OS X update: The bloop single

I’m becoming convinced Full Screen mode is to OS X what 3-D is to movies: it seems like a great idea until you use it a lot. I raved about it when Lion launched, but my usage has since waned. With Pages, Safari, and Mail I’ll use full screen, but that’s more for easy switching or creating a distraction-free workspace. Evernote has introduced Full Screen mode and I doubt I’ll ever use it. For me, Evenote is an app I’m likely to have running behind my active window for reference and for quickly dropping links into. Still, it might be useful for taking notes during a lecture.

The developers claim they’ve “embraced the new look and feel of Lion,” which is a fancy way of saying “We got rid of the colors.” The only color to be found in the interface is the Sync icon turning blue when it syncs data. There’s also a new Favorites bar where you can pin frequently used notes, search results or notebooks. Since I have about 15 notebooks, I really appreciate the ability to pin those I use most.

iOS updates: The rest of the story

The double: Shared notebook support

The iOS versions can now read content from shared notebooks. You can’t edit or create shared notes from your device in this version (they’re working on it), but if you’re a heavy shared notebooks user, at least now you can read them. I haven’t played with shared notebooks much, but once you can edit, and if there is push or iCloud support, this should be great for collaboration.

The triple: Searching within notes

You could search for all the notes that contained a word, but if you wanted to find out where in the note it occurs, you couldn’t. Now you can. This is handy, since a lot of my searches are for terms buried in notes.

The Grand Slam: Rich text editing

It’s been their most-asked-for feature. It’s finally here. You can now edit a rich text document inline on iOS.  It’s not perfect; you have to choose to append the document or simplify it. Simplifying makes its best guess on the styles. Make no mistake though; this is a strong hit. I’ll be using this feature a lot since I tend to make notes on clipped content, or a note I’ve previously had the audacity to apply formatting to in the desktop version.

Post-game commentary

While the OS X version rates a hearty “meh,” I’m thrilled with the iOS updates. The ability to finally edit rich text notes means Evernote will see more usage in my daily workflow. In the few days it’s been available I’ve already used it more than I have in the last year. Good job, Evernote.

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Peek is a question and answer app that’s designed to help people study and learn new things. It works like a series of flashcards, but with the help of the Smart Cover, it makes the process both easier and more fun. The app works by revealing a one line clue or question when you lift just the edge of the iPad Smart Cover. Once you lift the cover entirely, the answer is revealed. Close the cover and it advances to the next question automatically. Evernote ships a sample sushi quiz with the app, that gives you the English name of a type of fish, and then provides the Japanese name as the answer.

You can create your own quizzes based on your Evernote notebooks right from within the app (though you’ll need an Evernote account, of course), and you can also get additional content from StudyBlue, a company that partners with Evernote to bring notebook content to flashcard apps. Evernote recently announced it had hit the 10 million user mark, so there should be lots of people with notebooks ready to take advantage of Peek.

The app is free, and fun to use even if you’re not studying with any particular goal in mind, and the way it uses the Smart Cover is amazing. Making apps that use accessories and outside devices for core functionality is a big risk, but Apple pushes the Smart Cover very hard with the iPad 2, so it’s probably the best choice if you’re going to pick a secondary device to work with.

Anyone have any other ideas about how the Smart Cover might benefit from app integration?

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Let me guide you through a number of solutions that allow you to sync data, contacts, calendar, and notes between your iOS and Mac devices.

Data Syncing

iDisk: Apple’s MobileMe is the only all-in-one solution I’ll be mentioning. However, data syncing via iDisk is the service’s biggest flaw. Frankly, it’s too slow for quick syncs. Even uploading one file can result in a several minutes’ worth of sync-time. Uploading a ton of data can be intolerable. I’ve also run into a ton of sync errors, where my local and remote iDisks get so far out of sync, I end up needing to start from scratch, forcing me to figure out on my own what didn’t get synced to Apple’s servers. That said, for small amounts od data the iOS app is a great way to share content while you’re out and about. Also, the iOS iWork suite natively connects to iDisk for file management.

