Here's a poor man's version of dnote in my .bashrc. It's the only thing I've used consistently:

  notes() {
  	local fpath=$HOME/notes.md
  	if [ "$1" == "gvim" ]; then
  		gvim + $fpath
  	elif [ "$1" == "vim" ]; then
  		gvim + $fpath
  	elif [ "$1" == "date" ]; then
  		echo '' >> $fpath
  		echo '# '`date +"%m-%d-%Y-%T"` >> $fpath
  		echo '---------------------' >> $fpath
  	elif [ "$1" == "" ]; then
  		less +G $fpath
  	else
  		echo '' >> $fpath
  	    echo $@ >> $fpath
  	fi
  }

Insert the current date with `notes date`. Store a note with `notes the earth is about 25k miles around` or `notes dentist appointment Thursday` or `notes purfunctory - carried out with a minimum of effort or reflection #vocab`. Look up recent notes with `notes` or read/search the entire notes database with `notes vim`.