Abandoning Tinderbox and wikis; sticking with plain text

On Note-taking, wikis and Tinderbox

General lessons:

• Wikis are bad: they will be broken if u move something. So, never use them: history is the best teacher; hyperlinks are stupid for keeping information for a long time
• Future proof plain text (markdown) files are the best.
• Keep all the text notes in the same folder, inside Dropbox
• plain files can be access them by different apps (as the need arises).
• Use services such as Simplenote and Dropbox to access them via the cloud (syncing)
  

  these were the steps i used to sync my notes to various apps

• Create the notes in nvALT
• Store them in a folder in Dropbox
• Index the folder in Devonthink
• Sync nvALT to Simplenote
• Sync Tinderbox to Simplenote
• Sync Scrivener to Simplenote

  Work on any of the app, as the need arises. The changes will be reflected everywhere (windows pcs, ipad, iphone, all fetch from the same folder).

• nvALT is the best for simple notes (drop what is in your head)
• Tinderbox is best for creating connections of ideas
• Scrivener is the best for drafting

After some more experiences and lessons, I realize that the syncing between Simplenote and Tinderbox is broken. Tinderbox adds some weird symbols to my text when I sync them to it via Simplenote. I have been waiting for Tinderbox six if it can solve the problem. It turns out that Tinderbox 6 is by no means better than the previous version in this regard. Its arcane nature, its little communication with other applications in Mac still remains a major issue.

Therefore, I am forced to abandon it for now< at least until the formatting problem is solved. (I requested Mark Bernstein, the developer of Tinderbox a number of times, to fix the issue. Even if he promised so many times, I haven’t seen him doing it for over a year now. so, I am losing hope with him too)

Abandoning Tinderbox also invalidates Simplenote’s fuction. so, I am also not using simplenote anymore.

The whole writing system is build around dropbox now (the nvALT) folder. For creating connections between ideas, now, I have to rely on Scrivener and Devonthink (and Scapple for visualization).

now, more simplified steps:

• Create the notes in nvALT
• Store them in a folder in Dropbox
• Index the folder in Devonthink
• Sync nvALT folder to Scrivener via Folder sync

Simpler and more efficient, at least until i need visualization of my notes (which happens rarely)..

• Computer