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Looking For An Evernote Alternative .. Probably found the closest option


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@chirmer:  I sincerely hope that you did not mean that you agree with @lykoz's libelous statements about me.

No, I don't. I happened to quote his/her post and type my reply, then get pulled away from my computer, and when I came back I forgot to remove that snippet before publishing. My apologies.

 

I did agree with his/her overall statement, though, because these forums ARE filled with nitpicking over minute concerns that, when taken in scope of the larger picture, are pretty insignificant, and distract from more productive discussions. Oftentimes, little teeny problems are blown up into huge, SIGNIFICANT CONCERNS, when really, IMO, that time could be spent being productive instead - like the link I posted suggests. It really resonated with me, and made me take some steps back and look at the bigger picture and my bigger goals. Why was I really trying 34897 tools in search of the "perfect one?" What did I really want out of my tools?

 

I do think in general, these forums could use less name-calling and judgments upon others as well. There's a whole lot of embittered commentary in the forums, both about Evernote and other forum users, and while sometimes "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all" doesn't account for constructive criticism, "If you don't have something polite to say, don't say anything at all" certainly does. Not that I'm targeting any one person with this — just that I empathize with lykoz's general assessment (and recognize the irony of it fitting the description I just made). Some of it, I'm sure, is language/typing barrier, but I just don't see the point in calling people out publicly, calling their posts "nonsense," or in general, the entire Mac Design Feedback thread (which was the most frustrating and disappointing thread on any forum I've ever read).

 

Surely there are more productive and polite ways for people to get their points across. Maybe I'm alone in thinking that, too. But I'm pretty proud that I've never had to ignore or block users while on here (though admittedly, I haven't been on these forums for very long). 

 

Anyway, back on topic...

 

 

No, you are not alone. Thanks for being a voice of reason in a venue where those are rare.

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Wunderlist joins Microsoft:

 

https://www.wunderlist.com/blog/our-future-wunderlist-joins-microsoft/

 

Wunderlist + OneNote... Does anyone see this coming?  :ph34r:

 

Perhaps W + O is correct, but only in the sense that they are separate elements. I don't think they are combining into one. Rather, it seems to me that Wunderlist will be part of the Microsoft productivity suite. Separate from everything else, but with integrations. At this point, they don't look like they are getting folded into the Onenote app, which would really seem like a big deal to me. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens. After all, Evernote purchased Egretlist, but that stuff seems to have evaporated.

 

At any rate, interesting stuff is afoot :)

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Centrallo has listened to the Evernote community and now offers 15GB storage free. They use Amazon cloud for secure storage by the way. And it's easy to earn free premium accounts, simply refer 10 people who sign up and you earn a free year. Definitely worth trying especially with the free web list and note publishing that's included. http://www.centrallo.com. Getting great reviews cross platform.

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Comments of Former Evernote User Who Switched to Google Products Six Months Ago

 

I ran across this in the EN Web Beta thread, but thought it was very appropriate to the discussion we are having in this thread.

 

Here's a very brief portion of the detailed post.  Click on the above link for the full post.

 

Been 6 months since I left Evernote after many years of being Premium user. So I thought I'd quickly add a post because my annual renewal date has just passed and guess what folks? I didn't renew my subscription (no surprise there!).

 

Just want to let you know that these days I'm using Google to manage all my data and the like. Everything that I used to do in Evernote, I now do it with Google products. It was hard at first and a bit frustrating to adjust because I missed the familiar functionality that Evernote used to provide me with. For example, the ease with which I could clip webpages to Evernote and the ability to tag notes. Not to mention everything done in one product as opposed to several products. But things started to get easier after a month or so of using Google. You have to stick with it long enough for new habits to build and replace the old ways of doing things. 

 

. . .

 

Google allows me to do almost everything I could ever do in Evernote and for me the peace of mind of working on stable systems is a big plus.

 

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Google

I can see Google stuff working for some folks, and now that Google has unlimited photo uploads, it's pretty amazing. You have one place for all of your music, documents, notes, etc. But, you have to abandon your privacy to do it. And, there are catches -- it's not tied together well, offline use can be a problem, only the first one-hundred pages of PDFs are indexed, etc. Google is quite tempting, but it's free or close to it for a reason: you are the product.

No thanks. It's not for me. But, it's an option.

Centrallo

The comment above about Amazon servers being secure was interesting. Yes, relatively secure, but you are still giving your unencrypted data to another third party to store on their servers. And, are you comfortable with Centrallo's privacy policy? "If Centrallo is involved in a merger, acquisition, or similar transaction, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction."

No thanks. It's not for me. But, it's an option.

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Google is helping users control their privacy.

 

Today, when I went to my Google account, I noticed a Privacy Notification that let me fine-tune dozens of privacy criteria. There are 6 major categories with many, many smaller options.

 

After I finished reviewing all of the privacy features, I received the following confirmation. 

post-53124-0-56757200-1435105370_thumb.p

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It's nice, what Google has done, following in the steps of Facebook, which did something similar about a year ago. As far as I know, it doesn't mean they aren't vacuuming up your data (perhaps "anonymized"), or that they don't have access to it at any time (no zero-knowledge encryption). My understanding is that these settings were there all along, but this is the first time they are centralized in one location.

 

I'll be interested to hear what security experts have to say about it. 

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Since this thread is about Evernote alternatives, I thought I'd pass along this great discount offer for Mac users.

Most of these apps do things that Evernote was not designed to do, with DEVONthink being the exception.  But I think that the combination of these apps and Evernote could be a big benefit, for those who need the capability/features provided.

 

Note that I have seen greater discounts offered at MacUpdate.com from time to time.  For example, I got DEVONthink Pro for 50% off about 2 months ago.

 

Disclaimer:  I have no relations with any of these companies, other than being a user of some of their products.

 

  • Nisus Writer Pro
    Word processing that’s fast, clean, and powerful.
  • Scrivener
    Your complete writing studio when you're serious about creating.

 

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Hello dear Notes lovers,

 

  I am sorry but I will never pay for a note taking program, ever, this model is broken in my opinion

I have been using Evernote for years but now I have a feeling that I will get harassed for money via annoying publicity since last patch, it slows me down and really annoys me that they play with that argument to try and get money from me for simple text hosting.

 

I will be looking for open source private cloud options, or change my way of taking notes via simple scripts.

Best regards,

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If I was severed from Evernote Google Drive and/or Trello would be my Goto. (leaving the pending Memit release for review). 

 

Please explain in detail.

 

Thx.

 

~ Alan

 

I assume the Google Drive/Trello app alternative is clear. 

There is also an extraordinary Web app: Memit (Memit.com)...who is releasing their Android and IOS mobile app within a few weeks. It is more of a content curation app but it organizes my data superbly (for my use). Notes in multiple folders, Tags and subtags etc. I imported all my 7000+ Springpad notes there and they auto organized beautifully. An Evernote importer is forthcoming. 

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Hello dear Notes lovers,

 

  I am sorry but I will never pay for a note taking program, ever, this model is broken in my opinion

I have been using Evernote for years but now I have a feeling that I will get harassed for money via annoying publicity since last patch, it slows me down and really annoys me that they play with that argument to try and get money from me for simple text hosting.

 

I will be looking for open source private cloud options, or change my way of taking notes via simple scripts.

Best regards,

 

"Simple text hosting" still costs money,  and since you're not even prepared to use a free tool if it tries to encourage you to pay for more features,  I wonder how many options you'll find.

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Hello dear Notes lovers,

 

  I am sorry but I will never pay for a note taking program, ever, this model is broken in my opinion

I have been using Evernote for years but now I have a feeling that I will get harassed for money via annoying publicity since last patch, it slows me down and really annoys me that they play with that argument to try and get money from me for simple text hosting.

 

I will be looking for open source private cloud options, or change my way of taking notes via simple scripts.

Best regards,

 

"Simple text hosting" still costs money,  and since you're not even prepared to use a free tool if it tries to encourage you to pay for more features,  I wonder how many options you'll find.

 

 

What ever options I find that does not annoy me for money every time I log in. Clearly you are annoyed by my annoyance,  your comment is not helpful.

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Please, if you have a complaint about the new Evernote plans, about paying for Evernote, about removing email-to-account from the Free plan, please be considerate of us who are following this thread, and post your complaint in one of the existing threads dedicated to those issues.

