All the recent talk about tablet computers and digital pens has reminded me of one particular group of software applications that works really well with these products. That group is the applications known as digital notebooks, which provide ways to collect, store and find information quickly and easily.

My particular favourite, at least on windows is an application called EverNote. I presently use the free version of this software which lets you to capture and search through notes, photos, webpage clips, images of printed and handwritten text, emails, passwords, brainstorms, sketches, …… well you get the idea!

As we mentioned above the one thing these applications really must do well is allow you to easily find things again later and I particularly like the way EverNote does this. It provides a combination of a time line ribbon strip, text search and auto and manual tagging approaches which is really quite powerful.

On the Microsoft bench there is OneNote 2007 which provides similar functionality. I have been looking at this product, as it is a possible candidate to use as a digital notebook when my laptop gets its Office 2007 upgrade. It seems functional enough, and the link with Office may make a change worthwhile.

What do you use for a digital notebook?