Dropbox: Dropbox is the gold standard for data syncing. It just works. The basic account gives you 2 GB of storage, which is probably fine for most people. They do offer 50 and 100 GB solutions as well. The sync is near-instaneous, and Dropbox also allows you to restore deleted files via the web. I really can’t remember ever having have an issue with Dropbox. You can use DropDAV to allow WebDAV access to your Dropbox account so it will work with iWork on iOS devices. Dropbox also has an API available, so text editing apps like Elements and PlainText can access your Dropbox directly.

SugarSync: This service the potential to be a nice alternative to Dropbox. For starters, its free model gives you 5 GB versus Dropbox’s 2 GB. For  $99 you can get 60 GB of storage while Dropbox only gives you 50 GB for the same amount. But there is no WebDAV support, even via a 3rd-party tool, which may not be an issue if you’re unsure or unwilling to use WebDAV access anyway. However, the big difference is in how you determine what folders sync. On Dropbox, everything in your Dropbox folder is synced automatically; SugarSync requires you to use a desktop program to determine what folders sync. Overall, I found SugarSync’s interface a little cumbersome.

How I do it: I use both iDisk and Dropbox. Rapidly changing files (work, writing, business, school, etc.) are stored on Dropbox and I use DropDAV to make sure I can access the files using iWork on my mobile devices if I need to (for most of my text needs, I use Elements). Dropbox gives me the sync reliability I need, along with a rudimentary backup solution. Large or infrequently changed files (e-books and the like) are stored on iDisk. This gives me mobile access to the files, and I don’t have to deal with an overly-complicated sync system.

Contacts and Calendars

Frankly, syncing contacts and calendars is one of the easiest things to do. Address Book and Mail in OS X both natively sync with MobileMe, Google and Yahoo and when you add your accounts to your iOS device you can choose to sync both contacts and calendars. You can also add your Yahoo and Google calendars as sync calendars in iCal on the Mac.

How I do it: I’m a MobileMe subscriber, so I use that. It may not be free, but it keeps things simple.

Notes

For me, there are two different types of notes. I’ll make a note about something I need to get at the store, or a quick thought in passing, or the name of a book I see in a bookstore. Then there are more formal notes: the type you make during a meeting or class. Especially on iOS, there are almost as many note apps as there are flatulence simulators, so I’m going to focus on a few of my favorites.

Apple’s Notes: All iOS devices ship with the Notes app, which you can use to sync notes with any email account you have on the device. Notes is a nice little app for the basic things, but not great when it comes to long notes. While often derided, I actually like it quite a bit, especially since the notes sync happens during mail fetches. However, if you don’t use the Mail.app on OS X, it’s limited in its appeal, because while the notes will show up in Gmail, for instance, you can’t edit them.

SimpleNote: This aptly-named app has a nice, clean interface. It doesn’t natively sync with a dedicated desktop notes software (you edit notes on the web), but on their download page the app’s developers do list some programs and web extensions that do support the service.

Evernote: This is the big boy of note-taking apps. It’s great for collecting mass quantities of research notes, clipped web pages, graphics, the unabridged version of The Stand and that rusty kitchen sink in the basement. I don’t find it all useful for quick notes, and I don’t think that’s its focus. It is also a great collaborative tool letting you share notebooks.

How I do it: I use Notes for the minor, short notes and Evernote for all my project and class notes. PDFs from school get imported to a dedicated Evernote notebook for that class. The shopping list I’ve been handed goes into Notes.

The Future

Apple needs to get its act together for mobile syncing. The Wall Street Journal reports Apple is beefing up MobileMe, complete with the introduction of the oft-rumored wireless iTunes sync. One of the things keeping the iPad from being a true, untethered mobile solution is a better cloud system from the mothership, so let’s hope these latest reports prove true.

