All E-mail Successfully Moved to Gmail!

It's done: I've moved all of my e-mail over to Gmail. Folks at Google, please don't let me down.

So how did I go about doing it? Let me tell you...

Step 1: Rationalize E-mails

I had almost 2GB of e-mail data and many thousands of e-mail messages in my Thunderbird Profile. I knew a lot of that was crap, redundant, and no longer needed so the first thing I did was whittle this down to about half a gigabyte of data and under 10k of e-mails.

The cool thing with Thunderbird is that you can sort your e-mails by attachment. That made it easy to find messages with big attachments and then either get rid the attachments while retaining the text or delete the e-mails outright.

I also deleted tonnes of other e-mails that I knew I wouldn't need in the future. Indeed, as you may have gathered, I was brutal in my deletion criteria.

[Related post: Creating a new E-mail Taxonomy]

Step 2: Rationalize Contacts

Next, I exported all my contacts from Yahoo! Mail and Orkut and imported them into Thunderbird, which is my central contacts repository (I even have my old Outlook contacts in here) and is the easiest to mess around with. I then went through that list: updating, removing duplicates, and deleting old contacts.

I also went through my list of Facebook friends and, for those who weren't already in my address book (only 3 or 4 of them), I added their e-mail information as well.

I then exported that updated list into a CSV file. This file I imported into Gmail. For the heck of it -- and to test how well it worked -- I also imported that file into my Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail accounts. It worked just fine.

Step 3: Upload

Uploading thousands of e-mails to Gmail isn't easy. There are two things you have to watch out for: First, it's safer to upload e-mails (i.e. drag them from a local folder into a Gmail IMAP folder) in smaller batch sizes: ideally under 30 e-mails at a time. Second, don't start uploading the next batch immediately after the first one has finished uploading: give it a few seconds. Why? Because the Gmail IMAP system has spam-blocking and load-controlling algorithms built into it. If you flood it with e-mail uploads -- either too many or too fast -- it locks you out for a short period of time, which is a real pain.

All of this makes uploading e-mails a long and somewhat tedious process though it's not the end of the world. In fact, I did most of it in the background, which made it quite easy to do: I'd be working on other stuff and, every few minutes or so, I'd Alt-Tab to Thunderbird and upload another batch.

Step 4: Use

Now comes the fun part: actually using the new system (which I described in an earlier blog post). I now access all my e-mail either through Thunderbird (via IMAP) or a web browser (usually Firefox). Meanwhile, I've stopped Thunderbird from automatically checking my POP accounts. Instead, all those are POP-ed directly into Gmail, which has the additional benefit of drastically reducing the spam I get.

I still use Thunderbird when sending messages from my MBS account since I use a different e-mail signature for that but, otherwise, I've found it easier to move entirely to using Gmail's web interface. Not having both an e-mail client and browser open all the time also consumes significantly fewer computing resources which, on my ancient laptop, is a real blessing.

What I do lose from not using an e-mail client are the event reminder pop-ups that I used get but I've found a workaround for that: I've configured my Google Calendar to send me a notification via e-mail and I've installed Gmail Notifier so I get a pop-up when that notification e-mail arrives. It's not quite the same thing but, like I said, it's a workaround.

Conclusion

All in all, I am very happy with my decision to move to Gmail and the way in which everything has worked out so far. Here's hoping things continue to go this well in the future.

Oh, one last thing: When I do get a new laptop (tablet PC, actually), I might start using an e-mail client again. What I'll do then is configure IMAP to maintain offline (i.e. local) copies of all my Gmail folders. That way, I'll get the best of both worlds: e-mails available locally and in the cloud, both always synchronized. Also, you can never have too many backups, can you? :)

Creating a New E-mail Taxonomy

I truly am a geek. I am working on a new taxonomy for my e-mails (all of which I'm moving to Gmail, by the way) and...well, I'm having a really good time planning it all out!

