Context and Content
I enjoy puzzles, but not when they involve my own past actions. Mark Bernstein mentioned a few days ago how frustrating it can be to lose context:
It’s another case of write it down: get the idea and the intention in concrete form, immediately. But I also need to write down the reason and context, or I won’t understand why I’m doing what I’m doing.
Doing this with my own notes, while challenging on a disciplinary level, provides no technical hinderance. When it comes to email sent to me, it’s another story entirely. I’d love to be able to easily annotate received e-mails, to help provide context before relegating them to the archives, when I inevitably come back to it in the future. There are workarounds, such as replying in a mail to myself, or moving the information to another system, but these are not elegant solutions.
In a delightful example of hypertext at its best, Elin directed my attention to a post on Grand Text Auto linking to a New Scientist article citing some research that claims that Online Diaries are a Health Risk. However, as one comment points out, the research is a bit dubious. I question the salutary benefits of blogging for its own sake; like just about everything, it’s all about content. Or is it context?
September 15th, 2004 at 2:22 am
FWIW, Mailsmith allows you to attach notes to your messages. Check out this page at the Bare Bones website. <http://www.barebones.com/products/mailsmith/glossary_stationery.shtml> The page is about using the program’s Glossary function, but you can see the “Notes” tab in the screenshot. HTH
September 15th, 2004 at 9:17 am
Larry, thanks for the link; that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.
If only Mailsmith supported IMAP…