Evernote

Introduction

I've been using Evernote for a few days now and I thought I'd put a bit of effort into posting up a description of what it is. This isn't so much a review as it is a rave about how neat an application and service it is.

Put simply, Evernote allows you to store notes. Nice. But the power of the tool is in the kinds of notes it allows you to store, the ways in which it allows you to store them and the ways in which it allows you to retrieve them.

But where to start?

Notable Power

I could start by talking about how the notes are Rich Text so you can apply text formatting such as bold, italics and strikethrough. It also allows you to put photos or images into a note.

Now hang on a minute because this is one of the features of Evernote that blows me away. You see, when you store an image in Evernote, Evernote actually READS the image! What do I mean? Let me give you an example;

You're driving along and you see a sign that says 'Welcome to Oxford'. You like the sign so you take a photo of it with your cameraphone and send it straight to Evernote (more on that later).  So far so good yeah?

After a while, you want to find that photo you took in your Evernote list of notes. Now the thing is, there's probably little use in searching for the filename because it'll be something like IMAGE_00234.JPG or something. However, if you were to carry out a search on the word 'Oxford', the note containing the photo would appear because Evernote will have recognised the text and indexed it! Now that is sweet!

The way I've used it so far is by pasting into a note images from error boxes that have appeared in dialogue boxes. These images have been indexed so now I can search within my notes for references to that error message without ever having types out the message!

Another feature I like is the ability to put a check-box wherever I want one. What this means is that if I'm writing notes, I can place check-boxes within the notes as reminders that therein lies an action or a task that I need to complete. That is also extremely useful.

Your notes are stored on your computer but they can also be synchronised with the Evernote server. I find this particularly cool because that means I can use my Windows based PC in the office to take notes. Then, via the server, I have access to those same notes when I use the Mac OS X client at home. The notes don't have to be synchronised though and if I wish, I can set up notebooks which reside only on a local computer's hard drive.

Transmitting

You have a number of options as far as putting notes into Evernote is concerned;

• Desktop Client
  There is currently a full on desktop client for Windows (XP/Vista) and Mac OS X. These offer the full range of capabilities (The Mac client is catching up) so you can edit, arrange and tag with ease.
• Desktop Web Client
  The web gives you a simple and clean interface in which to create notes. The fact that it is web based means that you can access it anywhere, hence, you can get to your notes anywhere you have a desktop class web browser.
• Mobile Web Client / Windows Mobile Client
  There's a special and simplified mobile web based client if you're using a mobile phone or a Smartphone. If you have a Windows Mobile device (I hate that word, when people say 'device' for a phone, I get the feeling they're like grown men who can't admit that they still play with toys), then you have a native client that you can install and use locally. Apparently, they have a Mobile Java client coming soon and I would like to think that they've got a native client coming for Symbian and the iPhone.
• E-Mail
  Evernote gives each user a unique e-mail address so if you are taking notes in a mail client, you can just send that mail to Evernote and it is automatically stored in your notebook.
• Web Clip
  Whether you use Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari, you can use a special Web Clip bookmark to instantly store a web page or a highlighted part of a web page straight into Evernote.

I personally find this useful in the Notes application on my iPhone where once I've finished, I just e-mail the note to my Evernote account and it's there waiting for me to find it when I need it. The same goes for images which I take and e-mail them to Evernote. Also, since Evernote will have a stab at indexing handwriting, I'm can even snap a photo of my Moleskine and send that in!

Retrieval

There's no point storing notes if you can't get at them. As above, you can use a desktop client (Windows & Mac), a desktop web browser, a mobile web browser and a mobile client. There's also a system being developed where you will be able to access your notes via IMAP! Now that is a great idea and once they've got it sussed (my iPhone just doesn't want to know at the moment), that will be a killer facility.

The Desktop Client

Most of your time will probably be spent with the desktop client (mine is) and that's a tool that really offers some neat little functionality.

The Windows version is the more mature and you can see this with little extras like the activity monitor (a little calendar graph that shows you how busy you have been with creating and saving notes) but the OS X is coming up and is already very useful.