The thing is: I'm a very nested-folders type of person so switching to the labels-and-search model is a little scary. Why is it scary? Because, other than the default folders (inbox, sent mail, etc.), I currently have 172 -- yes, that's one hundred and seventy-two -- folders in Thunderbird. And I'm trying to cut that down to about 15.

The reason I can do this (quite easily, in fact) is that most of my existing folders are second-level folders: one for each mailing list that I subscribe to, one for each MBA course that I'm taking, etc. So really I have just 37 top-level folders. Actually, even that's too many because, back in the day, I gave sites that I'm a paid member of their own top-level folder so those will now go. I also have a couple of temporary folders in there. I've been meaning to do a good folders rationalization for a couple of years now but I've just never gotten around to it. I guess this is my chance.

The good thing -- which is making this move much less scary -- is that, having used Google Web Search and Desktop Search for years now, I'm pretty confident that, even with 15 folders instead of 172, finding old e-mails shouldn't be much of a problem.

The New Taxonomy

The key change I'm making to the taxonomy is that my labels will not be about who the e-mails are from -- the taxonomy I've been following since the mid-90s that has served me well -- but what the e-mails are about -- the taxonomy I started to move to a few years ago (and which, obviously, I use for my blogs).

This lends itself well to the whole labels concept because an e-mail can be about more than one subject. So, for example, an e-mail sent from my sister about an Internet meme will get the 'Funny & Forwards' label. However, if she also wrote some family stuff in that e-mail, I'll also attach the 'Family & Friends' label to it. Neat, huh?

The challenge, of course, is in coming up with those few, most useful labels. Here's what I've come up with so far:

  1. Friends & Family -- e-mails about (you guessed it) friends and family

  2. Funny & Forwards -- jokes, forwards, memes, etc.

  3. Life Admin -- e-mails from banks, utilities, ISPs, etc.

  4. Lists & Sites -- e-mails from mailing lists and sites I am a member of

  5. LUMS -- old e-mails from my undergrad days as well as current alumni-related e-mails

  6. MBS -- all course, admin, alumni, etc. e-mails

  7. Music -- old and, in the future, new band-related e-mails

  8. Nadia -- a whole separate label for my wife since she is, after all, more than just a friend or family member

  9. Saved Stuff -- stuff I want to keep for future reference that is not a funny or a forward (i.e. articles and the like)

  10. Sites & Projects -- stuff about non-work websites I maintain or about various projects that come up

  11. Temp Bukkit -- e-mails that I'll catch up on the weekend but want out of my inbox for now

  12. Work -- all work-related e-mail (I presume I'll be maintaining another taxonomy in my work e-mail account)


Just twelve?! Not bad, eh? :)

Of course, as with any taxonomy, I expect this one to evolve over time. So far, though, I think it's an accurate representation of all the e-mails I currently have in Thunderbird. And if it isn't, I'll probably tweak it as I upload my e-mail to Gmail (either that or I'll delete the e-mails instead!). Meanwhile, I'm quite pleased with this list. Now...let the uploading begin!

For the two people who read this blog: what taxonomy do you use for your e-mails?

Switch to Gmail & IMAP?

I have three primary e-mail accounts: Melbourne Business School, Yahoo! Mail Plus, and insanityWORKS.org. I also have three secondary ones: The University of Melbourne, Gmail, and Hotmail. I forward UniMelb to MBS, Gmail to Yahoo!, and I check Hotmail via a browser periodically. I POP mail from my primary accounts to my laptop and I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my e-mail client. That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 1

When I'm away from my laptop, however, I usually only check my primary accounts. To do that, I use the MBS webmail interface, Yahoo!'s excellent webmail interface, and I POP my insanityWORKS mail into Yahoo!. That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 2

This system has worked well for the last seven years because I've always had one primary computer to work on (which, for the last four years, has been my laptop). Now things are starting to change and I'm tempted to (a) move all my e-mail online and (b) move to one primary e-mail account (Gmail) and five secondary ones (all the rest). That is:

E-mail Changes Blog Post 3

Here's why...

