Evernote Icon - what the heck is it? Anyone actually like version 3 ?

[Carol Haynes]

I just downloaded the update for the Firefox clipper icon for Evernote 3:



The one on the left is the icon for version 2.2 the green one is evernote 3.

The 2.2 icon is obvious and nicely designed for the purpose - what the heck is the green splodge about?

I have been playing with version 3 and they have now gone live with their 'premium accounts' at $5 a month or $45 a year.

Personally I won't be signing up (and probably won't be using the free limited account) - I just don't like version 3. It feels and looks clunky and seems to have lost the 'character' of version 2.2 which I quite like.

Since I have OneNote 2007 I am going to swap entirely to that in future (evernote 2.2 is a dead end and version 3 seems a pointless downgrade to me with an unjustifiable subscription service being pushed). All feels a great shame to me.

What do others think now the final version of this stuff is appearing?

[Grorgy]

The splodge is an elephant, they never forget.  I wasn't all that happy with the idea at first of a web app, but I've been using it for a while now, having tried surfulator and onenote and its just so much easier in my opinion.  It just seems to work and my notes are always synchronized.  As for the premium service, well, so far according to the stats page I've transferred 0.4 of a mb.

[Carol Haynes]

The splodge is an elephant, they never forget.

Seriously funny .... I want to save a note so where is the elephant?

Why not ...

[CWuestefeld]

Evernote 2 has the best sync-via-flashdrive feature that I've ever seen. Last I saw this was completely eradicated from v3, probably to force users to sync via their paid online service.

Does anyone know if the flashdrive sync feature has been returned, or if it will be?

[Carol Haynes]

Evernote 3 has an "Install Portable" option - you then login with your account and sync from your web account.

So no it doesn't appear to have a straight Desktop <-> USB sync - only via the web account.

If you have a lot of stuff this can be S...L....O.............W..... because uploading all your notes from the desktop to the web is incredibly slow from most ISPs.

I suppose this has the one advantage that there is no longer a need to buy Evernote Portable because Evernote 3 contains the portable edition but you can't even use the portable version with internet access realistically.

[mwfuss]

I, too, have tried Evernote 3 but will not be keeping it. I really do not care for web-based applications in general. This is a matter of personal preference and I know that others would disagree. Apart from that, I just do not like what they have done to the program. I liked 2.2 and will continue to use that, but I will pass on version 3.

[allen]

Personally, I love the elephant -- and find the it's corner-turned ear, in the manner of a notebook page, rather ingenius.  I actually shelled out for a year to get the Elephant T-shirt--though try as I may I'll never exceed the 40MB/mo limit of the free account. . . guess I'll consider it a donation. (Plus, the removal of ads from the public/published notebooks I have)

I can't tell you how many times I'd installed and tried Evernote 2 but never cared for it, meanwhile I've found that despite my initial reservations my data life pretty much revolves around EN3 now.  Stark contrast with the norm, which seems to be love for EN2 and hate for EN3.  As my cell phone is always on me, I am constantly texting notes/reminders/etc to my Evernote inbox -- being able to do so and then access them next time I'm on my computer, or any other computer with Internet access, is awfully convenient.

I wish there was some portable solution for my palm, but then there'd be issues of storage--which is where EN3 is really brilliant. With everything web based, storage isn't a consideration. Assuming you have a smart phone or other such device. . . Alas, I do not, but Evernote might be what pushes me off the fence on that issue.

I guess I'm of the school of thought that prefers their data sitting in the Internet vapors, I haven't carried a USB storage device in a couple of years now.  I find it's much preferable [for me] to just use a web browser.  I'm not particularly security concerned. As far as the data goes, it feels safer for me on the Internet than in my pocket.

As far as the speed of uploading notes, I really haven't had any problems with that -- and I have a really, really lousy ISP.  Granted my notes are mostly text with just the occasional image intersperced, not graphically heavy or weighted down by PDF's.

