{"id":2168,"date":"2009-01-28T18:59:54","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T23:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.redmonk.com\/cote\/2009\/01\/28\/evernote\/"},"modified":"2009-01-28T18:59:54","modified_gmt":"2009-01-28T23:59:54","slug":"evernote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/cote\/2009\/01\/28\/evernote\/","title":{"rendered":"Switching to Evernote from Mind Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Evernote<\/a><\/p>\n

For sometime now, I’ve been using Evernote<\/a> as my primary, only note-taking application. You’d think it’d pale in comparison to my tool of choice for years previous, MindManager for mind-maps<\/a>. I’m not sure why, but I’ve gotten to like Evernote more. I spoke about this on a recent RIA Weekly<\/i><\/a> episode (have you subscribed to that yet?<\/a> Come on!<\/i>).<\/p>\n

What it does<\/h2>\n

Evernote really only does text notes with some minimal formatting for lists, bolding things, etc. It also has an iPhone app, which is handy, and some publishing options which are interesting too – see my public notebook over here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Evernote’s first killer feature is the text recognition it does in pictures: you can take pics of receipts and whatnot and search over them. To be honest, I don’t really use this at all. The thing I like about is the synchronized web nature: I can take notes on my desktop, my iPhone, or the web-site and it all syncs up. I also like the idea of collecting together all the different files I have: presentations, pictures of receipts, pictures of books that look interesting<\/a>, audio notes<\/a> (another nice feature)…and then being able to tag them all and file them into note books. Really, it’s sort of like a file system dedicated to your notes.<\/p>\n

\n\"Evernote<\/a><\/p>\n

Being able to take little notes on the go, on the iPhone is nice. I use the audio recording to nice effect a fair amount as well. You’re limited to 5 minute recordings (ugh!), but that’s long enough to save most notes to yourself. I’ve also had good success using it as spot to collect together my expenses, spanning PDF print outs of bills, scans and pics of receipts, and other things.<\/p>\n

The funny thing here is that I was never a big fan of Journlr<\/a>, Yojimbo<\/a>, or a steady fan of VoodooPad<\/a>, all of which, really, do the same thing if not more as Evernote. The syncing nature of Evernote just feels better than a purely desktop driven notebook. There’s also something to Evernote’s stripped down simplicity: those other notebook things seemed like massive power-tools when all I needed was a hammer.<\/p>\n

Wish-list<\/h2>\n

That said, as with any piece of software I use daily, I have a laundry list of wishes:<\/p>\n