 

Here's one:

Evernote, you've wrecked my workflow now. Emailing notes should be grandfathered

 

Thank you.

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Thanks, I'll give this one a look!

 

Centrallo has listened to the Evernote community and now offers 15GB storage free. They use Amazon cloud for secure storage by the way. And it's easy to earn free premium accounts, simply refer 10 people who sign up and you earn a free year. Definitely worth trying especially with the free web list and note publishing that's included. http://www.centrallo.com. Getting great reviews cross platform.

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The only thing that keeps me from using Centrallo is their note's media display which I hate. Looks very amateurish. I need (for work) full image display within the Note as Evernote has and an opportunity to provide comments between images and annotate. 

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Dear, dear Evernote Users and Power Users:

 

 

 

I can't believe this has NOT already been posted in this thread!!!

This could be the best Evernote news for 2015!!!

 

 

 

Have you all read this:  

 

 

Evernote picks up new CEO from Google X lab

Over the last few months, ​Evernote co-founder Phil Libin had been expected to step down from his CEO role.
July 20, 2015
 
 
Evernote's new chief executive officer is Chris O'Neill, who spent about a decade at Google, most recently overseeing global business operations at the secretive Google X lab (a department most famous for producing moonshots and experiments like the self-driving car and Google Glass).
 
Good chance Chris is the kind of lead to breathe new life into Evernote... this could be exciting... we'll just have to wait and see!
 
Alan
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I hope the new CEO brings back some of the old magic (also known as communication).

 

Back when the Evernote employees were allowed to openly discuss issues on the forum. Remember all the terrific insight that Dave Engberg used to share with the group. Now it feels that there are some big handcuffs on the few who are allowed to participate. IMO

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I can't believe this has NOT already been posted in this thread!!!

That may be an indication of how apathetic many of us have become wrt to Evernote.

Good chance Chris is the kind of lead to breathe new life into Evernote... this could be exciting... we'll just have to wait and see!

I'm not going to get my hopes up. I do keep haunting the board to kind of monitor what's going on at EN. I suspect for me, it is too little, too late. Because if they were to address my main point of contention (scalability on all platforms), it would take a major overhaul and at least a year or more. Since I am newly retired, I will be spending less time on my computer and less willing to migrate back to Evernote. When I started my first migration to Evernote (June 2009), I really thought that would be the last time I'd have to do this (after years migrating from various PDAs and their associated desktop apps to another).

Onenote is not nearly as useful to me as Evernote (before EN became totally useless due to the scalability issue). But...Onenote WORKS and 60-70% useful is better than zero percent useful.

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BurgersNFries:

 

Good to see you again.

 

 

My only response to yours is... I know you're better than this... because I've read much of what you've written in this forum.

 

When our own attitude has become JADED... which only we control... no one else... then we have lost a piece of ourselves... we are the loser.

 

Technically, I understand your dissatisfaction... however EN is no different than the rest of life... full of ups and downs... thrills and disappointments.

 

We all need to constantly count our blessings... because things can always be a lot worse!!!

 

 

 

BTW - Congratulations on being newly retired!

 

 

~ Alan

 

 

 

I can't believe this has NOT already been posted in this thread!!!



That may be an indication of how apathetic many of us have become wrt to Evernote.


Good chance Chris is the kind of lead to breathe new life into Evernote... this could be exciting... we'll just have to wait and see!



I'm not going to get my hopes up. I do keep haunting the board to kind of monitor what's going on at EN. I suspect for me, it is too little, too late. Because if they were to address my main point of contention (scalability on all platforms), it would take a major overhaul and at least a year or more. Since I am newly retired, I will be spending less time on my computer and less willing to migrate back to Evernote. When I started my first migration to Evernote (June 2009), I really thought that would be the last time I'd have to do this (after years migrating from various PDAs and their associated desktop apps to another).

Onenote is not nearly as useful to me as Evernote (before EN became totally useless due to the scalability issue). But...Onenote WORKS and 60-70% useful is better than zero percent useful.

 

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EN product has had the poorest user-communication for applications of its type I've seen. It's lack thereof has been off-putting and insulting. 

It's perhaps started a turnaround. 

Evernote has the potential for extraordinary growth as an app,  in functionality and revenue generated by that functionality. 

Pretty sure the new guy sees it. 

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EN product has had the poorest user-communication for applications of its type I've seen. 

 

 

Really?  Have you tried communicating with any of these:

  1. Apple
  2. Microsoft
  3. Google

Apple is by far the worst, IMO, and I generally love Apple products.

But when I have a complaint, bug report, or feature request, all I can do is to submit into the black hole known as Apple Feedback.

If you even try to post that stuff on the Apple Communities board, you immediately get yelled at, and most likely your post will be removed.

 

Although I've rarely seen Microsoft directly respond to users posts, on many of the Microsoft boards they are supported by MVP people, who are generally very knowledgable, even though they do NOT speak for MS.

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@ab1kenobee, thank you for the congratulations!

Yes, I've become jaded wrt Evernote and realize this is just a part of life. But I'm not a negative person in general. I've been coding for the past 40 years. I've been very "computer bound" in the past 20 years due to work and doing more things on a computer (like most of us) such as bill paying, meal planning, grocery lists, photos, social networking, budgeting, etc. But I'm looking forward to being less computer bound, now that I am retired. And the time required to migrate back to Evernote (should I ever want to) is not something I envision wanting to do because I'm enjoying life beyond sitting in front of a computer. ;-)

Thanks again!

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Has anybody tried notebooksapp.com ? This is the first time ever I think I found something that could replace EN, provided it works as advertised (I installed and found some glitches, but then, it has not been around very long).

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Has anybody tried notebooksapp.com ? This is the first time ever I think I found something that could replace EN, provided it works as advertised (I installed and found some glitches, but then, it has not been around very long).

i used it way back in version 6. it's been around a few years as long as evernote), though the mac version is new. it is now version 8, a paid upgrade i never made. why didn't i stick with it? i don't remember... it does offer a wevdav sync, and you don't have to use the cloud, so it might well be quite easily secured. it also has dropbox sync for folks unconcerned about such things.

personally, i'm all set with devonthink, and don't plan on paying any more for the app. but, it certainly is worth a look. i'll be interested to hear what others think.

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Has anybody tried notebooksapp.com ? This is the first time ever I think I found something that could replace EN, provided it works as advertised (I installed and found some glitches, but then, it has not been around very long).

Not really, there is no multi platform support, not even for Android as far as I see...

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There is a USB version which seems good,  and it integrates well with DropBox and existing folders and files - quite a few interesting features;  but if you want something bespoke,  and you have the time and the talent,  this (apparently) include both Android and Windows implementations...  http://www.lynda.com/course-tutorials/Building-Note-Taking-App-Android/377485-2.html

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I'm talking about customer support for an app. 
And back in the day, Apple support chat/phone was superb. 
 

 

EN product has had the poorest user-communication for applications of its type I've seen. 

 

 

Really?  Have you tried communicating with any of these:

  1. Apple
  2. Microsoft
  3. Google

Apple is by far the worst, IMO, and I generally love Apple products.

But when I have a complaint, bug report, or feature request, all I can do is to submit into the black hole known as Apple Feedback.

If you even try to post that stuff on the Apple Communities board, you immediately get yelled at, and most likely your post will be removed.

 

Although I've rarely seen Microsoft directly respond to users posts, on many of the Microsoft boards they are supported by MVP people, who are generally very knowledgable, even though they do NOT speak for MS.

 

ImI'm 

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Wiz Notes also....it's features are better than Evernote and mobile app is superb. 

Trouble is its a Chinese app (huge over there) ...meaning communication is a little more troublesome. 

I have a guy who's my goto, who set me up w/Premium ($16.00 yr). Mail in functionality is great. 10Gb/Mo storage 

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Has anybody tried notebooksapp.com ? This is the first time ever I think I found something that could replace EN, provided it works as advertised (I installed and found some glitches, but then, it has not been around very long).

i used it way back in version 6. it's been around a few years as long as evernote), though the mac version is new. it is now version 8, a paid upgrade i never made. why didn't i stick with it? i don't remember... it does offer a wevdav sync, and you don't have to use the cloud, so it might well be quite easily secured. it also has dropbox sync for folks unconcerned about such things.

personally, i'm all set with devonthink, and don't plan on paying any more for the app. but, it certainly is worth a look. i'll be interested to hear what others think.

