%%
Title: About my exocortex
Created: 2022-03-07 17:09 
Status:
Parent: [[Archive/Computing/KExocortex]]
Tags:
Source:
%%

# About my exocortex

I've been on the lookout for the knowledge management system that fits my needs
for a while.

## Background

The first time I really started to try to keep a personal knowledge management
system was a [[Resources/PKM/Software/CFofTF|pile of notes]] files. I had a script called "today":

```
#!/bin/sh

vim $HOME/notes/"$(date +'%Y%m%d').txt"
```

Relatively straightforward, but there was no structure and no linking between text files. Then I got introduced to [[Resources/PKM/Software/Evernote|Evernote]] by someone who was an [[Resources/PKM/Software/Evernote|Evernote]] devotee; she got me to try it and I was hooked. I liked that it was available on *every* damn platform I had; to be fair, I was using OS X at the time so there was that. Switching to Linux made it a lot less palatable, plus it's closed source so I couldn't fix bugs or tweak things to do what I wanted.

One feature I *really* liked was the clipper: you could throw anything into your space. [[Resources/PKM/Software/Dendron|Dendron]] sort of has this, but it's not great. [[Resources/PKM/Software/Obsidian|Obsidian]] works similarly.

Later on, I started using a little Macbook Air and found a program called [[Resources/PKM/Software/Quiver|Quiver]] there. It's great, although OS X only. I don't think you could attach files, but it had a neat cell-based structure that worked well.

Then I found [[Resources/PKM/Software/Notion|Notion]], which promised to be an [[Resources/PKM/Software/Evernote|Evernote]] alternative. There wasn't a Linux desktop client, though, and you had to be online to use it. Also, the UI was far clunkier than Evernote, and Evernote's wasn't special. Finally, I tried [[Resources/PKM/Software/OrgMode|org-mode]], but again, maintaining artifacts was hard.

I moved onto [[Resources/PKM/Software/Dendron|Dendron]] next, but I knew it was going to be a stopgap for the next thing. Probably a long-term stopgap, but not meant to be permanent. Dendron, fortunately, had a lot going for it. I think I stayed with it for just over a year before making the leap to [[Resources/PKM/Software/Obsidian|Obsidian]].

## What do I want

If I think back about the features I want, I like having the ability to drop documents and write notes about them, I like having access from across a lot of devices, and I liked the cell structure from [[Resources/PKM/Software/Quiver|Quiver]]. I liked how [[Resources/PKM/Software/Dendron|Dendron]] had a simple hierarchy, easy linking, and great navigation. Roll all that up, and that's my personal knowledge base. [[Resources/PKM/Software/Obsidian|Obsidian]] works similarly.

A litmus test I like to use is that trying to remember the [[Resources/Career/Camerata|Camerata]] article. In an ideal world, I'd have a readable (e.g. instapaper-style output) dump of the page alongside the notes I took. I'd be able to dump this out in either HTML (to put online) or as a PDF so I could share it with other people. I traditionally struggled with what the name of the Camerata was, so being able to find it was sometimes hard. You'd think it would be easy with grep, but it's hard to encode that into a regex. It'd be nice to have search results that return things within a small edit distance if there's not a lot of result.

My thinking around how to store artifacts has been influenced by my experiments with [[Resources/Computing/Programming/Notebook/Ideas/Nebula|building a content-addressable data store]] and a general [[Archive/Computing/FObj|file server]].