App for storing and managing general knowledge information

Question

I need an application for storing and managing information relating to general knowledge, science..etc which can be used in quiz. For an example I collect news such as "Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine for the year 2011 is awarded to 'Bruce.A.Beutler' and 'Jules.A.Hoffman' on '10/10/2011'. I need a software where I can store information like this with date. I should be able to filter data according to date and if possible category (such as world news, local..etc.)

Answer 1

A spreadsheet program can be used for that purpose. I'd use Google Spreadsheets.

The probable columns (to be used for filtering) would be Date, Category, Name, and Explanation.

Of course, you may want to use an offline alternative like MS Excel or OpenOffice Calc.

Answer 2

If you don't need a really rigid structure, and there is quite a bit of text to enter, I think any general-purpose note-taking application might fit. For example, Microsoft OneNote or EverNote. You could enter tags, separate notes into sections, search, etc.

If the amount of text is small, e.g. a short question and a short answer, you could use a spreadsheet application, like Microsoft Excel or Google Docs Spreadsheets.

If the amount of data is huge, you might need a real database, but we're talking about 100,000 of rows or more, I suppose this is not the case.

Answer 3

Do not forget about "desktop databases" - Access from MS, and LibreOffice/OpenOffice Base.

Those will allow you to start small (with some local database), but will also keep the path open to scaling up to "real" databases. And as far as I remember both Access and Base have spreadhseet-like interface, which should make it easier to start using them.

And you can keep multiple tables in the database - e.g. one for Nobel prize winners, and the other for IgNobel prize winners... :)