Synology NoteStation - Clone of Evernote

[HerbyDE 101]

Today Synology announced DSM 5.1 with new Service (and App) "NoteStation". It looks very, very, very similar to Windows-Evernote. Did you make a new cooperation? Or is it simple a clone?

 

Have a look: http://cn.engadget.com/gallery/synology-dsm-5-1-beta-0/2900621/#!slide=2900637

 

[Future_Vision 0]

I thought the same thing when I first saw it. Looks very much like Evernote but I think it might be missing some bells and whistles. I get the concept of keeping things on a personal cloud and I get the argument that a service like Evernote may someday be shutdown and then what but of course you could always argue that my NAS could burn up in a fire or there be a prolonged power outage which pretty much leaves you stranded unless you data is up in the cloud. Regardless, Note Station seems to be a potential alternative.

[Future_Vision 0]

Ya know what? DSM 5.1 has expanded on Cloud Sync too. Why not create a sync with Evernote? Done!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Synology NoteStation cannot possibly be either a clone or competitor of Evernote.  It only runs on their NAS boxes running the NAS DSM.

IOW, no versions for the platforms that Evernote supports, and not likely to be.

[HerbyDE 101]

I made a video comparison (sorry: in German)

 

 

Yes, it runs only on NAS boxes - but a lot of European Evernote users are waiting and waiting and waiting for more security options from Evernote. They have sensitive business data and don't want to have such data "NSA-Homeland-Security-what-ever-else-unproteceted" at servers in the States (I personally trust in Evernote but more and more people ask me: Is Evernote really secure?).

[eric99 978]

QNAP has an interesting alternative as well, it can even import from evernote!

http://www.qnap.com/i/station/en/notes.php

 

It also provides an Android App Qnotes, an effective way to take notes with highly privacy. It is the only android note taking app that supports private cloud. Qnotes can sync data with other devices via QNAP Turbo NAS, but can also works alone without any NAS or Internet.

[eric99 978]

Apparently, Evernote can now be imported into DS Note :

"Install the DS Note app, use the 'settings' button and authorize DS Note with Evernote. That's it. After that the import will start."

from http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=245&t=92571

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

Could some one do an English translation of that video.. please please please... 

[Ian Daniel 10]

The problem is, it's not as good as Evernote yet. As soon as it is, I'll jump.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

The biggest feature Synology NoteStation is missing is a web clipper.  I can't really use any note-taking app that doesn't have a good web clipper, like the one Evernote has.

[YzRacer 3]

The biggest feature Synology NoteStation is missing is a web clipper.  I can't really use any note-taking app that doesn't have a good web clipper, like the one Evernote has.

 

Apparenlty there is a workaround by using Evernote to clip to 1 notebook and then syncing that notebook with DS Note. I have a Synology and I am going to give it a try, since their customer service has always been good to me and my 5 year old DS410 is ticking along like a champ.

 

Evernote customer service is driving me to look for alternatives. My Windows client sync has been broken since November and 2 trouble tickets later, multiple emails, logs sent, and forum posts from others with the same issue have not resolved the problem. I can't believe Evernote treats premium customers this way. Their technical support department is incompetent and only keeps telling everyone to uninstall/reinstall, and that solves nothing.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

I read today that they now have their own web clipper.

[Ian Daniel 10]

I read today that they now have their own web clipper.

 

Great, now if only my notes would import passed 900 I'd be sweet. But on each import it gets stuck. Anyone else had such issues? I'm on Premium EN.

 

Thanks

[Frank.dg 1,385]

 

I read today that they now have their own web clipper.

 

Great, now if only my notes would import passed 900 I'd be sweet. But on each import it gets stuck. Anyone else had such issues? I'm on Premium EN.

 

Thanks

 

 

Why would it matter whether you are premium or not? NoteStation doesn't access a different Evernote API for premium users. If you get stuck on 900... how many more times would you have to get stuck until you finish syncing everything? 900 is pretty good. I think the hitch is on NoteStation's side, and you'd have to post in their forum... unless I totally missed what you were trying to say.

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

 

I read today that they now have their own web clipper.

