8 ms·

I think vendor lock-in is at least as big a problem as searching and scaling. Arguably bigger for this audience: if I have easy unfettered access to the data i

by biztos 11y ago

I think vendor lock-in is at least as big a problem as searching and scaling. Arguably bigger for this audience: if I have easy unfettered access to the data itself I can always try something else for search/scale. I've tried a few and at least twice tried to write my own (and gave up due to scope creep). Right now I just have a bunch of Markdown files and a giant messy DropBox folder and an almost-as-messy set of private GitHub repos. And photos. And videos. And e-mail. And backups. (What does one do with a Zip disk these days?) I bet a lot of people my age (mid-40's) or older have the same problem: choosing or building a system we think would work long-term, and then gathering and organizing all the "legacy" stuff (which you definitely want!) is already an enormous undertaking, and so instead we live with a bunch of ad-hoc systems that aren't in any way cross-referenced. Nobody wants to be the sysadmin of their own junk drawer, but I for one don't want years' worth of my stuff locked into somebody's Cloud du Jour. (Then again, I have this same problem with actual paper documents, so maybe it's just me.)

xbryanx 11y ago
This. As a near 40 person, I now need to search in 5-10 places for that thing I know I wrote down in Markdown, Vim Notes, Workflowy, Tiddlywiki, 1Password, Confluence, or email at some point in the last 20 years. But maybe we just need to give up on finding one tool to store them all. Instead we need to build more federated search across all these platforms. That way I can have one searcher that returns results all my various old "brains."
dangoor 11y ago
I have had very similar thoughts, but I have to wonder if it turned out to be wrong. Jerry's Brain: http://jerrysbrain.com/ http://jerrysbrain.com/ Apparently started in TheBrain in 1997 and now has more than 250K "thoughts". That's breathtaking for both the longevity and the scale. I'm guessing that most mind mapping programs wouldn't handle that well. Gathering the legacy stuff is not as important as getting started with something, I think. The legacy will make it into a new system as it's needed. I've been using Evernote for a number of years. I don't particularly like it (cumbersome UI without great navigation), but the search has worked well enough for me to find things and its ubiquity has been great.
- dangoor 11y ago
  Following up to my own point: products come and go all the time and it seems like luck that Jerry happened to pick a product that stuck around. It does seem unfortunate to have to risk your outboard brain on luck!
- shostack 11y ago
  Totally agree about Evernote. Man did they drop the ball on staying ahead with their UI. Certain things that have been solved in text editors for years are still major issues in Evernote. That said, I do use it still, and will continue doing so until there is a solid alternative that I don't think will go poof in 3 years.

by biztos 11y ago

xbryanx 11y ago

This. As a near 40 person, I now need to search in 5-10 places for that thing I know I wrote down in Markdown, Vim Notes, Workflowy, Tiddlywiki, 1Password, Confluence, or email at some point in the last 20 years. But maybe we just need to give up on finding one tool to store them all. Instead we need to build more federated search across all these platforms. That way I can have one searcher that returns results all my various old "brains."

dangoor 11y ago

I have had very similar thoughts, but I have to wonder if it turned out to be wrong. Jerry's Brain: http://jerrysbrain.com/ http://jerrysbrain.com/ Apparently started in TheBrain in 1997 and now has more than 250K "thoughts". That's breathtaking for both the longevity and the scale. I'm guessing that most mind mapping programs wouldn't handle that well. Gathering the legacy stuff is not as important as getting started with something, I think. The legacy will make it into a new system as it's needed. I've been using Evernote for a number of years. I don't particularly like it (cumbersome UI without great navigation), but the search has worked well enough for me to find things and its ubiquity has been great.

dangoor 11y ago
Following up to my own point: products come and go all the time and it seems like luck that Jerry happened to pick a product that stuck around. It does seem unfortunate to have to risk your outboard brain on luck!
shostack 11y ago
Totally agree about Evernote. Man did they drop the ball on staying ahead with their UI. Certain things that have been solved in text editors for years are still major issues in Evernote. That said, I do use it still, and will continue doing so until there is a solid alternative that I don't think will go poof in 3 years.