I finally found something that actually helped me transcribe notes online. I know the founder and he says they are working on blackberry and mobile applications as we speak.

If you want a pure text note taking solution that is absurdly quick, barebones, and focuses on data entry check out http://www.ayenotes.com for taking notes online.

AyeNotes was wired for text only notes – sort of the use you describe in your article. Its key feature is that it provides clips for frequently used strings. These can be templates you type, terms you use (action items, research, etc.), or it can be programmer-esque things like HTML and Markdown.

The site also autosaves the work and provides keystroke. If you have the site remember the login, everytime you go to http://www.ayenotes.com to take notes online you are dropped right into the new note screen. To get your data out, you can email or download the note in multimarkdown format.

Talking about note taking…

You might be interested in the fact that EverNote is free today at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com

Google Browser Sync and Google Notebook are just wonderful tools that I recommend to individuals who have multiple PCs. Wherever you may be, using a PC with these two Firefox extensions, voila, your Bookmarks and Notes are available. Now also your Notes on mobile browsers.

I own copies of Evernote Plus and OneNote 2007, but find I’m using Google Notebook for all personal web clipping/info gathering. For big projects that require a lot of information from various sources, including ink, I’ll use OneNote or Evernote, and stick to doing the big project on the PC with that particular license.

Google Browser Sync is my second reason to use Firefox instead of IE7. All bookmarks always available at any of my PCs.

OK, for many people, these two Google enhancements may not mean much. Especially those who use only one PC, or do non-overlapping tasks on each PC they own. But to me, these are eye-openers, my favorite tools this year.