 

Great, now if only my notes would import passed 900 I'd be sweet. But on each import it gets stuck. Anyone else had such issues? I'm on Premium EN.

 

Thanks

 

 

 

 

I read today that they now have their own web clipper.

 

Great, now if only my notes would import passed 900 I'd be sweet. But on each import it gets stuck. Anyone else had such issues? I'm on Premium EN.

 

Thanks

 

 

Why would it matter whether you are premium or not? NoteStation doesn't access a different Evernote API for premium users. If you get stuck on 900... how many more times would you have to get stuck until you finish syncing everything? 900 is pretty good. I think the hitch is on NoteStation's side, and you'd have to post in their forum... unless I totally missed what you were trying to say.

 

NO, i think i would disagree. Evernote's Sync might be good enough when compared to other dedicated 'Note Taking/life Management' apps, but as a generic cloud service like Drive/DropBox , it simply sucks. If you are from a place with poor to mediocre bandwidth connection, syncing, multiple devices, your dead. The problem is that although the user may be intelligent enough to know the limitations of his bandwidth and accordingly add files/mainly text ( I hardly use 100-200 MB/4GB Premium/ per month on average), the trouble with the Sync wheeel is that it goes on and on. It doesn't tell the user, how much % has been uploaded or the approx time left. This feature has been long requested, but yet to come. I don't know, how difficult it is for the developers to add this simple feature. 

 

More over, After a certain period of time, ( the Internet is still active but slow), it simply dies down on you, and says 'Sync Failed". The user will have to re-click the button, or wait for the next automated 15 mins for 'Auto Sync". I have upgraded my Wifi to upto 1 Mbps ( although I hardly get half of it at peak time), and it is slightly better. Most other times, #2G,#EDGE, Evernote Sync = Fail...

 

But Thankfully, Evernote Premium has Offline Notebooks, which i must say really alone makes Premium worth it, for me.. 

[Gerrith 0]

I startet studying giant computers from 1972. Later as Computer Engineer and later educating IT-Engineers on every level, I got all the way to the top, until it get's boring. Then I studied People - Psychology - later educating Psychologists and doctors and all the way to the top. It all together did give me lots of knowledge from both sides. And even more questions. Also gives me massive with information - gathering for 42 years now. So much is still relevant in psychology, and so much is outdated knowledge in hardware and Software today. But not everything. I often need information for klients and patients in their former job - to connect to the past and heal some wounds.

 

To make it clear - for me, Evernote is the most competent peace of software in the area of information gathering collecting, organizing and filtering. No doubt! 

I have used and testet every PC and later Mac based Software, from DevonThink, Things, Pockets, also former Evernote, together with Bento, Vitamine-R and you name it. It was awkward and non were perfect. After I downloaded the 'Bubble Browser' and 'Memory Lane' for Evernote, this combination is getting a real gamechanger.

 

It can be a totally mess or a huge challenge, collecting enormous amounts of data and links during a lifetime - and when we need finally some particular data to finish a project - book or whatever, the websites has changed, the information is now on a different page or it is deleted and lots of links are not valid anymore. It is far too much work to keep everything updated, or save articles so they don't disappear. Searching for some data in thousands of books is even more frustrating and time consuming.

 

Evernote did take this fact serious and did give us a great tool with the notebooks and especially also the idea for professionals and businesses: the seperate business and privat Notebooks! Leaving the company means you take your

data and leave the companies data where it belongs. This is smart thinking and we getting things straight all the way.

Evernote is a fantastic peace of Art!

 

The downside of Evernote is for me, they also going together with others, the dark road of monthly payment. This is the opposite idea of what did give Apple Computers it's current size.

The opposite idea of Apples growing concept gives a company a shrinking concept. It is again the same kind of modern slavery, like Microsoft did for so many years, with their license for Windows and MS software. Just one computer, one license, one year.... Made one guy rich, but then the company turns more and more down because of this slavery.

 

A totally free Mac OS and family license did make Apple to one oft the largest companies in the world today.

Setting people free is the key!