 

 

Oh, so I was wrong about it being a NEW service. I guess that means the apple centered approach is there to stay. A pity, I really liked the idea of a dropbox based system.

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Interested in your take on Trello as a replacement. 

 

While Trello is an incredible collaboration and task-management tool à la Kanban, it would not be considered in the class of Evernote or OneNote. It's perfect for project management, but not so much as a general data repository, since your sublists are locked in cards which are in turn structured in stages/ columns. Trello does not have its own word processor, but documents and images can be attached to a card. It's not the most intuitive as a global data repository in the sense that it's not as fluid for filtering the way Evernote does... and the fact that it has multiple boards makes it a little disjointed from the Evernote perspective... but once again, perfect for task management and collaboration on projects. 

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Has anybody tried notebooksapp.com ? This is the first time ever I think I found something that could replace EN, provided it works as advertised (I installed and found some glitches, but then, it has not been around very long).

i used it way back in version 6. it's been around a few years as long as evernote), though the mac version is new. it is now version 8, a paid upgrade i never made. why didn't i stick with it? i don't remember... it does offer a wevdav sync, and you don't have to use the cloud, so it might well be quite easily secured. it also has dropbox sync for folks unconcerned about such things.

personally, i'm all set with devonthink, and don't plan on paying any more for the app. but, it certainly is worth a look. i'll be interested to hear what others think.

 

Oh, so I was wrong about it being a NEW service. I guess that means the apple centered approach is there to stay. A pity, I really liked the idea of a dropbox based system.

if you are on a mac, devonthink is probably the best personal information manager out there. it also has dropbox support. as soon as you begin working across multiple operating systems, though, your options dramatically decrease, and onenote starts to look really good as an alternative. even if you are like me, using plain text and a cloud service (i prefer a secure one like spideroak), it's tough to cobble together apps that will all be able to work with the files in that location on the cloud.

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if you are on a mac, devonthink is probably the best personal information manager out there. 

 

Well, I suppose "best" is like "beauty", in the eye of the beholder.   ;)

Or, in this case, the user's use case.

 

I have been testing/evaluating DevonThink (DT) Pro for several months now and I do indeed find that it is very powerful and has a number of features missing from Evernote.  I still have a lot to learn, and may change my mind in the future as I become better informed.  

But for now, I'm not ready to call it the "best" for me, for my various use cases.  In no case to do I ever see it completely replacing Evernote for me.

 

I find Evernote to have these advantages over DT:

  1. Much easier to use and learn
  2. Available on most all platforms
  3. Easier to sync all devices where the app is installed.

    (DT can be sync'd across multiple Macs, but is more complicated than EN)

  4. EN Web Clippers much better, easier to use
  5. Easier to edit Notes created from web clippings
  6. EN has a lot of 3rd party products that integrate well with EN
  7. EN has a lot of 3rd party bloggers/reviewers posting on how to use EN.
  8. Although it has had its bumps, the EN iOS client is much better than the DT iOS client

IMO, for most users DT (vs EN) is not worth the cost, complexity, and limitations that come with it.

But for a number of use cases, it is truly superior, maybe the only real choice.

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glad to hear you have found evernote to be a better fit for your use case. it's a great service that is full of features that other apps lack. however, for one reason or another, many users, including myself, have use cases that don't match, and evernote is no longer a viable option; hence, this thread.

if you are on multiple platforms, onenote is probably the best alternative candidate. if you are on the mac, you are on a single platform, so you don't have to suffer the limitations of apps designed for multiple ones. devonthink is the best personal information manager on the mac, in my opinion, but if someone wants to use evernote in conjunction with it, that's no problem at all.

here are some links to see what others have said about it.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=2237

here is a link to an explanation for indexing, which is a feature that enables devonthink to work with many other apps / workflows on the mac.

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=2376

it is relatively inexpensive, if you consider the fact that you are purchasing a license. it works out to about a year of subscribing to evernote (the lowest plan roughly equivalent to evernote plus and the pro office plan roughly equivalent to evernote business). you pay just once for many years of use, and it really is "unlimited."

of course, if your evernote use case is satisfied by the free version, and all you do are grocery lists, then devonthink isn't for you. neither is this thread, though, which is targeted at power users.

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devonthink is the best personal information manager on the mac, 

. . .

of course, if your evernote use case is satisfied by the free version, and all you do are grocery lists, then devonthink isn't for you. neither is this thread, though, which is targeted at power users.

 

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on the "best".   :)

 

My use use case is far, far from "grocery lists", etc, and I know you know it.  In fact, I usually push most apps to their edge cases, both requiring and expecting a lot from them.

 

I have a very broad, demanding, set of use cases, but most of them do not require putting sensitive data into Evernote, or if I do, then all of the sensitive data goes into encrypted PDFs.

 

By making very effective use of automation tools like AppleScript, Keyboard Maestro, and TextExpander, I have developed a very powerful AND easy-to-use Evernote system.  Of course all of that works only on the Mac, but I suspect there are similar tools available for Windows.

 

My biggest concern with Evernote has been, and remains, scalability.  I'm at 13K+ Notes, with about 15GB in local storage, and so far no performance problems with EN Mac.  The most scalability complaints seem to come from EN Win users, so I continue to hope that it is more of a EN Win issue than EN Mac issue (sorry about that my Windows friends).  IAC, I definitely think Evernote should seriously address and fix this issue ASAP.

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Unfortunately, I am on the Android/PC side of things, and I hate Onenote with a passion. It's the supposed WYSIWYG approach that makes me want to bang my head against a wall every time I try to use it, and I have tried quite a few times  (to use ON, not banging my head against a wall).

 

I am not that discontent with EN, just a bit concerned that they do not listen to their user base at all (performance issues, gui changes, the way they're pushing things like work chat, etc). 

 

But a dropbox-based system is a beautifully simple idea, I am wondering why there are not more and better ones out there.

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Unfortunately, I am on the Android/PC side of things, and I hate Onenote with a passion. It's the supposed WYSIWYG approach that makes me want to bang my head against a wall every time I try to use it, and I have tried quite a few times  (to use ON, not banging my head against a wall).

 

I am not that discontent with EN, just a bit concerned that they do not listen to their user base at all (performance issues, gui changes, the way they're pushing things like work chat, etc). 

 

But a dropbox-based system is a beautifully simple idea, I am wondering why there are not more and better ones out there.

i think evernote is probably trying to carve out a bigger niche for itself and sees an opportunity in the cross-platform space for an app that is "good enough" at notetaking, word processing, and so forth that it lures business and regular folks into doing everything in it. i don't think it seriously intends to be better at presentations than microsoft, but it doesn't have to be, because most people don't need all of the advanced ppt features. they just want to throw together a presentation for the meeting or their class.

the many suggestions, complaints, and demands made by the user base we see are only a tiny, tiny part of their 100 million plus total user base. frankly, as crucial as i think encryption is to making the cloud a viable work space, even i will admit that most people probably don't care, because they send terribly sensitive stuff via email or share it through dropbox anyhow. it's sad, but true that someone, somewhere, is probably stupidly sharing / leaking our data at this very moment. so, it's no surprise that evernote isn't keen on getting ahead of the curve and dumping resources into a feature that won't make users enthusiastic for it.

i expect they'll continue to be great for mainstream users, and i wouldn't worry too much about the direction they're going. it's users with particularly demanding use cases that will probably face challenges. users with a massive, "unlimited" database. users who need total control over formatting. people with low tolerance for bugs. or, people who depend on certain features -- the map data, for example, disappeared for a time from ios, and anyone depending on that was at a loss. users who need better than average security.

as for dropbox, it has its own issues, and i think developers are loathe to build a cross-platform business around its api. it takes a lot of resources, i think, to design for multiple platforms, and evernote's control over its own servers gives it a leg up over competitors. i am guessing this is why the big names in notetaking apps now are google, microsoft, and evernote; they have control over the data. dropbox is experimenting right now with its own notetaking alternative, but it is pretty late to the game.

