User Profiles: Many Uses for NoteTaker

The HP 100/200LX has so many built-in applications, you hardly have time to use them all. One of the many neglected is Note Taker. If you've ever thought "what use is NoteTaker?", or want some ideas to enhance your use, read on!

[The following comments are from HP 100LX users who are also members of CompuServe's HP Hand forum. Their comments also apply to the NoteTaker program built into the new HP 200LX. We thank them for sharing their experiences with fellow Palmtop users -- Rich.]

NoteTaker was designed to allow you to take down quick notes that you can later search using FIND or arrange using subsets and Categories. Open NoteTaker and you are presented with the "All Notes" screen, displaying the title of a note, the size of the note in number of characters, and the first 38 characters of the note.

NoteTaker All Notes Screen: Graphic

 Press (F2) to add a note, or highlight an existing note and press (ENTER) and an individual item screen is displayed.

Blank Note Screen in NoteTaker:  Graphic

 From this screen you can key in the Title of the note, tab to the note portion of the screen and enter the full note (maximum of 32K, about 30 screens of text), then tab to the Category field and enter a key word to organize or group the notes (e.g. HomeImprove, Work, presents, books, etc.). Note Taker is really a version of the Database application with only three fields, Title, Category and Note. You can sort your notes, create Subsets, move the columns around, export data with the SmartClip, and more.

Perhaps because of its simplicity or because of the Note field available in Appointment book and Phone book this application gets overlooked. Also, many users are accustomed to making quick notes in MEMO, and as a result have numerous files.

As you'll see from their experiences, these 100LX users have found many creative ways to use this simple notes database to solve both business and personal information management problems.

Some of the more surprising uses of NoteTaker we found was that it was being used in key business functions like time billing and inventory control:

Note down ToDo's

Professional time billing

Keeps the shelves well stocked

Purchasing or gift buying

Diary: date stamp makes NoteTaker into a diary

Searchable Reminders

Combine small Memo files into NoteTaker

Organize TXT files and CompuServe messages

No place for it? Put it in NoteTaker

Store and access small bits of information

Palmtop a "miscellaneous drawer"

InfoSelect faster in some ways