 

Kodak - a even better example - The giant Company all around photo on paper and the film-roles concept with 24 and 36 pictures, plast-cameras for turists etc. did collaps last May. With a one week waiting time for developing our pictures, paying often for every single of them - even when they were black. And with all the chemicals in a darkroom giving lungcancer - all this was not a satisfying environment this company was ruling. It was just a kind of modern slavery, or dependency on one concept.

 

Some companies developed digital photography and Printers, so the people today can shoot as many pictures they like, and crop and adjust and do with Photoshop whatever they like to do and print it right away in all kind of sizes. Companies like Canon, HP and others did give us the freedom of choice and did free us from a 24 or 36 pictures limitations - did free us from a lot of waiting time.  

Setting people free was clearly the important key!

 

Evernote is trying at the moment to setting people in chains again with monthly payment and a cloud service - situated somewhere in the US. Many of us do not trust the US governmental surveillance system at all. Not in China, not in Russia and not in US. We see it on every Airport. 

All govermental controll of all our data we are asked to sent to dozens of different cloud services is hurtful. There is not one person in the government, knowing more, or have a better education or more braincells. So how can this people allow them selv controlling others. And when governmental Paranoia is growing, our paranoia is growing too. Everybody's personal freedom is decreasing every year, as long as we allow it.    

The cloud concept Evernote provides, supplies the company with short term money, for some time, but people find out in which direction the whole softwaremarked (also for Apple computers) is going and as well as Apple will lose, also Evernote will lose, like Kodak with its photo concept. This just another bubble for a periode of time - doomed to burst.

 

Why?

 

We pay every month /every year for several Web-hotels, for dozens of domains and already 29 different companies like Adobe, MSOffice, Webdesign software, bookkeeping and tax programs - and all the new cloud based services showing up this years. Many of them we bought for extra money as lifetime licenses and getting now reminders of new cloud-based services, for the same program - but now with monthly payment. Its spreading like a plague, like cholera or like cancer in the Softwaremarked. The result is, the salary of one person is not enough to cover the monthly costs of cloud based services - in fact for exactly the same service - but inside a growing amount of companies with $ signs in their eyes. Most of them I cut the ties and find other solutions - telling our network and all our students around the world.

 

So for me and our Academy, our company, our Practice and our huge network of students and supporters, we decided in 2012 to create our own cloud and cut more and more ties to all kind of cloud services. The best solution for us was and is Synology NAS - together with the genius Sonos system we can send all kind of music in all rooms - seeing all kind og filmclip movies and information from our NAS to every screen in every single classrooms we like or the same on all screens. Or showing pictures and filmclip to patients or clients in our Practice. Controlling all lightning, television, heating, security and much more with one of my iOS devices, I can reach right now. The same we can without any cable and just an ipad or iPhone in every room. This is the kind of freedom I need! Not just a false freedom, provided from just one company, to have their product on my iMac, iPad and iPhone, by my data on their servers. It is no freedom at all in 2015. It is just a single step from prison inside a singe device, to several of my devices. But it is just one tiny step to give us real service and free us from chains. Many people can already and clearly smell the greed and dishonesty around this cloud concepts.

 

Evernote - together with Synology private cloud - is a huge leap to give us freedom! If everyone of us can choose between a Evernote cloud-service and our own cloud service - we can start trusting again the honest intentions of Evernote. Intentions to give real service - not just using us as cheap dairy cows - for the sake of our money....

 

When Synology can obtain this freedom for us with NoteStation on its own, Evernote will lose in the long run. It is just the first version of NoteStation. We hopefully see and experience Evernote will expand in a good direction and working together with Synology to new and even better solutions, to make the world a better place. 

 

Humans like to have good feelings, having freedom and at the same time getting clever solutions for their problems. Nothing else matters! Nothing!

[eric99 978]

I'm not so sure that Synology and NoteStation gives you the freedom you need: every 3 - 5 years, you need to buy a new expensive NAS, because Synology will not support it anymore (no security updates --> no safe cloud access anymore) . 

A small price calculation:  1000€ / 5 years / 12 months  = 16€ / month for your private cloud  + 4€/month  for some kind of (cloud) backup in case your NAS crashes.

