Reviews

I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I want to set everything up in Note Studio, but the experimentation has been pretty fun. At its most basic, you use special syntax codes to make text appear in bold or italics, or to create bulleted lists. You can also use the menus or shortcuts to insert new pages, create links to those to pages, and create a “notebook” of personal information. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, since the format is so free form and the documentation is a bit lacking at this point. Fortunately there’s a basic tutorial and some helpful folk on the dogMelon discussion forums who are willing to help you get started. Once you learn some of the basic syntax things start coming together fast. It’s important to note that by “syntax” I’m not talking about some arcane programming language that no one can understand; you simply use an asterisk to mark bold text, a hyphen for a bullet point, etc. If you forget, you can access the Syntax Guide from the menu system.

Overall I’m quite pleased with Note Studio; I’ve been using both the Palm OS and desktop versions for a few weeks now. Synchronization is absolutely flawless, and I haven’t experienced any crashes or errors of any kind. And I’m very glad that support for 320x480 high resolution + screens is included, as well as the ability to import/export from Memo Pad. Note Studio has a fairly steep learning curve, and it’s rather pricey at $39.95 for the Palm version or $49.95 for both Palm OS and desktop PC, but there’s nothing out there that can even come close to matching it in sheer customization and features. There is no Mac OS X version yet, but there is one currently being planned. If you’re interested in “Getting Things Done” then I highly suggest you check out the sample GTD notebook posted on the developer’s web site. A free trial download is available at the dogMelon web site as well. That’s the best way to see if Note Studio is the perfect fit for your needs.

PocketGoddess Rating for Note Studio: