5 More Fun Ways To Make Notes On Your Mac.

There’s yet another way to take notes and organize files on your Mac. Do we need another note taker?

If choice is good, then the Mac is growing in utilities choices that do everything except email and cake decorations.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m seeing a trend among Mac software developers these days. Features. More features. As in ”feature bloat.” As in “feature creep.”

Somewhere there’s a saying something like this-- ”all software adds features until the application does email.” I’m certain that phrase, however inaccurately quoted, is true of Microsoft’s efforts with Windows, Office, et al.

Is that happening to Mac software? What happens when an application takes on too many features? It becomes difficult to learn, difficult to use, and-- here it comes-- buggy.

Note taking utilities are abundant on the Mac. I use Hog Bay’s Mori, and CircusPonies’ Notebook. The former is lean, mean, and flexible. The latter is complex, does everything, and needs an assistant to keep running.

Earlier this week I reviewed Chronos’ highly touted SOHO Organizer. It’s a complex tool that does just about everything you can do on a Mac-- except email and edit movies.

I’m a long time Microsoft Office and Entourage user, and love Mori’s flexibility for text, and Notebook’s ability to organize. What I saw of SOHO Organizer I like, and I said so.

While many Mac users like Organizer, many Mac users don’t like it, and said so. Check the Comments section.

I received plenty of email telling me about a list of support problems, dependability problems, and other issues.

Elegant is not a term I’d use to describe Organizer, and it’s not a term I’ll use to describe Chronos’ SOHO Notes. It’s a note taker. It lets you take and organize notes on your Mac. How hard can it be? Plenty.

SOHO Notes is a part of SOHO Organizer, though I didn’t review the Notes features. Frankly, there’s no many features in the two applications that I was forced to conserve bits and bytes and do them separately.

You can use Notes to track almost anything that crosses your schedule, crosses your mind, or crosses your Mac. Conversations, expenses, daily events, projects, do lists, web pages, and more.

Do a daily journal, print receipts, drag photos from iPhoto into Notes, sync with your iPod, a Palm device or your .Mac account. Sound familiar?

Use Notes to add keywords to everything not tied down. Safeguard your notes with 256-bit encryption (that’s a good thing). You can link Notes to Apple’s AddressBook. Drop in clip art with your iPhoto photos.

Wait. Aren’t we talking about a note taker? Shouldn’t it, you know, just take some notes-- and do it real well? Yes. But this is the 21st century. Macs run on Intel. You know. Just like Windows. Mac software needs features. You know. Just like Windows.

There’s so much going on with SOHO Notes that it has evolved well beyond note taking. It’s more of a digital bucket, a computing closet, a collecting cabinet, and the 3 car garage your Mac never had.

Check out This Page. It’s a list of 101 Things You Can Store in SOHO Notes. That list only scratches the surface.

Have our digital lives become so complex that we need a utility that does over 100 things?

Notes has some great features. Perhaps not enough great features, and too many just good ones. I devoted a lot of time and effort to learn CircusPonies’ Notebook. Mori can be learned in an hour or two, and is the most flexible “note taker” I’ve ever used.

SOHO Notes attempts to be an end-all, be-all for organizing notes and digital information. If Apple can create a browser that’s elegant, fast, and contains a few touches that are just right, why can’t we find more software that does the same for our digital notes, digital organizing?

If Notes is one way to track, organize, and take notes, then here are four others: Mori, Notebook, Listz, EagleFiler, and Yojimbo.

Check out the daily list of our 9 Word mini-Reviews at NoodleMac, and Kate's daily in-depth Mac software reviews at PixoBebo.

Off Topic #58 - Do politicians use personal computers? Of course. We’ve heard Barack Obama prefers a Mac, while Hillary Clinton uses a Dell, though, apparently neither of the candidates can bowl. Does Obama’s potential vice president use a Mac? Even Clinton acknowledges Apple’s brand power but says she can’t afford a Mac. Maybe she’d win if she used a Mac.

Off Topic #72 - Need to save a few dollars on Mac software? Click Here to save almost $10 on the new version of Photoshop Elements, and almost $20 on the new Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac from the Mac360 Store (it’s really Amazon). Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage and more-- barely $50 more than Apple’s iWork ‘08.