Three Major Changes

First, I've become a lot more mobile and I increasingly want access to all my old e-mails (and some of my data) regardless of where I am and which computer I'm working on. This wouldn't be a problem if I was to carry my laptop (and, therefore, all my e-mail and data) with me everywhere I went, but that's not something I want to do all the time. Also, in the future I want to use my phone to access my e-mail and I simply can't do that with my current setup.

Second, cloud computing has come a long way over the last couple of years and Yahoo!, which is by far my preferred e-mail provider, lacks a number of cloud computing features that I really want. For example, Google Reader is much better than Yahoo!'s RSS reader and Microsoft's SkyDrive is much better than Yahoo! Briefcase. I also prefer Google's Calendar to Yahoo!'s, I really like Gmail's labelling mechanism, and Microsoft's Live Mesh sounds very exciting as well. In other words, I want to start using cloud computing-like services and Yahoo! alone isn't giving them to me.

Third, we live in an increasingly connected world. My current system of downloading all my e-mail to my laptop works well because it assumes that I'll be doing a lot of e-mailing (and, in general, computing) offline and from one computer. Increasingly, that is not the case. Instead, I now use communication tools like Facebook and Twitter for which you need to be constantly online, I don't limit my e-mail usage to just my laptop, and I even access the 'net and my e-mail through my mobile phone (though I don't do much of that right now because it's really expensive on my current phone plan!).

Two Implications

This means two things. First, I am seriously considering moving all my e-mail to the 'cloud'. I want this for seamless and synchronized e-mail access across multiple computers and devices. And since I am frequently online (or at least in mobile phone signal range) not being able to access my e-mail because I don't have an Internet (or mobile phone) connection is no longer an issue.

For this to work, though, I will need an IMAP-based e-mail solution and not a POP-based one. IMAP will not only let me sync my e-mail across multiple computers and devices, it will let me work offline (before re-syncing) as well. 

Second, because of that IMAP requirement, I am seriously considering making Gmail my sole primary e-mail account. In fact, I'll start to POP e-mail from all my other accounts into this one as well (see diagram above).

Why? Not only is Gmail the only one that offers IMAP (which is why it should be my only e-mail interface), it's free and it gives me tonnes of storage, great calendar integration, and excellent e-mail search capabilities. It is also reliable, universally accessible, and, once I switch, I won't have to take regular backups of my e-mail folders any more.

I could, of course, use other (paid) IMAP services, but I think I'd be better off using Gmail for all the additional benefits I get from it.

One Decision

So I have a big decision to make. Do I move all 2.1GB of e-mail archives off my laptop, out of my direct control, and into the cloud? Some people have done that and are happy with it. Others didn't have such a great time. Until I try it myself, I don't know how things will turn out for me. What might be useful, though, is if I was to do a bit of e-mail housekeeping before uploading everything to Gmail. Doing that would be a pain up-front, but it would make life a lot easier going forward.

Actually, maybe the bigger issue is this: should I commit myself to using only Gmail (via IMAP) from this point on? I guess another way to think of this is to ask myself whether this is better than the status quo. That is: should I commit myself to using only my laptop (with occasional backups) to store all my e-mail? Or, to get the best of both worlds, does it make more sense to store my e-mail both on Gmail and to maintain a local copy of all that e-mail in Thunderbird as well? The answer, in theory, is pretty obvious. Naturally, it's much harder to go ahead and actually implement the solution.

I think I'll start off with a baby step: I'll activate IMAP on my Gmail account and will start using that with Thunderbird. I'll even try uploading copies of some of my old e-mails into Gmail to see how it goes. If that goes well, I'll spend the next few weeks moving all my folders over one-by-one. Before I know it, I'll be good to go. Let's just hope things go as smoothly as I've just made them sound!

Apple's Safari Debacle

Or is it a debacle only when, say, Microsoft does it but a minor PR issue when Apple does it? Whatever.

