Note-taking software

[Bob D]

I just looked at a program called EverNote.

It's free, so you can't beat the price.

It saves as you type, so you never have to worry about saving stuff.

Each note can be assigned multiple categories, which seems like a powerful way of organizing things so long as you had the foresight to assign good categories.

Sound better than just typing into a Word document, but I wish it also had a calendar.

[Sako]

...  Also, you can't make table in OneNote, so I just make them in Word and insert a screen clipping.

OneNote 07 does have very nice table functionality. 

I downloaded and tried the Onenote 07 trial version for the past two months, and just bought the academic version ($60 at Amazon.com).  I definitely find that it is extremely useful and far superior to Word.  I would think that it is very dependent on how a person thinks and how they like to organize information.

[jillibean]

I use OneNote as well, and like it a lot. Microsoft has a free 30 day trial, so google it, download it, and play around with it.

Hm, how useful is One Note for those w/out Tablet PC's?

It works the same except instead of having the option to write you just always type-- also some schools will offer a download of one note for free, along with vista, word, etc.

[NeoElle]

OneNote was in the software bundle I got with my laptop.

I saw that it has a pretty cool recording feature where you can record a portion of the lecture right as you're taking notes and put the recording right next to your text.  2 questions though:

How long can you actually record (up to full lecture?) and
2, how realistic is it that you're gonna be able to obtain a quality recording with your teeny tiny laptop microphone ?

[rhapsody]

OneNote 2007 sells for $45 at http://www.academicsuperstore.com.

[jacy85]

I've never recorded, so I don't know how much you can tape.

As to the second question, you can't just use your laptop.  You have to buy an external mic.  There are some really good ones that are very small.  You should look into that if you're interested.  You also want to be careful, though, and make sure to get permission from your professors to record lectures.

[hastings1L]

For Mac users (FYI) there is no OneNote, BUT if you have the new intel macs and the new word, when you open the program and see the project galleries there is a "Word Notebook" layout.  I HIGHLY recommend this. No only does it allow you to take nots easier it records the lecture (granted you'll need to sit in the first 3 rows) AND sync the recording to the place you were typing.  So you can click in the margin next to your notes and hear the audio from that point.  Pretty nice and very usefull around exams when you don't want to sift thru a bunch of audio to get to your prof's explination of one area of law