Endo & Yojimbo – New Tools to Manage Information

I’ve been on the lookout for new apps or tools to help manage the whirlwind of information that pops up everyday. I’m looking for stuff that’ll help me find and consume info and also stuff that helps me organize information and generate knowledge. I’m talking anything from reading web sites and email to finding information to writing blog posts to jotting down ideas. I recently talked about Microsoft upgrading their Mac Office suite to take advantage of Mac OS X Spotlight search and .Mac sync features. I’m also playing around with a new RSS reader called Endo and the information organizer Yojimbo.

While I still use the RSS aggregator NetNewsWire Lite and like it, I heard about Endo (from the makers of Ecto). Endo has some appealing features that NetNewsWire doesn’t yet have, namely synchronization of RSS subscriptions and articles. I use NetNewsWire at home and at work to quickly read news items, but each instance of the app is separate and unique. When adding subscriptions, I have to add them both at work and at home. When marking items as read, I have to do so at work and at home so there is some duplication of effort. It’d be nice if my feeds and read articles could be synchronized so that I’d get a consistent state of my news items. That’s the main reason why I’m looking at Endo. Only thing is the sync feature of Endo is disabled until you purchase and register the product. I have the 21-day demo version. 🙁

Getting used to Endo’s interface is taking me awhile. I notice I’m making things look like NetNewsWire. I disabled showing the summary and tags so now Endo looks like NetNewsWire. I have to get accustomed to the keyboard shortcuts as well. I like the color coding feature but don’t like the rotating group icons on the top. I rather have my icons stay put and not move around. I kinda remember where icons are physically located so when they move around, I feel like I have to hunt them down again. Irritating.

Another problem I have, partly due to the reading, researching, and writing for blogging, is a good way to organize and capture ideas. While reading news from the Web, I may come across some interesting tidbit that could be useful somewhere and somehow. In the past, I’ve copied and pasted the info or web links into my Microsoft Entourage Notes section, but that really didn’t work out well. I considered using OmniOutliner to jot down the ideas then send the Outliner file to myself, but that feels cumbersome. I was thinking of signing up for a web service like 37 Signals Backpack or Ta-Da Lists but never did. I ended up emailing myself the information and forwarded this list as I updated it. Confusing and a hassle!

Then I read a review of Yojimbo on MacCentral, and it sounded promising. There’s some room for improvement with this new app, but guess what feature Yojimbo offers? That’s right, synchronization using .Mac. I can update Yojimbo at work, do a sync, and sync up my home copy of Yojimbo and vice versa. Now I have all my notes, ideas, and links handy at work and at home.

Technorati Tags: blogging, endo, Yojimbo