Exploring AquaMinds NoteTaker

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

More volts!
I'm sucking the juice from the generator
More volts!
More volts!

More volts!
"More suck at the duct" my dictu
More volts!
More volts!
--Brian Eno
“I Fall Up”

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
--Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future"

As I become an increasingly middle-aged hipster, an interesting distillation process is occurring: The relentless march of time is acting like an acid bath on my world view--eroding the softer, more insubstantial portions of my conceptual framework and leaving the titanium-hard truisms.

During my significantly misspent youth, I often wondered why the Previous Generation seemed to cling to cliches--but now, having morphed from revolutionary to ruling class--I clearly see that in many cases, I mistook naturally evolving philosophic minimalism for intellectual ossification. In retrospect, it seems quaint: Like futile attempts to prove the superiority of baroque art over, say, Robert Motherwell. Lots of stuff going on is not the same as smart stuff happening. (The corollary is that pretty stuff does not imply substantive stuff--unless, of course, you happen to be Uma Thurman.) Put another way, philosophic minimalism done properly is pretty much like holding four aces--you can be forgiven about not obsessing about the other 48 cards . . .

As NoteTaker matures, I’m beginning to sense a similar sort of focus on its own conceptual verities--Gather, Organize, Share-- along with a commitment to be singularly powerful in each of these areas. It’s NoteTaker’s four aces. To be sure, there are other metaphoric cards in the deck but, at the risk of echoing Orwell, All Cards Are Not Equal. This brutal, Darwinian observation, while decidedly not PC, is absolutely true--just ask the Two of Diamonds. I suppose a more gentle way of saying this is to observe the Two of Diamonds suffers from a Court Card Deficiency, but the weather here is ugly and I’m not feeling diplomatically charitable . . .

NT Audio Blog Proof-of-Concept

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 NT-predicated. As Henry Frankenstein might say, "It's Alive!"

I expect that as NoteTaker-driven blogs morph into talkies, it may be the downfall of many Silent Era authors. So sensitive was I to this fact--and so anxious was I to avoid the fate of John Gilbert in the early '30s--I considered doing the proof-of-concept clip with a Greta Garbo accent, based on the fact she both survived and thrived in the talkies. But then I thought First Impressions being important, introducing myself in Audio Drag was clearly Not a Good Idea . . .


MP3 File

Friday, March 4, 2005 10:47:24 AM

No Getting Jiggy With the Architect: Assumed Blog Behavior As Weblog Reality

There are levels of survival we are prepared to accept . . .
As you adequately put, the problem is choice.
The Architect
The Matrix Reloaded

The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.
Brian Eno / Peter Schmidt
Oblique Strategies Card

And how could it be so wrong
When it was so right?
Lloyd Cole
"I'm Gone"

In the wake of my circumlocutious posting about Miles Davis, jazz authenticity, studio composition and--oh yeah--blogging, I've continued to ponder its implications. Which goes to show that even left-field rambling can trigger logical and argumentative dominoing that end at surprising destinations.

An embarrassing product of a Jesuit education (certain members of the Society are still blushing at the dubious achievement of me), I nevertheless had Big Intellectual Fun in school and am particularly grateful that the concept of Right Questions being more important than Right Answers was driven so deeply into me that it merged with my DNA.

It's a simple and somewhat obvious thing, but also enlightening in a Zen-like way: Perfectly correct answers to Wrong Questions paradoxically result in the self-satisfied adrenaline rush of being Absolutely Right at the same time you are Utterly Wrong. But being a pleasure-seeking species, we rarely look beyond that satisfied high. This goes far in explaining many--if not most--of humanity's screw-ups: Smartly reasoned responses to thoroughly stupid queries.

Confessions of a Utilities Slut:All Hail BlogAssist, King of Workarounds

I'm not a proud man--I freely admit that I'm a slut for utilities that are beautifully crafted, laser-focused one-trick-ponies. The guilty secret of my childless condition is that I gave away my first-, second- and third-born for mission-critical applets like FastScripts, MenuCalendarClock and DragThing.

NoteTaker's integration with Ecto2 and MarsEdit currently does not support on-the-fly HTML conversion of text formatting. In earlier posts, I managed to create multi-component workaround by using Tagging Service in combination with iPaste. It was admittedly kludgy, but it sure beat hand-tagging all the text formatting and hyperlinks. The constituent apps in this solution are excellent and I plan to keep using them as they were originally intended. However, I've been seduced by a more elegant solution to HTML conversion when handing off entries NoteTaker entries to Ecto2 or MarsEdit: All hail Dejal's amazing freeware, BlogAssist.