I've been meaning to write about this for a while now, but haven't gotten around to it (the last week of my MBA starts today! Yaay!). Meanwhile, Paul Thurrott's gone and said pretty much what I wanted to say in his article: Apple lofts middle finger at PC users, PC users thank Apple for acknowledging them. Of course, he says it much better than I ever could (and with a lot more authority, being a tech journalist and all) but that's okay.

Peter Gabriel & Technology

Peter Gabriel, one of my all-time favourite musicians, continues to be at the forefront of technology usage -- particularly when it comes to technology for music and human rights:

On the human rights side:

  • In 1992 he co-founded WITNESS, "an international human rights organization that uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violations"
  • In 1999 he started TheElders.org, which is a "new gathering of world leaders who [have] come together to guide and support our 'global village'".

So it's no surprise that he is involved in recent areas of music technology as well:

Both sound really interesting and I'll write more about them once I've played around with them a little more.

[More PG: Wikipedia, Last.fm, Real World Records, WOMAD]

Jonathan Coulton!

I'd heard a couple of Jonathan Coulton songs before but, thanks to this episode of TWiT, I went and explored more of his music...and I love it!

If you're a geek and you love good music with fun lyrics, be sure to check him out. I mean, who couldn't love these lyrics:

Heya Tom, it’s Bob from the office down the hall
Good to see you buddy, how’ve you been?
Thing have been OK for me except that I’m a zombie now
I really wish you’d let us in
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demand
But here’s an FYI: you’re all gonna die screaming

All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re not unreasonable, I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We’re at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We’ll all come inside and eat your brains

[From Re: Your Brains]

:)

Two Toshiba M700 Reviews

Both Gotta Be Mobile and Tablet PC Review have recently published their reviews of the Toshiba M700 tablet PC:

Both are positive and both have reinforced my decision to buy the M700 as soon I can afford it. Things may, of course, change over the next few months but I doubt any manufacturer will come out with a machine that tops the power, versatility, and customisation options of the M700.

Twelve Days of InkSeine

Ken Hinckley (The Alpine Inker) works at Microsoft Research and, over the last couple of weeks, he's been running an awesome series of blog posts called Twelve Days of InkSeine.

InkSeine (pronounced ink-sane) is a really cool inking application that Hinckley is working on (which is not yet an official Microsoft product). It's one of the only products around that has been designed for inking and not just a keyboard-and-mouse based product that has inking support. For example, a lot of its commands (like cut, copy, paste, search, etc.) are all pen-flick based and not menu-based.

It's still in private beta but will released to the public in 15 February. To find out more about it, check GBM's InkShow on it. Better yet, once it is available, download and try it. Assuming you have a tablet PC, of course.

Want!

It costs as much as a high-end tablet PC (AU$3,890) but the 21.3" Wacom Cintiq is one heck of an LCD screen that also has on-screen pen input capabilities:

21" Cintiq LCD Screen

Of course, that model is designed specifically for creative uses. I'd probably end up getting the 17" PC-720 instead (AU$2,195):

17" PL-720 LCD Screen

Or, at the very least, the 15" DTI-520 (AU$1,760):

15" DTI-520 LCD Screen

Or maybe I'd compromise and get the 20" wide screen Cintiq 20WSX (US$1,999), though that's not available in Australia yet:

20" 20WSX LCD Screen

Ah, choices, choices.

Of course, all this has to wait till I've made my millions.

Soon, soon...

The Toshiba M700 Benchmark Scare

Like me, other power users are finding that the Toshiba M700 has most of they've been looking for in a tablet PC. It is:

  • Powerful -- more so than the Lenovo X61t or the Fujitsu T4220
  • Highly configurable -- like the X61t but unlike the T4220
  • Relatively inexpensive -- costing less than an equivalent X61t or T4220
  • Feature rich -- with more features than the X61t or 4220

And though it suffers a little in the weight department (but only by a couple of hundred grams or so) and its screen resolution isn't as high as some of us would like it to be (though that's offset by the wide screen), its has lots of bonus features -- like that wide screen, a touch screen, a webcam, and a built-in optical drive -- that more than make up for its shortcomings.

