[iNik]

Personally, I make HEAVY use of OS X services to send things to the right inboxes. Using Evernote's clipper (well, actually the custom services I built to replace the clipper) and OmniFocus's clippings or send-to-inbox service, I can shunt information from any app into the right "inbox."

I use the same tools to move items between apps as well. Select text in Evernote, then "Send to Inbox" and I've got a task waiting for me. If I have a lengthy note I clipped from a website into OmniFocus, I can select it and send it to my default notebook in Evernote.

This does mean that I have an extra inbox to sort, because there's no automatic tagging or anything in there, but it sure does get the job done, quickly and painlessly.

ReQall would be easy enough to include in this workflow, by just selecting the text in your browser and sending it along with the right keyboard shortcut. Just another inbox.

[hypotyposis]

Thanks Nik—this is just what I needed to convince me to finally upgrade to Snow Leopard! ;-)

[Dogsbreath]

My solution for this is probably too simple, which must mean that I haven't understood the question!

I have a context called Reference and a folder called Reference with a number of single action lists in called: Computers, Excel Advanced Book, Pens etc. etc. Anything I want to dump goes in there. I want to keep all of this stuff together hence why I have tried to stick to OF.

I have not converted to the cloud as yet. I am trying Evernote, more for it's PDF OCRing than anything. I am also playing with Notational Velocity (great app) especially as it nows play nicely with SimpleNote. I have MobileMe and use iDisk, but not often. If I do use any of these it will take me some way from keeping everything in OF, but I think that I can justify that to be able to search PDFs on Evernote or for files in MobileMe. Annoyingly I am going to struggle to justify my favourite apps Notational Velocity and SimpleNote.

[hypotyposis]

Hi Dogsbreath,
Not at all too simple a solution! Your vote along with Curt's recommendation of Notational Velocity + Simplenote means that it's something I really need to explore. I really like the idea of Reference context + folder; my only worry would be that it slows down the system and the sync too much (and I want to keep OF fast esp. to be able to always enter actions in very fast). Evernote seems to integrate pretty well with my one-day re-switch to OF as per Nik. It's best for me I think because of the wide variety of format supported. I'm a heavy user of images in particular, and need them cross-linked to textual references etc. I have masses of PDFs that I manage in different ways (and iPad + iAnnotate, the latter being a decent temporary solution, is a blessing for all PDF readers), and Evernote keeps them available for me across platforms. Plus masses of Word and Pages documents, etc. There's some obvious quirks, but contrary to most people I actually really enjoy their Mac desktop app interface.
I also use iDisk mostly for massive backups of my HD and for sync services.
I'm curious, though: may I ask how many "reference" notes you keep in OF, how long they are on average and if you insert media in them, and if you've noticed any decrease in speed as the database gets bigger with those?

Thanks!

[Dogsbreath]

There are less than 200 reference notes in my library, although some of them have embedded notes of up to 2 pages of A4 (it's like letter, but better!). None have media attached. My sync speed to my iPod Touch is about a minute or less. The increase is notes is gradual, as is the increase of sync time, so I haven't really noticed it build up. I would be loathe to add images as I am sure the speed would be a problem, but perhaps OF doesn't sync in the way I think. Perhaps it only syncs the changes and the time that mine is taking is just checking if there are any differences?

[hypotyposis]

Originally Posted by Dogsbreath

There are less than 200 reference notes in my library, although some of them have embedded notes of up to 2 pages of A4 (it's like letter, but better!). None have media attached. My sync speed to my iPod Touch is about a minute or less. The increase is notes is gradual, as is the increase of sync time, so I haven't really noticed it build up. I would be loathe to add images as I am sure the speed would be a problem, but perhaps OF doesn't sync in the way I think. Perhaps it only syncs the changes and the time that mine is taking is just checking if there are any differences?

Awesome! This makes me want to try OF for simple text notes, thanks for the info!

[whpalmer4]

Dogsbreath didn't mention how much space his db occupies, but my iPod touch (2G model) syncing with Omni's experimental sync server and an overgrown db that has 670 projects, 6209 actions and 241 zip files at this moment, occupying 12.8 million bytes of actual disk space syncs in about 20 seconds. It will take longer on those sync cycles where it compacts the db and has to rewrite the whole thing back to the server, of course. I don't think a reasonable number of text files or lengthy notes are going to have much of an adverse impact as long as you are getting decent connection speeds to the network.