Since early in my computer use I’ve used a basic text editor to leave notes for myself. With years of Windows use it used to be Notepad. I’d have text files saved in directories all over my computer. This obviously didn’t scale very well and it was hard to find anything again when you needed it later on.
Eventually I got a little better and would move them into all one directory and try to name them descriptively so I could track them later. Still I’d resort to the command prompt and the findstr command to search the directory for files with the search word(s) in them. It worked, but not real pretty.
This also didn’t lend well for any sort of collaboration. It would still mean emailing back and forth and then updating text files on my computer. Then accessing files when I was using other computers became a pain. I’d run FTP software and VNC software so I could log into my computer at home to view things. This worked pretty well, but still ideal and there was a lot of overhead involved.
When I started being more mobile and having a smart phone it would be real nice to be able to have all these notes on the go. Many times I would email myself something just so I’d be able to access it later easily from my phone. Then I started testing out different Note apps. I tried a few but was never really satisfied.
Then when I started investigating Automattic I found Simplenote. This was almost exactly what I was looking for. It makes it effortless for me to sync my notes from any of my devices. There are apps for Mac, iOS, Android, and of course the web app. No matter what I’m using I always have my latest notes. I can easily share notes with others so that we can each edit them and see the others changes. I can search, tag, and roll back history of notes if I need to.
For me the one thing that is missing is a list function where I can have a list an easily mark things off as they are done. This is usually used for shopping lists that my wife and I can each edit and add things to then cross them off as they are picked up. I realize that something like this would take away a bit from the “simple” aspect of things, but it’s something I use all the time and would love to have it built in my favourite note taking app.
Each of the apps has just recently been updated so there is no better time to give them a try.
Sandy McFadden 