Gruber Gets His Hate On For Evernote on the iPhone

Gruber's not liking the iPhone version of Evernote. Somehow I think Evernote will still survive despite Gruber's hard-core following.

In its current beta state, I can't blame him for not liking the iPhone version. As a desktop app, however, I am hooked.

TUAW's First Look at Evernote for iPhone

TUAW filed another first look at Evernote for the iPhone.

43Folders: First Look at Evernote for iPhone

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders published his first look of Evernote for the iPhone.

Evernote itself is one of the big reasons why I plan on buying an iPhone, evil data rates be damned.

It's important to note that Merlin is a recent devotee of Evernote. The multi-platform syncability of Evernote is highly compelling. The fact that Evernote has made the interfaces native to each platform is also a boon. The Mac client does not look like a recompiled Windows app... A Good Thing.

Writing Tool

A lot of professional writers use Scrivener. You can, to a small degree, use Evernote to perform many similar tasks.

What Evernote can't do:

• Full Screen Editing, a la Writeroom (I've submitted a feature request for this
• Sub Notebooks (this was in Evernote 2, but I would expect to see this return in Evernote 3 at some point
• Document Generation
• Outlining

You can, however, use notebooks and notes to manage your draft and research processes. So while Evernote may not be able to reproduce the most hard core functionality, it should be good enough for casual writers and bloggers.

Notebook: Draft
Note Titles: As you see fit
Tags: As you see fit
Body: Your writings, segmented as you see fit.

Notebook: Research
Note Titles: As you see fit
Tags: As you see fit
Body: Put images, text and links as appropriate to your writing project.

Evernote and Shozu

From the official Evernote blog:

But, since many of you don’t have Windows Mobile phones we thought you might want to give ShoZu a shot. ShoZu is an application that can be set to automatically send snapshots to your Evernote email address as soon as you snap the photo, and ShoZu works with a ton of different phones.

TUAW on Evernote 1.1 Beta

Steven Sande:

I've been using Evernote for over a month now and love it -- I've sucked all of my business cards into Evernote with my iSight or iPhone camera, and use the program instead of a card file. Evernote's text recognition simplifies tagging the cards, and I can use either the Mac app, the web client, or my iPhone to look through my database. Evernote's unique focus on images makes it quite different from other information managers like Together or Yojimbo.

Damn, why didn't I think of that? I generally fixate on Evernote's superior text note management, and ignore the image processing component of it.

For me, Yep and Evernote (now that it's Mac friendly) are the killer apps for my personal data management. Now I'm wondering if there's a way to cleanly integrate my ScanSnap with Evernote.

Jotting Evernote

I've been experimenting with using Jott with Evernote.

The verdict? It works.. OK.

To set yourself up, simply add your unique Evernote e-mail address to your Jott contacts, and that's it.

It is probably most useful for less complex notes, but it does work. The only downside is that you get the standard Jott footer once you receive the note.

Evernote 1.1 Beta for Mac Released

A bunch of new improvements to the Mac Beta of Evernote:

• PDF Support
• Spotlight Support
• Encryption!
• New Views

I'd still like to see sub-notebooks and filtered tags, but these new features (especially encryption) are very welcome features.

Clip This: ASCII and HTML Charts

If you're in development of any type, it's always handy to keep an ASCII chart handy.

If you're using the browser bookmarklet (currently found here), I recommend clipping an ASCII chart like the one at www.asciitable.com. Some of you might find an HTML code chart useful too.

Clip This: MAN Pages and HTML Documentation

Many manuals or reference guides are available as a single HTML page. Why not load them in as a single note?

For example, you can download the PHP manual as a single HTML page. Open it up in a browser and use cut and paste or the Evernote bookmarklet to add it to your notes.

Domain Information Tracking

With Evernote's built-in encryption (as of today, currently available only on the Windows beta, but it will be available across all platforms soon), you can safely encrypt sensitive information.

I saw a link for a new shareware application called Domain Brain for the Mac, and there's no reason why Evernote can't handle this.

Here's my proposed structure:

Notebook: Domain Information
Note Titles: Domain Names
Tags: As you see fit
Body: All domain information, including passwords. Be sure to use the encryption functionality built into Evernote.

Password Tracker

You can create a simpler version of the Domain Information Tracking system to simply keep track of your site passwords.

This application provides similar functionality to Pastor and KeePass.

Notebook: Password Manager
Note Titles: Site Name
Tags: Service Type (e.g., e-mail)
Body: User ID and Password. Be sure to use the encryption functionality built into Evernote.

Home Inventory Tracker

One of the first things people do with apps like Bento and other simplified database engines is to create a Home Inventory.

Of course, you can perform the same functionality with Evernote.

This is a good replacement for web apps like KnowYourStuff or StuffSafe and for the plethora of commercial home inventory apps on the market.

Notebook: Home Inventory
Note Titles: Asset Names
Tags: As you see fit
Body: Item serial number. If you have a digital camera, I would also suggest that you paste a photo of the item. If you've got a scanner, you can put a scan of the purchase receipt as well. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to use Evernote's encryption here.

Lorem Ipsum

Designer types might find it handy to keep a note containing the standard Lorem Ipsum passage to populate their layouts.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Building Evernote Applications

If you look at Evernote as being an incredibly simplistic database application, then you can also imagine that "Applications" can be created in Evernote.

As time progresses, I'll be posting examples of how Evernote can be used in lieu of freeware and commercial applications.

I was using the 30 day eval of Bento, which I think is a stellar application, but then realized that the simple nature of the databases I was building in Bento could just as easily be built in Evernote, and be more easily accessed across all my various computers and devices.

For each application, I'll try to use the following convention to show you the "DNA" of an Evernote clone:

Notebook: This will be generally be the name of the application, but you are free to name it as you see fit.
Note Title: This is how I think that the title is best used.
Tags: If applicable, I'll suggest the types of words you should select.
Body: The content, or meat of the record generally goes here.

If you've got ideas for applications, use my contact form, and if I like your idea, I'll post an entry and give you credit.