Because of all this, we were very surprised when Tiffany Boggs from Tablet PC Review posted its benchmark scores and, strangely, they came out very low. It's PCMark05 score, for example, was 3,399 while an equally spec-ed t4220 scored 4,171 and a lower spec-ed X61t scored 3,473. Most of us had expected the M700 to score somewhere in the mid-4,000s. Curious and concerned, a number of M700 owners ran the same test and came up with similar, low-3,000 PCMark scores.

Quickly the Tablet PC Review forum participants realized that this wasn't a hardware issue but a software one. That, fortunately, was when GBM's Matt Faulkner stepped in. First, he did a clean install of Vista and, lo and behold, the M700's PCMark05 score jumped to a whopping 4,528. Then, he went a step further and installed each system driver in turn, re-running the PCMark test after each reboot. After doing this for about four hours -- and working late into the night since he had to return his review unit the next morning -- he found the main culprit.

It turns out that the Intel Robson Technology Driver for Windows Vista -- a driver used to run the Turbo Memory that wasn't even in that machine to begin with -- was messing the system up. In fact, with the cleanest possible working install, one of the forum participants managed to get a PCMark05 score of 4,737!

What does all this mean? It means that the Toshiba M700 rocks and that, if you want to squeeze the most out of your machine, it is best to do a clean install. Importantly, it reinforces the fact that we have an awesome tablet PC community. If any of you read this post: thanks a million!

Toshiba M700 Live Un-boxing

Earlier today, GBM's Matt Faulkner did a live un-boxing of the Toshiba M700 tablet PC (via Ustream). What was really cool, though, was that I took part in it by asking Matt some questions which he then answered. And though that's not quite as cool as having access to the M700 myself, it was certainly better than nothing. (Matt: if you read this, thanks a million.)

I'm now almost a hundred percent certain that this'll be the tablet PC that I buy for myself a few months from now. The question I now need to answer is: what hardware configuration do I go for? Unfortunately, that doesn't have an easy answer.

As Faulkner mentioned in his video, for example, going from the 2.4Ghz to the 2.6Ghz processor actually increases the price of the tablet by about US$300. On the other hand, when you went from the 2.2Ghz to the 2.4Ghz, that was only a US$100 price increase. I wonder, then, how much of a difference that additional 0.2GHz (to get to 2.6GHz) actually makes. This is something I need to investigate.

I also need to investigate Turbo Memory some more (the current consensus seems to be that it's not worth it) and I wonder whether it's worth it to get 4GB or RAM (or 3GB, or should I just stick with 3GB?). Fortunately, those questions -- and their answers -- don't need to be addressed for another six months or so. And by then, things might be different (and someone may already have answered them).

Meanwhile, Aaron Hall just got his hands on the M700 and he's posted a review of it on his blog.

Bummer: tx2000 Out of the Running

Tablet PC Review's Tiffany Boggs has reviewed the HP tx2000 tablet PC and she likes it:

The tx2000 is going to be a hit with all the mainstream users. HP gave this model just what it needed. The active digitizer and touchscreen make this a true Tablet PC now, but it still maintains the entertainment notebook status unlike any other model on the market at this time.

I would agree with her completely: it sounds like a really cool machine. And yet...and yet, it is out of the running as the tablet PC that I will buy [1]. Why? Because it meets one of my deal-breaker conditions: no Page Up and Page Down keys on the bottom right hand side of the keyboard:

 Photo from Tablet PC Review

(Picture from the Tablet PC Review, er, review mentioned above)

And this from a wide screen laptop!

Why is this a deal-breaker for me? Because working with text documents (i.e. doing lots of typing) is one of my primary activities on my laptop and I simply cannot work without the Page Up and Page Down keys on the bottom right hand side of the keyboard (or even in a vertical line along right hand side). I know I can't because I tried, with little success, for about a year on a laptop that I got from work. And so there it is: one more tablet PC eliminated from the running.