I do agree with you that the software itself seems a bit clunky.  The interface of the web version isn't all that intuitive (I hate having to hunt down, drag and drop tags in order to tag notes) and the desktop client has a gigantic, ugly, unhidable toolbar.  There are a number of issues, it definitely feels beta.  I originally stated I didn't care for EN3, but I've in fact been using it every day from that very day.

[Carol Haynes]

Can I make the suggestion that a WordPress blog can do pretty much the same thing - you can keep posts public/private as you want, you can post from email, there are an unlimited number of personalised tags you can use as well as categories etc. You can search and limit searches to tags and categories, storage and posting limits are only limited by your hosting account (and there are plenty of free or cheap ones). Posts are also archived on a time line.

I can't quite see what the web version of Evernote is offering that is unique - apart from handwriting recognition but how many people actually use that anyway?

[CWuestefeld]

I can't quite see what the web version of Evernote is offering that is unique - apart from handwriting recognition but how many people actually use that anyway?

EN2 has that as well. But I don't use it 

[Dormouse]

WordPress doesn't have a clipper.

And, of course, if you do have a website, there's any number of ways of storing stuff on the web. But clippers are convenient.

[Dormouse]

I do use the handwriting recognition; especially text with photos. Kids use it when they copy other people's notes. Would be sensible for them to scan their own notes and use it to search them too.

I think the EN 2.2 vs EN 3 issue is overdone. It is particularly disappointing that they shifted the product to something less powerful and useful for many of us - but that doesn't mean that EN has no use at all; I suspect that a lot of the grief is the discovery that we have been cut off from the path into the future that we felt we had been led to expect. The change has caused me to reduce my usage of both, but that might just be while I consider what sort of workflow I will move to. I use OneNote, but don't see it as competing with either EN; and I suspect I will use EN3 differently to EN2.2 (and I won't use 2.2 for anything important long term because it is basically dead). I also bought a license to UR in the most recent BitsDuJour reduction. I will see how it goes, but it is not beyond possibility that I'll use all 4.

[wraith808]

I like and use EN3... I use it instead of google notepad because it's better done than that app.  I don't like it as well as a desktop app, but for the convenience of having my notes everywhere, it's pretty cool.

[ChalkTrauma]

I've been an Evernote 2 user for a long time and I love it ( portable version ), I could not live without it in my daily life along with TodoList. Been waiting for forever for the webclipper to work with FireFox 3, so glad they finally updated it. I've been testing with the closed beta for a while now, and have not been impressed. Like others here I think it feels pretty clunky compared to 2, and every version I have tested with crashes when importing 2.2 databases. I get very little response from the 3.0 beta forum on problems and questions. I have yet to get an answer on why notes imported from 2.2 into 3.0 loose all their rich text formatting, I've bumped the thread a few times and never gotten an answer. The 3.0 product seems to be moving in a completely different direction from what I like about 2.2 and what I use it for.. Oh well, at least I have my web clipper back 

[mwb1100]

The splodge is an elephant, they never forget.

Seriously funny .... I want to save a note so where is the elephant?

Why not ...

Getting way off topic - the elephant icon reminds me of my favorite old floppy disc marketing from way back when:



http://home.comcast.net/~kevin_d_clark/ems/

[yksyks]

Evernote 3.0.0.681 released today. Some GUI changes, some bugfixes, especially useful is that you can now reorder columns. Still not perfect, but I'm using it now on a regular basis instead of version 2.2 and I can only recommend it.

[ChalkTrauma]

Have you imported your 2.2 databases? Did they retain their formatting? I'm still using 2.2 until the import feature works..

[yksyks]

I imported my 2.2 database into the previous build of version 3 (don't recall the number) with all the formatting retained, except for the tags. Some of them are missing altogether and the flags are not displayed anymore as icons, but as tag "flag:red". Gross. No other issues so far.

[ChalkTrauma]

Thanks.. that is good to hear..

All my formatting from web clips was pulled over to 3.0, but every rich text note I created by hand ( by holding down CTRL, clicking the note type, and choosing Rich Text note ) came over as plain text.. no idea why..

[lanux128]

slightly off-topic but if anyone needs Evernote icons for their dock, this is a good place to get them.


