Do you use Evernote etc to keep book type info in?

[booklover6]

I used Evernote a few years ago, but it froze up on me all the time so I switched to something else. Now I use Google Docs for that sort of thing.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by taosaur

In my experience, "the official site" is rarely a good place to get a grasp of software (or books, or music, or pretty much any product). Look for reviews, guides, and user comments on independent sites. Lifehacker.com is a solid source for productivity software, and you can check the writers' opinion against the comments to get a decently rounded perspective. Evernote is mostly right to assume that if you've made it to their website, you already have some idea why you're there.

Well, that's a bad assumption for Evernote to make. I looked for info because the initial posts here made me think it might be useful somehow for organizing books and other assorted "stuff." And all the site gave me was useless garbage, and a list of all sorts of extra add-ins that are equally mysterious and puzzling.

It's different if I have a need I've identified and start looking for a program--if I know I want to do such-and-such and go looking for a way to do it. I just did that the other day looking for video editing software and found plenty of information at the official site and various forums and review sites that let me know which of the various software programs would do exactly what I wanted it to do.

The Evernote site bugged me especially because of stupid videos that were nothing but time-wasting puffery. They provided nothing.

Anyway, I barely use One Note, so I think I can live without Evernote.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by Catlady

The Evernote site bugged me especially because of stupid videos that were nothing but time-wasting puffery. They provided nothing.

Well, I can sympathize there; I recently did a stint trawling through developers' press releases semi-professionally, and a lot of it was videos and text that seemed engineered (badly) to make the user feel good rather than tell us anything.

Still, I stand by the assertion that the manufacturer's or developer's page should be your last stop when researching something new, not your first. With free and 'freemium' software especially, the number one reason people visit the page is to click the download link. Any additional information presented is likely to be scant, laced with marketing, and/or written in insider 'developerese.' There are exceptions, but even then you're likely to get more and better information from a tech blog's review and comments, and/or users' how-to guides and how-I-use-it testimonials on personal blogs and forums. You'll generally get better, more digestible information from an informed third party.

That info can usually be found by searching something like "evernote review," and if you're seeing a lot of results more than a couple years old, maybe restrict results to the past year. Also, find a couple high traffic tech blogs that you trust and set up site-specific searches (very simple in Chrome and, iIRC, Firefox). Besides Lifehacker, How-to-geek, Mashable, and Ars Technica are all decent (again, a big strength is that they have a reasonably informed commentariat to confirm or call BS on the writers' reviews).

A site search of Lifehacker for "Evernote" turns up a fairly thorough overview from 2008, a link to all Evernote news where you'll see any recent new features, a link to user polls naming Evernote the favorite recipe organizing app and favorite note-taking app, and some reviews of their spin-off apps.

Here's a comment with several good ideas from the overview:

I use evernote for:
- keeping track of books read and movies seen (snap the cover or ticket with my iPhone, public notebook)

- keeping track of what I lend to who (snap a photo of the person I'm lending to, holding the book or DVD)

- taking notes of books I'm reading (snap the page, public notebook -- griffin clarifi case helps a lot to have sharp text)

- shop opening hours and bus timetables (the bus websites here suck)

- GTD inbox for passing thoughts or on-the-bus "oh heck, I need to..."

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Yes Warrinj the last time I used One Note I thought it was pretty darn awful and inflexible, however I've no doubt there've been many improvements since.

One Note has improved in some ways. I used to use Evernote but switched when I got Office 2010. One Note (and just about all the other Office programs) can save directly to and sync with SkyDrive, and I access my main One Note file from whichever computer I'm at (laptop or desktop). I like One Note better for the way I use it, which is compiling info for training guides and policy documents, which later get transferred to MS Publisher. One Note is my "collector and compiler" and Publisher is where I format it for printing.

If I was using it for something more dynamic, I'd probably go with Evernote, but that's not really my style. I'm more the type to track data, so if I was going to do anything book-related, it would probably require a spreadsheet. As it is, I have calibre and Goodreads tracking everything I need at the moment.

[Lynx-lynx]

CWatkins thank you for that, I hadn't been keeping up to date with One Note. So that's good that it syncs now.

I can see why you would use it for your activities.

I'm curious how do you use Goodreads to track (books?).

[Lynx-lynx]

Originally Posted by taosaur

Well, I can sympathize there; I recently did a stint trawling through developers' press releases semi-professionally, and a lot of it was videos and text that seemed engineered (badly) to make the user feel good rather than tell us anything.