By the way, the other keyboard problem that has always irritated me, but I've found that I can adjust to, is having the Function key as the bottom leftmost key. I much prefer having the Control key in that corner, with the Function key immediately to its right -- the way it is in the tx2000 keyboard, in fact -- but I can live with it not being that way.

I'm also worried about having to use a track stick (like in the Lenovo X61t) instead of a track pad -- since I've never used a track stick for an extended period of time before -- but I'm sure I'll get used to it. As it is, I generally use a separate optical mouse most of the time anyway. The issue only comes up now because I expect to be a lot more mobile with my tablet PC and so I won't have space to use the separate mouse (and I can't use my finger or the pen all the time either).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[1] I'm nearing the end of my MBA (I graduate exactly four months from today) and, assuming I get a job within a month of graduating, it is highly likely that I will be seriously researching and preparing to purchase a tablet PC for myself about six months from now! :)

More on the HP TX2000

Finally, there's some more information on the web about HP's new TX2000 tablet PC (i.e. not just specs). Again, it's thanks to the GottaBeMobile.com crew at CES 2008 and, as with the Toshiba M700 (which I wrote about earlier), they've done a quick hands-on video review of it.

Stuff learnt from this video: (1) it's a multimedia tablet aimed squarely at the consumer market; (2) it is a little heavy, though; (3) the multi-touch features seem to work well and the wide screen display seems really nice; (4) it has some nifty multimedia features like a TV tuner, S-video output, Altec Lansing speakers, and a video camera; and (5) it has a 64-bit, dual-core AMD Turion processor. Other than that, it's a pretty standard tablet PC. Oh, and it's pretty decent on the pricing too, coming to about US$2,500 for a maxed-out version (while a maxed-out Toshiba is for about US$2,600).

However, as with the Toshiba, I can't wait for GBM to do full hardware Inkshow on this machine. I'm also looking forward to GBM's Dell XT Inkshow. Once all three go up, I'll do a side-by-side comparison of my current top-five -- the Lenovo ThinkPad X61T, Fujitsu LifeBook T4220, Toshiba Portege M700, HP Pavilion Tx2000z, and Dell Latitude XT -- and see how they stack up against each other. That should be fun.

More on the Toshiba M700

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the newly-launched, really exciting Toshiba M700 tablet PC. Since the touch screen version of that is due to be launched by the end of this month, no reviews of it have been posted on the 'net so far. However, thanks to GottaBeMobile.com's coverage of CES 2008, there is now a quick hands-on video of it and a brief discussion on it with Toshiba's Kevin Roberts.

A number of cool things about the M700 emerged from that discussion: (1) the optical drive has an auto lock feature that disables the CD/DVD eject button when the tablet is in motion; (2) the widescreen LCD looks really good; (3) the inking experience seems to be pretty good; (4) the weight distribution on the tablet is pretty good; (5) it is a powerful, full-featured machine; and (6) it has an excellent price point.

I can't wait for a proper hands-on hardware review of a production system. Let's hope we don't have to wait too long.

Taking Notes

I take a lot of notes. And I mean a lot of notes. I take notes for things like:

  • Planning out a report, paper, or essay

  • Brainstorming a website, business strategy problem, or a computer program/algorithm

  • Taking notes during a class lecture or conference

  • Even making a shopping list or a list of things to do


I like to think I take good notes and, since I'm a bit of a perfectionist (some would say I'm obsessive), over the years I have actively refined my note-taking technique. Here's how I take notes these days.

Note-Taking Tools

I start by making sure that I have good note-taking tools. These days I take notes with a mechanical pencil with 0.5 or 0.7mm 2B lead (i.e. softer but darker than the typical HB or #2 pencil; see Wikipedia entry on the pencil for details on gradation) on white, good quality, narrow-lined file paper. I also use a good quality eraser.

