I still dig EverNote
I’m still digging EverNote. I briefly reviewed a previous version here, and Marc has reviewed it over here, here and here. If you’re not really understanding what the deal is, lemme help shed some light. The first assumption is that you’ve got stuff to keep track of. Still with me? The second assumption (and this is a stretch, I know) is that you’re keeping track of stuff with text notes. The third assumption is that you gots a PC. Sorry mac-folk, but you guys have some pretty cool shizzle of your own.
So if you’re still with me, then EverNote might be your new friend. The big deal with EverNote (my activeword is en) is that if you’re keeping text notes in some directory, then you might be better off keeping those same notes in EverNote. There are some pretty compelling reasons for this, but they aren’t without downsides, in my view.
Upside
- You get versions. If you make a note on day one, and on day two you delete a bunch of stuff, then add more stuff on day three and on day four you realize you shouldn’t have deleted all that stuff, EverNote will show you all the previous versions of your note. Cool.
- You get good search. For me, the ability to search is king. I’m not the best organizer, so I really need to be able to find my stuff when I want/need it. EverNote allows you to find your stuff a couple of ways. First you’ve got categories and subcategories, etc. So you can tag the heck out of notes. Next you’ve got a decent ‘find’ function that highlights the relevant search terms through all the notes you’ve currently got displayed. CrimsonEditor (and other text editors, I suppose) will do a pretty nice ‘find in files’ search where you just point it at a directory and give it a search term. EverNote won’t do that, but it doesn’t need to since there’s only one file to search.
- You get drag ‘n drop. You can drag and drop all sorts of content into your notes. Word processing docs, spreadsheets, links to other folders or applications, links to webpages, etc. Webpages are particularly nice, since the link shows up inline and not as a long URL. Other links show up as a tiny icon with the document name or folder name.
- You get rich text. I have no need for full-on programmer text editors, so I use the free CrimsonEditor for my plain text needs, and until EverNote showed up, that’s where I’d create my ad hoc lists of things. Worked great, but not so good if I wanted to do rich text. I generally don’t want to do rich text, but sometimes it’s nice. Memo outlines, blog drafts, etc. Sometimes they’re easier to read with a bold header, or a "real" bulleted list instead of asterisks. Not to mention a full suite of typefaces.
- Everything in one place. This is a pretty big draw. Having all your notes in one "place" is nice. Even nicer when the interface is as easy to use as EverNote’s.
- You can’t forget to save stuff. Merlin mentions getting used to saving your work. Even better: get used to working in EverNote, which saves stuff on the fly. There isn’t even a "save as" function–it’s just done for you. When you’re used to saving your work often, it’s a little bit freaky to give up that small sense of control.
- It’s free. What else can I say?
Downside
- Not so portable. Plain text is super portable. You can read it pretty much anywhere. You can load it up on your PDA, you can move between mac and pc and you’ll still see the same thing. Notes in EverNote aren’t like that. Sure, you can move the EverNote file from place to place, but you need a pc and you need to have EverNote installed.
- Still a little funky. It’s still in beta and that shows every once in a while. For instance, some drag/drop stuff shows up again if you delete it, then try to drop something else in the same note.
- Everything in once place. Yeah, this is the dark side. What if your EverNote file gets deleted? I don’t want to think about that.
- No "remote" capability. A lot of text editors today will do a little FTP trick and grab or search for files on a server somewhere and even save them back to the server. That’s pretty nice. It’s on my wishlist, which is coming up next.
There aren’t many downsides and there are a whole lot of upsides to using EverNote instead of a text editor for notes, clippings, drafts, etc. Even so, I’ve still got some stuff that I wish it would do:
- The remote trick. Like I mentioned previously, I’d love to see some ability to store my EverNote database remotely, so I don’t have to email it to myself…
- I kinda wish it could open up plain text (txt) files. I know I can copy/paste or drag/drop, and I don’t know where I’d expect the note to go once it was opened, but it’d still be nice. Maybe there could be an option that pops up when you drag/drop a text file that asks if you want to link it, or open it in the current note.