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dropbox is experimenting right now with its own notetaking alternative, but it is pretty late to the game.

I wouldn't say that. I think it's still pretty early in the game given that such a tiny % of computer users are using any kind of dedicated note taking app, e.g., EN, ON, Keep, etc.

Plus, each of the existing apps have a number of shortcomings, so a robust new entry into the space could capture not only new users, but draw away users of competing products.

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Other than user support, which has always been poor) I'm surprised at the growing backlash at Evernote lately..(maybe it's primarily windows users).

Aren't many apps that do all it does.

Having said that, as a power user, I am always amazed at their development priorities....meaning the many improvements for the Android app for example in lieu of basic data management features: sort by tag, bulk edit (delete, add to notebook, tag, merge, copy link). If your a power user this gets tedious doing it one by one. These are in beta versions of most apps like this. And a list I have of 15 or so more ergonomic style improvements in editing (title of a site/article auto inserted as note title, auto insert cursor when touching note screen, etc, etc...But they're still not enough to shift me to another app...there's always at least one key thing missing on every other app I need. 

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i don't know about a growing backlash but, at least for me, i could endure any design decisions, if the security (encryption) was better. when it comes to the point that you cannot use it for whatever reason (security in my case, scalability in others), no matter how great certain features are, evernote just isn't a viable option anymore.

in my opinion, as long as you can use evernote, you ought to seriosuly consider doing so, because it offers one of the best experiences for people worki g on multiple devices or platforms.

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 I think it's still pretty early in the game given that such a tiny % of computer users are using any kind of dedicated note taking app, e.g., EN, ON, Keep, etc.

 

What leads you to believe that?  Have you seen any published statistics?

 

My impression (without any statistics) is that note taking apps are very popular.  Both EN and ON get a lot of free publicity from the tech bloggers, and even from non-techs like LifeHacker.   Almost any list you see of "must have" or "best" productivity apps includes EN and/or ON.  And there are many, many note taking apps in the Apple iOS App Store.

 

Just my opinion, no hard facts to back it up.   ;)

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Interesting to hear about the dropbox app, I just signed up for the beta.

 

GrumpyMonkey, you shared a lot of great thoughts in your posts, food for thought! The only thing I am not so sure about is the mainstream user strategy, I think EN is too complex for the low level user, they would be better off in google keep or the likes. :)

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II think EN is too complex for the low level user, they would be better off in google keep or the likes. :)

 

Really?  What do you find complex about EN?

 

When you create a new EN account, it provides you with one Notebook, which is of course the default NB, and I believe it is named something like "<UsersName> Notebook".  There is a "New Note" button on the toolbar, and a Note list, and sidebar with NBs and tags.

 

What's so complicated for simple uses?

 

In addition, EN provides a "Getting Started" page to teach you the basics, and even a series of "Getting Started" video.

But you can easily get started creating simple notes in one NB without seeing any of that.

 

IMO, EN becomes complex ONLY when you want to do complex things with it, like setup a custom, complex organizational structure.

 

What am I missing?

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It would only take one feature to keep me from being discontented with Evernote, despite how invested I've become in it: Something as simple as being able to reorganize notes manually without having to dink around with titles would halt my searching for alternatives in a second. 

 

I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

I stopped the OneNote installer right there and swore off Microsoft and its band of merry lawyers. Again.

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II think EN is too complex for the low level user, they would be better off in google keep or the likes. :)

 

Really?  What do you find complex about EN?

 

When you create a new EN account, it provides you with one Notebook, which is of course the default NB, and I believe it is named something like "<UsersName> Notebook".  There is a "New Note" button on the toolbar, and a Note list, and sidebar with NBs and tags.

 

What's so complicated for simple uses?

 

In addition, EN provides a "Getting Started" page to teach you the basics, and even a series of "Getting Started" video.

But you can easily get started creating simple notes in one NB without seeing any of that.

 

IMO, EN becomes complex ONLY when you want to do complex things with it, like setup a custom, complex organizational structure.

 

What am I missing?

 

 

Personally, I agree with you, but "too complex" or "too complicated" is the reason I heard most often for not using EN. I never got good clarification either, unless you count "too many buttons" (for the desktop version). 

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I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

Hi.  thanks for sharing.  Could you please post a link to the document you are referring to?

 

I found this one:

Privacy Statement for OneNote

 

But I didn't find any of the issues you mentioned in it.  Maybe I missed them?

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Personally, I agree with you, but "too complex" or "too complicated" is the reason I heard most often for not using EN. I never got good clarification either, unless you count "too many buttons" (for the desktop version). 

 

OK, in that case I don't think people who find Evernote "to complex" are anything to be concerned about.  There are plenty of simple note apps out there on all platforms that they can use (I guess).  I don't think they are the target users that Evernote or OneNote is interested in.

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It would only take one feature to keep me from being discontented with Evernote, despite how invested I've become in it: Something as simple as being able to reorganize notes manually without having to dink around with titles would halt my searching for alternatives in a second. 

 

I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

I stopped the OneNote installer right there and swore off Microsoft and its band of merry lawyers. Again.

 

My understanding is that the encryption is zero-knowledge and easily done for OneNote, so you might not find that you have much to worry about after all. I wouldn't put anything sensitive on anyone else's servers unless it was encrypted.

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I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

Hi.  thanks for sharing.  Could you please post a link to the document you are referring to?

 

I found this one:

Privacy Statement for OneNote

 

But I didn't find any of the issues you mentioned in it.  Maybe I missed them?

 

 

Hmmm, that's interesting ...  That Privacy Statement is significantly different (and more reasonable) than the one I'm seeing, which I'm trying to figure out how to link . . . It's the one you get to from the "Create an Account" dialog for new users to One Note, just after you install it (which I just did again on my iPad, just to look).

 

It's an arduous read, as always, but it distinctly mentions everything from collecting email addresses, interests, favorites, browser navigation, GPS data, current location information, IP addresses, contacts, relationships, pets, small children (just kidding) ... to data content and even your picture if you enter one of their stores (not kidding). Perhaps it's the level of detail they go into which makes me nervous.

 

I finally located "opt out" verbiage much further down, but the sheer volume of what they claim is "collectable information" and the description of how they feel empowered to use it in their marketing strategies left a bitter taste in my gullet. When they further mention that many of their browsing products (in this same document) don't respond to DNT (do not track) requests, because they haven't decided how to deal with those yet (an industry standard now, I think), I'm like really??

 

Perhaps I've become allergic to prolific lawyerese--or the Micro$oft attitude ...  but EN, Scrivener and most other applications I've installed didn't give me the same, uhm, "feeling." Your mileage may vary.

 

And now I find it odd that they have two very different Privacy Policies for the same product. js~

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It would only take one feature to keep me from being discontented with Evernote, despite how invested I've become in it: Something as simple as being able to reorganize notes manually without having to dink around with titles would halt my searching for alternatives in a second. 

 

I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

I stopped the OneNote installer right there and swore off Microsoft and its band of merry lawyers. Again.

 

My understanding is that the encryption is zero-knowledge and easily done for OneNote, so you might not find that you have much to worry about after all. I wouldn't put anything sensitive on anyone else's servers unless it was encrypted.

 

Good point . . . that's something I wasn't aware of. I'm wondering why Evernote skipped over that feature.

 

My apologies for going a little off-topic, by the way.

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It would only take one feature to keep me from being discontented with Evernote, despite how invested I've become in it: Something as simple as being able to reorganize notes manually without having to dink around with titles would halt my searching for alternatives in a second. 

 

I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

I stopped the OneNote installer right there and swore off Microsoft and its band of merry lawyers. Again.

 

My understanding is that the encryption is zero-knowledge and easily done for OneNote, so you might not find that you have much to worry about after all. I wouldn't put anything sensitive on anyone else's servers unless it was encrypted.

 

Good point . . . that's something I wasn't aware of. I'm wondering why Evernote skipped over that feature.

 

My apologies for going a little off-topic, by the way.

 

Implementing that feature would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer. This is because a large portion of Evernote's features require server-side access to your note content to do the indexing and OCRing and whatnot. Having users choose between not encrypting their data, or encrypting their data and getting none of the features they pay for is a pretty ugly pair of decisions. The solution is local processing of these things, but that comes with other major downsides (and would likely severely handicap the functionality of their mobile applications) and can't replace all of the server-side processes that plus/premium users pay for (as well as those that benefit free users). 

