Evernote
I teach a lot of courses, and collecting information to keep them relevant takes time. If I'm on the Internet, I might come across something good. The old way: I'd save it to my desktop, drag it to the relevant folder, and hope to remember the file (and what's inside it) when the time comes to teach the course again. This process requires that I'm at the same computer every time--otherwise those files get lost. It took too much time, and required that I use my brain. I hate that.
Now, when I come across something, I copy it into Evernote.com. I’ve been using Evernote for about six months. It lets me manage research files and web clippings -- something that sounds easy but isn't. If I'm at a school or library computer, no problem. I go to Evernote.com and paste it there. The note gets copied to my account and synched to all the computers I use. Evernote keeps track of where and when I got it, makes it searchable, and keeps it organized. It even presents clips nicely using a notebook (or scrapbook) metaphor.
Evernote is a like great digital filing cabinet or scrapbook--and it's easy to use, cheap and powerful. It acts like a good archive should, too: It organizes the information, preserves sources and presents it well.
Fabulously, Evernote reaches off the computer and into the paper world. If you upload a picture or scan a piece of paper, Evernote will process the file to extract the text and make whatever text it finds readable.
If I have my own ideas or something not on the web, I go to the desktop application. I can enter text, pictures, video and even audio there. The desktop app is a junior word processor. I can also drag and drop files from other applications, such as Word. These too get searched and synched between all of my computers.
I tried Google Notebook (not flexible and now defunct), DevonThink (not easy to use, not everywhere), and Zotero (not flexible). Evernote is head and shoulders above these others.
I don't have an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Touch. Evernote works really well on it. It only lacks an easy way to input handwriting, but that's easily worked around with a third-party scribbling program. I understand that an iPhone works even better: you can upload snapshots easily.
If, like me, you have to manage many files on many projects, you may find that Evernote does a lot without requiring much. It's cheap, too. There's a free version, a $5 a month subscription, and a $45 a year subscription.
-- Adam Norman
My favorite way to keep track of recipes is with Evernote. When I’m on a webpage that features a recipe I like, my first click is the Evernote button in my tool bar and then typically my second click, “Done,” is my last. This file will then be searchable by every word on the page, and the source URL is also automatically attached. Default presets can be chosen for virtually every option for saving and tagging the file with keywords for easy retrieval. Also, if there are multiple recipes on a page, I can select just the portion of that page that I want saved to Evernote, or the entire page.
Some of the many ways I’m able to save recipes to Evernote: I can take a picture with my Blackberry of a dish I’d like to recreate in the future, and among the toolbar’s save options is “Add to Evernote.” From my Blackberry, I can also upload a file or audio note (sudden salad dressing idea I had while driving) and add to Evernote. I can also use email or a DM note in Twitter to add text to my Evernote notebook.
When the time comes to look up a recipe, Evernote is very fast at searching, and if there’s some identifying characteristic about a recipe, I’ll note it with keywords when I initially save it, for example: “healthy,” “freezes well,” “vegan,” “dessert,” “try with tofu,” or “pressure cooker.”
Evernote's outstanding for acquiring and filing recipes, but it can be used for everything, and that's how I use it. For example, I researched a tire purchase and into Evernote went the Consumer Reports ratings and info, the data sheets from the manufacturer of the tires I was considering, the pages about these tires from Costco.com, the special offer information ($70 off 4 tires), a picture of my tire sidewall showing the tire size and finally, the purchase receipt after I ordered the tires from Costco. I am sure you can see how much time and hassle this saved me and how when I shopped, instead of a stack of papers, I just used my Blackberry.
-- Kim Price
- organizing
- software
- storage
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dwd
Interesting. Looks like Del.icio.us but with the capability to create notes as well. I will definitely have to try the free version. Thanks
I am
The only problem is that there is no hierarchy.
Think about recipes - you would want a folder name "recipes" and under it something like "breakfast dishes" "cakes" etc. But you can't do that.
The only way to organize is with tags.
Some people can manage with that, I don't. I need to see a hierarchy of things.
A pity because everything else is good.
