NoteTaker 2003 delivers a visually rich, user interface featuring a "spiral notebook with tab sections" metaphor. Extending beyond the idea of "electronic paper", NoteTaker 2003 seamlessly integrates the most powerful desktop features of OS X while also adding transparent support for Services, QuickTime multimedia support, AppleScript programmability (technology preview), embedded web page viewing, and document/file linking. NoteTaker 2003 also makes extensive use of user defined Categories for database-like management and active indexing of content for on-demand information lookup and retrieval.

Information Processing Power Everyday

NoteTaker 2003 for OS X is personal productivity software designed for daily use. With NoteTaker, you can quickly and easily take notes, manage project plans, create simple full screen slide presentations, drag or clip information from other applications (or use NoteTaker Services), index and search notebooks, publish and share information, add voice memos, and, best of all, customize it to fit your digital lifestyle, your information workstyle.

For some tasks, generating a long document is not required and yet there is a need to capture information, organize and process it. Making an outline or creating a list are both examples of tasks that don't necessarily require a word processor and yet the idea of electronic paper for jotting down notes is useful and convenient. Even the capture, retrieval, and organization of random information throughout the day is another example of the need NoteTaker fills.

NoteTaker is and ideal tool for working with unstructured, on-the-fly information you create, organize or gather daily. Using it can be as simple as making lists or as complex as organizing a notebook full of personal notes and pages of information. As NoteTaker's visual metaphor of an electronic spiral notebook with section tabs suggests, there is always the need to find and to retrieve information at anytime without the complexity or the overhead of a database system. Thus, NoteTaker automatically and transparently works behind the scenes to index and categorize notebooks full of information. If it's in NoteTaker, it can be searched and retrieved anytime.

So how does one describe such a flexible product? NoteTaker 2003 is a powerful yet flexible outline and note processor environment with information processing, sharing and publishing features designed for any and all users of OS X. Users include students, teachers, designers, executives, managers, scientists, researchers as well as consumers.

Early NoteTaker User Comments

"From my perspective, the key point about NoteTaker is that unlike almost every other application, it is not single document oriented. In addition to text you enter or import, you can include other document references, URLs, other notebooks, graphics, and so on. This is subtle but important. Like just about any application, NoteTaker allows you to enter your own information, like your bank, brokerage, and mortgage accounts, but you can also enter the URLs of your financial institutions and 3rd party information providers [as I just described], or include a link to the Excel spreadsheet you might use for budgeting or aliases to your Quicken or Money database. With NoteTaker you have access 'under one roof' to the information you entered, to web pages, and to the information you have 'clipped' or copied from various separate documents. In some ways its a bit like going to a shopping center versus a series of separate stores. There's much more convenience when things are all together than you might think."

"Beyond this, from the ground up NoteTaker's design reflects the belief that information becomes more valuable the better it is organized. Using NoteTaker's multiple ways of structuring information, one can evolve the value of one's notebooks over time through better interconnections as well as by adding more content. Unlike a data base, however, NoteTaker's data structures are much more free form, so you can start with little, if any, structure and add more as you need it on a just-in-time basis. There is simply nothing else out there quite like it."

"The benefit of the NoteTaker design is that you 'share the load' of keeping track of information relationships with the software. In other words, you don't have to keep it all in your head. AquaMinds has given us a great tool, because the bulk of the information that most of us have to keep track of is semi-structured, or it needs to be organized in multiple ways. This is where NoteTaker shines in a way that nothing else comes close to."

AquaMinds Mission

AquaMinds key mission is to design software products that exhibit more natural user interfaces for lifestyle computing. Meaning, everyday applications that are easy to understand yet powerful enough to accomplish sophisticated projects and work.

This design approach aims not only to eliminate unnecessary command states and confusing user modes but also to encourage experimentation and customization. Simply put, AquaMinds is focused on "mindful" design that strives to bring the most human interface as close to the surface as possible. Software that can be used every single day.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned here may be the trademarks of their respective companies.

Additional Notes

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: NoteTaker 2003 is a native OS X application developed using Apple's Cocoa platform/development environment. NoteTaker runs on OS X 10.1.x - Jaguar (10.2.x)

For a complete list of product features, screen shots and access to downloads, visit AquaMinds web site at http://www.aquaminds.com/. A demo test-drive version is available for download at http://www.aquaminds.com/download.jsp

PRESS & MEDIA Notes: The screen shot gallery is available at the following location: http://www.aquaminds.com/exampleGallery.jsp