 

I agree, good, (ideally) zero-knowledge encryption is super important, but I think Evernote is a long way away from doing it (in fact, I don't think they ever will). In the meantime there are other options for storing sensitive data. 

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Implementing that feature would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer. This is because a large portion of Evernote's features require server-side access to your note content to do the indexing and OCRing and whatnot. Having users choose between not encrypting their data, or encrypting their data and getting none of the features they pay for is a pretty ugly pair of decisions. The solution is local processing of these things, but that comes with other major downsides (and would likely severely handicap the functionality of their mobile applications) and can't replace all of the server-side processes that plus/premium users pay for (as well as those that benefit free users). 

 

I agree, good, (ideally) zero-knowledge encryption is super important, but I think Evernote is a long way away from doing it (in fact, I don't think they ever will). In the meantime there are other options for storing sensitive data.

One possible solution is offering zero-knowledge encryption for selected notebooks. So one could have 3 potential notebook types:

1. Local - for sensitive data that you don't need to access anywhere except your 'home' computer

2. Synced/Zero-knowledge encrypted - for sensitive data that you need to access away from your 'home' computer

3. Synced - for non-sensitive data

That gives users the choice between security and the EN features that require access to unencrypted data. Users already have some choice in this regard via the local notebook option, and this would further user choice, and would be far more convenient than individually encrypting note contents.

In a world where unethical employees, hackers, various governments, etc., can potentially access user data, this user choice with respect to security is valuable, and some note taking/retrieval company will figure this out.

For those who think hacking is not something they need to concern themselves with, here's a link to a live hacking map: http://map.norsecorp.com/

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I was this close to installing OneNote recently, to see if they were more forward thinking in that area . . . until I got an itch to look at their Privacy Policy. Have you all looked at that thing? 

 

Where most notetaking apps seem to be saying "we don't nose around in your content unless you're on the wrong side of the law," OneNote's goes on an on about how it will save whatever it damn well pleases for marketing or whatever it wants to do with it, so there. The wording really got my goat (and I don't even have a goat).

 

Hi.  thanks for sharing.  Could you please post a link to the document you are referring to?

 

I found this one:

Privacy Statement for OneNote

 

But I didn't find any of the issues you mentioned in it.  Maybe I missed them?

 

"...Microsoft provides many of our sites and services free of charge because they are supported by advertising. In order to make these services widely available, the information we collect may be used to help improve the advertisements you see by making them more relevant to you..."

 

http://www.microsoft...ce/default.aspx

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Implementing that feature would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer. This is because a large portion of Evernote's features require server-side access to your note content to do the indexing and OCRing and whatnot. Having users choose between not encrypting their data, or encrypting their data and getting none of the features they pay for is a pretty ugly pair of decisions. 

 

 

I disagree that implementing encryption "would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer".

The ONLY feature that encryption negates is Search of the data that is encrypted.

 

But there is very viable approach that enables Search:  Encrypt ONLY the Note contents, NOT the Note metadata.

This would allow Search to work very well with Note Title, Tags, dates, etc.

 

Furthermore, make encryption optional on a Notebook basis, as has been often requested and clearly described by @tavor.

 

 

One possible solution is offering zero-knowledge encryption for selected notebooks. So one could have 3 potential notebook types:

1. Local - for sensitive data that you don't need to access anywhere except your 'home' computer

2. Synced/Zero-knowledge encrypted - for sensitive data that you need to access away from your 'home' computer

3. Synced - for non-sensitive data

 

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Implementing that feature would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer. This is because a large portion of Evernote's features require server-side access to your note content to do the indexing and OCRing and whatnot. Having users choose between not encrypting their data, or encrypting their data and getting none of the features they pay for is a pretty ugly pair of decisions. 

 

 

I disagree that implementing encryption "would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer".

The ONLY feature that encryption negates is Search of the data that is encrypted.

 

But there is very viable approach that enables Search:  Encrypt ONLY the Note contents, NOT the Note metadata.

This would allow Search to work very well with Note Title, Tags, dates, etc.

 

Furthermore, make encryption optional on a Notebook basis, as has been often requested and clearly described by @tavor.

 

 

One possible solution is offering zero-knowledge encryption for selected notebooks. So one could have 3 potential notebook types:

1. Local - for sensitive data that you don't need to access anywhere except your 'home' computer

2. Synced/Zero-knowledge encrypted - for sensitive data that you need to access away from your 'home' computer

3. Synced - for non-sensitive data

 

 

And even encrypted text can be searched without decryption: 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/83737-fujitsu-develops-technology-capable-of-searching-encrypted-data-to-maintain-privacy/

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Implementing that feature would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer. This is because a large portion of Evernote's features require server-side access to your note content to do the indexing and OCRing and whatnot. Having users choose between not encrypting their data, or encrypting their data and getting none of the features they pay for is a pretty ugly pair of decisions. 

 

 

I disagree that implementing encryption "would negate the majority of the features that Evernote has to offer".

The ONLY feature that encryption negates is Search of the data that is encrypted.

 

Also, OCR'ing images, generating "related notes"/"Context" suggestions. You'd also be unable to email or clip into encrypted notebooks.

 

Yes, you could allow users to make some notebooks zero-knowledge encrypted and others not, but this seems like it could be immensely confusing for some users who, for some reason they may not fully understand, find that some images or PDFs or DOCX files aren't indexed and others are, and why the email they sent to an encrypted notebook ended up in their default notebook (which could never likely be ZK encrypted), or why only some of their notebooks show up in their web clipper, and so on. 

 

Maybe it wouldn't be confusing at all though. Perhaps the users who are inclined to employ zero-knowledge encryption will be savvy enough to fully understand the implications. But at the same time, it isn't just savvy users who need or could benefit from zero-knowledge encryption. 

 

As JM suggests, you could encrypt the contents and not the metadata to facilitate some retrieval, and indeed this seems much more viable than the new, emergent, potentially expensive, yet-to-be-implimented-anywhere technology that Eric99 mentioned. However, leaving metadata unencrypted is also problematic for several reasons:

1) metadata could contain sensitive information as well, especially if the note contents are sensitive.

2) It seems like a bit of a mess trying to explain to users during the course of their use of the app that the contents, but not the metadata, are encrypted, and this is definitely something that Evernote would need to inform users of. 

3) Still precludes emailing/clipping/any other server side additions to that specific notebook, you'd have to toss it into an unencrypted notebook first, defeating the purpose (though then again, anything you are clipping or email already existed on an unencrypted cloud anyway so perhaps this isn't an issue? the exception would be content clipped from intranets)

 

Altogether the lack of ZK encryption is an issue for me insofar as I am unable to store large portions of my work in Evernote, however I've since found better options where encryption isn't an issue and that are superior products for my work needs. Even if Evernote implemented zero-knowledge encryption I'd probably still not return my work content to Evernote. 

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i'd definitely consider returning my work data to evernote if it had zero knowledge encryption, because evernote's syncing is excellent, and the ipad app is quite polished, but this scenario is seeming less and less likely over time. right now i already have many tens of thousands of items (notes, pdfs, word documents, etc.) all in a zero knowledge environment (spideroak) working just fine with very few hiccups, even when syncing via devonthink to the ipad. i'd certainly miss the artificial intelligence for organizing, markdown support, and so on that i have now.

but, it's a moot point. evernote isn't likely to pursue this. developers have never clearly explained their rationale for avoiding note or notebook level encryption, but i doubt it's because they are incapable of tackling the technical or design challenges. whatever the reasons, zero knowledge encryption is essential for me, and i can't hang out in a holding pattern all of my life. at the moment, evernote is a non-starter.

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Yes, you could allow users to make some notebooks zero-knowledge encrypted and others not, but this seems like it could be immensely confusing for some users who, for some reason they may not fully understand, . . .

. . .

However, leaving metadata unencrypted is also problematic for several reasons:

1) metadata could contain sensitive information as well, especially if the note contents are sensitive.

2) It seems like a bit of a mess trying to explain to users during the course of their use of the app that the contents, but not the metadata, are encrypted, and this is definitely something that Evernote would need to inform users of. 

