Programmers understand why it is so difficult for computers to manage information in a manner that is truly convenient and free of complications for end users. But from our perspective, surely this is something that computers should be able to do.
Computers can think millions – even billions – of times a second. They can hold trillions, even quadrillions of bytes of data – a single desktop computer can hold the entire library of congress on its hard drives. So why is it when we want to have a computer simply keep copies of things that are of interest, and to do so in a simple easy way that doesn’t require us to learn a programming language, the computer won’t oblige? Oh – and let’s not forget – simply storing the information is only half the story. The other half is finding it again.
If you’ve ever looked through a filing cabinet for a document that was filed in the wrong place, you’ll know that having the information is only part of the puzzle – if you can’t conveniently get it again, and do something with it, the information is worthless.
Yes, there have occasionally been programs that promise some type of ‘store everything and find anything’ capability, but these have never been truly flexible.
But now, is it at last possible that a program has come along and evolved to a point where we can throw any sort of data (text, images, audio, video, etc) into it, have the program accept it, and then be able to search and find it again easily and conveniently, even if we don’t remember exactly where we stored it?
Microsoft OneNote promises these capabilities, and a lot more besides. Does it live up to its potential and its promises? Please now click to read my two part review on Microsoft OneNote to get the answers to these and many more questions.