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A graph of new Evernote users since New Year’s Day tells a much better story than words ever could. In the chart below (from Evernote’s blog), each column represents the number of new users per hour, beginning at midnight on Jan. 1. The red portion shows new users coming from the Evernote Mac client. The massive spike is where the Mac App Store launched.

Since the App Store launch, more than half of new users are coming from the Mac client. And that’s only new users. Evernote says it’s seen 90,000 client downloads between store launch and midnight Jan. 7, but many of those users already had an existing Evernote registration. Evernote CEO Phil Libin had this to say about his product’s success in the Mac App Store:

“It’s a very big deal [...] We initially thought that since so much of our user base was coming from mobile, that was the key distribution platform. But maybe it isn’t mobile that’s important, maybe it’s the well-designed app store.”

In the future, as adoption increases and the App Store trickles out beyond early adopters to the general public, Libin sees the Mac App Store as easily becoming the default way to get software onto the Mac. He predicts that we could eventually see 95 percent of all Mac software distributed this way in near future, and that eventually there might be no longer be any reason to offer direct downloads via the web at all. Overall, this is very promising news for developers eager to reach broader audiences.

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When Evernote announced its new Trunk service on Wednesday, I was immediately skeptical and derisive. As I IM’d a friend, “Trunk? As in ‘Junk in the?’” Evernote has had an API for apps to connect to it available for a while. While the Trunk has been jokingly referred to as the Evernote App Store, that’s pretty much what it is. I don’t, however, think they are copying the Apple Store model; Trunk is more of a way to promote services that are Evernote-ready — as well as market some of its own for-pay services.

You can check out Evernote-enabled apps here. I’ve found most of them stretch Evernote integration. It seems most of them consider the ability to save a photo to your iDevices Photo Library, and use Evernote to create a photo from said graphic “integrates with Evernote.” I say hogwash.

I’m focusing on mobile apps here because my MacBook has become a stay-at-home computer since I got the iPad. So, my focus here is on apps I can use on my iDevice while away from my Mac.

These are the ones I’ve spent some time with: Seesmic, AP Mobile, and Egretlist.

Egretlist is a to-do manager that integrates with Evernote and it can build lists based off your Evernote tags. If you’re project heavy, this can be a nice way to track all materials and tasks associated with it. For example, if you’re working on a research paper, you can tag in Evernote all the source material and tasks and in Egretlist, create a project based on that tag. While I love the interface, I’m not sold this is a good replacement for Cultured Code’s Things. For starters, Things is a Universal App; Egretlist isn’t. However, Egretlist will allow for cloud syncing, something Things lacks.

Seesmic is a social media client that integrates with Twitter and Facebook. You can have up to four accounts associated with it. I tend to over-use the Favorites feature of Twitter to mark tweets. With Seesmic, I can send those right into Evernote now. That said, a lot of my marking is for later referral, not for keeping for later, so I’m more inclined to send a linked article to Instapaper.

AP Mobile is, as you’d assume, the iPhone app for the AP News Service. Sending an article to Evernote opens the Evernote app and clips the text into the new note. You can then assign tags and what notebook you want it in. I’d love to see more news apps use the Evernote API.

The Future

It’s my hope that iPhone app developers will see Trunk as another way to promote their app. There are a lot of apps I can see as Trunk candidates. RSS readers, for one. None of the RSS readers on iOS I’ve tried can directly clip into Evernote; I have to send them to Instapaper and have Instapaper e-mail the contents to Evernote. There are a few Bible apps that claim to be Evernote-ready. I’d love to see a Wikipedia and traditional encyclopedia app have the ability to send content into Evernote.

The easier it is to get content from your app into a service I use would be a big selling point for me. It’s my hope developers will see a listing in the Trunk as a way of separating their app from the noise of the App Store.

