Tip-Of-The-Week

March 16, 2007

From the Free Computer Consultant

http://www.FreeComputerConsultant.com

Evernote - Take Control of Notes and Personal Information

Why Evernote, why now?

First, some background.

My desk is usually littered with little white rectangles of paper 4-1/4 inches high by 5-5/16 inches wide. Some have lists of to-do's, others a single reminder; maybe an idea for a web page. (Sometimes they get lost or misplaced, surprised?)

Why that size? I'm an airplane nut; more particularly warbirds; specifically, WWII "Ghosts". I have one of those tear-off-the-page-each-day calendars that I get every year for Christmas featuring a different plane each day. The torn off pages become scratch paper.

Why does a computer guy use so much paper?

Fair question. Answer is that I've never liked any of the software designed to keep track of little scraps of information. I use Outlook for some, but it's not perfect by any means, and the more data I input the more sluggish it gets.

Enter Evernote (Free Version)

I've been urged to try the free version of Evernote a couple of times. I even downloaded it once. But never tried it.

This week I was urged again and decided to give it a try. I found I liked it.

Enter the info, categorize it now or later, search, sort, whatever. The coolest part of it, though, has got to be the addin for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Evernote doesn't even need to be running. Click the button on the toolbar. If you haven't selected text, it will prompt you to add the entire page. If not, just cancel, select text and click again. A little transparent popup will appear above the system tray to let you know the note was added. Click the hyperlink and it will open the Evernote program and place you at the new note.

There are drawing tools so you can scrawl a note or diagram. It even does handwriting recognition when searching and is compatible with voice software (although I haven't tried that yet).

Since I am a backup freak, I was impressed that it not only has a file backup feature, but also lets me move the data file to the location of my choice - my file server. It's in My Documents by default. You can synchronize with a USB drive, even encrypt data.

Naturally, there is a paid version that has more features. I'm not sure I need that much, but maybe you do.

My advice is to try the free version for now and see if it works for you. I think you'll be glad you did.

Hope this information is of use to you, that's it for this week.

When was the last time you backed up YOUR PC?

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The Free Computer Consultant