(Archived) 'Novel' uses of Evernote

[markbrai 0]

Hi,

First post here, but long-time user of Evernote! I was just interested to hear of anyone's 'novel' uses of Evernote that take the standard services on offer but use them in an interesting way to organise yourself?

Starting off....

I'm a worship leader at church and for quite a while have been wanting to try and make some sort of database where I could search for songs by artist, title, key, and also some associated theme 'tags', and then have that search linked back to the original file to view. Attempt number one for this was a program called Punakea that allows file tagging on Macs. This to be fair did the job very well. The next thought though was to have all the chords 'in the cloud' so I could get them even when I didn't have my laptop. So, all the chord sheets went on to Dropbox and all was good. The final 'function' was to be able to have the team I lead with able to access the database. This is where trouble started as Punakea doesn't sync tags over Dropbox and most of the team use PC's anyway. So, I started to create an Excel database of all the tags etc. But then you can really only search for one, not multiple, and can't link directly to the chord sheet. Also, it would make mobile access difficult. Aha, so how about a Bento database as well that I can search on my iPhone. And then go to the Dropbox app, remember the song name and then find it on there. OK..starting to get a bit fragmented and complex now....

So enter Evernote! It had been staring me in the face the whole time. EN provides essentially the perfect service. Cloud storage of any files (I'm a premium user), assignable tags, in document search, accessible on any major platform, sharable with others and all in one place!

So now, I am building up the database on EN and it is working perfectly. I can access all my chord sheets wherever I go. Search for and go straight to the sheet on any platform, and allow others to do so. Brilliant!

Well, that was long! But shows how good a service the EN boys have got here that they can take over the tasks of around 4 or 5 applications I was using before!

What are your 'novel' uses?

[engberg 89]

Thanks for the idea (and kind words).

Andrew Maxwell gave a pretty neat list of 100 uses for Evernote here: http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2009/11/1 ... note-uses/

We also keep a few ideas on our blog: http://blog.evernote.com/category/tips_stories/ and on Ron's Tumblr: http://evernote.tumblr.com/

Phil, Andrew and I also talk about ways that we personally use Evernote in each of our Podcasts. http://blog.evernote.com/category/podcast/

Thanks!

[deltabravo 0]

I use it for similar functionality. I'm a worship leader as well, but I use drop box for all my song/chord sheet storage. I use EN essentially for storing all the bible study lessons that I teach. I actually outline my lessons and teach from that outline during class. iPad on order and with EN on iPad, I won't have to carry my macbook to class anymore. Hoping that I can find a good tab app for the iPad that could open chord sheets either from EN or from dropbox.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

For some reason, these threads don't seem to take off. I don't know why. I'm always interested in finding out what others use EN for. Here's a list of the ones I'm aware of (including this one), except for one. I know there is at least one more around here but I can't find it.

viewtopic.php?f=45&t=12672&p=50510&hilit=drugs#p50506

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=16994&p=68693&hilit=novel+uses#p68098

http://www.andrewcmaxwell.com/2009/11/1 ... note-uses/

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=11900&p=47609&hilit=uses#p47609

Anyway, another thing I use EN for is keeping track of hard drives. You know, you've got a 250 gb & a 300 gb & no available connections. Either you're running out of space b/c you take that new HD pocket camcorder with you everywhere or else one of them is making clicking noises & you don't want to wait until the drive crashes. So you copy everything over to the new 500 gb beauty & retire the old one, b/c you may need it someday.

So I put a brief label on the drive, take a photo & email it to EN. I add a notation about why it was retired and what (in general) was stored on the drive.

Then "someday" arrives a year later. Ok, I need an empty drive. Here's one. I can look it up on EN, confirm it's the right one from the photo & know why it was retired & what data may still be living on that drive. Was it retired strictly due to space & the drive is still reliable? Or was the drive iffy & should only be used in a pinch? Or maybe a file got trashed on the new 500 beauty & I need to pull a copy from the retired drive.