Hal
I've used Evernote from the beginning. I use it to store all my documents from my research as well as clippings from pretty much everything. The company is rock solid, and has always been responsive when I've had problems (which hasn't been all that often, which is also nice). I've tried the same assortment of alternatives featured in this post and I've also come to the conclusion that Evernote is the best so far. Sure, there's always more to do, but they've done a fantastic job so far and are always looking to do more.
dwd
Well I tried the free version, and will keep it for awhile, but I am not sure I like it.
I am in my 7th decade so I may just be too old or don't have enough imagination to use it properly. I find Google Docs and Flickr and Del.icio.us and Textpad much more useful for what I need.
But free is free so I can't complain too much. Just does not seem to be my cup of tea.
MJCinc
I love Evernote and use it for a myriad of purposes, especially since it's got a fantastic app for Blackberry. Here are some of the things I use it for:
1. It accepts pictures, so when I pick up someone's business card, I simply take a picture and upload it to Evernote. I used to have stacks of cards lying around in various places and would always forget where they were if I wanted to contact someone or refer a friend, but now they're all on Evernote, so I can search them by notebook & tag. This is also good for the environment and saves some money for the person giving me the card, because I can hand it right back to them for future use.
2. Christmas is coming up and that I really hate having to shop for everyone. I never know what to get, but thanks to Evernote, I've been able to keep mobile lists (often with pictures and links) of great ideas for my loved ones. Christmas shopping this year is a breeze!
3. I do some collaborative writing with some friends, but I am not always able to make the sessions, so I copy my notes to Evernote, and have invited them to view the notebook that the notes are in. If I wanted to purchase a premium version, I could also allow others to alter the information in that notebook, but I haven't found the necessity to take that step at this point.
4. I'm an officer in 2 separate fraternal organizations, so it's often useful to be able to make notes, call lists & documents while on the go, which can then be sorted using tags. Papers can get lost or damaged, but Evernotes are accessible via any internet-capable computer and even most internet-capable phones. It's also more economical and ecological than paper.
5. I can back up my evernotes to the handy desktop application on my computer.
I hope these ideas help others when thinking of ways to use this awesome application. If anyone else has ideas, please share. I'd love to find other ways to utilize this handy-dandy little tool.
Jake
It's true that DevonThink Pro isn't everywhere, but to me it's easier to use and has a better recommendation system, especially with 2.0, which now comes with a handy "clip to DEVONthink" bookmarklet that lives in my browser. Now I just need the same thing, but for Adobe Acrobat too.
Anyone who's interested in mind-sorting programs (Evernote, Yojimbo, Devonthink, etc.) should read Steven Berlin Johnson on the subject: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000230.html . He discusses how he uses DTP to write his books.
keith
I like Diigo. It's a FREE, tag-able, bookmarking site like del.icio.us, except it allows users to highlight text and pics on websites, which will show up as notes on Diigo.
Ian
I've got to note that Zotero, mentioned in this article as an alternative, isn't really *for* this - it's more of an academic paper storage/notes/citing tool, like BibDesk or JabRef.
ET
I always wonder when we are so quick to adopt some new app or gadget and then say: more economical and ecological than paper.
The servers that run the internets are huge energy users and all our personal computers also represent huge amounts of embedded energy. Not that paper is "free", either.
MJCinc
"The servers that run the internets are huge energy users and all our personal computers also represent huge amounts of embedded energy. Not that paper is "free", either."
That's a good point ET, but I would love to see a study that would show a comparison of how much energy is used in powering those servers vs. how much paper is (or could be) saved by using these systems instead of the paper alternatives, and the environmental footprint of each. While I can't speak authoritatively on the subject, I'd venture to say that the savings and waste of using the electronic version of products vs. their physical counterparts would be a much friendlier to the environment. Of course, we could always go back to chipping away pictographs on clay tablets. :)
ealmasy
Evernote seemed to me like a great service, until I took the time to read through their privacy policy. Among other things, any information you store with Evernote may be made available to other companies for the purpose of marketing a product or service to you. Think about it: How comfortable would you feel storing all of your paper files with someone if their entire contents was being shared with anyone interested in selling you something? Electronic files are much worse, because it's far cheaper and easier to extract data from them.