- Line numbers. I wish those little dots on the left side could be line numbers instead of dots. Not by default, just as an option. This would be difficult because they’d have to start over with each new note.
- I know they’ve heard this a lot, but man, I wish they could get that webclipping dealio to work with FireFox.
- Note stats. I wish there were some rudimentary options for word count, etc.
- It’d be nice to add lock/unlock and the timestamp to the right-click context menu. This is especially helpful when you scroll to the bottom of a long note and realize it’s locked and you have to scroll back to the top to unlock it.
- Modules might be cool. ActiveWords does this pretty well. They built a solid base product then offer add-ins to meet specific needs–I could see EverNote using the same strategy. The first module I’d like to see is one that allows you to use EverNote to post to your blog… The second module I’d like to see would be a spell checker (though ActiveWords takes care of a lot of this for me).
Do you know how EverNote compares to MS-OneNote? I was wondering which one is better? (aside from the fact that EverNote is free!)
Soroush, there’s a brief comparison to OneNote over here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/EverNote_beta/4505-3522_7-31289062-2.html?tag=top
Mac users might want to look at MacJournal (http://homepage.mac.com/dschimpf/) as something covering an equivalent space. The last free version was 2.6 and is well worth a look, or there is a reasonably priced version 3 and beyond.
I used EverNote successfully for quite a while, but replaced it with Onfolio. Although Onfolio is better known as an RSS aggregator and general organizer for online material, Onfolio collections can also be used to create and organize notes quite well, too.
Thanks for the tip, Michael…I’ll have to look into Onfolio.
Think outside the cubicle: two note-taking apps reviewed:
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5666647.html#ggviewer-offsite-nav-12201864
Havn’t tried Onenote yet, have been experimenting with Onenote and have been using TexNotes Pro by GemX for daily use which I really like, I take notes on note cards during day and then once a day enter them into TexNotes, for quicky must have information I use my PDA with ABC Idea, a note orgainzer for a pocketpc. Hard to beat instant on for quickly accessing information, though I wish some of the new Portable Media Players would incorporate the ability to view other types of content, PDF, doc files, ebooks etc. I think if Creative really wanted to beat Ipod this would be the way, as it is the PSP may trump them with its machine.
I’m currently using this great product called Keynote that I got from Download.com (I think). It’s an amazing product that I’ve only recently begun using. So far, it seems like it has most (if not all or even more) functions than Evernote. And it’s free.
It’s kinda like DEVONThink for the mac (http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/overview.php) but not as fully featured (which makes sense, it’s free, that’s cool). Thanks, I’ll have to post this link, as all my windows using friends have been begging me for a link to something similar.
If you run EverNote from a Metaframe server as a published application, you’ll always have access to it – even from a Mac or *nix machine!
I, too, was waiting eagerly for the web clipping function to be enabled for Firefox. Wait no longer — they’ve made a Firefox extension: http://www.evernote.com/en/products/evernote/web-clipper.php
It’s unclear whether you have to have the newest public beta version (dated 3/7/05) installed in order to use it, but if you’re like me, you’d probably want the most recent version (http://www.evernote.com/en/products/evernote/releasenotes.php) anyway.
Now, I’m waiting (im)patiently for some kind of export feature! Evernote obviously is a database, so I’m thinking an export to a comma-delimited file, or a spreadsheet would be nice.
If what you’re after is note taking and accessible anywhere, why not use a Wiki? I’ve got a wiki on a server, with daily replication to my laptop. That way I’ve got access even when offline. Instiki and MoinMoin are my two favorite wikis.
I’ve just been informed by Evernote tech support that Tools/Options/Backup offers “automatic backup in XML” with multiple generations of backup. That addresses my two major concerns about Evernote: ability to search it via Google Desktop and not being locked into a proprietary data store.
Does anyone know if there is a CSS sheet available for Evernotes? I think that if you had one you could easly view the exported XML in your browser.