcome to yet another crazed bit of research from the Bansai Institute in the wilds of New Jersey. Those early adopters among you will clearly see where this little experiment is headed, but Baby Steps First is advisable. While I'm loath to over-promise, I think the chance of further forward motion over the weekend is good. From my perspective, I see the glimmer of an opportunity to regularly assault you in ways that push beyond scrolling text and yet remain...

The Right Kind of Eyes:
Hunter Thompson Has Left the Convertible
(Having Nothing and Everything To Do With This Site)

Kevin Sheridan — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 12:38:18 PST

This morning I find myself careening across the American landscape, a passenger in a driverless candy-red convertible called the Great Red Shark. Me and an embarrassing number of other writers. The grim news washing in with the East Coast dawn is that Hunter S Thompson is dead. Evidently, he finally decided to let others take the wheel. If you want a NoteTaker blogging tip, you’ll want to check back another time. Because this post has nothing to do with the topic of this site, but--curiously--it points to the essence of the site itself. Without HST this site wouldn’t exist or, indeed, my decades-long, ongoing and dubious arrangement whereby people actually compensate me to screw around with words.

Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker

All About My Secret Cyber-Life

Oh, And One More Thing . . . A true tale of a NoteShare-assisted Smart Mob

Introducing AquaMinds NoteSharePssst--Hey buddy, can I share something with you?

Pond Scum Spotlight: In Which Idiots Who Pollute Cyberspace Get the Level of Attention They Obviously Crave

Plays Well With Others: How NoteTaker Has Deepened Its Web Connectivity

Honey, Has the Blog Been Fed? Transforming Google Mail Into a Research Database Embedded In NoteTaker

Do You Wanna Talk About It? How To Run Your Mouth (Or At Least Your Fingers) Without Leaving NoteTaker

Pimp My Notebook: NoteTaker Metaphor Modification And Why a User Interface Should Be A Point of Departure and Not a Destination