Evernote: An Incredibly Useful Application

I am the type of person that forgets things, lots of things, in fact, almost everything.  I have learned that if I don't write it down (or tell my wife), I likely will not ever do it.  I have adapted by carrying around notepads at work or daily planners, etc.  In fact, in school, I would often just write everything I needed to remember on my hand.  But life changed when I got my iPhone.  

I now had a handy note application that came built into the phone OS, how handy.  I could open the app, jot down shopping lists or to do lists and be content.  The problem: it still required me to have my phone around (which I almost always do) and I could only add content through my phone.  Well, this was working decently well for me, but still not perfectly.  Then I stumbled into Evernote and my efficiencies have increased majorly.

The beauty of Evernote is that they have an install for almost every platform. IPhone, Andriod, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Windows, Mac OS, and many different web browser plugins.  So no matter what device, whether mobile or laptop/desktop, you can add content into your Evernote, which is stored in the cloud and transmitted over an SSL encryption.  I can clip webpages, add images/audio/video, type notes, copy and paste text, take photos on your phone, etc. Once the content is into your Evernote account, you can keep it organized.  You can add it into different notebooks and tag each note with separate tags. And most impressively, each notebook is indexed and you can keyword search across the entire account, making recalling data easy.

You can go to Evernote and create an account (awesome side note, password is encrypted and stored locally) to get started. Install the desktop application for your computer and then install the corresponding app for your mobile device, which can be found on that phone's app store.  On the site you can learn the basics of how to use the program.  Here are a few advanced tips that make this application that much better for me.

Encrypted Text Within a Note:

With the free account you cannot encrypt entire notes, but you can encrypt the text within a note. Here is how:

1.) Simply highlight the text, right-click on the selected text and choose the option to encrypt the selected text.  

2.) Choose a password (a strong password) and give a simple hint and the text will be encrypted.  When you finish, the text will show as a series of dots.  

3.) Once encrypted you have two options.  You can either show the text or decrypt it permanently. If you want to append the encrypted text (make changes or additions) you will need to decrypt permanently and then re-encrypt.  

Why is this useful? I have met too many people that keep sensitive data in a word document on their local drive. At least with Evernote, you can encrypt this data and make it more difficult to get (two passwords protecting it, as long as you make them different, which I suggest). But keep in mind, as with all things Internet, if you want it kept a deep, dark secret, keep it on something not touching the Internet.

Shopping Lists:

I like to have lists when I go shopping.  This helps me get out the door with everything I need and was told to get.  So you can add the lists from any location you have Evernote installed and then access it from your mobile device, email it, print it, etc.  From the desktop client you can add check boxes so that you can check items as you get them.

If you have the premium client you can share the note so that other people can edit it, even if they don't have Evernote.  What does this mean.  I could share the note with Megan and she could update it from her computer and it would be on my mobile device instantly.  If I was at the store and Megan thought of something, she could add it to my list on the fly. Pretty cool.