[Future_Vision 0]

I would agree it is a poor decision to buy a NAS simply as a replacement for Evernote but that is not the reason most people buy a NAS. People buy NAS's for a number of reasons besides note taking and updateing hardware every 3-5 years is pretty standard practive as technology evolves. Besides, NoteStation is not tied to the hardware. The data exists in a database which is stored on your drives and should be easily moved to your new NAS. I imagine at some point you might even be able to access your NoteStation notes outside of the NAS environment allowing you too move your data. Who knows.

[neville_scollop 0]

Notebook from Synology is an Evernote killer.

Does most of what Evernote does and allows the importation of Evernote "notes"

All of this can be hosted on a cheap home NAS device running Xpenology backed up

to any free cloud service. A fixed IP address can be provided through any dynamic DNS service and

with services like Fail2Ban, IP adress Blocking, Two-Factor authentication plus a 190 bit Password and openVPN

your ready to rock!

[eric99 978]

Notebook from Synology is an Evernote killer.

Does most of what Evernote does and allows the importation of Evernote "notes"

All of this can be hosted on a cheap home NAS device running Xpenology backed up

to any free cloud service. A fixed IP address can be provided through any dynamic DNS service and

with services like Fail2Ban, IP adress Blocking, Two-Factor authentication plus a 190 bit Password and openVPN

your ready to rock

Hmm, before switching to notestation, the most important question to ask is whether the database can be exported or will it lock me in?

And if there is an export function, how does it work and what are the export format(s)?

[psionmark 73]

Mmm, interesting.

 

I bought a Synology NAS a couple of weeks back. At that time, I wasn't even aware of the existence of Note Station, but now I've started to explore it, it's got my interest.

 

Some Pros so far:

• The web clipper is excellent. It seems to preserve the original formatting of a page better than Evernote's
  
• The data is of course entirely private and it's up to me to provide the level of security I require (I consider that a Pro)
  
• The offline notes work very well on the iOS apps
  
• I can import all of my Evernote notes
  
• I can find stuff!
  

Cons

• Obviously if my router goes down or similar when I'm away from home, I can't update the server versions or use the web app, but I still have all of my notes sync'd on the iPad and iPhone.
  
• The web app is pretty slow, which is to be expected - it's a consumer level device running on a consumer level connection - but it's more than usable
  

Overall, I'm pretty impressed. I stopped using Evernote a while back, despite having time left on my Premium subscription, due to a mixture of privacy concerns (I'm trying to move as much of my "cloud" stuff to personally controlled systems) and the simple fact that I found it really hard to find stuff I'd put in.

 

Since then, I've been looking for something with similar functionality. DevonThink has performed very admirably in that regard. The only think missing from DT for me is remote web access. Note Station might well be the answer for me for those notes I want available via the web for the time being.

[eric99 978]

It's good to hear that you can import your complete Evernote database into Note Station, that is one of the major advantages of Evernote, the user base is so huge that there will always be an import function into other note apps. 

 

However, is this also true for note-station or will you lock yourself in ?  Can you import NoteStation into Evernote or OneNote? What is the export format?  I assume you already checked this important issue?

[HerbyDE 101]

1. I'm not sure that you can import a very high rate of Evernote notes - I think it stops after 1,000 ENEX-files.

2. Export: individual notes = HTML in ZIP archive. Notebooks with all notes for backup/transfer to other NAS = "NSX" format (think this could be similar to ENEX but don't know).

[eric99 978]

1. I'm not sure that you can import a very high rate of Evernote notes - I think it stops after 1,000 ENEX-files.

2. Export: individual notes = HTML in ZIP archive. Notebooks with all notes for backup/transfer to other NAS = "NSX" format (think this could be similar to ENEX but don't know).

So with a single command, you can export all notes in individual HTML files in a zip archive ?

[HerbyDE 101]

 

1. I'm not sure that you can import a very high rate of Evernote notes - I think it stops after 1,000 ENEX-files.

2. Export: individual notes = HTML in ZIP archive. Notebooks with all notes for backup/transfer to other NAS = "NSX" format (think this could be similar to ENEX but don't know).

So with a single command, you can export all notes in individual HTML files in a zip archive ?

 

No - only note per note. Than each single note is in a single zip archive together with pictures of this note and so on.