I have to say that my experience with two other apps – Evernote (still in limited beta) and Google Notebook – was quite different from the first two I tried. They didn’t work as well for me. Hey, I’ve got to be honest here but also should clarify my criteria for what “works well for me” means.

1. This is just my opinion.
2. I need things to be very intuitive.
3. Because I don’t read instructions.
4. Because my brain would explode if I did and starts to smoke when I try.

So in the name of saving my brain, I jump right into using an application and then see how often I use it. Does it become second nature to me? Or am I constantly having to think about using it and how to use it properly?

Here’s how the last week has gone using Evernote and Google Notebooks.

Evernote.com

I found that every time I opened my browser each morning and then tried to save a clip to Evernote, it asked me to log in. Yes, I checked “Remember Me.” Yes, I used the password storage feature in Firefox. This was a momentary blip as I saved clips.

What I do like about Evernote is that it uses a bookmarklet to facilitate clipping articles and blog posts to my account. Having a button at the top of my browser is just perfect – it is right there, where I can see it, access it and use it.

I can either highlight a portion of an article or post or clip and save the whole page. The options to do one or another is nice. Then I can either “Go to Notecards” or go back to the page I was viewing.

What I really like about Evernote is how they use a screen grab to show what I’ve clipped. I don’t know if it is a gender thing, but I’m really visual and I always use the Icon view in Mac and really prefer seeing a graphic or icon rather than text link.

Evernote’s marketing blurbs claim they can help you create notes, to-dos, brainstorms and reminders. You can also:

“…snap photos of anything from whiteboards to wine labels then email or sync them; clip web pages and have them stored and accessible in their entirety, even offline; write handwritten notes using digital ink or take snapshots of regular ink notes; record audio clips and memos to listen to later; Email or MMS notes from your cell phone to your personalized Evernote address.”

All I can say to all of those features is…say what?!? I am focused entirely on one capability – clipping web pages and storing them to access them later. That is my tickler file. I’m overwhelmed, even a little intimidated, by all the other features. But hey, that’s just me.

Google Notebook

While I can espouse my newfound love of Google Docs, I’m just not getting Google Notebook in the same way. The first thing that makes is harder for me to use is that the “button” you click to save a clip is on the bottom right hand corner of my browser. That position just isn’t intuitive for me.

Also, since I’m on a Mac with my menu of application icons across the bottom of my screen, anything I have to click at the bottom of my browser means I may accidentally click on Twhirl or Skype or another application in the menu. Kind of annoying.

At first, I was also confused about creating “notebooks” in Google Notebook – for some reason it seemed easier in Evernote. And while I love the plain vanilla text of Instapaper, for some reason seeing just text links in Google Notebook is a bit of a letdown after the elegant screen grabs of Evernote.

Big confession: While I was testing out Evernote and Google Notebook, I saved all the same clips to Instapaper every time.

Sometimes, the most basic apps work better for me than all the fancy, schmancy whiz bang apps out there. What about you?

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I blogged about a “dream tool” I could use and called it Ticklr, and several WWD readers threw out some possible options of Web tools that actually exist, so I thought I’d try them out.

This is the first of two posts where I’ll test out these tools specifically for creating an online tickler file of potential story ideas.

Instapaper

I was attracted immediately by Instapaper’s uncanny simplicity. Register with your email address, create a password only if you want to, then drag the bookmarklet to your toolbar.

Once you’re set up with the Instapaper bookmarklet, you just click the bookmarklet as you read a blog post or article on a site of interest that you don’t have time to read at that moment and move on to your next task. Then when you have more time and want to skim what you haven’t read, just visit the Instapaper site and voila, headlines to the articles you saved. As you read them, they automatically go to a Recently Read list. If you click the bookmarklet on an article already in your Instapaper, the site automatically updates the save date so it appears higher on the list.

What I really like about Instapaper is that I’ve always found bookmarking articles and blog posts in my browser to be a pain once I want to go through them. And bookmarking sites like del.iocio.us haven’t worked for me when I want to scan content for story ideas.

A little while ago, I remembered an article I didn’t have time to read this morning that someone tweeted about on Twitter. I wanted to read it to get some background for an article I’m writing. At first, I headed to Twitter to try to track down the article link, but then I checked Instapaper just in case I had remembered to file it. And there it was!

Even as I prepared this post, I found Instapaper to be instantly handy. I linked to the Web apps I wanted to review for this post instead of bookmarking them. The next day, I was able to find them on my list of links on the Instapaper site – far easier than if I had bookmarked them. In just a few days, I’m pressing the Read Later button as if I’ve been doing it all my life. Because it works.