3) Still precludes emailing/clipping/any other server side additions to that specific notebook, you'd have to toss it into an unencrypted notebook first, defeating the purpose (though then again, anything you are clipping or email already existed on an unencrypted cloud anyway so perhaps this isn't an issue? the exception would be content clipped from intranets)

 

Wow Scott!  I really doubt that it would be "immensely" confusing.  That is really overstating the case.

 

By default a NB would NOT be encrypted.  If the user chooses to make a NB encrypted, EN could show a simple popup reminding the user that the contents will not be searchable, but that the metadata will be searchable.

 

I think you have really overstated in a pejorative way the problems with leaving the metadata unencrypted.

  1. IMO, it is unlikely that one would want to put sensitive data (SSN, PW, etc) in the Note Title.  IAC, the UI could be designed to clearly show that the metadata is unencrypted while the content is encrypted.  It is easy enough to have a great descriptive Title that does not contain sensitive info.
  2. I don't see how it would be "a bit of a mess trying to explain to users" about what is encrypted.  I'm sure that Evernote could/would produce a blog, KB article, and video clearly explaining it.  It is certainly no more complicated that the Search grammar, or sharing.
  3. This would not necessarily preclude emailing or clipping to an encrypted NB.  IAC, IMO it is very unlikely that one would want to send email or clip a website with sensitive info.  This is definitely an edge case.

I get it that you don't like encrypting Notebooks or encrypting only content but not metadata.

Whether you like it or not, it would still be very useful to many users, and a great improvement over the current security of Evernote.

 

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I get it that you don't like encrypting Notebooks or encrypting only content but not metadata.

Whether you like it or not, it would still be very useful to many users, and a great improvement over the current security of Evernote.

 

I like encrypting notebooks. I agree it would increase security. I don't, and did not, suggest otherwise.  I think encryption is extremely important. I just can't see it fitting easily into Evernote's service without some issues or some compromises that deteriorate the benefit of encryption to at least some degree. I'm sure there are power users and savvy product managers out there with much better ideas than what I possess who will figure out how to implement ZK encryption in a way that doesn't seriously degrade UX. 

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I like encrypting notebooks. I agree it would increase security. I don't, and did not, suggest otherwise.  I think encryption is extremely important. I just can't see it fitting easily into Evernote's service without some issues or some compromises that deteriorate the benefit of encryption to at least some degree. I'm sure there are power users and savvy product managers out there with much better ideas than what I possess who will figure out how to implement ZK encryption in a way that doesn't seriously degrade UX. 

 

Roger that.  The objective of a good designer is to take something that, under the hood, is complicated, and present it to the user in a way that can be easily and quickly understood.  Ideally it is so intuitive that the user doesn't need much training or documentation.  It is obvious in the UI design.

 

I absolutely believe that a good Evernote designer can provide us both the the power of encryption and a great UI that is easy to use and understand.

 

My apologies if I misunderstood you.

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Centrallo has an Evernote note import wizard available for anyone to test.   Works great.  Email support@centrallo.com if you want to beta test it.   Also check out the app.  Secure and syncing works immediately cross platform.  Free app.  www.centrallo.com

 

Hey, it's Spamerta Moll, our local Centrallo plant. Read some of her greatest hits here.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/75439-sync-problems-again-and-again/?p=388351

 

My recommendation would be to try whatever app you want, but don't rely on her for advice / testimony.

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I have been reading through this topic for the past few days, and while there are things that frustrate me about Evernote, overall, I still lean towards it.  I don't qualify myself as a power user (yet) as I don't have nearly the number of notes of some here.  However, because of some of the ways that Evernote doesn't quite mesh with my workflow, I have found myself looking at other apps.  OneNote's organization and handwriting appeal to me, but it doesn't clip web articles well enough for my taste.

Anyhow, the app that I have used for awhile and watched steadily improve is FiiNote, for Android.  It has added a Windows client recently (I don't think it is available on iOS) and synchronization between devices.  For me, it has been far and away the best Android note taking app for the way I work, but it didn't have the robust features and storage abilities of EN.  However, it seems to be slowly moving in that direction, and as it keeps improving, the more I keep an eye on it, and wonder if it could (eventually) replace EN for me.  EN's webcipper tool is still top notch for me, so I am not saying FiiNote could replace it tomorrow, but worth taking a peek for some people, I would guess.

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19 minutes ago, AchillesThunder said:

I keep an eye on it, and wonder if it could (eventually) replace EN for me.

I keep an eye on various the various alternative apps.
I'm not serious contemplating leaving Evernote; more as a techie wanting to know new features etc.
I'm not going to spend too much time on this; usually its a waste of time with nothing gained.

I see parting notes from users as they switch but I can't see myself doing this.
I am a power user; with Evernote and Apple.  In some ways this traps me because it would be so difficult to switch.
For me, I couldn't consider any new application/service unless its multi platform with syncing.  
These days, my platforms are Mac and iPad.  Tomorrow probably the same but nothing is guaranteed.

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I think this thread may have very profound implications.
Consider the very large number of replies and views in only 18 months.

Alternatives-to-EN-thread.png

Originally, this thread was titled something like "Power User Discontent", and many, if not most, of the initial participants were long-time Evernote users, great fans, and even Evernote Evangelists.  After years of using a great app, many of these users found that Evernote was now having trouble meeting their needs, particularly in the areas of scalability, security/encryption, and reliable sync.

Also, at the time, Aug 2014, Evernote seemed to have drifted away from its core product, and its core users.  At the same time Evernote greatly reduced their user support service and participation in these forums.

I think "discontent" is a good characterization of the mood of many of these users.  The Evernote founder/CEO had promised us a "second brain" to remember all that we could not, and a "100-year" company with all that that implied.  The impression was clearly conveyed that we could put all of our life's stuff, all our records, notes, thoughts, memories, into Evernote, and it would always work no matter how big it got, it would always quickly and accurately find what we needed when we needed it.  And that Evernote was focusing on the long term, or very long term (100 years).  

But then things started to unravel.  Some users with larger accounts (> 30,000 notes) started to find that Evernote could not handle that many notes quickly.  The app became unusable to them.  30,000 notes is only 30% of the max of 100,000 notes advertised by Evernote, so that should not have been an issue.  Lots of new bugs (many more than before) started showing up with every Evernote update. When I first started using Evernote in 2009, I would automatically install every update Evernote released, even the Beta released.  But no longer.  There had been too many bugs which seriously crippled or broke my workflow.

We began to dislike, or become disappointed in, the app we once knew and loved.  No explanation was given other than some Evernote execs saying they wanted to "bend the universe".  The core features of Evernote were now somehow old and boring, not worth spending time on.

I can honestly say that if there had been another multi-platform, cloud-syncing, web-clipping PIM (Personal Information Manager) available at the time, I may very well have jumped ship.  At first I, and a number of others, thought Microsoft OneNote might be the answer.  But after a thorough trial and investigation, it turned out OneNote really could not yet compete with Evernote.  Maybe someday, but not today.

Then in July 2015 Evernote brought in a new CEO, Chris O'Neill.  And on Sep 29, 2015, he published a blog with this:
 
Quote

Evernote’s strength is in its core: notes, sync, and search. That’s where we’re going to focus. Achieving that focus means making some difficult decisions. Today we let go of 47 people from the Evernote team and announced the closure of three of our global offices. We are grateful for the immense contributions of each and every affected person.

I believe that a smaller, more focused team today will set us up for growth and expansion tomorrow. Here are two things that you can expect from us over the next several months: we will launch major foundational product improvements around the core features that you care about most, and we will pull back on initiatives that fail to support our mission.

It is still too early to tell for sure, but it seems to me that Evernote is getting back on track.  Although I use other Evernote platforms, my primary is EN Mac, and I have definitely seen improvements in quality and responsiveness to user requests and complaints.  

Unfortunately, the big issues of scalability, encryption, and robust sync are still issues that need addressing.  But I am hopeful for Evernote progress in 2016.  Time will tell.

 

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9 hours ago, DTLow said:

I'm not going to spend too much time on this; usually its a waste of time with nothing gained.

 

I'm not spending too much time.  But it is always worth a look.  For me, FiiNote has definitely not been a waste of time or nothing gained.  For now, EN still has a place in my personal workflow; so does FiiNote.

