Daly de Gagne

Kenneth, thank you first of all for the good things you said about me. Please know I thought carefully about making the reference to an outside forum. It is not one I made without some thought. The fact that I did reflected a couple of things. One, the general sense of disempowerment when dealing with vital, core issues arising with changes in EN2, accompanied by a shift in EN's pattern of responding to messages. It will be interesting on that point to see how and when EN responds to the individuals concerned about an arbitrary size limit on local notebooks. The other aspect of my decision to recommend going outside the forum is this: Just as EN3 reflected the reality of the cloud, the massive uptick of people involved in social networking sites, especially such as Twitter, has brought a new level of social organizing and empowerment to individuals to speak out on issues of concern. I am not arguing this should be the first choice, but social networking brings to us cloud hoppers capabilities not so different from some of what organizer Saul Alinsky talked about in the 50s. www.outlinersoftware.com is an independent site where people gather to discuss all kinds of things related to information management. One of the recurring issues has been when one's favorite developer goes out of business. More recently the phenomenon has arisen of the company that makes significant changes in a product without apparent awareness consistently or increasingly expressed over time of the costs in time, money, aggravation to loyal users. In reality, this latter phenomenon reflects what EN did. As such, I'd maintain its fair to bring the discussion to an outside forum where people have an interest in this aspect of relating with software developers. Please note, this recommendation on my part was so far from being my first or initial reaction that it almost might seem like it was an after-thought. If it had been my first, or fifth (!), response I think I could be fairly criticized for not having given EN a fair chance before going public. I hope this helps to clarify. Cheers, Daly

Dave, I think it's a reflection of the strong feelings around some issues. And while I know you answer posts, it is nonetheless a reflection of the fact that EN for reasons known only to itself has decided to avoid discussion around certain features, etc. My thought is that EN has decided not to make any changes re notebook structure, or to do anything much to make EN a more capable, heavy duty player in information processing. I base that on lack of response to posts reflecting those issues. The allure of the cloud has won out, but the realization is yet to be seen on your end that while heavy duty users are willing to risk the cloud, they are not going to do so quietly if it means less capability than your product has already proven it could provide, and without certain enhancements we all know EN could introduce if they thought we were a sufficiently worthy part of the market for you. A friendly word of caution - watch out for Microsoft (unless you recent development course is to position yourselves for a buy-out, which is perfectly valid business strategy). Over the last few years it has shown itself able to be sensitive to users of various info program, what with OneNote and, now, Thumbtack. If you're not looking for a buy-out, you increasingly have one heck of a competitor that is more serious than ever about bedding down in your niche. Also, the seeming wind down of Google Notes has done two things: It has made people with any tendency to worry about the security of the cloud start worrying. That's not good for EN. Though EN is much better than Google Notes, those who begin to feel abandoned on the cloud might vote with their feet, and opt for down-to-earth solutions. The second thing it has done is to unleash some fervor among cloud developers to become a replacement for Notes. That means a more competitive market for EN - getting EN2 users who are now disgruntled on side might make better sense than ever. For those of us who feel left out w EN3, Google Notes is just one more example of being jilted at high altitudes. Daly

Re the question of whether EN replies to posts, or not. If I came out and said EN doesn't, as in the sense of general policy, or seldom, as in the sense of almost never, I mispoke myself. Over time what I have observed is that the responses from EN are not as frequent, and that there is more of a delay. This could be explained by many things, including pressures from other work-related duties. What I have observed that truly bothers me is there appears to be less response to those posts asking for things that aren't on the roadmap, or that reflect the anger and tremendous inconveniences to many EN users that resulted in differences between EN2 and EN3. I do not believe even to this day that EN developers realize the extent of issues they caused for us who had invested heavily in using EN. So what we have seen is decreased responsiveness around that question, and little indication that some other features, such as highlighting, improved paragraph capabilities, etc. are even seriously considered. I know many posts get answered still - but not the ones that go to the thorniest public relations and customer satisfaction challenges EN has. It's upsetting for those of us who are heavy duty information processing types to see the features so important to us removed in favor of those who want not so much heavy info capability as the ability to grab something on the run, regardless of whether they are desk-based, phone-based, etc. I agree with those who say that the cloud capability, which seems to me what much of this is about, is vital and indeed even essential for programs wanting to stay current and attractive in the marketplace. I hope this clarifies my position on EN responding to people posting on the forum. So in a phrase - fewer responses generally, and fewer responses and much less emphasis on those still trying to get to recognize needs of heavy duty info users. Daly

I see the sub-notebook discussion is going on the same way it was several months ago when I last looked in on Evernote forum. I now use Surfulater, www.surfulater.com. It has notebooks, and tags, and a growing capability to handle metadata. It also manages to clip web pages with even greater accuracy than EN. And the developer replies to queries from users. From what I see the sub-notebook discussion is being ignored by EN. For saving to the web when that is actually important in my work I use Microsoft's new, free program Thumbtack. If you all want to continue using EN, and want sub-notebooks, then express yourselves in forums outside of EN, such as www.outlinersoftware.com Daly

I again add my own request for subnotebooks. I have no doubt everything could be done with tags -- but my experience has been that things work best with a combined notebook/tag metaphor. I have set up notebooks for my main subject areas -- but some second level notebooks would sure help. If not for the next version, then when? Similarly with the missing EN2 features -- on one hand you're having tremendous market growth, and so you should given the ingenuity and hard slogging you folks have put into it. However, it seems you're putting much weight on the idea that some of us will wait forever because of our loyalty. We loyal to a point, and as I have said before, please do not take us for granted. While I have never paid a cent to Evernote, and I won't for extra web space because that isn't my thing, I would gladly pay the premium fee if it included subnotebooks, and all the features left from EN2. I've talked about your market before. It seems there are two streams -- the one that want Web 2 style capability and mobility everything. Then there is the stream that sees EN as a day-to-day workhorse, tied to research and writing, with phenomenal web data capture. If there is a way to develop both streams concurrently, there'll be less noise from guys like me. If other readers agree with me -- or if you think I am full of hot air -- I hope you all will make your positions known. Thanks to all, including the developers of one great product. Daly