Evernote Hello: When the face is familiar?

A good blog won't merely tell you about old stuff, but will keep you informed of the latest news.  In a blog about personal productivity technology (especially stuff of interest to librarians), I think the announcement of the new Evernote Hello app is relevant.

I'll be honest: One of my most stress-inducing moments is when I'm at a meeting or conference and run into someone who seems to know who I am but whose name I just can't bring to mind.  At a genealogy conference, I usually joke that I'm much better at remembering the names of dead people, but that humor isn't as useful at a library-related conference.  So I was intrigued to hear about the new Evernote Hello app.  Here's what I know so far:

It's an iPhone app.  (Sorry Android users.  I would assume that if it proves successful, Evernote will create an Android version soon.)

It synchronizes with Evernote, so all of the information you put into it will be available on all of the devices you use with Evernote (but it will be read-only information...you won't be able to edit it except in the Evernote Hello app itself).

It's intended for people (the people you meet) to put in their own name and contact information, and then to take several photos of themselves.  I suspect that this will work for some, but that in other cases, you'll need to enter this info for them.  In any event, the information is already date/time-stamped and location-tagged, so you'll be able to figure out the context of where and when you met them.  That means that if you meet a whole bunch of people at the same time, you can search for them that way, and the same is true for when you meet a whole bunch of people at the same location.

Finally, when you display someone that you captured using Evernote Hello, you'll also see any notes you took around the same time, so this means that you can see notes you made during a meeting with these people.  Interesting idea, eh?

OK, I'll try this out at my next opportunity, and let you know how it goes.

Evernote: For all your note taking needs

We hope you all had a great holiday! My partner and I took a brief respite from blogging for Thanksgiving, but we're back and ready to blog.

Today I want to start telling you about Evernote. I say start because there's a lot to it and a full report will take more than one posting.

Evernote is a note-taking app that, according to their tagline, will help you "remember everything." I use it everyday - in formal or informal meetings to keep track of my action items or sitting in Starbucks (enjoying a chai tea latte) and jotting down ideas for an article I should write. I use it to help me keep track of an overwhelming multitude of user ids and passwords. I use it at ALA to take notes on the meetings and presentations I attended. And the list goes on...

One of the best things about Evernote is that it works on PC or Mac and on most smartphone and tablet devices. That's a great benefit, especially if you want to share your notes. It can also capture just about anything - you can type your notes or you can use the built-in recorder. I've used that to record focus group sessions. You can also add images or save entire webpages.

Of course, since it runs on so many devices, it has built-in syncing. That way, the changes you make in Evernote on your desktop are automatically reflected in your Evernotes on all of your other devices. And the app let's you create folders to help organize your notes.

Evernote does have some text formatting features, like bold, italics, bullets, and such. However, please remember that this is a note-taking app. Evernote is not word processing software. In fact, sometimes the simple formatting doesn't sync perfectly, especially from the desktop to an Evernote on a mobile device.

There's a great deal more to say about Evernote, but I'll leave that for another post.

Noted: And now for something completely simple...

One of the nicest thing about apps is that programmers can design one to do something very simple but also very useful.  For me, I can't think of a better example that the iOS and Android app Noted (from AnalogueBits), which has but one function: It lets you type in a message that is automatically mailed to your email address at the touch of a button.

In many ways, this is the ideal reminder that doesn't involve getting into a more complex to-do system.  It some ways, it's like a sticky note, but because it is designed to be emailed, it can go from there into my to-do system.

If I'm away from one of my desktop computers or my iPad, I can quickly type in that reminder ("Make a directional sign for the government documents shelf" or "Tell Barbara about the new website I found"), and then put it out of my mind, knowing that my email will have that reminder when I have the time/equipment to process my email.  Type.  Send.  Done.

What more can I say about it?  Oh, it does remember your older notes, but you can delete them if you like.  Or you can email them to someone else.  I haven't used that feature yet, but that's not why I got the app. 

Do you need Noted if you are already using Evernote?  Possibly not, but then again, maybe you need Evernote only when you're dealing with organizing and preserving notes. 

minutes.io - Meeting Minutes in Minutes

You're sitting in a meeting and, since you have your laptop or tablet, you have been given the always sought after honor of taking notes. Happens to me all the time because I'm compulsive about having my iPad with me and everyone knows that I take notes whether I'm the recorder or not. If I didn't, I'd forget half of what was said to me.

So, you start taking notes. Maybe using Word, Google Docs, Evernote, Penultimate, etc. You record everything, perhaps clean-up/organize the notes later, and at some point mail them off to all the attendees. Well, I have another options for you - minutes.io, a free Web 2.0 tool that really simplifies note-taking.

The great thing about minutes.io is that it provides an easy to use template into which you can enter information about your meeting: attendees, location, description, project, and several different types of note (INFO, TODO, IDEA, and OKAY). You can also assign owners and due date (via a calendar pop-up) to each type of note. Easy as pie! And when you're done, click on the email icon and the minutes go to everyone that you've provided an email address for.

Another bright spot - you don't need an account so there's no time wasted logging in, trying to remember yet another password. Minutes.io stores your information locally. You know what else that means, don't' you? You don't need to be connected to the Internet to take the notes, just to send them. I don't know about your facility, but there are a few places in my building where the wireless is weak or nonexistent, so this is a great feature to me.

The developers are also working on some new functionality that I'm looking forward to, like grouping to do items by person, branding with your logo, and the ability to push to dos and notes to project management software. It just keeps getting better.

If you haven't figured out already, I'm a big fan of minutes.io. Try it out, you may become one, too.