Memory full? Download more, as Chris Salter explains...
To me, the Harry Potter films and books were an impressive production - well put together and with some well, magical, ideas. One of the ideas that sticks out to me was the Pensieve. For those unaware or who managed to avoid the Harry Potter phenomenon, the Pensieve was a magical device that allowed the user to siphon off thoughts from their mind and view them externally within the device, with the aim that viewing them in this way made it easier to view patterns and links and freed up some of the grey matter for other things. To me, such a device would be amazing and should greatly aid in my ability to recall information and help in my daily life and my main job of research!
Well, it turns out that perhaps the Pensieve isn't quite as magical as you might expect. With computers, we can actually create our own version of it and rely on machine learning and Al, rather than magic.
There are a number of programs designed to store all the information you generate and allow you to easily recall the data in the future. If you're like me, you can remember seeing information you need but can't recall the details. That's where these software packages come in. They're designed so that the more you use them, the more useful they'll be, although this obviously relies on good search functionality so you can recall that information later.
This article details a few different software packages that are available, how they differ and which ones might suit you.
Evernote
Evernote was formed in 2008 and has steadily built up its customer base. Evernote operates a freemium model, with the software being free with various limits, which can be removed by paying a subscription fee. The number of features depends on the fee (£19.99 for Plus and £35.99 for Premium). The full paying service unlocks the complete feature set (such as presentation mode, search attached files, versions and content suggestions). The amount you can sync is also limited - with the free account limited to 60MB a month, all the way up to 10GB a month at the full fee level.
The software itself rose to prominence, because it was designed so you could access your data anywhere and on any device. All data you enter into an online workbook is synced to the Evernote servers, and you can then access this on one of the mobile apps or directly on the Evernote website.
The notes that you can create are similar to using a word processor; rich text or plain text notes can be created. You can insert documents, images and any files that you want. One of the benefits of having an online notebook is that any images that you import can have optical character recognition (OCR) undertaken on the image, so when you perform a text search, it can bring up results based on text within the image. To perform this, the notes need to be synchronised to the Evernote servers, while others do this locally.
Evernote has aimed itself more at the office market over the past few years and has added some additional features. You can now have a presentation mode, which will display your notes within a notebook in a presentation format. There's also a chat function, where you can chat and discuss notes with a colleague.
Evernote has been around long enough and has been incorporated into a number of different online services. For example, it links into the automation program If This, Then That (IFTTT), which allows other web services like Facebook and Google Drive to send files and notes to Evernote when something changes. It also has numerous ways of importing data from the web into Evernote - be that through some of the Evernote apps or the simple web import bookmarklet. However, export options are limited.
Evernote allows you to arrange notes within notebooks but does also let you tag each note. In addition, you can create saved searches, so if there's a search you perform often, you'll be able to keep using that search by clicking it without having to search again. Sharing can be done per note or a per notebook basis, and you can share notes on a read only basis as well.
Microsoft Onenote
Onenote is the grand daddy of the software covered here: the initial release was in 2003, and it's has been going since. The software is currently included in the Microsoft Office suite and is also available to Mac users free of charge in the Mac App Store (though is a reduced version of the Windows version). While Onenote supports offline access and can be used solely offline, it does have a free web version and has apps for iOS, Android and Windows phones. It allows users to sync between these devices using Microsoft Onedrive (which has a 15GB limit, unless you're an Office 365 subscriber). Using it locally on a computer without syncing means that the size of a notebook is limited only by your hard drive.
Initially, Onenote was very Microsoft focused, but over the past couple of years, Microsoft has opened it up to other operating systems, allowing many more people to use it.
Unlike the others, Onenote allows you free reign to edit and mark up drawings and files in a non-linear fashion. Evernote sometimes feels like a standard linear collection of documents, because you can only edit it like an office document. Onenote, though, feels like an open notebook, because you can start typing and editing anywhere within the open space (you can also add more space).
Like the others, Onenote lets you attach files, but you aren't limited in what files you can attach. If you attach an image, the image undergoes OCR to allow you to search for text within images as well. In addition, you can insert images and PDFs as a printout, rather than just an attachment. Inserting as a print out allows you to search through the PDF from within Onenote, and it also allows you to mark up comments and highlight areas of the PDF. However, this isn't then transferred to the PDF as if you were to edit the file within a PDF editor.
Onenote doesn't tag notes, but you could manually tag each note that you wanted to search for. This means there's no tag search function, just the standard search function. Searching in Onenote seems to be a weak point in comparison to other items, because it doesn't have a full-size search page showing results. Compare this to Evernote, which restricts the view to only the notes that contain the items you want. However, Onenote does support a more structured solution to notes, which is useful if that's more how you'd like to order your thoughts.