Pulling Over For a RSS Stop:In Which the Notions of Info Scrapbooks and Wannabe Wire Services Are Called Into Question

The half-dozen of you who regularly subject yourselves to this idiosyncratic mix of confession, ire, observation, pop cultural critique and--lest we forget--tech tips regarding the use of NoteTaker as a muscular weblog client have come to realize that while I love the concept of blogging, I am less enamored with its usual executions.

For various and sundry reasons--many of them strewn across this site like the debris field of crashed conventional wisdom--my take on blogging is that it has rapidly settled into an an ongoing, online ontological opposition of itself. (Three bonus points for that piece of grandstanding alliteration, plus an additional point for it actually meaning something in addition to going for the cheap laugh.) Translation for those of you awake for less time than me (and with less coffee): Blogs are houses divided, with their rapid techno-evolution juxtaposed to the bizarre fussiness of their seemingly instant, hidebound "traditions."

In the main, the capabilities of weblogs are expanding at an impressive pace, even while the actual act of blogging remains suspended at the point of its initial brainstorm: Hey, we can create online diaries or superseded lists of information with this! It's pretty much as if the concept of websites was still rooted in the online conventions that took shape at inception of the Mosaic browser--even though CSS, XML Java and were available. Okay, not really--but truer than not.

MarsEdit and NT: My Blog, My Rules

Years ago--eons actually--when I was a callow college student, I hung around Washington's Old Ebbet Grill so much, I seriously considered having my mail forwarded there. It was two doors down from the inn where the British met to coordinate their plans to burn Washington during the War of 1812. In retrospect, I think that appealed to my insurrectionary younger self.

To be clear, we are not talking about the "new" old Ebbet Grill--an odd Hollywood set iteration of the original (which was finally torn down). The "new" Old Ebbet Grill is a hang out for yuppie scum and often featured in films and on The West Wing as a "Washington Hot Spot"--as if such a thing existed in the New York sense. My Old Ebbet, however, was a hang out for preppie scum and managed not to be historical, opting instead for a sort of Raymond Chandleresque ambiance.

I'd Tell You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You

Honey, I'm home. . . . Now someone much smarter than myself would simply reach for the Dallas Dream Season Stratagem: I could simply pretend that this was indeed September 1st and hack the posting dates to mess with your collective minds. But of course, That Would Be Wrong. Suffice it to say, I can't tell you what I've been up to in the past five weeks because many of my associates would wind up behiind bars or worse. However I can tell you that the seriously bent incident concluded with me waking up in the back of a 1954 Chevy in Rio with no clear idea how I got there. And there is the other small matter of a tattoo that says Res Ipsa Loquitur in the precise Old English typeface of The New York Times. Indeed. If I needed any further evidence that my Speedo days are over, this is certainly it.

And that takes care of that--or will have to until certain statutes of limitations run out. Now, in the immortal words of Pink, "I'm comin' up so you better get this party started . . . "

With Keystrokes, Less Is Indeed More:Another "Helper App" to the Rescue

Okay, I admit it: Keystroke Reduction corrupts--and absolute Keystroke Reduction corrupts absolutely. And if you're feeling uncomfortable about me revealing this Inappropriately Obsessive side of myself, just imagine how I must feel. But let's move beyond the mysterious ways in which I'm seemingly hardwired. Save your pity and instead help yourself to anything that's useful. (Proving that no-strings-attached generosity trumps neurosis--or at least balances the equation.)

As I was bashing out yesterday's post and wielding Tagging Service like the time-saving weapon it is, I found myself getting petulant. Sure Tagging Service is a lifesaver (and if you're using it on my recommendation, I genuinely hope you have deeply thanked the freeware developer)), but, Man, those letter/colon triggers--that's two keystrokes! Surely, I thought, we can do better than that . . . And with a little surfing, indeed we can.

I am now the proud owner of a highly affordable little app called iPaste. Here's the executive summary: It's a multiple entry clipboard which enables you to keep much-used inserts readily on hand. But the best thing about it is that it assigns a keyboard shortcut to each clipping.

Do I need to tell you what I did next? (Mwah-ha-ha! Keystroke Domination is mine!--Why does this come off as much more Dr. Evil than Auric Goldfinger?) Yup: I made each of the Tagging Service triggers a clipping. Now by simply hitting Ctrl-Opt-1 followed by Cmd-Shift-\, I have my beloved overwraught italics.

Can I imagine seamless, WYSIWYG input eventually? Well, yeah. But until then, I'm productively hunkered-down with the one-two combo of Tagging Service and iPaste--sort of Batman and Robin for minicoders like myself. Okay, I admit it, this pretty much has made my day--and in response to the inevitable superior laughter, I can only say, "Cut me some frickin' slack." It's hard being an evil blogging doctor . . .