Evernote is an early “freemium” success story, with 80,000 premium subscribers and 12 percent revenue growth per month for the last two years (for a lot more on the company’s freemium model, see this previous post). Today, most Evernote customers use the app to coordinate their note-taking across at least one mobile device and at least one desktop. Now the company is using that strength to help out other companies and add functionality it hasn’t built itself with 100 “items” (aka apps) from 67 companies at launch. Trunk is available for Evernote’s Windows, Mac and web apps today, the iPad next week and mobile devices after that.

Evernote CEO Phil Libin said this is “not another app store,” but rather a way to showcase and integrate apps. “We want to help these creative nerd engineering types make money for building something useful.” Libin was speaking at a dedicated Evernote press conference in San Francisco, which was a bit odd considering the small scale of this announcement.

Trunk items include voice transcriptions (with Dial2Do), social functionality (with Seesmic), group support (with SAP), PDF annotations and business card handling. Evernote will also offer “branded notebooks” with lifestyle content from publishers including Make Magazine on topics including travel, wedding planning and gadgets that users can annotate and “obsess over,” said Libin.

Evernote wants its partners to both augment and take a piece of its freemium model. It promises it will soon add the ability for developers to charge within Trunk and earn affiliate revenue. Apps can also be region-specific; for instance, a German app called Paperboy takes pictures of newspapers or magazines so a user can read them later, and the Japanese device airpen records physical writing in digital form.

Libin said he hopes future Trunk projects will include games, education, semantic analysis, recommendations and templates.

Meanwhile, Evernote is also pursuing the crazy newfangled idea of retail sales; as an experiment, it will sell an Evernote starter pack with Sourcenext in Japan, including a three-month starter subscription. Always ready with a quip, Libin said, “This may be the first time anybody’s ever put a cloud service in a box — a retail box … which explains why it’s so light.”

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Over time, I’ve formed a few habits to help me get the most out of Evernote and I thought I’d share them with you.

1. Go Premium

At the risk of sounding like a corporate shill, simply upgrading to Premium helped me get more out of Evernote. At the base level, your storage and bandwidth increases and you gain the ability to dump darn near anything into Evernote with the clipper or by drag-and-dropping. Once I got my iPad, however, going Premium was a no-brainer — with Premium you can store all your notes offline on mobile devices; Standard users can only favorite notes. Unfortunately, you’re limited to how much you can edit a document on an iDevice, so make sure a clipped note is cleaned up as much as possible in a web or desktop client.

2. Tag everything

Absolutely no note should be in your notebook without being tagged. Feel free to overdo it, too. Tagging is the easiest way to find data in your notebooks. Common tags I use are: writing, Apple, iPad, Mac, journalism, etc. Periodically review notebooks to make sure you’ve got everything tagged. This may sound like a no-brainer, but once I got in the habit of tagging everything, it became very easy to find data.

3. Use multiple notebooks

I use notebooks as a type of root-level tagging. For technical subjects, I have two notebooks (“technical – Apple” and “technical”) to separate out Apple-related notes since that’s obviously a big topic for me. Each of my classes at school get their own notebook, and I’ll also tag all notes with the subject of the class. So, my Critical Thinking for Research class will get its own notebook, and all my notes in there will be tagged with the class number and “biology.” This way, future searches on Biology will also pull those notes. I’m working on a fiction book based in Boston in the 70s, and that book has its own notebook.

4. Use saved searches

Because of my often-anal approach to tagging, I’ve got a ton of them. However, there are some search terms I end up using frequently and scrolling through the list of tags isn’t effective. So, for common terms like “iPad” I’ll create a saved search for ALL NOTEBOOKS, with TAGGED: iPad. By command-clicking on multiple tags, I can create a search based on all of them, so if I want to find something I’ve clipped that Merlin Mann wrote about writing, I’ll end up with a search based on TAGGED: MANN TAGGED: WRITING.

Now, it’s possible to think that saved searches might be a replacement for multiple notebooks, but don’t fall for that. Multiple notebooks are an ideal way to segregate information.

