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The device? My laptop. The setup on my laptop: - Zotero (https://www.zotero.org/ https://www.zotero.org/) A software that allows you to easily keep references

The device? My laptop. The setup on my laptop: - Zotero (https://www.zotero.org/ https://www.zotero.org/) A software that allows you to easily keep references to academic papers right from your browser. Available as standalone app with multiple browser extension, or directly integrated into firefox. When you are on a paper's webpage, clicking on the button extracts its information, its PDF (if available) and do a capture of the webpage and store everything structured. You can then copy citation directly from zotero, generate a bibtex file, or use libreoffice extension. It also allow to sync between computer up to 300M, and extending the storage is quite cheap. - Zotfile (https://github.com/jlegewie/zotfile https://github.com/jlegewie/zotfile) An Zotero extension that monitor the download folder to let you attach downloaded PDF to existing entries. It also rename PDFs with the pattern you want. And the killer feature: It is able to extract what you electronically annotated on the PDF (Highlights, comments)!! - Okular (https://okular.kde.org/ https://okular.kde.org/) For reading and annotating PDF. Straightforward use, nice annotations tools (F6 to open, double click items to make them permanent). Ctrl-S to save the annotation to file (otherwise stored somewhere in the user home file). All these are open source software and are available on Linux!

12fro 10y ago
I also use Zotero, and use Box.Com for storage/syncing. Zotfile is a wonderful addon. I use Zotero in conjunction with Papership (http://www.papershipapp.com http://www.papershipapp.com) on an iPad. Papership syncs with WebDAV storage, which means that, after syncing, downloaded PDFs are available on your iPad for reading offline. Any annotations are pushed back and available in the Zotero client. It's a great client and really stable. In conjunction with the Apple Pencil, it's a really nice system. I'd advise an iPad Pro 12.9" if you do a lot of reading. The extra size means that you spend less time zooming in and out, and an app like Liquid Text (http://liquidtext.net http://liquidtext.net) comes into its own for bringing text and figures into the same region of the screen and reduce the amount of time you spend flipping between the two.
- StreakyCobra 10y ago
  So if I understand you right, for syncing your bibliography you changed the "Data Directory Location" to a synced Box folder (a dropbox-like system)? I thought about doing so with owncloud, then I decided that paying when I reach the syncing limit would be a nice way to encourage the project. Papership and LiquidText looks really nice, I would love to see such applications for Android. But I presume Apple is a more interesting platform as many researchers are on MacBooks. I suppose this is because researchers have really few spare free time and they don't want to use it fighting against the (linux) machines.
  - 12fro 10y ago
    That might be part of it. Myself I value most the differences in hardware: I used a Samsung Galaxy Note at first for similar tasks and loved it, using Zotfile and Dropsync for keeping PDFs on the tablet. I travel a lot, and I couldn't count on it getting through a day of mixed use. In the end, the excellent power management of the iPad was a big advantage. Similarly, I made the switch to a Macbook Pro after a bad day in 2011 in which I was first unable to connect my (Linux) laptop to a projector when visiting an institute to give a talk, and then unable to Skype in to a conference call. It was a bad morning, away from base, so I went to the Apple shop at lunchtime. I value the Linux box I use at work, and enjoy working with its tools, but easy collaboration is also important to me.
porker 10y ago
Interesting, thanks for the info! This sounds similar to https://www.readcube.com/ https://www.readcube.com/, which I dabbled with but never got into. Need to get some system in place as my hard-drive is becoming littered with cryptically named PDF files.
- StreakyCobra 10y ago
  I have taken ReadCube into consideration, but quickly dismissed it because A) there is not Linux support [1]; and B) it is not open source. The open-source side is important for me because the data accumulated in these software is really valuable. If one day the company has to close, you may be stuck without access to your data. With open-source software I'm at least sure to be able to continue running the latest software version on my own, and a community can start to take over and maintain it. Also the way data are stored in the computer can be deduced/found in the code, allowing to make exportation/importation to other software easier. I don't mind to pay for a good software – like I'll probably do with zotero for storage when I'll hit the memory limit – but it has to be open-source. Except this the concept looks quite interesting and the UI seems nice. The only additional feature (in regard to my setup) that I can see on the homepage is the recommendation system, that can be quite interesting though. [1] http://support.readcube.com/knowledgebase/articles/242873-can-i-use-readcube-on-linux http://support.readcube.com/knowledgebase/articles/242873-ca...
ropeladder 10y ago
If you want to sync larger Zotero libraries for free between computers you can use SyncThing to sync the libraries and then let Zotero sync up the database. SyncThing isn't cloud based, so your machines have to be on at the same time, but otherwise it works great. I posted instructions on the Zotero forums a while back: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/50191/syncing-zotero-with-syncthing https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/50191/syncing-zotero-wi...
- StreakyCobra 10y ago
  Yes, I know this is possible, and as I mentioned in a response to a comment below: «I thought about doing so with owncloud, then I decided that paying when I reach the syncing limit would be a nice way to encourage the project.»

