Reference:
The Research Notes was the first server-based dynamic script application I used on the site. CityDesk was/is (seems that it's been abandoned) a desktop application that interacted with an MS Access database file and generated static html pages. Notes was a classic ASP set of pages, also connected to an MS Access database. I mention this because this was my first attempt at using an application in a web browser.
Blogs were becoming the rage. Web logs started out as, essentially, personal directories of neat web pages. At the time, the best search "engines" were based on paid professionals building directories, so the notion of personal directories was not at all far fetched. Web logs became blogs and turned into journals rather than directories. People posted their reactions to other sites, to news events, and/or to their lives.
My idea was to use the blogging model as a research tool. Each entry was split in two. The top half was a quote or snippet or whatever from a source along with the URL, and the bottom half was for my notes on the reference. Each entry would be a note card which could later be gathered together to help write a larger piece.
Note that these pages used to be dynamically rendered from a database. I saved them to static html pages for archiving.
- January 18, 2006