5. Use Safari’s Reader view to email articles to Evernote

I’m falling in love with the new Safari Reader view — so much so that I’m thinking of using Safari on the PC more. The new Reader view has two great features: it’ll grab multi-page articles into one view, and it strips out the extraneous crap I end up needing to delete when I clip a page via the web view.

However, the money shot in Reader view is that you email right from it. So, you’ll get a nicely formated note in your notebook. You can also specify the notebook and tags right in the subject line. For instance, “Test Notebook @technical-apple #ipad” to send to my Apple notebook with an iPad tag. Note: this only works for existing tags and notebooks; you can’t create notebooks and tags via email.

Evernote is a very powerful tool that’s replaced almost every note app I’ve used on my iPad (with the exception of Notes, which I use like a scrap of paper). I’d love to hear how you use Evernote!

I recently started a massive landscaping project at my house. It involves removing a lot of plant material, moving some plants, and adding new ones. It also involves putting in a new driveway, parking court and patio, as well as a new privacy fence. To get everything we want, I’m serving as general contractor, and I needed a single place to store notes, shopping lists, links to websites with products or inspiration, task lists, and more. On a whim, I launched Evernote and got the latest update. It fit the bill perfectly.

To manage all of this project’s information, I set up a notebook in the sidebar for the whole project, and I’m using individual notes for sub-projects. For example, we want a privacy fence that fits the historic character of our neighborhood (1880-1930) but also reflects our own, more modern sensibility.

This is a challenge, so I’m collecting links and photos of various fence designs in a single note, along with names, phone numbers, and price quotes from materials suppliers and installers. Getting info into Evernote via the menu bar icon and keyboard shortcuts is a snap, and I can organize and format to improve readability and findability. I’ve also linked external files, including the Numbers spreadsheet I’m using to track expenses.

Perhaps the best thing about my re-introduction to Evernote, especially as it relates to this project, is the iPhone version. Often, I’ll find myself near a nursery or other supplier, and I can call up Evernote to show an example of what I’m looking for or a shopping list for plants and supplies. I also love the photo and voice note capabilities.

A few times recently, my wife and I have seen examples of something we like that we might want to incorporate into our landscape, so I simply create a Snapshot note to add to the project notebook. The current version of the iPhone app is not buggy like I remember earlier versions. I have to say, I’m really looking forward to using Evernote on my iPad 3G, especially since all my notes are automatically sync’d to all my devices.

I’m glad to have become re-acquainted with Evernote. It’s making it easier for me to create, store, organize and retrieve notes when and where I need them.

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Both of these apps have some functional overlap and some unique differences. Here are the categories for comparison:

• Capturing data
• Managing data
• Sharing data
• Unique features
• iPhone Application

Capturing Data

There are many ways to capture data in these applications.

• Drag-and-drop files in the application’s main window (both).
• Import from a variety of other applications (DTPro: Import menu + AppleScripts).
• Native support for many file formats. Evernote Premium account is required to support files other than PDF. DTPro supports native iWork files, Mail.app/Entourage mail messages and more.
• Import of web archives via bookmarklets (both).
• Mac extensions: DTPro Office Sorter & Evernote’s Clipper.

DEVONthink Pro Office Sorter

Using the Sorter (which extends from the left or right side of your desktop), you can drag-and-drop items (documents, pictures, etc.) and they are automatically redirected to DTPro.

Evernote’s Clipper

Using the Clipper (available via the menu bar), you can either select text and go to the menu or press command keys to send the information to Evernote.

Managing Data

DEVONthink Pro Office Main Window

The DTPro main window utilizes a folder metaphor, similar to the Mac OS Finder. There are many ways to view and work with the data. Further, you can quickly create new files (Rich Text, Text and more) directly from the application.

What really makes DTPro valuable is the Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine. Rather than manually tagging content, DTPro uses its engine to create relevant links between content.

Lastly, DTPro includes an OCR engine that converts images and PDFs into editable files so that you can search for text within each item.