Still, I stand by the assertion that the manufacturer's or developer's page should be your last stop when researching something new, not your first. With free and 'freemium' software especially, the number one reason people visit the page is to click the download link. Any additional information presented is likely to be scant, laced with marketing, and/or written in insider 'developerese.' There are exceptions, but even then you're likely to get more and better information from a tech blog's review and comments, and/or users' how-to guides and how-I-use-it testimonials on personal blogs and forums. You'll generally get better, more digestible information from an informed third party.

That info can usually be found by searching something like "evernote review," and if you're seeing a lot of results more than a couple years old, maybe restrict results to the past year. Also, find a couple high traffic tech blogs that you trust and set up site-specific searches (very simple in Chrome and, iIRC, Firefox). Besides Lifehacker, How-to-geek, Mashable, and Ars Technica are all decent (again, a big strength is that they have a reasonably informed commentariat to confirm or call BS on the writers' reviews).

A site search of Lifehacker for "Evernote" turns up a fairly thorough overview from 2008, a link to all Evernote news where you'll see any recent new features, a link to user polls naming Evernote the favorite recipe organizing app and favorite note-taking app, and some reviews of their spin-off apps.

Here's a comment with several good ideas from the overview:

Agree with your sentiments taosaur, but regarding a 2008 review of Evernote - it's capabilities now couldn't be compared to 4 years ago, as you'd know.

Hopefully they will do an updated Evernote review soon enough, eh.

Have to say that I got onto Evernote through Crackberry, obviously because I use BB products - and I've found their reviews to be pretty spot on.

Like you, I like to read around and try and assess what's what and what's not before I venture, even when the product is 'free'.

[Serpentine]

I use CherryTree, a few minor changes to the html export code and zipfile handling and it outputs some rather nice epubs. Not really useful for non-geeks, but pretty nifty all in all.

I'll push the epub export code upstream sometime

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

CWatkins thank you for that, I hadn't been keeping up to date with One Note. So that's good that it syncs now.

I can see why you would use it for your activities.

I'm curious how do you use Goodreads to track (books?).

Mostly to list the details of the books I've read and want to read, with the advantage of easy access to reviews. Calibre is mostly for books I own but haven't read yet. (The ones I've finished are marked as such in calibre, but they are filtered out of view.)

[Penforhire]

As mentioned, OneNote has also evolved substantially and is starting to steer toward being a possible collaboration tool (more than one person can modify files on Skydrive). Having compared Evernote myself over the past few years, OneNote is much more than a weak competitor. Just one more example - on tablet PC's it does handwriting strokes-to-text.

It all depends on what you need. But I understand most people don't have the time or desire to trial a whole bunch of apps to figure out which they like best. Just beware of overly biased opinions of any particular app.

[taosaur]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

Agree with your sentiments taosaur, but regarding a 2008 review of Evernote - it's capabilities now couldn't be compared to 4 years ago, as you'd know.

The '08 review is actually still a solid overview, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. It mentions a couple of things that required workarounds back then and are now built in, but for someone asking "What's a Evernote?" it should do the trick.

[robbw]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

I've never figured out why I would use EverNote as opposed to emailing notes to myself in Gmail, using Google Docs (sorry, Gdrive now), or text files in Dropbox.

Because you can search text on photos!

Snap a photo of a fluorescent light ballast, email to your Evernote account, go to your local lighting store, "search" your Evernote account for the name of the ballast company, and it finds your photo will all the model info on it. Easy peasy.

[Blossom]

I still use Evernote 2.2 I never did like the new version after that. I use Flashnote mostly though. I use Google docs for my recipes but that's about it.

[Skydog]

I love Evernote and use it every day.

[AndrewH]

Originally Posted by robbw

Because you can search text on photos!

Snap a photo of a fluorescent light ballast, email to your Evernote account, go to your local lighting store, "search" your Evernote account for the name of the ballast company, and it finds your photo will all the model info on it. Easy peasy.

Or I could just take a picture of the ballast and then look at the picture on my phone in the store.

I don't pay for internet on my phone though, nor is my phone capable of wifi access. Plus, with all the carriers getting rid of their unlimited access and charging for very limited data plans there's a good argument to find non-internet solutions when possible.

Which isn't to say that Evernote's not great for those who use it... but for me, it's a solution looking for a problem.

[Sweetpea]

I had never heard of Evernote until I bought my Flyer. It has a tight integration. It's also one of the applications that uses the pen natively. I use it always when I need to take a quick note (and I'm not behind my PC) and I have my grocery shopping list on it.