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Evernote 2.0
Issue: 9.3 (March/April 2011)
Author: Dave Mancuso
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 3,931
Starting Page Number: 18
Article Number: 9305
Related Web Link(s):
http://www.evernote.com
Full text of article...
Evernote has taken the world by storm, it seems. It's replaced a host of other tools for data collection, indexing, and access. With its low price (free) and its availability on virtually every computing platform, it has become the de facto collection and clipping application for a host of users. Version 2.0 of Evernote promises to keep the application ahead of the competition. Does is live up to its promise?
The first big thing about Evernote 2.0 is shared notebooks. You can now share your notebooks with other Evernote users. Once invited, they can link your shared notebook to their own Evernote collection. You can also share notebooks with everyone, creating open public notebooks. Essentially, your personal collection of notes can become interpersonal, making Evernote a social networking app. This can be huge. The other nice thing about this is that Evernote 2.0 now lets you set sharing in the app itself. You no longer have to do this in a web browser.
Notebook stacks are another nice feature in this new version. It's a new visual way to organize your notebook and clippings. It's hard to describe, but easy to see. It reminds me of an IOS interface, even down to creating a stack: dragging one notebook on top of another, reminiscent of how you create a folder on the iPhone by dragging an app icon on top of another app icon. It's nice to have this option to organize files, and to have the application remember which stacks were left open for later use.
You can now attach files to a note in Evernote 2.0. This creates welcome extra flexibility to your data collection and organization. The application has made a large jump in terms of functionality in its second version. It's obvious that the developers have a clear sense of current user culture and needs.
Evernote 2.0 sports a new Getting Started guide that reads well. In addition, the website has example usage scenarios and support. Your best bet to see the ways you can use Evernote is to do a web search.
The free version of Evernote includes (as of the end of 2010) 60 Mb of monthly storage. Essentially, you can upload 60 Mb each month to your Evernote account. If you exceed this limit, you must wait until the next month to upload again or subscribe to a paid monthly plan. The plan is well worth the money if you use it.
My issue is that Evernote counts consolidation of server files as if you uploaded them again. If I upload two files totaling 2 Mb, it counts as 2Mb. But if I then combine them into one note when they're already up in the Evernote cloud, it counts as another 2Mb of my monthly total. That doesn't seem quite fair.
All other things considered, Evernote is an amazing product, especially for the price, and the monthly price plans are well worth the investment.
End of article.