Evernote Main Window

Evernote Premium takes a different approach to managing data. The primary mechanism for organizing information is via user defined tags. You can also create different notebooks for different purposes (for example, PDFs or Office files).

Evernote allows you to quickly add new notes (via RTF) as well as take photo notes via your iSight camera. And, like DTPro, the app uses an OCR engine that converts images and PDFs into editable files. Just note that this OCR conversion is done via the Evernote Web service, not natively in the Evernote application.

Sharing Data

Both products enable you to share your data. With Evernote, you can specify which of your Notebooks you want to Publish to the web. You can then share the URL. Note, unless you use Evernote Premium, all of your data is sent insecurely to Evernote’s servers.

DTPro has the ability to publish its database to a local web server, of which you can either password protect or make public by sharing the IP address and directory.

iPhone Application

Both products have the capability of viewing your information via an iPhone application. For now, Evernote performs better due to its native iPhone app.

Currently, you can access your DTPro content via a web interface on the iPhone. When I spoke with the Devon Technologies CEO, he explained that a native iPhone app is on the roadmap.

DEVONthink Pro Office iPhone web app – Main interface

In order to use the DTPro iPhone web app, you first must set up the web server within DTPro. Next, you use the web app to search and view items (no edit).

Evernote iPhone app

With the native Evernote iPhone app, you can capture photos and voice notes, create text notes and view your captured data (including documents). The interface is pretty seamless and other than network lag, performs pretty well.

Unique Features

What makes Evernote Premium unique is its ubiquitous access. You can get to your data via a variety of apps (desktop, iPhone, web). What makes DTPro unique is its artificial intelligence and rich auto-categorization of your information.

Support

Both products have excellent support, including online video tutorials, help systems, blogs, and more. Devon-technologies also has a very active end-user support forum.

Conclusion

Ultimately, either app will serve you well. However, there are some issues with each.

With Evernote, you have to ask these questions:

1. Do you want your data on your computer or someone else’s?
2. Do you mind tagging all of your files and defining your own criteria for organization?
3. Do you mind that some captured data is not true WYSIWYG (some files do not maintain formatting)?
4. Are you prepared to have limitations on viewing large files (PDFs greater than 35 pages) in any of the apps?
5. Do you mind having to export each file one-by-one, as Evernote does not have a standard export mechanism for your files?

With DTPro, you have to ask these questions:

1. Do you want to spend $149 (retail) or $45/year (Evernote Premium account)?
2. Do you mind playing with beta software? 2.0 of DTPro is in beta and won’t ship until the first half of this year.
3. Do you want to spend the time learning DTPro’s UI? It isn’t challenging, although there is much more to learn than Evernote.
4. Do you mind running a local web server to view your data via remote access?

What other choices do you have?

• Circus Ponies – Notebook 3.0 ($49.95)
• Reinvented Software – Together 2.2 ($39)
• Bare Bones Software Yojimbo 1.5 ($39)

Each of these apps are excellent and are moderately priced. None of the three apps mentioned above have direct OCR capabilities or an iPhone app. Further, only Yojimbo has the ability to view its data remotely or via the iPhone by utilizing another application, Webjimbo ($30) from Flying Mac software.

Conclusion

I decided to part ways with Evernote and move forward with DEVONthink Pro Office, because I wanted more control of my data and the artificial intelligence features were very attractive to me.

What about you? Which tool (if any) do you use for information management? Or, do you use file system and avoid apps like these altogether?

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The developers of Evernote seemed to have a single principle in mind when developing their new software/service: make it as easy and painless as possible to capture any bit of visual or textual information anywhere you happen to be at any time. From screen captures, to to-do lists, to quick notes via text or e-mail to impromptu captures from your cell phone camera, Evernote removes all barriers to memory.

At its core, Evernote is just a simple, tagged database of images or text/HTML presented via the web and web service (unpublished and used only by Evernote). While you can perform many tasks in-browser, lets focus on some of the more interesting features of the Mac client.

