Network Engineers have to manage a lot of information. Products, technologies, textbooks, study notes and research material as well as new protocols and features. Just simple tasks like keeping product manuals handy for 40 or 50 products is a real problem. How do you keep the information organised, referenced, accessible and useful ?

Your employer probably gives you second-rate computing tools like MS Windows & Office but there are software tools that can do valuable and useful tasks for managing your knowledge resources. Saving files in directories isn’t good enough in 2012, I needed to find better ways to manage the raw data, PDF files, Word Docs, that relate to projects – either delivery or research.

 These screencasts are about how I solve the problems for myself, maybe you might find something useful too. 

In Part 1 I discuss how Apple Spotlight is not able to effectively search for files I’ve stored on my hard drive. This led to using HoudahSpot to locate files on my drive.

In Part 2 (this episode) , I talk about using DEVONthink as a knowledge management tool for storing PDF files, Text Files, Presentations and more. I cover the import of web pages and PDF files, plus using Groups and Tags to organise the data into useful chunks.

Also, I cover the management of writing projects and more by storing text files.

In Part 3, I’ll describe how I use Markdown formatted text, combined with Folding Text and Marked Applications on Mac OS X to
create focussed and targeted environment. I briefly refer to using MultiMarkdown Composer for long documents because it handles tables and document outlines better.

If you have followed my blog post on Design Documentation you might understand how I approach writing as a brutalist production line instead of creative episode.

Networking Knowledge Management Part 2 – Devonthink & Folding Text from Ethereal Mind on Vimeo.

More Information

• You can find out more about Markdown and Marked App here
• You can fin more about DEVONthink at http://www.devontechnologies.com/
• More in HoudahSpot at http://www.houdah.com/. You can find a cut down version of HoudahSpot in the Mac App Store called Tembo (but I prefer HoudahSpot.
• Folding Text is available on the App Store and more information at http://www.foldingtext.com/
• Read my review of MultiMarkdown Composer on my personal blog.

Other posts in the series

1. Screencast: Knowledge Management in Technology - Part 3
2. Screencast: Knowledge Management in Technology - Part 2 (This post)
3. Screencast: Knowledge Management in Technology - Part 1
4. Important to Get Data Out and Well as In
5. My Knowledge Management Process with PDF Files - Part 2
6. My Knowledge Management Process with PDF Files - Part 1