The following music helped make this post possible: "These Foolish Things ( Remind Me Of You )" from the album Chet Baker In Paris (2000) by Chet Baker

Friday, July 16, 2004 11:50:09 AM

NoteTaker Support of Blog-Based Publication Structure and Workflow (Repeat After Me: The Web Is Publishing, Not Broadcasting)

Hey, wait a minute--yeah, you! The one who glanced at the head and said to yourself, "Jeez, I don't have an online publication; I'll check back tomorrow." Well, you don't want to do that for three reasons. First, your parents always told you to try new things to broaden yourself, right? Second, this posting is an meta-story--a natural convergence of NoteTaker blogging advice and many of the themes running through this site. And most importantly, it features a Full-Color Chart--and at the end of the day, who doesn't like a good full-color chart? So hang around--this posting might be up your alley after all.

But having said this, I also advise you to settle in. We need to take a philosophical side trip on our way to the tips. No, strike that---we don't need to, but we really, really should. It's always bothered me that most tech-tip resources are weirdly context-free. The supposition, brutally valid as it is, seems to be that the Enter key does the same thing whether you're writing the Declaration of Independence or Mein Kampf. Which is unfortunately true.

(In the Immortal Words of Keanu Reeves, "Whoa!") Revised NoteTaker/Ecto Script Now Available

Okay, I may have let you down, but AquaMinds didn't. All I can imagine is that someone over there wearily pulled themselves away from the July 4th festivities and accepted the baton from the programmers: Remarkably, the New, Improved, Seemingly Kevin-Proof NoteTaker/Ecto script is now available for your downloading pleasure. Public thanks to whoever at AquaMinds wiped hot dog mustard from their chin and proceeded to make the world safe from, er, me.

So if you were planning to blow my mail box apart tonight with a cherry bomb, please cease and desist. Oh, and Happy Fourth!

Sunday, July 4, 2004 8:32:34 PM

Enhanced Support for Ecto & TypePad In New Verision of NoteTaker Blogging Script

Stop the Presses! Remake the Front Page! Seriously consider sending genuinely fawning email to the crack development team over at AquaMinds: The company today released a free updated version of the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript. Script version 0.8.4 offers enhanced connectivity for Ecto's support of TypePad's Continuation/Summary input field. Continuation/Summary enables a posting to be split into an introductory section which is featured on the main weblog page and a continuation or "spill" of the rest of post on a second blog page.

The benefit of TypePad's Continuation/Summary is the ability to feature more postings on the main blog page without making it overly long and unwieldily for visitors to navigate. TypePad is among the first blog service providers to offer the unique continuation capability, which thus places NoteTaker and Ecto on the cutting edge of weblog development.

When creating an entry in a NoteTaker notebook, the use of three right-pointing carrot symbols signals the NoteTaker/Ecto script that all text that follows the symbols should be moved to the TypePad Continuation/Summary field. The three right-pointing carrots are then automatically removed and do not visually interrupt the posting.

To recap, the NoteTaker/Ecto blogging script now supports the creation of post headlines, introductory text and the continued text of the posting.

What's Direct-To-Blog and What's Not (Part Two)

The gratifying number of visitors to this site in its first the three weeks is forcing me to grapple with asethetic/communications issues that will affect its proof-of-concept status. Thus, as my own niggling perfectionism occasionally outpaces the current performance of the NoteTaker/Ecto script, I'll let you know. It's not so much, "Don't try this at home" as it is something along the lines of "Here's how to further tart-up your blog."

In the first installment of this random series of Tell-All, I pointed out that I post everything on this site as direct-to-blog, using the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript. And a good thing too: If I breathlessly encouraged you to use the script and yet created this blog in another way, you would be right in acting like angry villagers in a Frankenstein film. So, yes: All posts to this site are first written a entries in a dedicated NoteTaker notebook, the structure of which has been discussed earlier. And using the additional helper applications I've also described, all of the text formatting and links are also created within the NT notebook entry--but as HTML tags.

(NoteTaker does feature WYSIWYG text formatting and HTML conversion, but--currently--only for its highly useful Web notebooks. It also has an elegant link maker that works within notebooks, between notebooks and also functions in Web notebooks--but, again, currently not when sending to copy to Ecto.)

Updated Version of Blogging Script Released

The NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript that enables blogging from notebooks has just been updated. The new version fixes a bug where the first sentence of the entry did not automatically become the posting's headline when the entry was first sent to Ecto (as opposed to sending it directly to TypePad, using Ecto as a conduit).

The crack team over at AquaMinds have posted the updated AppleScript here. And, while you're visiting their site, don't forget to check out the free NoteTaker Viewer that is also available for download, This viewer played a role in one of the productivity solutions discussed earlier.