Instapaper was created as a side project by a guy working on Tumblr.com, another site I really like but that doesn’t really work as a tickler file to me. A possible downside I can see with Instapaper is scalability, that is, if I don’t go through the articles frequently enough, the list will get really, really long. Being able to sort them by category would be a plus.

Read our previous coverage of Instapaper here.

Notefish

I heard about Notefish from a comment in my Dream Tools post so I figured I had better take a look. After registering, I was prompted to download a Firefox plug-in, restart Firefox, and it added a notefish tagging button right next to my del.icio.us button.

So Notefish takes the concept of saving articles and blog posts and search engine results to another level. All you have to do is highlight the text you want to save, click on the little yellow Notefish on your browser, then add the content to a “Page” you create which essentially is like a category.

I was blown away when I went to Notefish. The post was there, on the page I had created, but not only that, the interface let me move it around by clicking, dragging and dropping it. You can also change the color of each note. I’ve already started a page of notes and research for an upcoming article I’m writing for a women’s business web site.

Okay, so I’m easily impressed, you say. I guess it doesn’t take much to knock my socks off although my sock-removing criteria includes:

1. Must be simple.
2. Must be intuitive.
3. Must be helpful.

Call me a Web apps snob, call me a spoiled Mac user, call me what you want. I know what I like and know why I like it. And so far, I like both of these apps. Two down, three more to go.

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Unfortunately, I’m not a programmer, so the ideas for these apps simply take up valuable space in my brain. So I thought I’d do a brain dump of a few of them to make some space. When someone actually comes up with a Web App that gives you more brain capacity, let me know. I’ll sign up for the beta. But until then, here are two of the apps I wish existed (and if they do, please point me to them).

Ticklr

This is a writer’s tickler file system – not the more formalized tickler filing protocol of forty-three files (31+12 = 43) that represent files for 31 days in a month and 12 months, although that would be an interesting way to present a reminder system. The way I’m using the tickler file system term is as a writer.

In the “old days,” I labeled manila folders with broad categories that corresponded with my regular writing assignments: Female entrepreneurs, Miscarriage news, Dog products, Entrepreneurship. Then as I came across related articles in newspapers, magazines and newsletters, I’d drop them into the folders. When I was having trouble coming up with a topic for a regular column or article, I’d sift through the fie and see if something sparked an idea.

I’ve been thinking that bookmarking tools like del.icio.us could be slightly helpful with this task because almost all my ticklers are now on the Web, however, the “filing” system of bookmarks doesn’t work for me. I want to be able to:

• click a bookmarklet on my browser when I find a relevant article or blog post;
• give it a title that specifies exactly what about the content interested me in the first place;
• tag it with a few keywords;
• file it into a digital manila file folder that I’ve created and labeled with the name of a publication or blog client. I want it to LOOK like a folder. I need that visual.

Then when I open a particular file folder, it presents me with screen grabs of each article. Mousing over each one brings up a pop-up window that lists the title I gave it, the actual title and source, the keywords I gave it, and a link directly to the article or blog post. That allows me to scan across the digital pages to see if something tickles my brain, and link into the piece to get more information.

Someone please create Ticklr, and I’ll use it every day!

Blink

I have far too many social networking pages these days to manage them all. I’m just looking for a social networking management tool – really just way to create a home page of all of my social networks. So many of the aggregating tools include some, but not all, of the social networking sites out there.

I want to be able to add every single one of my social networking pages into a Web app and then have an easy-to-use layout tool – like the Blogger drag & drop layout tool – where I can arrange them in a way that is logical to me such as:

1. Most Frequently Used

such as Twitter, Facebook, Upcoming…

2. Professional

such as LinkedIn, Ryze, Xing, Soflow, DOPPLR, Plaxo…

3. Personal

such as MySpace, Gather, Bebo, Maya’s Mom, Friendster, hi5, WorkItMom…

4. Marketing

such as MyBlogLog, Scribd, Pownce, Jaiku…

5. Second Life-Related (for my avatar Cybergrrl Oh or SL events)

such as Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Eventful, Plaxo…

6. Entertainment

such as Dogster, Flixster, Virb…

In addition to a nice drag/drop layout to create my own “dashboard” of all my social media sites, it would also include a panel for my RSS feeds – the most recent from the ones I want to see at a glance without having to go to my feed reader.

Of course, in the perfect world, it would operate like HelloTxt by allowing me to check the ones I’d like to broadcast a post to, although this could unwittingly facilitate spam so I’d have to use this feature thoughtfully.

More than anything, it would put all my social networks at my fingertips, and when I’d click on each respective link, it would open up an elegant new window where I could accept friend requests, post my mood, clear out my inbox, and then move on to the next tool with ease.

So…anyone out there want to create these apps? Or do they exist, and I just haven’t found them yet?

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