Webware

Just a little more than a week ago Google announced it would no longer be developing Google Notebook, its free collaborative notes and bookmarks service. While this doesn't mean the service is closing its doors--and more importantly, not allowing people to create and work on new notebooks--most folks will want to move to something that's (hopefully) going to have bugs fixed and a person to talk to when things go wrong.

On Friday we put together a short list of possible alternatives, and now several of those have come up with import tools that will grab whatever you had put together in Google Notebook so you can continue to work on it.

The latest service to come up with an importer is Zoho Notebook. Late last night the company rolled out a new version of its Zoho Notebook plug-in that lets you slurp up all your Google Notebook entries with one button. To go along with this there's also a new option in Zoho Notebook called "text pages" that attempts to emulate the drag-and-drop text list ordering found in Google Notebook. For now the tool is Firefox-only, and cannot display anything besides text clippings when viewing your notebooks from the its small pop-up window.

Ubernote's co-founder Joshua Ho pinged me to let me know that he and his team had a 24-hour coding "marathon" to put together a Google Notebook importer. After working out some kinks with duplicate tags and some stray parsing errors the tool looks up to snuff.

The good news about Ubernote's iteration is that you don't need to install a browser plug-in like Zoho is requiring. The bad news is that you have to go into Google Notebook to export each notebook individually, then re-upload the files to Ubernote one at a time. If you have a ton of Google Notebooks this might be a royal pain in the you know what.

If you want to offload Google Notebooks to your local machine there's always the HTML option.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Coming really soon:

Diigo, which I did not originally include in the Google Notebook alternatives post, but offers many things that Google Notebookers might find attractive, is also working on an importer. It's not out yet, but should be soon.

Likewise, Evernote is hard at work on an import tool of its own. I'm told it will be ready on Thursday. In the meantime, if you have a healthy knowledge of coding language Python, Livejournal user rainyrhy has put together this script which will take exported Google notebook pages and convert them into .enex files which Evernote can then import. This probably isn't the best option for most folks, and will chop up any pictures you might have saved on the service.

With Thursday's news that Google is discontinuing development on its Notebook service, it may leave a few people looking for a viable replacement. The good news is that there are a handful of really solid products that do the same thing, and in some cases--do it better. Here's a list of seven of our favorites, in no particular order.

1. Evernote

Evernote has a few big things going for it, the main one being its cross-platform architecture which lets you access and add to your Evernotes from multiple devices. It also has optical character recognition, which means any photos you send in will be scanned for text, which gets indexed for searching.

Serious desktop users will most likely want to download the local client, which enables you to create and edit notes even when you don't have an Internet connection. There's also a browser plug-in that lets you clip entire Web pages, or simply bits of them, to save for later.

If you want to get at Evernote on your phone there are clients for both the iPhone and Windows Mobile handsets. Both let you access your notes collection and create new ones right from your device. This includes things like voice messages and snapshots from your phone's built-in camera and microphone.

The service is free to use up to a certain amount of data per month, which you can easily go over if you intend to use it for archiving high-resolution photo scans or for storing large files. However, if you're just using it for quick notes, and a few photos and Web clippings you'll be well under the limit.

Shortly after the news that Google Notebook was ceasing development, Evernote announced it would soon be providing an escape hatch for users to export their stuff over to Evernote free of charge.

2. Zoho Notebook

Zoho's Notebook is probably one of the best services for ex-Google Notebookers to flock to if only for its collaborative features. Several people can work on the same notebook at once, and it combines a handful of Zoho's other Web productivity services into one place. For instance, you can drop in a presentation from Zoho Show, add a video from YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, or any other site that uses embed code, as well as upload files from your desktop to share or squirrel away on Zoho's servers.

Additionally there's live chat with other Zoho users and collaborators, voice recording, and the capability to link to other notebooks within any notebook.

Its learning curve may be a bit steep for Google Notebook users unfamiliar with other Zoho products, but one thing that might help is the optional browser extension (for IE and Firefox) that lets users clip bits of Web pages to send to specific notebooks.

Zoho released its Notebook service today, better rounding off its suite of Web-based productivity tools. Zoho Notebook (more here) is really more like a scrapbook than a notebook. You can add spreadsheets and word processing files from your Zoho folders. Even more fun is Zoho's capacity to hold songs and video--as well as Web pages and RSS feeds--from a hard drive or from around the Internet.