In terms of further NoteTaker/Ecto script enhancements, keep checking back here. I'll do my best to ensure visitors to this site will be among the first to know any breaking news.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 10:20:26 AM

AppleScript Shortcuts: Additional Convenience for Notetaker Bloggers

Make no mistake about it: Using NoteTaker as a powerful and flexible blogging client is a newborn capability. So young, in fact, the AppleScript which connects NoteTaker to Ecto has not yet reached the status of a 1.0 release.

This means that the situation is both fraught with possibilities and limitations. Possibilities are prevalent because the circumstances are so fluid. Everyone is still working out (a) what is possible in terms of AppleScript and (2) what is genuinely useful for users. For now at least, the NoteTaker/Ecto combination has created the most powerful and deeply featured blogging client available. Others such applications may be developed, but right now the field belongs to NoteTaker/Ecto.

Because of this, much of the initial exploration is improvisational. Early Adaptors are pretty much pressing buttons and noting what happens. And, increasingly, this experimentation is focusing on the classic (and classically American) Could/Should dichotomy: So great is the power of NoteTaker, there may be things that are now become possible that have no real-world benefit for a weblog--at least not now. It's a matter of not knowing we want something until we work out that it can be done. This improvised exploration will undoubtedly become part of the feedback loop that, in turn, will help refine the NoteTaker/Ecto script.

At the same time, improvisation will also begin to map the current limitations of the NoteTaker/Ecto script. How do you know something won't happen until you try to do it? Note that limitations are not bugs. We aren't talking about malfunctioning or underperforming advertised capabilities. Rather, it's those situations where users have boxed themselves into an operational corner; where the immediate response is "Look, I just need to be able to do that"--whatever that is. And it may be that what's being asked for is eminently doable--in time. But when you really, really, really want to do it now, well, that's just not the answer you want to hear.

A Closer Look at Tagging Service

Yesterday I pointed out that Tagging Service by MonkeyFood provided fast, fast, fast relief for any one flirting with text-tagging-induced repetitive stress injury. Since then, I've had a chance to more fully explore this nifty little applet and I'm pleased to inform users who respond to angle brackets the same way Dracula responds to crucifixes that my new best friend, Tagging Service, also handles the creation of links that convey without a hitch to Ecto and TypePad. TS (yes, our bond is now so strong, I'm on nickname basis with the utility) additionally allows the timesaving creation of image addresses (img) and URL identification (url).

TS works its magic by inserting open and close tags based upon a single-letter trigger that is followed by a colon. This letter-colon trigger is placed directed next to the first word that the tag is to act upon--with no space between the letter-colon and the word. (Explained in prose, the process looks more complicated than it is. It's best to simply download the freeware service and play with it. Complete mastery takes about 30 seconds--I promise.)

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

Er, Just do your best to ignore any cryptic test postings you may find here. On occasion, as the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript is further improved, you may glimpse a little R&D going on. I'll do my best to keep it in the dead of the East Coast night and try to remove any evidence of testing having occurred by morning light--rather like Area 51, but oh-so-much-more banal.

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 11:39:36 PM

What's Direct-To-Blog and What's Not

The very satisfying number of visitors to this site has prompted me to make the place a tad more aesthetic. When it was my private playground, the spartan look worked just fine, thank you. But, er, now that a party seems to have broken out, I thought it best to tidy up the house for the guests--even if that means spackling as the canapes are being passed around.

But in doing so, it occurs to me I may be giving the wrong impression of what direct-to-blog via NoteTaker and Ecto really means. Nothing significant has happened since the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript was released last week. So any nominal improvement seen in this weblog is me touching things up apres post.

The entries' artwork, hyperlinks and categories have all been added after the fact. Further, only the main posting area is the result of direct-to-blog posting from NoteTaker through Ecto. Adding insult to injury, those damnably inflexible sidebars had to be created within TypePad. And as long as we're discussing the artwork, be aware that in most--but not all--cases, double-clicking (©2004 Microsoft, apparently) creates larger, pop-up versions of the art.

And yeah, I'm ahead of you--you want to know when and if art, links and categories will be supported in the NoteTaker/Ecto AppleScript--to which I merely smile cryptically. As the Caveat Visitor at the right stresses, I am neither an employee of NoteTaker or Ecto, nor their spokesperson--although I do admit I frequently behave like that annoying "unofficial" booster for the Wendy's fast food chain. What happens in terms of further feature support will happen. But speaking strictly as a private citizen, there is nothing making such support technically impossible.

My advice is to see what the script becomes as it evolves from decimal-fraction release. After that, it will be very cool to see what other user-scripters further code into it . . .

Monday, June 7, 2004 12:32:50 PM