Jeff Janer
Another "publisher friendly" alternative to Evernote is Springpad (http://springpadit.com). Not only do we make it easy to collect, use and share content from anywebsite - we also enhance the data you collect and provide many free apps to use your data.
For example, once you've collected recipes - you can put them into our free online recipe box: http://sprng.me/3qie that not only lets you organize recipes from any website but also automatically generates a shopping list that's accessible from our mobile web app.
We currently have more than 40 food blogger partners (http://springpadit.com/partners) that have included "Save It" buttons on their sites to make it even easier to capture their recipes.
(Full disclosure - I'm a Springpad co-founder)
Michael Rosenstein
I was a happy EverNote user for months, but one day, after the Mac client had been acting kinda funky, one of my important documents just disappeared, and no one from tech support responded to my cries of anguish. I dropped EverNote and am now a happy Google Docs user.
jay
I use Microsoft's own OneNote for all this - it has simple hierarchies and things. It works well enough and integrates well into other office products, naturally.
rose
I am a computer rookie --- but the tool that I fell in love with and used faithfully was OnFolio. It served so many of these purposes and was so easy to use...then it was sold to Microsoft..and discontinued. I can't figure out why, but have been looking for something similar ever since.
I manage special projects for various companies, and the amount of info (quantity and variety -newspaper articles, websites, emails, etc. etc etc) is overwhelming). I can't believe that there aren't a host of tools to choose from, but haven't ever found one as easy to use as OnFolio. Have any of you used this, and then found a replacement? How does EverNote compare?
Alexander
Evernote (and other notebook applications) can't hold a candle to the unknown king: OneNote. OneNote does everything this article describes, but integrates with Office products and is filled with tiny features that add up to something tremendous. For instance: you can record audio with it, and it will keep track of what you were typing when you play it back later. It'll also index audio--you can search your audio the same way you do you text, jumping throughout it like it was written. It is elegant and I don't know how I could have gone through law school without it. I watched Mac users with Evernote (and others), but they were always eying OneNote with envy. It's simply not a fair fight.
CT Reader
ealmasy:
I'd rather have software sorting though my electronic records for the purposes of marketing to me than a human going through paper--the software is written to do /one/ thing, and can't come across information that changes its mind from marketing to blackmail or humiliating me for amusement. Just sayin.
Alexander:
The biggest problem with One Note is that it doesn't run on Linux or (IIRC) Mac. It *IS* nice, and I would love a real competitor that runs cross platform.
christopher
I knew I'd reply to this tool because the utility it offers can be achieved for free. One is Dropbox: 2Gb for free and it stores whatever you like, however you like. Your own PC's indexing will help you track what's there; websites or URLs should be saved in your browser and sync'd using its own tools.
Let's say Dropbox doesn't offer you enough. Try GMail.
Compose a message but don't address it to anyone. Attach text in the body, links, attachments, what have you. Save it as a draft. Now go to any other PC, log into GMail... oh look, free file xfer among machines. And you get Gmail's indexing for nothing.
c-dub
Like the reviewer, I also ran Evernote on a iPod Touch, but stopped using it because my notes were only available if I was connected to the internet. Since the Touch relies on wi-fi rather than a full-time connection, that didn't work for me. I've since found other apps that store the notes locally and synch them when I'm online; they're otherwise less capable than Evernote, but that was an unfortunate deal-breaker for me.
fran
Hey folks, the free version of Evernote is hardly different from the paid version, mainly you get more than the huge number of monthy bytes the free version has. I used the free version for nearly a year and only came near the limit once after storing tons of huge images in a notebook. That made me look at my usage and think about the utility. I have thousands of notes in it and use them on my mac and windows machines and my iphone and $45 seemed pretty reasonable given how important it has become to my workflow. I also wanted to make sure my feature requests got looked at. They've fixed all of the bugs I've reported and have constantly improved the product. I also wish that they allowed arranging the notebooks in a hierarchy, but that is because of my age, younger folks use searching instead of hierarchy and that is plenty fast and useful. I'd give them a 9 out of 10 and I'm really picky.
John
A lot of the on-line media sings the praises of Evernote - but there is are a couple of problems that never get mentioned. I should mention that I have a premium subscription.