• http://www.iconaholic.com/index.html

[J-Mac]

I tried EN3 - I really did. Just cannot like it much. I don't need the convenience of web access and actually much prefer to have all my data local. USB Flash drive works for me. I still find EN2 much easier to use, and I don't use all the power search options that most EN 2.2 users use. I have a very fast internet connection but EN3 still moves way to slow for me. I also have OneNote 2007 and Ultra Recall and find myself using those more than EN altogether. OneNote is noce but very different - and so I use it differently. Ultra Recall is much better for some things, but its web clipping is extremely poor.

I use Scrapbook with Firefox 3, OneNote 2007, and good old Screenshot Captor for grabbing web data I want or need.

Jim

[Darwin]

So, any updates to peoples' impressions five months on? Allen - are you still a fan? Carol, Jim and others have you given up or soldiered on, perhaps falling in love with Evernote 3 afterall...?

Inquiring minds want to know... I want to know!

[Paul Keith]

Well to be honest, so little has changed that I doubt the opinions of the posters here would have either.

Personally I prefer Evernote 3 because I pretty much need a web clipper anyway rather than the convoluted toilet paper notetaking structure of Evernote 2.

With that said, the client feels much more responsive and faster now since their latest updates and it looks like the company is trying to chip at Google Doc's market with their new premium edition.

[Darwin]

Thanks, Paul  I've not tried Evernote 3 yet. I have 2.2 Pro and really like it. I keep toying with the idea of trying Evernote 3 on my main computer but wanted to get some "up to the minute" opinions before I do 

[J-Mac]

So, any updates to peoples' impressions five months on? Allen - are you still a fan? Carol, Jim and others have you given up or soldiered on, perhaps falling in love with Evernote 3 afterall...?

Inquiring minds want to know... I want to know!

Ehh - it's OK for quick little clips of text or the occasional image. But... it is not enough to use for anything serious IMO.

E.g., I am using Ultra Recall Pro to store all documents on my PC that I consider important. That way I can search my important docs in a lot of different ways with UR's advanced search, logically link documents that are related, etc. And by backing up my UR databases I am by default backing up a copy of all my critical docs. Just another redundant backup!

And for web research - all kinds, from topics that I need for various projects to just general interest stuff - I use Surfulater. Ultra Recall Pro also can clip from the web pretty well but I like the way Surfulater does it better. I was using Zotero for this type of information collecting but I feel a bit more secure with Surfulater.

I will also probably use SQLNotes/InfoQube for some info once I feel a little more confident in using it. Thus far I have not gotten to the point where I feel confident enough with SQLNotes to use it regularly. I was using it fairly steady for a couple months but for me it is not yet there.

Evernote, IMO, is OK for quickly jotted notes and smaller clips. If you do a lot of handwritten notes and want recognition of them for searching, Evernote is good there. But its organization is not very good and the rich text engine in Evernote is, well, horrible. Text formatting will drive you nuts if you are using Windows. The Mac version has a phenomenal rich text editor but the Windows version of the client on your computer is really bad. Clip a few paragraphs from the web and when you go to read it there are no line feeds, no paragraph breaks. I have edited some and put all that back and open it again and it is all gone again! Maddening. The mod at their forum claims they are working on a new rich text engine for the Windows version but it will take several man-months. I say "Bull". The fact that you can access your notes databases from any computer is nice if you trust their "cloud". But with Ultra Recall, Surfulater, and SQLNotes I am using Dropbox to keep my databases synced among all computers, and it is working great.

Hope that helped.

Jim

[Paul Keith]

Well speaking only on my personal opinion, if you haven't tried Evernote 3 yet, then I'd suggest giving up on any kind of import options. They're just two vastly different apps that I have a growing suspicion the developers only used the Evernote name so they could get part of the fanbase' of the brand as well as explain away why they are giving up on the previous model. (cause really they have no good reason other than purely abandoning it)

EverNote 3 is just so far from EverNote 2 that the team is quicker at adding options at getting people using Google Notebooks to use EN 3 than trying to grab the old market of EN 2.

http://blog.evernote.com/2009/01/22/google-notebook-import-2/