Zoho Notebook collects files and feeds into a tidy interface.

The capability to share your stuff with other people makes Notebook a potentially cool tool for group projects at school or work. Chatting with other users in addition to recording and playing audio and video could flesh out the experience. Overall, Zoho Notebook was pretty speedy in my tests using Firefox; I didn't bump into as many delays as I have with Flash-enabled features elsewhere. I like the clean interface, which is way friendlier than a wiki and makes exploring features a cinch. Adding an RSS feed brought up a useful, resizable window that could be pinned into place, shared, or commented upon. Other inserted content appears in this widget-like way.

But inserting content was a hassle more than a few times. Adding a URL brought up a window labeled "Add SRC," which wasn't self-explanatory. When I typed the New York Times' URL into that field, suddenly Zoho vanished and took me to the Gray Lady's domain. The next time I added a URL, however, Zoho Notebook did what it's supposed to do by embedding that Web page within my Zoho book. Once I added CNET.com, I could click around the site without leaving Zoho. Unfortunately,when I wanted to keep an article, Zoho said the page contained no data and didn't let me save it.

Inserting videos wasn't snappy.

Hitting the Back button took me to a blank Zoho Notebook rather than the one I had just filled with content. And later, once I had a full Notebook again and then refreshed my browser, Zoho maddeningly cleared my content and took me to a blank slate. Zoho had already saved most--not all--of my work, which wasn't apparent initially.

What good is a notebook if you need to be online to use it, and if it makes your notes disappear? For projects that I'd need to access from, say, a rural summer cottage, connectivity concerns make Microsoft OneNote software more appealing than Zoho Notebook or any Web-based competitor such as the bare-bones Google Notebook (see more). If you only need to access a light amount of news and tools stored online, then a home page service like Netvibes could be just as useful. Zoho Notebook still has its purpose, and for digital research, it handles a wider breadth of content than bookmarking services such Clipmarks (read more).

Nevertheless, I'm still waiting for some puddleproof, shock-absorbent, crash-free, electronic-paper gadget that will make it possible to keep a digital notebook or scrapbook in my pocket. But if Zoho smooths Notebook's wrinkles, I'd check it out again and consider using it to plan something fun with friends around the country, like a mojito-soaked beach reunion on some crystalline coast.

There are several Web start-ups that I see over and over again at new-tech conferences but none that launch a new product at each show. That's certainly what it feels like Zoho does. "Look, it's another conference! Let's launch another product."

Zoho Notebook takes on OneNote

(Credit: Zoho)

So here we are at Demo 07, and of course Zoho's got something new: Notebook. If you've used Microsoft's OneNote, you'll grok it pretty quickly. It's a content editing system that lets you create multiple sheets in one document. You use tabs across the top for major sections, and into each section you can add pages as subtabs that are displayed along the right. I've used OneNote, and like Zoho, its notebook metaphor works well for keeping notes and for organizing your thoughts on big, complex projects.

Zoho's product leverages Zoho's existing word processor and spreadsheet apps, and you can insert those types as pages into your files. You can also easily add in URLs, pictures (photos or freehand drawings), videos, calendars, RSS feeds, and more. Feeds get their content displayed in boxes, NetVibes-like.

Zoho Notebook's biggest advantage over OneNote is that you can turn your Notebooks into shared work spaces. That fixes the biggest flaw in OneNote: using it feels almost like using a wiki--except for the fact that it's not multiuser. You can also share individual items (such as an RSS feed or a single word processing tab) with colleagues. Zoho also has a more traditional wiki service.

Its biggest disadvantage is that it's a Web app, and it doesn't work when you're offline.

One problem in both Zoho and the version of OneNote I used is that it's hard to change your organizational schema once you've begun work. If you want to make a tab into a section, for example, there's no easy way to move your content around. I'm told that an upcoming version of Office will fix this problem. Zoho Notebooks is still in alpha; hopefully, the team will find a way to address this before the product's public launch.

By the way, I gave up on OneNote a while ago and started using the simpler (and free) tag-focused EverNote as my note-taking application. I've been very happy with it.

Zoho Notebook should be available in March.