#1 Support is non-existent. Even though I'm a premium subscriber - there is ZERO response to support requests.
#2 Their installer is broken as far as Windows 7 is concerned. On multiple PCs the installer refuses to run. I'm unable to upgrade the beta version to the latest release.
While Evernote is a good application - they do not live up to their promise of support and there are issues with their desktop application on Windows 7.
James
Though Evernote doesn't have subfolders (yet), you can nest tags. I've been using Evernote for about a year and a half. I have less than 10 folders, but use about 70 different tags to organize my notes. I find using the tags to be much more flexible than using lots of folders. I sometimes still have trouble deciding which folder to put a note into - it's much easier to assign multiple tags to a note and move on.
peter sabbagh
What about MemCatch (www.memcatch.com)? Allows for the aggregation/webclipping side of things like these other apps, but focuses on the sharing of this knowledge across social networks. It just launched last month, so fairly new to the scene and only web based. But the iPhone app, desktop client (for all platforms), and integration with Twitter, LinkedIn, & Facebook are coming out in the next couple months. It also doesn't stop at web clippings, will soon include: email integration (syncs with emails and lets you flag the ones you want to keep directly to your knowledge base), learning management system integration (for students), and RSS feed integration.
c-dub
Peter, why would you suggest an application with features that you can only describe as "coming out in the next couple of months" or "soon to be included"? Tools that do not exist are not tools.
Joe M
I really liked the idea of this tool, especially the ability to sync with the iPhone app. I thought this would simplify a process of transferring notes and info. Well, it took only a few error messages from the iPhone app that "server was unreachable" to change my mind. Internet access was otherwise fine at the time. And what if they go away completely? I think this is a potential problem with many such cloud based apps.
JS
I've been using Evernote for a while now, and I like the sync with my iPhone. However, I had problems searching all words on picture. For example, I would take a picture of a book cover, but only the author's name was searchable and not the book's title, even though the image was clear. For those who prefer desktop options, may I suggest an excellent Firefox's add-on called, "ScrapBook".
Dduncombe
Evernote is good but Snaptic is better for my Android phone
Evernote has great features and I think I will use the webclipping features once I get used to them. But I have had it installed for nearly a year and still use OneNote most of the time.
On the other hand, I use Snaptic nearly every day. On my phone the application is called 3banana. It's has many of Evernote's features, including uploading pics,
The reason I use it so much is because the 3banana application for my phone is able to upload from nearly any app I'm running. Anytime I can share a file 3Banana seems willing to do so. So even though it has less features it has a really high amount of the most desirable feature of a useful tool - availability.
SS
To address some of the earlier complaints, I use evernote on an ipod touch, android phone, mac, pc, and website version.
for the ipod touch, you can save all of your notes offline if you have the paid version - so you have quick access to everything even without a connection. this app is great.
the android version is not nearly as nice - yet, I hope - the Droid Eris I'm running it on clearly doesn't have nearly the horsepower and it will not save notes offline.
both the mac and pc versions allow for online or offline storage - you can choose what notes to store on the cloud or which to just save locally.
Agreed on the support, I have had one issue, emailed support, never got a response.
I love this app, especially on the Mac devices - I will have some serious withdrawal if the company closes its doors!
SS
To address some of the earlier complaints, I use evernote on an ipod touch, android phone, mac, pc, and website version.
for the ipod touch, you can save all of your notes offline if you have the paid version - so you have quick access to everything even without a connection. this app is great.
the android version is not nearly as nice - yet, I hope - the Droid Eris I'm running it on clearly doesn't have nearly the horsepower and it will not save notes offline.
both the mac and pc versions allow for online or offline storage - you can choose what notes to store on the cloud or which to just save locally.
Agreed on the support, I have had one issue, emailed support, never got a response.
I love this app, especially on the Mac devices - I will have some serious withdrawal if the company closes its doors!
Doug
I was wondering if some of the Evernote proponents have compared the experience to using Google Docs? The latter seems to do about everything that Evernote does (to be fair, I haven't tried Evernote yet).
Since I'm almost always logged into GMail, I find it an easy click to go over to Docs and paste something in there.