More and more people are devoting more and more time online. Remembering this and remembering that is becoming increasingly difficult, but by using a note taking service such as Jjot, your online world can become a bit more manageable.

Synopsis:

The Jjot team is made up of the founder, Phil Crosby, and a few different hackers. Jjot is, simply put, a note taking service and nothing more which allows it to be lightning quick. Jjot is powered by Mootools, a powerful javascript framework and Amazon’s giant computer network. Other projects you may have used that have Phil Crosby written all over them are Ninjawords, Breadcrumbs and InstallPad.

The Sign Up Process:

Let’s get this out of the way: Jjot is free. The sign up process is simple. The only things required to register an account are a username, optional email address, and a password. After you type in the necessary information, you are automatically logged into your account and can begin to take notes. The first note you’ll see will provide you with a few keyboard shortcuts that you can use while taking notes.

Using Jjot:

Jjot uses two main terms to describe notes, Noteboards and Notes. Noteboards are what your notes are published on. For instance, you can create a Noteboard called Web 2.0 and then post all of your Web 2.0 notes onto that specific board. This should help with organizing all of the various notes you might be taking. As far as I can tell, you can create as many noteboards as you want. I ended up creating 19 different noteboards without a problem.

The date is published to your new notes automatically. To edit a note, simply click inside of the text area where the date is displayed. This will turn the editor on. To turn the editor off, click anywhere outside of the note. One of the nicest things about Jjot is that it automatically saves your notes each time something is added or deleted from the note. This means you won’t have to worry about continuously clicking some sort of SAVE button every few minutes.

Inside The Note:

Notes in Jjot look similar to an open window in Windows XP. The top right corner contains a maximize icon next to a close icon. The X in this case, deletes the note without a confirmation box but there is no need for one. When you click the delete button, your note will disappear and is automatically placed in the ARCHIVE section for later viewing or for the option of permanently deleting the note. Nice move on the part of Jjot.

The top bar of each note also contains a few different editing options, such as BOLDING, LINKING, BULLETED LISTS. It also contains a Downward Facing Arrow which opens a drop down menu that provides options to Email, Print, Move or Delete the note. Considering you’ll only be writing notes, this select group of editing options may be all you need to get the job done but I wouldn’t mind seeing a few more editing options such as Italicizing.

What Else:

Those who really get into the habit of taking notes will enjoy the search bar located at the top of the page. When a word or phrase is being searched, noteboards along with their notes are crawled to locate the search string. The search function in Jjot only allows users to search for text, which may make it tough to find what your looking for if you use some of the same words in multiple notes.

This wouldn’t be a web 2.0 service without some sort of way to share things. Jjot enables users to share noteboards either with specific users, or the public. *Note* that I said noteboards and not notes. Make sure that if you are going to share a note, place it in a separate noteboard from other notes that you may not want others to see. Also keep in mind that users will not be able to edit your notes, they will only be able to read them.

As it stands, if you make your noteboard public, the only way to share and view your noteboard is through a link that is provided to you by Jjot. Phil has told me that they are looking into creating a centralized place which would allow users/visitors to see all sorts of public notes. Another question I asked Phil was, How does a user tell if their noteboard is actually public or not? Apparently this is a bug. Phil and the crew are currently working on implementing some sort of “shared icon” that is displayed whenever a user sets their noteboard to be public. I suggest using something like a LOCK icon. When the LOCK is closed, the noteboard is private, when the LOCK is open, the noteboard is considered public. I think this may be the solution to the problem.

Down The Pike And Final Thoughts:

I concur with the other reviewers out there that Jjot is a lightning fast web application. Out of the box, it may be the easiest way to take notes online. So what else could be coming down the pike for Jjot? How about the ability to take notes from anywhere online. Jjot is currently working on a bookmarklet which will enable users to Jjot down notes without having to be on the main site. A very cool, needed feature if you ask me.

It will be hard to add features to Jjot because as it stands, Jjot is snappy, out of the way and has just enough options to let you jump in and get to work. In fact, one of Jjot’s biggest selling points is its lack of features. Jjot will have to make sure that each additional feature that is brought into the service is complimentary and doesn’t compromise the speed of the application.

So far, Jjot is the best note taking web application that I have used. The interface is great, the speed is great, and I for one am looking forward to using the bookmarklet so I can take notes from anywhere. Give the service a try and let me know what you think.