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13 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

It is still too early to tell for sure, but it seems to me that Evernote is getting back on track.  Although I use other Evernote platforms, my primary is EN Mac, and I have definitely seen improvements in quality and responsiveness to user requests and complaints.  

Unfortunately, the big issues of scalability, encryption, and robust sync are still issues that need addressing.  But I am hopeful for Evernote progress in 2016.  Time will tell.

 

I agree, I was a bit frustrated a year or so ago, but we have seen improvements in the editor, with hopefully more to come, while they have cut back on some of the peripheral products (I know, it sucks for people who had incorporated those peripheral products into their workflow - as a former Google Notebooks and Reader user, I feel your pain!) to help redirect that effort back to the core product. I would take the lack of activity in this thread for several months as a sign that other users are also feeling a bit better about Evernote's direction.

Like you, I no longer jump on new EN releases, unless the prior version had a bug that was having a significant effect on my use. I'll wait for others to play guinea pig for a bit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Howdy, EN Power Users!

I appreciate many of the comments above.

I have receive the following LINK from the founder of Centrallo:
http://dev.centrallo.com/evernote_alternative

I personally find the features focused upon less than compelling to consider a test... never mind an application move... but thought it potentially interesting... and may helpful... to open this Centrallo promo to this EN thread.

If nothing else, your comments could provide valuable weatherbell info to both EN and Centrallo.

I hope this proves helpful,

~ Alan

 

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15 minutes ago, ab1kenobee said:

Howdy, EN Power Users!

I appreciate many of the comments above.

I have receive the following LINK from the founder of Centrallo:
http://dev.centrallo.com/evernote_alternative

I personally find the features focused upon less than compelling to consider a test... never mind an application move... but thought it potentially interesting... and may helpful... to open this Centrallo promo to this EN thread.

If nothing else, your comments could provide valuable weatherbell info to both EN and Centrallo.

I hope this proves helpful,

~ Alan

 

they've been spamming the forums:

i'm not interested in their business tactics. not interested in the product. definitely not interested in the privacy policy. i'd stay away from it, but your mileage may vary.

 

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I have Wiz Notes also with all key Evernote notes loaded. Best app of its kind only issues is its marketed to China primarily. 

$16/year has you 10,000G Mo. And features and look are brilliant PC even better. Clipper is great 

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42 minutes ago, rockky said:

Nimbus by far is the app that has all Evernote's but tops it on a number of key fronts. 

I just signed up and played with it very briefly.  One of the better note taking products I've seen.  It's possible I'm missing something but my observations are:

Pros

1. Subfolders as many levels deep as you want.

2. Appears as though you can share folders at any level you want, i.e. what would be the equivalent of being able to share a stack in EN.

Cons

1. No grouping of tags, that's huge.

2. In Evernote if you select a stack, you can see all notes in the the notebooks in that stack, that's an awesome feature.  In Nimbus if you select a folder, you can ONLY see notes for that specific folder, not the notes in sub-folders.  I don't like that paradigm for note taking, I'm NOT saying it's "wrong", just that I'd want an option in settings for selecting whether I want to see the notes in subfolders when I select a parent folder.

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7 minutes ago, ZZZ said:

In Nimbus if you select a folder, you can ONLY see notes for that specific folder, not the notes in sub-folders.

Its a feature I would make use of.  Its also lacking in the EN tag hierarchy.

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8 hours ago, AchillesThunder said:

I will take a look at Nimbus, but handwriting would also be a key feature for me.  Additionally, the Webclipper will have to be superb.

The web Clipper is incredible. Separate GPlay download. Check it out. Handwriting is good to go

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5 hours ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

as always, i recommend reading the terms of service and privacy policies. personally, i don't see this as a serious alternative to evernote, especially for a power user. your mileage may vary.

https://www.everhelper.me/terms-and-contitions.php

https://www.everhelper.me/privacy.php

 

 

Agreed, GM:  If you noticed, I took a neutral position... stated that the comparison was not compelling... and though to simply requisition the opinions of the power-users on this thread. LOL! Thank you!

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11 minutes ago, ab1kenobee said:

My question would be: "WHAT TECHNICAL SUPPORT?"

Cool down a bit. I would love to have Heather return. She often commented on this forum and gave us insight into Evernote's positions on a variety of customer and technical matters. She suggested solutions and even mentioned other programs and apps. She described herself as the Support Maven and she did not hesitate to jump into difficult issues.

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14 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

Cool down a bit. I would love to have Heather return. She often commented on this forum and gave us insight into Evernote's positions on a variety of customer and technical matters. She suggested solutions and even mentioned other programs and apps. She described herself as the Support Maven and she did not hesitate to jump into difficult issues.

Howdy. Not hot in the least.

Just the facts, Maam!

I not once got received a stitch of support from the TECH dept... tech had ignored several of my requests for support.

Any support I've needed has come exclusively from this forum.

 

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4 minutes ago, ab1kenobee said:

I not once got received a stitch of support from the TECH dept... tech had ignored several of my requests for support

I've seen messages like this from various people on the forums.

My experience is that whenever I've opened a ticket, I have always got an email back with a ticket #.
This was followed by a response from a live person.
Sometimes the response was "known bug, we're following up on it"; but I've never been ignored.

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1 minute ago, DTLow said:

I've seen messages like this from various people on the forums.

My experience is that whenever I've opened a ticket, I have always got an email back with a ticket #.
This was followed by a response from a live person.
Sometimes the response was "known bug, we're following up on it"; but I've never been ignored.

 

DTLow:  Appreciate knowing this.

On my end, I was actually referred to Tech Support by Members of this forum... didn't pan out... so I circled back... and some of the Power-Users helped resolved this issues (which are well documented elsewhere within this forum.)

It's always good to hear good news.

Much appreciate,

~ Alan

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Hey guys, just wanted to post this quote in case you missed it in the Windows forum.  IMO, it is a very good sign that things are changing.

Evernote Windows has a new Product Manager:  @Stephane Lo.  Quote from her first post:

1 hour ago, Stephane Lo said:

The Windows application has many of our most active and engaged customers; people like yourselves, that love and rely on the product, and sometimes even know its intricacies and workarounds better than we do! As such, we deeply value your feedback, ideas, and opinions. This forum is the place where we will listen, and gather ideas to shape our roadmap. 

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  • 1 month later...

Well, I've had a long journey finding information management product that I like.

I have the following criteria:

1) Ease of adding various kinds of data

2) Ease of finding it

3) Ability to access and edit your info across various systems and devices. Especially Windows - iOS - Android, but Linux is a plus.

4) An online client is a bonus, for when I have to access my data from a locked down station at work

5) Ability to access data offline

6) Planning tools

7) Organized structure

8) Low cost or better else free.

9) Secure (ability to encrypt your data individually)

So in my experience:

A. Evernote - great on ##1, 2, 3 ,4, somewhat good on 8 if you accept the limitations of a free version.  #9 was unavailable in a free version, don't know about paid one. A way around this would be to encrypt your data via a 3rd party tool (e.g. a KeePass database, or just inside an AES encrypted zip file if it's something not super sensitive - like a credit card statement) and then upload it. But couldn't get past #6 and 7.  I had a huge steaming pile of data that I didn't even know about and I felt lost, even with all the tagging.

B. OneNote - this is what I am using now, after Microsoft started putting some real effort into pushing it across platforms. Kudos to them, they did some great work especially on iOS client. It's very well done. Android client is OK, good features but I don't quite like the interface. Handwriting is very useful, although I prefer other apps for that. And of course there's their web client.  To me ON has all of the advantages of EN, + great #7, #5, #9 and some ability for #6. And the Outlook integration is good.

C. Before committing to OneNote, I used a mind mapping approach - a free Xmind client on Windows, a paid ($9 or so) iThoughs apps on iOS, and a free version of Mindmeister on Android. The strongest part of this approach was #6, planning. There's simply no better way to plan your project than using a mind map, especially with Xmind and iThought's ability to zoom in on various topics. #9 would be done via same 3rd party approach (although the paid version of Xmind has encryption). As a data gathering tool it was also decent, although there were several major reasons I gave up on it: no advance search / filtering on the desktop unless I paid for a full blown Xmind client (although iThoughts did provide good search), no search inside PDF files, no attachments access on Android (although I didn't spend enough time trying to find a better Android client), and no online cloud client. However as I said, the planning feature and organizational features were great and even better than Onenote's.

