Still pretty much the ultimate application.
For years I've been of the opinion that the true tool for digital integration
is e-mail. My various inboxes are enormous because I hardly discard anything,
and I don't discard anything because e-mail is the center of my digital universe.
As I've confessed numerous times in the past, I save in numerous places and with
numerous tools (and Desktop Search has helped reduce the stigma that in the past
may have been attached to what is often perceived as disorganization). But e-mail is the hub from which other digital activities eminate (and the size of my inboxes can confirm
that I hardly ever through anything away). For many years already word processors
have been able to send e-mail, so it might be possible to claim that a word processor
can interchangeably be that same center. But to my mind e-mail, because it assumes
contact not only with ourselves but with others, is the true nerve center, my digital
control central. I can envision an operating system which would be basically little
more than an inbox.
All this, of course, explains why I was elated when
gmail arrived. Sure, I correspond with people via my gmail account, but I use
it mostly as my notebook. I send thoughts to myself, save snippets from pages,
and URLs, and course I also use it to store numerous documents, both completed
and those still being developed. Search and tagging, rather than filing, contribute
to its usefulness. Which I guess explains by I couldn't
figure out why Google Notebook was developed as a stand-alone application.
Go to: Making
a distinction, or
Go to: Doing things
the hard way.