EverNote
10 Oct 2006Note taking programs abound on the Internet and while I’ve tried many of them, I’ve certainly have not tried them all. Still I’ve tried enough of them (like Microsoft OneNote, Yuck!) to feel comfortable in recommending one. For the last 6 months I’ve been using EverNote. EverNote just works and that is perhaps the highest praise you can give any program. It serves as a personal database for me where I keep notes about projects, phone numbers, conversations, interesting Internet stuff, you name it. Hell, I even use it as an off line blogging tool. It’s quiet, fast and doesn’t get in my way.
EverNote simulates an endless strip of paper that you write notes on. You can navigate back and forth using scroll bars or more interestingly use the Time Band which allows you to scroll back and forth by time. Very handy if not a little difficult to describe.
Version 1.5 released October 4th, 2006 takes care of some nits I had with the earlier 1.1 version. It adds spell checking which makes it very handy for composing Blog entries, like this one. Adding categories to a note is a simple drag and drop operation. The previous method (still available) required selecting categories from a dialog. And password protection of notes or entire EverNote databases is now available.
And the best part? It’s free! There’s a Plus version that allows free form drawing and handwriting recognition but I don’t have a tablet PC so free works for me.