Tumble, coil & fumble
"I am Frank and these are my thoughts."
Frank Jonen is a VFX freelance sup, experience designer,
photographer and writer / director.
A multi-hypenate of non-fixed career.
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One of the issues I had in the past was keeping track of my notes and finding them. But not just locally. Often I needed some info when on the road or without laptop even.
Since about a week now I got something that’s hardly elegant but really does work well.
It’s a chain of a few apps that each are their best at what they do. Meanwhile I expanded this to many more use cases from syncing FinalDraft screenplays across the web to pushing out shot renders to a remote server in real-time.
Here is the case that started it all.
I’m using Notational Velocity for managing my notes. The built-in sync to Simple Note it works great when I only have the iPod touch with me (usually when in bed). Always have fallback options!
Notational Velocity by default uses its own database which you should use if you need to encrypt your notes. For this case however we’ll be using the plaintext file mode. In this mode the app saves to .txt files and manages a regular folder.
The second part is ExpanDrive which adds sFTP, FTP and Amazon S3 capability to your Mac (or Windows box). You basically add your own web storage — which you pay for anyway — like plugging in an external drive. And it actually works.
Part three of the equation is a free Automator script by Ben Long. It lets you sync the contents of two folders.
In Automator all there’s to do is select a first and second location that you want to sync and stack that on top of Ben’s script. Save it as an application and drag it to a place where you can find it again. Mine is in the top bar of any Finder window. I sync manually till I found a better way, maybe as a shut-down task or something else that’s not time-dependent.
TIP: Import Ben’s script to Automator before using it. That way it gets added to your script library for later re-use!
Why did I go for plaintext files? Flexibility! On the laptop I have a very small screen (12-inch PowerBook) so WriteRoom is the best way to edit notes there.
As you can see the possibilities are endless here. And the best part is, it’s not some esoteric programming that you need to learn to make it work. ExpanDrive is a double-click installation, the Automator stuff is drag & drop, and anyone can create folders in the Finder. Depending on your host the hardest part might be to find out your login details :)
