I cannot believe I have not used this product before last week. Wow, just wow. If you have never heard of Evernote, you are going to want to investigate it very soon. Basically, it’s a free (there is a paid version which has a few more options) organization tool for almost anything you can think of that you can use on your desktop, on the web, and even on your iPhone – and it keeps them all in sync. Anything you upload to this app, from anywhere, is accessible from anywhere else. It is quite amazing. Since I probably cannot do it the explanatory justice it deserves, I am going to lift a bit of text from their site:
Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Capture everything now so you will be able to find it all later. Things to capture: Tasks and to-dos, Notes and research, Web pages, Whiteboards, Business cards, Scribbles, Snapshots, Wine labels, and even Twitter messages. And then find them all any time across all the computers and devices you use.
It even works with the webcam built into my Macbook – I can have it snap a pic of anything, be it a document, business card, or whatever, and it brings it into Evernote WITH text searchability. For example, I scanned a friend’s business card using the webcam and saved it as an image in Evernote. I then searched all my notebooks in the program for my friend’s name…and sure enough, his business card came up because his name was printed on the front. This could really change the way I interact with my paperwork and assorted clutter around the house. The other day I went around the house grabbing all sorts of things I no longer wanted to keep in physical form, entered them into the program, and then discarded them. One of these days I am going to open the file cabinet and start scanning everything in there to try to go completely paperless. Some people who use the program have bought some high-end, double-sided scanners to make it easy, and I might have to follow suit someday.
Just to be clear, I have no vested stake in this company. In fact, I highly doubt they even know I exist. And on top of that, the product is free – so I don’t even get an affiliate sale from promoting it. I just love it THAT much. I have it installed on both computers and on my iPhone and it works flawlessly. I have saved everything from a random piece of paper with a phone # and name on it all the way up to decent-sized PDFs of invoices for my clients. If you are serious about getting organized and going paperless, Evernote would be a good way to get started. Check it out if you are at all intrigued!
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I haven’t tried Evernote in a while, sounds like they’ve stepped it up a notch. I will have to go take a look.
I’m having a giveaway over at my site for a Neat Receipts scanner for Mac, sounds like that would be right up your alley!
Herm, I could probably use something like this. Especially if you can access stuff on the web. I already use delicious for almost all my bookmarking so I can access them from home & work. I share items between my computers at home using DropBox. This sounds like something good to handle the rest. 🙂 I’ve been using thumb drives to bring notes & info to work.
It has truly changed the way I organize and save my documents. I cannot wait to get a fast scanner someday and just put all my paper into it 🙂
Where are the notes stored? Just on the Evernote server or can you keep a local backup? Just as I religiously back up my blog site, I’d want to know my stuff isn’t just stored out there somewhere.
Joe
I just checked, and in the installed local version you can export all notes to save as a backup.
I started using Evernote awhile ago but then forgot about it until recently. I’m dealing with planning an international move, changing jobs, and possibly going back to school. This system is amazing!
Their tagline says it best “Remember Everything”
JoeTaxpayer – They are stored on the Evernote server and on your computer – they sync.
David this is amazing. Thanks for posting evernote.
As a web tech guy, blogger, and generally disorganized guy this is going to be very useful.
It is a little spooky too when you think of it from a data perspective. Imagine the profiles they will be able to build on us… might make a good scifi movie/book expanding on that little piece of paranoia. 🙂
Interesting thought Michael. Between this and Google, my life is definitely not a secret. 🙂
Actually along those lines I have actually outlined a scifi book that I’ll probably never have time to write that includes how the authorities will use aggregated data from facebook, myspace, twitter, etc, and use it for profiling us so that we can be quickly identified as threats or friendly.
This application also rang bells about a conversation I had with a couple silicon valley tech experts web 3.0 about three years ago at a starbucks on the SF embarcadero. We were discussing a dotcom concept that would aggregate data and trends and use the info to make predictions about where certain things (like stock prices) were headed.
It never turned into anything (as far as I know) and at this point I’m running full speed ahead away from things like that but it’s interesting to note that people who know how to build systems like this do think about this stuff all the time. It’s not science fiction.
How people use this kind of data in the future will be the deciding factor in how evil or good it is.
I keep preaching to myself and anyone who will listen that our freedom and happiness all comes down the choices we make. The only trouble is knowing how the choices will effect us in the future.
Sorry for getting so off-topic here. I’m definitely making good use of evernote already and not going to let any paranoia keep me from increasing my productivity 🙂 LOL
It can be scary, for sure. For me, I try to not do anything, or say anything, that I wouldnt want my mom or grandmother to hear. I figure I am safe that way. 🙂
Hey David, I am right there with you on this one! I just learned about it from reading an article on Leo’s Zen blog. Downloaded it and absolutely love it! I cannot believe I never heard about it either.
In fact I am using it to help me with my next book. It is a great tool…
You beat me to the article, I was writing a piece to put on my company site about it when I just saw your feed come through about it. Great job!
It really is amazing, I cannot say enough nice things about it. 🙂
Very cool find indeed. I am glad you stumbled into Evernote. We here at Pelotonics (a project management system) did an integration with Evernote that makes it even more powerful. Here’s some info: http://www.pelotonics.com/evernote.html
If it wouldn’t be for the fact that Linux users are always being forgotten, it would be a really useful website – until then, it’s yet another website with no purpose.
Its of no purpose to you, maybe – but for the majority of people, it serves a big purpose. So saying it has no purpose is a bit of an overstatement, no?
Love this program having been using it for a couple of weeks now and am finding the functionality perfect for me as I’m constantly on the go needing to capture ideas, I actually reviewed the product on my site as well prior to stumbling upon your review great minds or a case of fools seldom differing who knows 🙂
Either way, looks like we at least have good taste in programs!
This is interesting.. I’m going to have to try it. Does it save in a special format, or can you save things in a more standard format like jpeg?
I am concerned that I would lose access to the original files if something ever happened to evernote…