I use a pencil and eraser because I like clear and neat notes and diagrams (i.e. dark lines and no cross-outs). I use file paper because that gives me more flexibility in terms of storing, organizing, moving, and re-writing notes within subject-indexed, tab-separated file folders ('binders' for Americans).

May I geek out a bit? These days I'm using a Faber Castel Grip Matic pencil, the 2B lead that came with it, and a Staedtler Rasoplast eraser. The pencil's pretty old now so I need to buy a new one. I generally prefer Staedtler over Faber Castel -- I've been using the former's pens, pencils, lead, and erasers for about 16 years now -- but I haven't been able to find the right products in Australia so far. I guess I need to look harder. Oh, and Pilot and Uni products are good too; particularly the Uni SA-S fine ballpoint pen which I have been using exclusively for about 3 years now.

Note Organization

I organize my notes rather thoroughly: listing on each page the date, subject, page number, and, if in a meeting, the names of the participants in that meeting. To organize the notes themselves I use a series of headings and nested bullet points. Here's an example:

Note Taking 1

More recently I've started to take notes on my laptop. For that I use Microsoft Word with 12pt Georgia font and the same sets of headings and series of nested bulleted lists as I do on paper (except that those are now defined as MS Word Styles so they look a little different). This is what my electronic notes look like:

image

The Actual Notes

Then come the actual notes themselves. Since I write a lot, I've had to develop my own, mostly intuitive, shorthand to write things down quickly. For example: "this func. says nothing abt. price lvl.; dep. only on tech, labour & capital." Since I type quickly, I write full-ish sentences when typing notes, though. They may not be entirely grammatically correct, but I don't usually abbreviate words.

In the actual note-taking I try to write down as much as I can while still listening to the lecture/discussion, not missing anything going on (even at a deeper level), and participating in the discussion as well. It's not easy but I've been doing it for years so I'm used to it by now. Taking notes this way gives me a pretty accurate recording of what went on during the class (since that's what I developed my note-taking for) and, even if something isn't quite clear to me at that time, I can usually follow the logic and work it out later.

At the end of every note-taking session (e.g. at the end of every class) I try to review the notes to make sure I haven't missed anything. Then, usually while preparing for an assignment or just before an exam, I do one of two things. I either extract what is important from my notes (and in parallel from lecture slides and assigned readings) by re-writing them on a new sheet of paper or on my laptop. That is, I take notes of my notes. If not that, I make an index in which I identify what I've written and on which page that topic is located. The former helps me prepare for closed book exams and assignments. The latter helps me get ready for open book exams and meetings during which I might need to refer to my notes.

I don't follow any specific note-taking system like the Cornell system that the good folk at Student Tablet PC use [1], though that sounds like a really good methodology. Nor is my system as elaborate as Tim Ferriss' (via Kevin C. Tofel). I am interested in getting into mind maps like James Kendrick, but my note-taking style has always worked well for me so I haven't yet found a reason to change.

I do, however, use a mind map-type construction for breaking down complex problems. But, since I'm a stickler for writing things neatly, I use lists instead of diagrams. For example:

Board Notes 1

And that's about it. Oh, one last thing: storage. Since I have craploads on notes, I generally have a crapload of file folders to store all my notes in as well. And since I've been using, for the most part, the same system for about ten years now, my old notes still come in handy every now and then. The only problem is: I can't take all my old notes with me.

All of that, I guess, goes some way to demonstrate why the obsessive note-taker in me wants so desperately to get a tablet PC. I mean, seriously, how could I not want to get the ultimate note-taking tool? But, since I can't afford one now, I am so looking forward to getting one later and then scanning all my MBA notes into it so that they're ready for use any where, any time. In fact, I'm getting all excited just thinking about it now! Yes. I am a geek. I wrote a whole blog post on note-taking (with pictures and all), didn't I? :)

[1] The Student Tablet PC website has a whole category on note-taking.