To follow up on yesterday's post, it isn't just reminders and tasks that I need to remember about, but also random pieces of information. As such, I like using note-taking software so that I can quickly write down stuff that I have to remember.
As with tasks, lots of cellphones come with some rudimentary note app. Again, with iCloud on the iPhone it all gets backed up and synchronized. But that brings up another important point about notes: You cannot use some note-taking software if it doesn't have some online synchronization capability, otherwise the notes will be not backed up and will be restricted to whatever device they were taken on. With "cloud" synchronization, at least your notes can follow you.
So, what are the options? A simple possibility is to write a text document in Dropbox (
http://www.dropbox.com/ ) which can be directly edited on any computer, and on the iPhone you can use PlainText or Nebulous to edit the file too.
You can use OneNote from Microsoft Office 2010 on Windows and use the various apps on phones, but I found their synchronization process to be abysmally slow.
Another option is the free service Wunderlist (
http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist/ ), completely free on their web site and using an app for all possible platforms. Doesn't have much features, but incredibly simple to use, including note sharing. Also, unlike using a plain text file in Dropbox, you can search for text across your notes.
Finally, for power users that want to take voice notes, pictures, file attachments and so on, Evernote (
http://www.evernote.com/ ) is for you. I even migrated my bookmarks to it. Has apps for all platforms, and a few browser plugins to let you "clip" parts of a web page as a note. I also found their desktop application to be incredibly powerful and versatile, and note searching is fast and searches even within attached documents and pictures. There's a free version that only limits the amount of data you can upload per month to a reasonable amount (60MB) but the paid version at about $45 a year gives you 1GB upload per month (once uploaded it's there forever).
So, here you have it. Simple plain text notes using Dropbox and PlainText or using Wunderlist, and power-user notes with Evernote.