My Super Cool Google Notebook Replacement

[Rob Whisonant]

"I just posted this on my blog but thought many of you here on the warrior forum could use it."

I love Google Notebook and other services like it. Once Google announced that they where not going to keep developing it, I started thinking about how I need to trust my data to me and not a third party.

So I started my journey to find a replacement for Google Notebook. I found plenty of them, but all had one thing in common. You had to trust your data to a third party. That was just not going to work for me.

Well I was playing around with Wordpress and had one of those duh! moments. Why not use Wordpress? It's easy to use and you can configure it just about anyway you could imagine.

So I installed wordpress in a sub folder of one of my domains. Now I could add all the categories I wanted and put all my notes, bookmarks, media etc in Wordpress and arrange it just the way I want to.

Well this worked, but was not a Google Notebook replacement by far. At least not yet.

One problem I needed to solve was that I did not want sub category posts showing in their parent category. I started searching around and low and behold there is a plugin to do just that. I then installed the Just One Category plugin and it solved that problem perfectly.

Now it's getting better, but it's still not a Google Notebook replacement. At least not yet.

I started thinking that if anyone found the hidden Wordpress installation they could read all my private data. That was not going to work at all. Again I started searching for a way to make all the posts private so only I could read them.

Turns out there are many ways to do this. You can install password protection in the folder Wordpress is installed or install one of the many members only plugins available and then only give out user names and passwords to people you want to have access.

Now this is getting cool! I now have my own project notebook that I can organize all my notes just the way I want them. I can also easily search my notes. I could also create and save multiple notebooks with as many sub categories as I wanted. I like this.

I'm almost happy at this point but it still lacks an easy way to get my notes into it. I liked being able to highlight something on a web page and then just click the Google Notebook button to add the information.

Then one day while just exploring Wordpress, I stumbled upon a thing called Press This in the Tools section of the administration area. I read it and really paid no attention to it. Then I got that puzzled look on my face and said What did I just read? So I read it again and bingo bongo wamo! I found the missing piece of the puzzle!

Press This is a bookmarlet app that you can drag to your bookmark toolbar. You can then highlight content on any web page and then just click the Press This button! Up pops a window with the content you highlighted placed in a new blog post. You then just select the category or create a new one if needed and edit the new post just the way you want it. Then you click the Publish button and it's saved to your private Wordpress blog.

I finally have my Google Notebook replacement and I did not have to trust my data to anyone but me. If you are looking for a replacement for Google Notebook or any other notebook service, give my Wordpress method a try. I think you'll like it.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

[grover69]

Man, that's a cool idea. I too miss Google Notebook. I love your idea of using Wordpress as a replacement!

[Quentin]

I also use Blogdesk which is an app i have on my desktop as sometimes I just don't want to login as I am working on my computer.

Quentin

[Traffic-Bug]

I use Treepad for my offline notes, but today in Lifehacker they wrote about QuotePad, a tiny portable note manager.