D. This is kind of an obvious and easiest solution that for some reason most people seem to not get. Google Drive or OneDrive. Just save your documents there. You get OCR search inside PDFs and jpegs, you get organizational structure via file folders, and you get offline abilities. And obviously it's a cross platform solution since it can be accessed on any web connected device. Same approach to encryption - encrypt it before you upload it. If I ever start having problems with ON I will most likely just move all my info to OneDrive (only because I prefer Online Office to Google Docs).

 

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17 minutes ago, Wanderling said:

Well, I've had a long journey finding information management product that I like.

I have the following criteria:

1) Ease of adding various kinds of data

2) Ease of finding it

3) Ability to access and edit your info across various systems and devices. Especially Windows - iOS - Android, but Linux is a plus.

4) An online client is a bonus, for when I have to access my data from a locked down station at work

5) Ability to access data offline

6) Planning tools

7) Organized structure

8) Low cost or better else free.

9) Secure (ability to encrypt your data individually)

So in my experience:

A. Evernote - great on ##1, 2, 3 ,4, somewhat good on 8 if you accept the limitations of a free version.  #9 was unavailable in a free version, don't know about paid one. A way around this would be to encrypt your data via a 3rd party tool (e.g. a KeePass database, or just inside an AES encrypted zip file if it's something not super sensitive - like a credit card statement) and then upload it. But couldn't get past #6 and 7.  I had a huge steaming pile of data that I didn't even know about and I felt lost, even with all the tagging.

B. OneNote - this is what I am using now, after Microsoft started putting some real effort into pushing it across platforms. Kudos to them, they did some great work especially on iOS client. It's very well done. Android client is OK, good features but I don't quite like the interface. Handwriting is very useful, although I prefer other apps for that. And of course there's their web client.  To me ON has all of the advantages of EN, + great #7, #5, #9 and some ability for #6. And the Outlook integration is good.

C. Before committing to OneNote, I used a mind mapping approach - a free Xmind client on Windows, a paid ($9 or so) iThoughs apps on iOS, and a free version of Mindmeister on Android. The strongest part of this approach was #6, planning. There's simply no better way to plan your project than using a mind map, especially with Xmind and iThought's ability to zoom in on various topics. #9 would be done via same 3rd party approach (although the paid version of Xmind has encryption). As a data gathering tool it was also decent, although there were several major reasons I gave up on it: no advance search / filtering on the desktop unless I paid for a full blown Xmind client (although iThoughts did provide good search), no search inside PDF files, no attachments access on Android (although I didn't spend enough time trying to find a better Android client), and no online cloud client. However as I said, the planning feature and organizational features were great and even better than Onenote's.

D. This is kind of an obvious and easiest solution that for some reason most people seem to not get. Google Drive or OneDrive. Just save your documents there. You get OCR search inside PDFs and jpegs, you get organizational structure via file folders, and you get offline abilities. And obviously it's a cross platform solution since it can be accessed on any web connected device. Same approach to encryption - encrypt it before you upload it. If I ever start having problems with ON I will most likely just move all my info to OneDrive (only because I prefer Online Office to Google Docs).

 

D. GDrive only indexes the first 100 pages of PDFs (last I checked). If you have long PDFs (me), it is a poor choice. OneNote on the Mac is still under-developed, in my opinion. Neither one has offline support on mobile (as far as I know) without manually clicking each and every file you need (with tens of thousands, this is really not a pleasant prospect). Neither one of them is encrypted (encrypting each and every file you want to keep secure is not realistic for some workflows). And, in the end, they are just data lockers. They don't have a whole lot of support for creative tasks. 

I think they are both wonderful options, and I recommend folks look into them, but they are unencrypted data lockers, and not really "alternatives" to Evernote, which is something else -- more of a personal information manager. From my perspective, the overall best alternative to Evernote is generally OneNote, though it isn't the solution I have chosen. 

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2 hours ago, Wanderling said:

I have the following criteria:
1) Ease of adding various kinds of data
2) Ease of finding it
3) Ability to access and edit your info across various systems and devices. Especially Windows - iOS - Android, but Linux is a plus.
4) An online client is a bonus, for when I have to access my data from a locked down station at work
5) Ability to access data offline
6) Planning tools
7) Organized structure
8) Low cost or better else free.
9) Secure (ability to encrypt your data individually)

I'd also add the following criteria
- Exit Option: I don't want my data to be locked in to a proprietary service/format

>>But couldn't get past #6 and 7.  I had a huge steaming pile of data that I didn't even know about and I felt lost, even with all the tagging.

In my opinion, Evernote's tagging and saved searches is the answer to organizing data

By Planning Tools, are you referring to Task Management?
Its true, dedicated task management apps have more features but I like having all my data in one place
I add Planning Tools by adopting processes: such as Project and When tags and saved searches such as Process-Inbox, Process-Actionables

>>This is kind of an obvious and easiest solution that for some reason most people seem to not get. Google Drive or OneDrive.

I see these as file management apps, not information management. (There is some cross-over)

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On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2016 at 10:51 AM, GrumpyMonkey said:

D. GDrive only indexes the first 100 pages of PDFs (last I checked). If you have long PDFs (me), it is a poor choice. OneNote on the Mac is still under-developed, in my opinion. Neither one has offline support on mobile (as far as I know) without manually clicking each and every file you need (with tens of thousands, this is really not a pleasant prospect). Neither one of them is encrypted (encrypting each and every file you want to keep secure is not realistic for some workflows). And, in the end, they are just data lockers. They don't have a whole lot of support for creative tasks. 

I think they are both wonderful options, and I recommend folks look into them, but they are unencrypted data lockers, and not really "alternatives" to Evernote, which is something else -- more of a personal information manager. From my perspective, the overall best alternative to Evernote is generally OneNote, though it isn't the solution I have chosen. 

Well, no single tool works for all. :) Most of the PDF's that I need to search would be below 100 pages. And a limitation of OneNote is that you can't search inside encrypted and locked sections without unlocking them (which kind of makes sense from a security perspective). However you can encrypt individual sections, which is a very useful approach.

Don't own Mac so don't know about OneNote for Mac, there's however a very well featured OneNote client for Mac called Outline+. I used it on iOS before MS started putting the features I was missing into their native client. The Outline+ had several advantages over Onenote, one being the ability to sync from Dropbox or some other cloud services. If I bought a Mac I'd seriously start looking into O+.

As for the offline support for mobile - Onenote downloads the entire file so it's always offline. Onedrive and GD do only allow individual files to be "offlined" to mobile, which may be a problem if you need thousands of them.

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On March 25, 2016 at 11:16 AM, DTLow said:

I'd also add the following criteria
- Exit Option: I don't want my data to be locked in to a proprietary service/format

>>But couldn't get past #6 and 7.  I had a huge steaming pile of data that I didn't even know about and I felt lost, even with all the tagging.

In my opinion, Evernote's tagging and saved searches is the answer to organizing data

If it works for you, great. To me, this is not the same as a structured, visually organized way to present data. In this respect I prefer a mind mapper to One Note and One Note to Evernote.

On March 25, 2016 at 11:16 AM, DTLow said:

By Planning Tools, are you referring to Task Management?
Its true, dedicated task management apps have more features but I like having all my data in one place
I add Planning Tools by adopting processes: such as Project and When tags and saved searches such as Process-Inbox, Process-Actionables

>>This is kind of an obvious and easiest solution that for some reason most people seem to not get. Google Drive or OneDrive.

I see these as file management apps, not information management. (There is some cross-over)

 

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30 minutes ago, Wanderling said:

In this respect I prefer a mind mapper to One Note and One Note to Evernote.

I always thought of mind-mapping as a different discussion than Evernote's information management.

Foe example, I have a receipt which I may need in the future.  I can stick physically put it in a filing cabinet; I can scan it and attach it to an Evernote note.  How would you use mind-mapping to store a receipt?

Yes, OneNote is prettier than Evernote.  Can you describe how the receipt would be stored/retrieved in OneNote?

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