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StickyBrain 4.1 beta brings serious features to the table

by David Chartier May 8th 2006 at 1:00PM


After the release of Yojimbo, you would think that the note-taking and thought-collecting app wars were over. The dust was settling, the spectators were clearing the stands... even the arena lights were dimmed to that "you can go home - now" level.

But then StickyBrain, rising from the ashes, lifted its weapon once again in one of those 'kinda slow-motion, like in a Hollywood action film' ways that signified that it is ready - more than ever - to do battle with its competition.

All dramatics aside, I came across this post at Hawk Wings yesterday about a new StickyBrain 4.1 beta version, and wow does it pack some new features. A couple of them seem blatantly Yojimbo-inspired, but Chronos did a great job baking in some handy new stuff, like:
  • A new dock to side of screen called DockNote (pictured)
  • Added audio recording capabilities to Audio notes
  • flagging
  • colored labels (pictured)
  • Support for blogging to platforms that support Atom (hopefully they'll expand this to include other blog APIs in the near future)
  • Daily Notes and Journal sections that automatically insert the date in the note's title
  • full-screen mode
  • printing from any app to a StickyBrain PDF
  • support for dragging any type of file to StickyBrain's dock icon
A few of the normal StickyBrain complaints I've seen around the web in reviews and shootouts still remain, such as StickyBrain needing to install its own database server (OpenBase) instead of using something like Tiger's CoreData. However, at least on my MacBook Pro, there are absolutely no remnants of the 'it takes way too long to start up' issue; StickyBrain opens in a flash - as quickly as Yojimbo, and I've made sure they both have the same items in their databases.

I've been playing with this beta since yesterday afternoon and I have been thoroughly impressed. If you're beginning to drool, check out this forum thread for details on the latest (as of this writing) 4.1 beta 3 version. I definitely recommend checking out this beta (though keep in mind: it's a beta) if you're on the hunt for a feature-packed, streamlined app for collecting your digital stuff.

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After the release of Yojimbo, you would think that the note-taking and thought-collecting app wars were over. The dust was settling, the...
 

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Alan Schmitt

I'm looking at Yojimbo right now. I'm using OO pro quite a bit, and Voodoo Pad for note taking. I'm still not sure as how one could integrate VP and Yojimbo.

May 11 2006 at 12:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Roger Rodrigues

Each uodate of Sticky Brain cists $25

May 08 2006 at 6:08 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alex Reed

Stefan: I cannot recommend that you use Sticky Brain for taking notes, or for storing any important information. I lost over 800 notes and pieces of information in one of the many problem plagued Sticky Brain updates. Nothing but trouble, as many users have noted in various online forums, and lousy tech support. I have left Sticky Brain behind permanently, here's what I use now:
1.) Mac Journal. This is all-around the best, easiest to use, trouble free, and feature rich way to take notes, store information, blog, and yes, even keep a journal. You can take free form notes, or use list format. Great tech support, and Dan Schimpf, the developer, is a great guy, always helpful and happy to hear suggestions and requests.
2.) Yojimbo - what Sticky Brain dreams of being. Yojimbo is stable, easy to use, nice feature set. Great for also storing bits and pieces of information, as well as note taking.
3.) Omni Outliner - great software, good feature set yet easy to use and learn. Note taking more structured than Mac Journal (which allows for more free form notes).
4.) Note Taker - has a very powerful feature set, again more structured note taking.
I hope this helps. Enjoy!

May 08 2006 at 5:51 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mars

I have to throw in a vote for DevonTHINK. The plugin scripts are unbelievably usefully and make storing and sorting tons of information easy beyond words. As a pleased customer I cannot recommend DevonTHINK enough

May 08 2006 at 5:19 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Wirick

For being a 5% market share platform, we Mac users sure have a load of info manager/note-taking apps available, no? Perhaps some of these developers could move on to other, more-needed things (like a secure audio CD ripper (EAC-style) for instance, of which there currently are none in Mac-land).

Shopping the current offerings in the info-management department makes the head spin.

May 08 2006 at 3:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
David Chartier

Well I've never used One Note, but after checking out their site and trying to watch as much of their ridiculous Flash demo as I could stomach, I would recommend looking at some apps like OmniOutliner, possibly the Pro version, and probably StickyBrain. You could also look at the Mac version of Office, as Word and Entourage can do a lot of this stuff already. Word, for example, has a 'notebook' feature that can take actual hirearchical notes, audio notes, etc. I don't know about all the website clipping stuff, but I personally use OmniOutliner Pro and StickyBrain for that kind of stuff.

I know there are other serious options out there like DevonTHINK and their other products, but I don't have any experience with those.

You can also check out a thread we ran last Oct, asking TUAW readers what their favorite note-taking app was:

http://www.tuaw.com/2005/10/02/ask-tuaw-whats-your-favorite-note-taking-app/

May 08 2006 at 1:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Stefan Constantinescu

David: you said this is good for note taking, as a college student I want to ask you: what's the closest thing to Microsoft One Note for the Mac? Hope it's Universal too

May 08 2006 at 1:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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