12fro 10y ago

I also use Zotero, and use Box.Com for storage/syncing. Zotfile is a wonderful addon. I use Zotero in conjunction with Papership (http://www.papershipapp.com http://www.papershipapp.com) on an iPad. Papership syncs with WebDAV storage, which means that, after syncing, downloaded PDFs are available on your iPad for reading offline. Any annotations are pushed back and available in the Zotero client. It's a great client and really stable. In conjunction with the Apple Pencil, it's a really nice system. I'd advise an iPad Pro 12.9" if you do a lot of reading. The extra size means that you spend less time zooming in and out, and an app like Liquid Text (http://liquidtext.net http://liquidtext.net) comes into its own for bringing text and figures into the same region of the screen and reduce the amount of time you spend flipping between the two.

StreakyCobra 10y ago
So if I understand you right, for syncing your bibliography you changed the "Data Directory Location" to a synced Box folder (a dropbox-like system)? I thought about doing so with owncloud, then I decided that paying when I reach the syncing limit would be a nice way to encourage the project. Papership and LiquidText looks really nice, I would love to see such applications for Android. But I presume Apple is a more interesting platform as many researchers are on MacBooks. I suppose this is because researchers have really few spare free time and they don't want to use it fighting against the (linux) machines.
- 12fro 10y ago
  That might be part of it. Myself I value most the differences in hardware: I used a Samsung Galaxy Note at first for similar tasks and loved it, using Zotfile and Dropsync for keeping PDFs on the tablet. I travel a lot, and I couldn't count on it getting through a day of mixed use. In the end, the excellent power management of the iPad was a big advantage. Similarly, I made the switch to a Macbook Pro after a bad day in 2011 in which I was first unable to connect my (Linux) laptop to a projector when visiting an institute to give a talk, and then unable to Skype in to a conference call. It was a bad morning, away from base, so I went to the Apple shop at lunchtime. I value the Linux box I use at work, and enjoy working with its tools, but easy collaboration is also important to me.

porker 10y ago

Interesting, thanks for the info! This sounds similar to https://www.readcube.com/ https://www.readcube.com/, which I dabbled with but never got into. Need to get some system in place as my hard-drive is becoming littered with cryptically named PDF files.

StreakyCobra 10y ago
I have taken ReadCube into consideration, but quickly dismissed it because A) there is not Linux support [1]; and B) it is not open source. The open-source side is important for me because the data accumulated in these software is really valuable. If one day the company has to close, you may be stuck without access to your data. With open-source software I'm at least sure to be able to continue running the latest software version on my own, and a community can start to take over and maintain it. Also the way data are stored in the computer can be deduced/found in the code, allowing to make exportation/importation to other software easier. I don't mind to pay for a good software – like I'll probably do with zotero for storage when I'll hit the memory limit – but it has to be open-source. Except this the concept looks quite interesting and the UI seems nice. The only additional feature (in regard to my setup) that I can see on the homepage is the recommendation system, that can be quite interesting though. [1] http://support.readcube.com/knowledgebase/articles/242873-can-i-use-readcube-on-linux http://support.readcube.com/knowledgebase/articles/242873-ca...

ropeladder 10y ago

If you want to sync larger Zotero libraries for free between computers you can use SyncThing to sync the libraries and then let Zotero sync up the database. SyncThing isn't cloud based, so your machines have to be on at the same time, but otherwise it works great. I posted instructions on the Zotero forums a while back: https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/50191/syncing-zotero-with-syncthing https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/50191/syncing-zotero-wi...

StreakyCobra 10y ago
Yes, I know this is possible, and as I mentioned in a response to a comment below: «I thought about doing so with owncloud, then I decided that paying when I reach the syncing limit would be a nice way to encourage the project.»