(Archived) New User Was Feeling Mislead - But it was my own fault.

[jmccorison 0]

EDIT: I've changed the title of the original post. It turns out that my dissatisfaction was a result of a technical problem combined with misinterpreting a forum post by another user. The support I've received from other users and Evernote as a result of my post has been prompt and helpful. While I haven't gotten the problem resolved yet, I have no doubt that I will. I would like to say that I'm very happy with Evernote and regret having jumped to a negative conclusion.

Original Post:

I am a new user to Evernote. I have a home computer (Mac), office computer (Windows) and an iPod Touch. I though this would be a great way of sharing information. After all, Evernote promotes this share-anything-anywhere meme very heavily on their website. So I decided to try out the software and started loading up some notes. I reviewed the documentation about the different classes of accounts and figured that 60mb/month would be just fine, so the free account would work for me. I'm even willing to have rotating Promotions in the bottom left corner of the app. Imagine my surprise/disappointment when, after struggling with trying to get my notes from the office to sync to my home computer, I find out that I must have a premium subscription to do so.

Clearly Evernote can set whatever rules and pricing policies that they want. After all, it's their business. But I'm left feeling snookered by a business that highly promoted one thing, but delivered another. I'm sure that somewhere, somehow, this distinction is documented, but I sure didn't come across it while reading about the product and subscription levels. I'll think about trying the premium for a month or two to see if it really is worth it. But my initial experience has left me wary of believing what is being promoted by Evernote.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Free vs Premium comparison

http://www.evernote.com/about/premium/

Download amount doubled for free users

http://www.evernote.com/about/premium/

Can you be a bit more specific on what the problem is?

[Pitamakan 2]

You most definitely do NOT need a premium account to have your notes available on multiple computers/devices, and to sync among them ... many, many thousands of free accounts are utilizing those features every day.

[TheGurkha 1]

If you use the same account on all of your devices (which is the standard thing to do) then all you need to do is synch them all to the EN servers, and they all synch across all platforms.

I (and countless others) used to do this as a free user before I (or they) went premium.

[jmccorison 0]

Perhaps I misread what was posted. After being unable to sync I started reading through the Knowledge Base and the Forums. A posting in the forum indicated that I needed a premium account in order to sync. (I just searched through the forums and can't find the post that I initially read.) SinceI can't sync I figured that the problem was my account level. Based upon the replies to my post, I appear to be wrong.

I certainly would like to get syncing working. I installed EN on the Windows machine in the office (64 bit Vista), created an EN account, created a couple notebooks, and put some notes in them. I left the Notebook Type as the default of synchronized. When I got home I installed EN on my Mac (OS X 10.6.6) and singed into EN using the user/password combination that I had created earlier. Everything seemed work as expected, except that the previously created notes didn't get loaded into EN On my Mac. The strange thing is that viewing EN notes via the web interface shows only the new note created on the Mac install and note the notes created on the Windows install. Although I could swear that I say a pop-up on the task bar of the Windows box telling me that it was syncing new notes.

Any ideas?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

The strange thing is that viewing EN notes via the web interface shows only the new note created on the Mac install and note the notes created on the Windows install. Although I could swear that I say a pop-up on the task bar of the Windows box telling me that it was syncing new notes.

Any ideas?

It may be you cannot sync from work. Some people have problems b/c of firewall/security settings in place by the IT department.

Also, be sure the notes you are adding are allowable on a free account. IE, you cannot add a Word or Excel document to a free account.

[jmccorison 0]

B'n'F, thanks for the reply. "Work" is the office of my own business. It is fed with a DSL connection through a simple router. Thankfully, there is no IT department, unless you count me as IT. Unless my ISP (Century Link) is blocking the EN content, it should get through. The notes I posted were simple text notes with url links in them. They were typed into the text box of the EN client.

[heather 604]

To ensure your notes have synced to our servers, login to your account at http://www.evernote.com . If the notes are not there, there's something keeping them from uploading from the local client in which they were entered.

As everyone has mentioned, the point of Evernote is that your notes are available wherever you wish to access them - for Free or Premium users. Provided everything's working properly.

File a support request (link in my signature) and we'll be happy to assist in finding the error.

[jmccorison 0]

I stopped by the office this afternoon and verified that the computer was signed on properly. I double checked the mobile web site and verified that the Windows notes weren't there. I then went to the Sync Option settings and confirmed that they were set for automatic. Yet no syncing. So I pushed the manual sync button. It then synced up all my notes to the web site. A little bit later I added a new note, but didn't push the sync button. I figured I'd try again with the auto function and see how it did. When I got home I waited for EN on the Mac to sync, and presto the previous notes that had been manually synced, along with the note I added just before leaving the office for it to auto-sync, all arrived.

Apparently Evernote on a Windows Vista 64-bit machine (can't say about versions) requires that the first sync be performed by manually pushing the sync button. Or at least in my install instance that is what was required. After that, everything seems to function normally.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and suggestions.

[jjlucsy 0]

verified that the Windows notes weren't there. I then went to the Sync Option settings and confirmed that they were set for automatic

Until a recent beta, the Windows syncing only occurred while Evernote was actually visible on the screen. If you closed Evernote, the program would cease to run and no syncing occurred. A separate program was running to provide the task tray icon. The new betas will actually keep Evernote running in the background and run the sync on the scheduled times.