The Evernote Application

As you can see from the screen capture, the Evernote main window provides a Mail-like interface to stored notes with collections (you store notes in “notebooks”) and smart-tags on the left (with an activity window in lieu of a status bar), note list on the top left with a “reading pane” on the bottom left. Single-clicking a note (or clicking on “New Note”) lets you edit or create a new note in the reading pane while a double-click opens a note in a new window. The editor is sparse, but provides enough functionality to enter basic information with minimal formatting.

The entry above was generated by the Evernote bookmarklet which I placed in the bookmarks bar in Safari. After navigating to a web site, just click on the bookmark to have Evernote store a full HTML copy of that page. You can add tags to notes for searching or sorting and Evernote will generate metadata for your entries and will even attempt to OCR text it finds in pictures.

Upon installation, you can customize three shortcut key-sequences that will then be available anywhere you happen to be in OS X. With them, you can take a partial or full screen capture and send it straight to the Evernote application, quick-paste any copied image or text right into Evernote or execute a search over your notes databases.

The thumbnail view of the app would be much cooler if there were a “quick look”-type of feature, but the sorting options give it the “event”-like feel from iPhoto.

Evernote will sync your local notebooks on startup and can be configured to sync every 5, 15, 30 & 60 minutes thereafter. Plus, there is the option to only enable manual synchronization, which is especially handy when you are in an area with limited Internet access/availability.

Evernote Everywhere

For Evernote to be successful, it must work well from any mobile platform. The Safari bookmarklet, Safari browser itself and Mobile Safari interfaces all put note taking & viewing right at your fingertips.

Their e-mail feature works just like sending photos to Flickr or .Mac, and Evernote gives you the ability to generate a new “TO:” address with little effort (one button) in the event you accidentally disclosed it or the evil spammers finally iterate to it.

Evernote Impressions

The developers at Evernote did a great job making the application feel extremely Mac-like. The interface is well-designed, application preferences make sense and the integration with the system is narrowed to a small, targeted subset of specific and useful actions.

I mailed a copy of a photo I took of a good bottle of wine my wife and I tried at Pair – a tasty (but $) local Seattle restaurant – in order to remember to try to find that particular vintage sometime in the future. I could have performed a similar task by syncing to iPhoto or e-mailing to Flickr or publishing to a .Mac gallery, but Evernote will allow me to easily store the information I find out about the winery, locations, price, etc right with the picture and will allow me to retrieve it anytime, anywhere or include it in search results when digging for wine options in the future.

The bookmarklet is handy and is more of an augmentation to a service like Del.icio.us, but I made great use of it to note some collectables I wish to pre-order and can see many opportunities to use it to capture articles and information from interesting sites. Google Notebook provides some similar functionality, but lacks the feature-rich local client/sync (give them time, though, especially with Google Gears constantly adding functionality).

It would be great if Evernote as a service published an API so you could do what you wanted (programmatically) with your data. They could also use a bit of social networking features and provide the ability to share notes with other Evernote users, allow for group notes collections/notebooks, send notes via Twitter or IM/SMS or provide RSS feeds of your stored information. While it doesn’t pander to such mashupable “must have’s”, there is no indication they are not planning support for such items in the future, and other sites seem to have some inside scoop that support for these enhancements are right around the corner.

Giveaway Time!

To share the joy of my newfound ubiquitous memory, I’m giving away 10 Evernote invitations to TAB readers. Just submit a comment before 2359 PST Saturday (April 5, 2008) and include your name/valid e-mail or @Twitter handle, if you have one (I’ll DM you for a contact e-mail if you win). Winners will be chosen at random from valid entries and notified on Sunday (April 6, 2008).

If you’re also an Evernote beta user, don’t let the entry-deluge sway you from tossing your opine in the comments. Your views and usage advice will be reaching more folks than ever!

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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