Over the years, most of my employers were PC houses, with creative folks grudgingly allowed their Macs, if and only if they could justify the need. Microsoft Office apps ruled my day, along with all the Adobe tech comm tools, and it all worked - I was content with the familiar, but slightly envious of the bouncy, happy Mac users.
Recently, though, I’m in a house of Mac, and it’s been quite a ride (re-learning keyboard shortcuts makes my fingers feel schizophrenic). Because most of my work is web-based (wikis and help systems), I use Google apps on the rare occasion when email won’t do. Overall, I like OS X much more than Windows (in any flavor).
It’s been easy enough to find text editors to replace Notepad++ (Mouapp.com, or TextMate are good), but for quick note-taking, I missed the speed and organization of OneNote. I tried Evernote, because I use it extensively for personal note taking, but somehow, it just didn’t feel right for work stuff. And while Google docs is great, I’m not always connected, so I wanted a local app (Google Drive notwithstanding).
All of which led me to nvALT - a text editor that makes it easy to create and find notes. New to me, this app is a fork of Notational Velocity, a popular Mac app (TechCrunch calls it a cult favorite). I can see why - I'm now a big fan.
nvALT features I can’t live without:
- inter-note links (yay - a wiki just for me!)
- view and search all the notes, a la OneNote - all the notes are visible, open and searchable, all the time
- write in Markdown, with simultaneous preview (or html)
- export to PDF
- tagged notes
Kudos to Lifehacker for another great recommendation!