Taking Note of Taking Notes - Part 2: Schoolhouse, Together, Scrivener

I seriously procrastinated this post, but here is the first three reviews of programs that I looked at. The rest will be in another blog post next weekend.

Schoolhouse by Logan Collins (free)

Schoolhouse is a note-taking application specifically designed for students. It is written by Logan Collins, a Comp Sci student at U of Kansas.

I remember trying Schoolhouse when I first started university. At the time, there were many bugs, which is why I moved to Evernote. I have returned to Schoolhouse, and was pleasantly surprised by it.

Pros:

• It's free.
  Free as in $0.00. Free as in beer.
• Specifically designed for students
  It has features that students would find useful beyond just note taking, for example assignment management (includes breaking assignments into smaller tasks), setting up deadlines, and grade tracking.

Cons:

• Only basic text editing
  You can make tables, but it really needs lists because that's how I usually take notes.
• Cannot search through all notes
  Can search through each note individually though.
• Slow update cycle
  One guy is working on this for free. It'll take him a while to bring out updates
• No syncing
  Not important for most people, but important for me.

Find out more at http://www.loganscollins.com/schoolhouse.

Together by Reinvented Software ($39 US)

Pros:

• Decent text editing
  Looks like and has the same features as TextEdit, but can also create links.
• Import different file types
  This is important for slides. I convert slides to PDF so I keep those organized with my notes.
• Lots of ways to organize items
  You can group items by tags, labels and groups. The more way to sort through your notes, the better.
• Syncs through MobileMe
  Once again, this feature is probably only useful for me because I need to sync and have MobileMe.
• Shelf
  Place a convenient tab on your screen where you can quickly organize, view and create notes.

Cons:

• Price
  It's not the cheapest note taking application, but not the most expensive.
• Does not highlight searched text
  This was fixed in an update.

Find out more at http://reinventedsoftware.com/together

Scrivener by Literature and Latte ($45.80 CAN at student discount)

Wow, Scrivener is definitely something different.

Pros:

• Visual note taking
  If you're a visual note taker, this one is for you. You have a virtual corkboard where you can pin cue cards to.
• It's nifty.
  I recommend checking it out just because it looks so cool.

Cons:

• Not really what I was looking for.
  It's designed for script writing, so I couldn't organize notes in a logical way for me.
• Price
  Most expensive of the six I'm reviewing.

Find out more at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html.

Conclusion

It's hard to compete with free, but I think Together is so far in the lead. Find out more in the next segment, which I promise will be released next week.