Using EverNote

By: Kathy Gerber
Published On: 1/21/2007 12:46:39 PM

I just installed the free portable version of Evernote to a 2Gb USB key.  I also installed the extension for Firefox and Thunderbird. I haven't tested this thoroughly, but already it looks like it is going to solve many problems, so I wanted to mention it in case someone has similar needs. There's also a PC version if you don't have a key.
I need to organize
-- hundreds of source code snippets in numerous programming languages on multiple machines
-- reference docs for the above
-- unrelated to work piles and piles of text documents, spreadsheets, graphics, and web site cotent on a gazillion topics
-- Bookmark lists do not cut it. I need the page content. Remember how the Repubs were cleaning their web sites?

To be more specific, I want it to organize itself and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it. I've tried PIMs but they don't accommodate my sloppiness or the size and heterogeneity of docs I want to "archive."  Storing on the web is slow and messy, too. It looks like EverNote overcomes those problems.

And searchability is a big factor!  There's an arcane bit of code that I use about once a year and what I always remember is that it contains the variable "dsn." So now when I need to find it, I can search on dsn, and it will pop up in a short list.

Evernote takes care of that easily, and also with the Firefox extension, an icon appears in the browser toolbar. When you read a news article or blog entry that you suspect you may want to reference in the future, you just click on it the icon and it saves it to the EverNote database.  You'll want to open EverNote and categorize, but still with one button the whole page is stored locally.  Later on you can just do a search in Evernote and it will pull up a list of items containing the term. You click on a button to expand so you can read the whole thing.

There are some limitations. The free version doesn't have synchronization.  It also doesn't work with all applications, especially from the USB drive since it's registry free. For example, I have a bunch of datasets in proprietary format, but there's a workaround for that.  Make another folder on your USB drive and store the document there. Drag and drop it into a EverNote note, and it will save it as a pointer and if the application is on board the hosting PC, you can open it.  Same goes for source code that goes into proprietary formats. You can refer to the proprietary doc with a link and cut-and-paste in the text of the doc for searching.

What does this have to do with us?  I can't count the times where I have needed to search back in my own diaries on RK to find something. Now I put all my RK diaries in EverNote by using the web capture feature. The presentation in EverNote is prettier than the original.  All graphics are saved, too, and it's easy to reuse text and graphics.  If I have a vague memory of mentioning something, I can just use the search tool and all mentions of the search term appear immediately.

My desktops are so cluttered that people make fun of them. I really see this as resolving that problem. One issue though is that I'm going to need an 8 Gb USB drive,  because now with all that I carry around the LaCie drive seems clunky.

I'll probably go to the pay version to get the synchronization feature. That may not seem like a big deal, but in the past, the list of "must have" products on the Windows platform that I am more than willing to pay for consisted of UltraEdit. Period.

If you have time, give this thing a shot, and if you like something else better, please let me know!  P.S. I'm writing this diary directly in in EverNote. 

Comments



I'll have to give it another look (Vivian J. Paige - 1/21/2007 7:32:00 PM)
I used EverNote when it first was in beta and later but I quite figured out how it was better than OneNote. I use OneNote a lot and probably not nearly as much as I should. I need to take another look at EverNote.


Vivian (Kathy Gerber - 1/21/2007 8:33:10 PM)
I'm guessing that you meant to say you never quite figured out... Not religious about it, but I try to avoid MS add-on products because sometimes they force the use of IE which I can't stand. But the interface certainly looks nicer.

If you try EverNote again, please let me know what you think.  There are some other tools out there, but I don't want to try but so many. I don't quite see these as note-taking tools but that's how they're marketed.



Yep (Vivian J. Paige - 1/23/2007 10:51:02 AM)
Left out the "never." And like you, I avoid MS products whenever I can but it keeps getting harder and harder. I don't use IE at all. I do have a plug-in for Firefox that allows me to open a window in an IE tab for those (stupid) websites that require IE.

Since getting a Tablet PC, I use OneNote more than I ever thought I would. I go nowhere without my TPC ;)