Poor man's Itelligence Amplification

The concept of Intelligence Amplification (AI) has been receiving some media attention lately thanks to the growing hype of the Technological Singularity .

The main idea is to enhance human intelligence by tight coupling with computer devices for augmented memory, enhanced senses, computer-brain interfaces, direct connection with ambient sensors and with the internet for immediate information access.

However, while we wait all this technological wonders to come a reality (or in some cases, to be widely available), I've found that some pretty simple tools can be used to boost our day-to-day productivity some orders of magnitude just by helping us to keep track of all the information we generate and consume. Actually, the key concept is to allows us to generate even more information (mostly in the form of short notes) and the allows us to access it in a smart way.

Here is a short list of tools I've just started to use:

• Tomboy: a note taking desktop application. Allows to create notes and put links to web pages, emails and other information sources and to other notes. It can be then used to annotate information. Has some interesting plugins to export notes to diverse formals and also to show links among notes.
• View Your Mind: is a tool for creating mind maps. Interestingly, there is Tomboy pluging to export notes to VYM.
  
• Gnome-do: is an intelligent application launcher that use search technologies to find items like files and applications and allows you to execute actions on them (e.g. open, run). Also comes with many plugins for common applications like music players, google applications and this one to interact with Tomboy.
  

I hope these tools allows me to free some time to keep this blog updated!