That’s lots of choices which all vary in how convenient, accessible and speedy they are. Chromepad is an interesting extension for the Google Chrome web browser that can be used to take notes directly in the browser.

The extension places an icon in the Google Chrome address toolbar that, when clicked, will open a text form that can be used to enter notes.

The extension supports text notes; no BBcode, no HTML or any other formatting options. That’s a limitation as it would be more comfortable if there would be an option to format the text so that links become clickable or important text can be emphasized.

Text can either be copied and pasted into the text form or entered manually by the user. The text is saved by the extension so that it is available in future browsing sessions.

Chromepad can be helpful for users who regularly work with the Google browser. The extension does have a few limitations at the moment. This are synchronizing notes, exporting notes into a text document, tabs or another form of dividing notes and the already mentioned formatting options.

Update: The Chromepad extension has been removed from the Chrome Web Store by its developer. A solid alternative is the highly acclaimed Chrome extension Quick Note.

Several options are available to take notes in the software. If the window of CintaNotes is active then pressing the INS key will create a new note. Text can be copied from other applications with the global shortcut Ctrl F12 and it is also possible to paste information from the clipboard into the software either with a right-click and the selection of paste or by pressing the shortcut CTRL V if the window of the note taking application is active.

All notes that are taken are by default untagged. CintaNotes uses tags to group notes so that it is easier to keep an overview. Tags are by default displayed in a left sidebar while the notes of the selected tab are displayed in the larger main area of the application.

Each note can be edited with a double-click. This opens an editor where the title and text of the note as well as the tags and link can be edited. Content that is pasted from websites automatically contains the link and the title of the website as well as the selected text.

The changes become immediately visible in the main window of the program. A search form is provided at the top which can be used to perform a global or filtered search.

The options of the program contain several interesting features. It is for instance possible to define a hotkey to spawn a new note window globally or enable silent clipping which will not bring the note taking window to the front as long as the option is active.

Backups of the notes are performed automatically by the program and an import and export option makes it possible to synchronize notes on multiple computer systems.

CintaNotes is a resource friendly application that uses less than 8 Megabytes of computer memory while running. It is compatible with most Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP. The note taking software can be downloaded from the developer’s website where it is available as a portable version and an installer.

Click 2 Log It created by TINJAW was a contribution to the Donation Coder Nany Challenge. The application is available in the system tray if it is running. A left-click writes a new note while a right-click opens a context menu with the option to change the text that will be logged from now on.

It’s a little bit complicated – I think – that a left-click is not opening a form where you can enter a log text by yourself but you get used to that. Maybe the author reads this article and will update his version with this option, it would be great.

Another thing that bothers me is the sound that is played whenever a new log entry is created. It would be great if it would be possible to turn off the sound completely. Still, the application is nice and fast and makes my life easier. With the proposed changes it would simply rock.

If you miss a class you still can take a look at the notes online without having to rely on friends who bring them to your house. Even better is that everyone in the group may edit or add content to those notes making it fairly easy to create a comprehensive summary of what happened during a course.

Once completed notes can be printed or exported in pdf and doc format for further editing or archiving those notes.

The editor can probably compared to Notepad with just a few needed formatting options added such as bold or underlined text and headlines. I was not able to find a way to upload images though which would be a real nice feature if you consider that many courses nowadays use graphics in their presentation.

Notesake converts mathematical equations into images and seems to support Latex although I was not really able to find any information on their site about the latter.

If they add private image hosting, offer a good online help explaining all the hidden functions and probably an import function they would really rock the note taking web. As of now this is an interesting online service that could to better.

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