Google Keep
Google Keep is Google's answer to Evernote and Onenote. It's a newcomer to the market and was only announced in 2013, making it the youngest of the group. Google has created apps for both Android and iOS, and your notes are also available online via a web app. Chrome extensions can be downloaded to create the feeling of a desktop program (also useful for Chromebooks).
Google Keep follows skeuomorphic principles and is arranged similar to a pinboard with Post-it notes. This applies to all the applications, though you can arrange the notes in a linear fashion if you'd prefer.
Organisation is provided via labels (essentially tags) and also through the colour of the actual items themselves. It's similar to the Google Mail inbox; everything is in the same place and is searched for using the search function. The search lets you search via tags, lists, images, audio, labels and the colour of the note itself. This may annoy more obsessive computer users who might want everything tagged and in specific notebooks or locations, but it seems to work well.
While other items allow PDFs to be attached, Keep is restricted to purely images or audio files, and audio files can only be added via the phone apps, since there's no option to upload this via the website. Like Evernote and Onenote, images undergo OCR, allowing a text search to include words within the image itself. However, I found this to be a bit hit and miss, with some words in a screenshot being recognised and others being missed. Notes can have reminders set on them, which can either be activated by time and date or by location (only activated via the phone application).
Keep allows you to share individual notes with people via their Google accounts. These notes appear in both accounts but can be changed by both parties. It isn't possible to restrict one party to read only, so you have to ensure that everyone realises that changes and deletions are propagated across all users. There is a recycle bin, however, which keeps notes for seven days, and you can access archived notes at any time.
Apple Notes
Apple Notes is an odd one: it isn't until iOS 9 that the Notes app could really be considered similar to Keep, Onenote or Evernote. Unlike the others, Apple only makes apps for OSX and iOS, and there are no official apps on other platforms.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a disconnect between the Mac versions and the iOS versions and, initially, if you uploaded attachments to Notes within OSX, these would not appear on iOS. However, in iOS 9, Notes was updated with new features; now you import attachments (and view PDFs etc from within the Notes), you can sketch, and you can add additional features like checkboxes. This makes it closer to Onenote and Evernote, but some features are missing. For example, there are no tags, so you're unable to tag notes for specific purposes, and there's no OCR of images, but if you do attach PDFs, the search function will search these as well.
Notes syncs by using Apple's iCloud. It takes up space on the free 5GB that Apple allows you to use, so if you use iCloud for various tasks (like backup of a phone or tablet) and end up heavily using Notes, you might have to pay a subscription charge to increase the storage space. As well as iCloud, Notes can also sync using IMAP (the same synchronisation protocol as email is used to sync between devices). However, while Apple introduced new features to Notes in iOS 9, these features are only available to those Notes being synced via iCloud, so using IMAP means you're limited in what can be achieved with the notes app.
The iOS Notes app supports the new Apple Pencil for taking notes with, so like Onenote, you can doodle in the notes, much like a standard notebook would allow. Sharing items isn't possible yet, though. You can, however, export the notes as PDFs and then send them to people.
Conclusions
For those willing to investigate the options, there's a wide range of software that takes information from the user and allows them to share and access it at a later point.
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and no software will do it all - however, with some many different options out there, it is easy for a user to find a software that will fit into their own scheme of things.
In general, all require some form of cloud synchronisation that might put some people off - especially as this type of software is designed to store the information that you might ever put into it, whether that be personal information or not. There are options that are a bit more restricted in features that don't have to sync with a cloud service but there is obviously a trade off.
Overall, the software covered here will allow users to dump any and all sorts of information into a giant repository to recall at a later date.
Use Your Own 'Brain Dump' Software
For those who want access to the data they save in a readily exportable format, nothing beats plain text. Using plain text files to save your notes allows you to view them on any device and is easily transferable should you need to move computer or operating system. Something like nValt on OS X, Respohnotes on Windows or even just a plain text editor like Sublime Text, can create plain text notes in a folder and then search them for keywords.
NAS Solutions
Synology has an answer to Evernote, which is stored on a NAS device and is free to access and use. Note Station is available for all Synology NAS devices using DSM 5, It has an Android/iPhone app, so you can access and add notes while on the go, and it's edited via a web browser logging into the NAS itself.
Not Exhaustive!
The four different software tools covered here are by no means exhaustive. There are a number of different online tools and services that could be used: wiki software, such as Tiddlywiki, Zim, Tomboy or ConnectedText; online services such as Simplenote; or even just desktop software, like Notezilla, DevonThink and Yojimbo. There's a thin line in some instances between a note manager and document manager, but you might be looking for a something that does both.