[jbenson2 2,147]

I put just about everything into Evernote. Highly personal stuff like my wedding license and birth certificate, as well as my wife's and children info go into the local non-sync'd notebook.

One of my hobbies is genealogy. I do have a dedicated software program (Legacy) to document and report on all the official stuff.

But I find Evernote very helpful to find raw data on past activities. Wedding info - where, when and who was there / Birth's - hospital, baby's stats, etc. / Military info - my son's advancement and medals / Family members' past and current address info / and on and on...

The more I throw into Evernote, the more powerful it becomes.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Another use for Evernote is computer disaster recovery. Say you're computer dies or laptop gets stolen. Good thing you've got a web based backup (Carbonite, Mozy, Jungle Disk, etc.), right? So the new computer arrives & is set up. You try to get to the internet to start restoring your data. Do you remember your account info? No, but it's safely stored in your password manager. Oh wait, you can't get to your password manager b/c you're on a new computer & the copies of your password manager program are on the dead/stolen computer and in your web based backup. That you can't get to. Catch 22. You may be able to go to the program's website & download it but you still don't have the data file you'd need that contains your passwords.

I use SplashID as my password manager. It allows me to sync my passwords to my iPhone. SplashID encrypts their database, so if someone gets their hands on one of my .vid files, I'm not terribly worried. I have an EN tag _DISASTER_RECOVERY in Evernote. I have a copy of SplashID desktop program along with a SplashID backup file in Evernote. I also keep copies of these in an unencrypted bucket on Jungle Disk. If I forget my Evernote password or Jungle Disk password, I can look it up on the iPhone & be able to get to the SplashID program & data file. Once that's up & running, I now have access to my Jungle Disk encryption password that will give me access to the rest of my data.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I put just about everything into Evernote. Highly personal stuff like my wedding license and birth certificate, as well as my wife's and children info go into the local non-sync'd notebook.

I would probably do that, if I'd not had other methodologies in place for sensitive data before moving to EN. I may even do that in the future, since I don't like having only one form of backup for really important information. Or winzip important info & drop it into an EN sync'd folder. You never know what quirks you may run into if/when your main computer dies or is stolen or you're out of town/state/country & need to access something or if a hard drive takes a hit.

The more I throw into Evernote, the more powerful it becomes.

If you're the least bit anal/OCD about saving & retrieving information, Evernote is like crack.

(Can you tell part of my job is anticipating worst case scenarios?)

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I have all my Facebook email notifications forwarded to Evernote. I realized I'd not replied to someone regarding an issue from a couple of weeks ago. Instead of having to dig around on her wall to find the right post (she's a pretty active FB'er!), I went to EN & searched my archived emails for her name, the word Facebook & a couple of words I remember from the topic. In ~4 seconds, I found the right email (since they include what the person wrote), clicked on the link in the email & I was immediately at the right post & ready to reply to her. YAY!

[Syberjj 3]

I have all my Facebook email notifications forwarded to Evernote. I realized I'd not replied to someone regarding an issue from a couple of weeks ago. Instead of having to dig around on her wall to find the right post (she's a pretty active FB'er!), I went to EN & searched my archived emails for her name, the word Facebook & a couple of words I remember from the topic. In ~4 seconds, I found the right email (since they include what the person wrote), clicked on the link in the email & I was immediately at the right post & ready to reply to her. YAY!

 

 

So enter Evernote! It had been staring me in the face the whole time. EN provides essentially the perfect service. Cloud storage of any files (I'm a premium user), assignable tags, in document search, accessible on any major platform, sharable with others and all in one place!

So now, I am building up the database on EN and it is working perfectly. I can access all my chord sheets wherever I go. Search for and go straight to the sheet on any platform, and allow others to do so. Brilliant!

I am trying to do the same, but mos of my sheets come from online webpages and most of them are not compatible with evernote.  Maybe you are interested in this to?

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/35031-support-for-a-big-guitar-tabs-webpage/