How will I live without Google Notebook.

What am I going to do now? I just organized my genealogy to-do list for the year and Google Notebook was a part of it. I am in shock and distraught over the demise of Google Notebook. I can't tell you how I feel after reading the following blog article:

Stopping development on Google Notebook
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 6:30 PM
Posted by Raj Krishnan, Product Manager, Google Notebook

At Google, we're constantly working to innovate and improve our products so people can easily find and manage information. At times though, we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run.

Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we'll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users. But don't fret, we'll continue to maintain service for those of you who've already signed up. As part of this plan, however, we will no longer support the Notebook Extension, but as always users who have already signed up will continue to have access to their data via the web interface at http://www.google.com/notebook.

If you haven't used Notebook in the past, we invite you to explore the other Google products that offer Notebook-like functionality. Here are a few examples, all of which are being actively improved and should meet your needs:

• SearchWiki - We recently launched a feature on Search that will let you re-rank, comment, and personalize your search results. This is useful when you've found some results on Google Search that were really perfect for your query. You can read about how to use SearchWiki in this blog post.
  

• Google Docs - If you're trying to jot down some quick notes, or create a document that you can share with others, check out Google Docs.
  

• Tasks in Gmail - For a lightweight way to generate a todo list or keep track of things, we recently launched Tasks in Gmail Labs.
  

• Google Bookmarks - For a tool that can help you remember web pages that you liked and access them easily, take a look at Google Bookmarks. You can even add labels to your bookmarks to better organize and revisit them.
  

While it's hard for us to make this announcement we believe it's the right decision for our users in the long run. And we're excited about all the new ideas we have for Docs, SearchWiki, Bookmarks and other products.

I don't feel Google's options to replace it will totally work for me. Since I already have a Google Notebook I can always still use it, but I feel it is just a matter of time before they don't support it any more. I need some options.

I don't want Evernote because I want a hierarchical list and not tags. Google Notebook gave me the option to have many different notebooks and then break them down into sections. It was so easy and quick to move around in. There are definite places to use tags and lists and I want both options. Besides, I think I would outgrow the free version really quick. I don't want to be at the mercy of a subscription and run the risk of loosing all my notes.

I guess I could always stay with TreePad, it's just that the information is not available online. At least you can make ebooks of my TreePad files to read on the flash drive, but you can't edit them once they are created. To bad TreePad doesn't run off a flash drive.

It appears I need some time to mourn the loss of Google Notebook. There has to be another options I just don't know what yet. If you know of an option for me pass it along, I would love to consider it.

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!