Evernote
By TheDoc on Jun 09, 2010 with Comments 0
Every once in a while you run into an application that makes you ask yourself, “how did I live so long without it?” Evernote is one of those applications. I usually am terrible about taking notes or writing things down so I can retrieve them at a later time. Worse yet is those great ideas you have when you are in the car, in the store, or somewhere else that is not convenient to stop and write something down. In addition, there are those times when you get an email or find a website that you simply would like to keep some or all the information about it and be able to retrieve it later. If you are anything like me, Evernote is for you. I found Evernote to powerful, flexible, and most of all, EASY. To make things even better, it is cloud synced and you computer, iPhone, iPad, and laptop are all kept current without any extra effort or actions.
As this is one of the few note programs I actually still use past the initial gee-whiz phase, I will go over the key features and discuss each one.
For starters, Evernote makes it painfully easy to capture information from your different devices. Although each platform is different in how you capture, all make it very easy to get information and organize it.
Capturing Data/Information
Computer – The main way to get information besides of course typing it in, is to use their built in screen/window capture utility which by itself is one of the best I have seen. When you install the program, it puts an icon in your task tray and virtually anything you see on the screen you can either capture all or part of it and save it automatically to a note. It uses full screen cross hairs so you can get a precise capture which makes it like windows snipping tool on steroids.
Main Program Screen
Example of a new note
iPhone – The Evernote iPhone app is very unique and lets you take a quick photo snapshot, text, and a Voice note making the ultimate note taking app while in the car or walking down the street.
iPad – The iPad app is a bit more limited in terms input as it does not have a camera but it does support voice notes and of course text. Viewing and editing notes on the iPad is outstanding.
Organize – Once you have captured in the information, everything is indexed and made searchable. In addition, you can add tags for better filtering, as well as create separate notebooks to better organize and display your notes. Notes can be displayed as Tags or Notebooks based on how you organize. As an added feature, you can “Encrypt” any portion of the text inside a note. For example, you could say in a note “My password for this is: 1234, and just encrypt the 1234.
Find – Once you have inputted the note using any of the methods above, added your tags (optional) and name your note, you can search notes by keywords, titles, and tags. It even supports searching hand written text that is within a note.
Summary
This is no doubt one of the “must have” applications that works with in tandem with your iPhone, iPad, and computer flawlessly. It syncs to the cloud and all other devices at set intervals and is very powerful at searching. The service is free for up to 40 Megs a month (see chart for comparisons) and if you need more the cost is $5/month. If you want to keep information easily and find it even easier, try out Evernote.
Package Comparisons
http://www.evernote.com/about/learn_more/
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