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amanda_loddenFor many moons, I was enamored with Google Notebook. It's a handy, searchable place to store various bits of information. It was still a little on the young side, and lacked decent support for mobile devices and such (it's there, it's just not any GOOD).
Then Google announced that they would no longer support Google Notebook. Old notebooks wouldn't be deleted, and if you had one you could still add to it, but there would be no further development and don't go asking questions of them about it.
I floundered around for a while, trying different things for keeping digital information together and vaguely organized, and just didn't find anything I liked. Wikis are okay, but they rely on me leaving little stubs around, which means I end up having a "Contents" page that everything links from, which is a lot like having all of your paper put in one filing drawer, regardless of whether it ought to be there or not.
After six or seven people/blogs/whatever recommending Evernote, I tried it again. I wasn't fond of it when I tried it a few years ago... it suffered from the same "stuff everything in the same place and hope for the best" problem that a personal wiki has.
Since then, Evernote has evolved to look a lot like Google Notebook. In fact, it looks suspiciously like the developers at Evernote said "Hey, Google Notebook is kinda neat, why don't we do that?" and then went and hired the former Google Notebook team of developers. Only, it's better. PC (and Mac) software, web interface, mobile device interface, all of which sync to the same database. You can use the PC/Mac software offline, and it will sync up later; its copy is stored locally... a handy feature if you happen to spend a lot of time on your laptop in airports and don't want to pay $10 for a daily pass for a wifi hotspot that you'll only use for an hour. I've tested the sync's ability to handle idiots (like, er, me) that modify things using the PC software but forget to sync, then go to a different computer and modify other things on the webpage, and then come back to the PC to modify more and finally sync, and it does sync in both directions so that all of the changes were reflected both localy and on the website. (I didn't try modifying a note on one and then moving to the other and modifying the same note in a different way. I don't expect miracles, I just want software to be less braindead than "Here, my database changed, let me overwrite everything yours has with my info", which I have seen be passed off as a "sync")
The free version has been plenty for me for the time being (even with putting all of the information stored in wikis and Google Notebook into Evernote), but I will probably upgrade to the premium version to support the developers.
Then Google announced that they would no longer support Google Notebook. Old notebooks wouldn't be deleted, and if you had one you could still add to it, but there would be no further development and don't go asking questions of them about it.
I floundered around for a while, trying different things for keeping digital information together and vaguely organized, and just didn't find anything I liked. Wikis are okay, but they rely on me leaving little stubs around, which means I end up having a "Contents" page that everything links from, which is a lot like having all of your paper put in one filing drawer, regardless of whether it ought to be there or not.
After six or seven people/blogs/whatever recommending Evernote, I tried it again. I wasn't fond of it when I tried it a few years ago... it suffered from the same "stuff everything in the same place and hope for the best" problem that a personal wiki has.
Since then, Evernote has evolved to look a lot like Google Notebook. In fact, it looks suspiciously like the developers at Evernote said "Hey, Google Notebook is kinda neat, why don't we do that?" and then went and hired the former Google Notebook team of developers. Only, it's better. PC (and Mac) software, web interface, mobile device interface, all of which sync to the same database. You can use the PC/Mac software offline, and it will sync up later; its copy is stored locally... a handy feature if you happen to spend a lot of time on your laptop in airports and don't want to pay $10 for a daily pass for a wifi hotspot that you'll only use for an hour. I've tested the sync's ability to handle idiots (like, er, me) that modify things using the PC software but forget to sync, then go to a different computer and modify other things on the webpage, and then come back to the PC to modify more and finally sync, and it does sync in both directions so that all of the changes were reflected both localy and on the website. (I didn't try modifying a note on one and then moving to the other and modifying the same note in a different way. I don't expect miracles, I just want software to be less braindead than "Here, my database changed, let me overwrite everything yours has with my info", which I have seen be passed off as a "sync")
The free version has been plenty for me for the time being (even with putting all of the information stored in wikis and Google Notebook into Evernote), but I will probably upgrade to the premium version to support the developers.
