What’d you have for breakfast this morning? How about two weeks ago? And hey, remember that time you and your friends went to that really fancy Japanese restaurant? If you’re a bit fuzzy on the last two questions (or even on the first), Evernote Food is a great way to answer them. I covered Evernote Food for Android before, when all it could do was log your meals. Now it’s time to give it another look, thanks to an all-new version that adds fun ways to track down new recipes and restaurants, as well as a fresh new look.

We’re big fans of Evernote here at MakeUseOf: We’ve previously shown you why you should be using it to remember everything, five uses for its desktop clients, as well as ten unique uses for Evernote itself. But even if you’re not so big on the core Evernote service, Evernote Food can be used on its own, and you don’t even have to have Evernote installed on your device.

Getting Started and Exploring Recipes

Evernote Food does a good job laying out its main features as you launch it:

Right off the bat, two things become obvious: It’s a beautiful app, and it lets you work with recipes, restaurants, and meals. Let’s dig into the Explore Recipes screen:

This mouth-watering screen pulls in recipes from a selection of food blogs (preconfigured with Evernote Food — those are some lucky food bloggers). The “huge thumbnail” aesthetic shown here carries through the rest of the app, as you will see later in the meal log. Tapping into a recipe, however, yields a disappointing result:

Evernote Food simply serves up the original website, making no attempt to summarize it or even apply a phone-friendly layout (like Pocket does so well). Reading the recipe off a phone screen will involve lots of zooming and panning, and is really not that great of an experience. Zoomed in, the text becomes a scosh more readable, at the expense of cropped graphics:

Tiny indeed. So yes, you can find new recipes using Evernote Food, but you’d be better off reading them off a tablet or a computer monitor. Fortunately, this is easy to do, because Evernote Food lets you clip those recipes to your own cookbook. Tap the familiar elephant icon in the top-right corner, and Evernote Food shows the clipping screen:

By clipping the recipe, you will be able to access it from any other Evernote client (not just Evernote Food).

Finding and Clipping Restaurants

Evernote Food also includes a new screen for searching and clipping restaurants you’d like to eat in. Powered by Foursquare, you can use the feature both for searching nearby restaurants, and to prepare for an upcoming trip. Here’s a search for restaurants around London:

An individual restaurant’s screen looks like this:

It has pretty much everything you’d expect: The name, a Foursquare rating, a map and an address, a phone number, and sometimes even a few tiny images (which cannot be resized). Notably missing are reviews, but that’s understandable: Evernote is very much an individual experience, and by including crowdsourced social reviews the company would risk muddling its focus. Still, this limits the restaurant’s screen usefulness: If you’re serious about finding some good eating, you may have to use Evernote Food in combination with a tool like Urbanspoon or one of these other helpful apps for deciding where to eat.

The Heart of The App: Logging Meals

New features notwithstanding, Evernote Food’s raison d’être is logging meals. Whether you enjoy logging only special meals with friends or, like me, you use it as a diet log to record all of your meals, Evernote’s meal logging feature is the most mature part of the app, and remains pleasantly polished in this new release. This is what an individual meal looks like:

You get plenty of fields to fill in, as well as automatic location tagging (which you can toggle off if you wish). New to this version, you can now pull down a gripper below the image to reveal a full-size photo:

Evernote’s meal browser uses the same layout as the recipe browser, and the wide, generous thumbnails are just as effective:

These are all photos I took with my own phone during routine use, and I can’t help but admire how nice Evernote Food makes my food look. Yes, I like chocolate — who doesn’t, really?

Making The Most Of Your Free Space Quota

I’d like to end off with one important trick. As a free Evernote user, you get a monthly storage quota of 60MB. If you use Evernote Food several times every day, this can fill up very quickly: A full-resolution 8MP image can easily take over half a megabyte. Fortunately, Evernote Food lets you pick what resolution you want the built-in camera to use:

If you go to the Settings screen and then pick Image Options, you’ll be able to set Image Size to Small (640×640). This is a completely adequate resolution for documenting your meals, and even for sharing particularly nice photos. If you intend to print photos of your food you might want to go for a higher resolution — but for most other use cases, 640×640 would be plenty. And photos at this resolution take up just a fraction of the space they’d otherwise take, stretching your 60MB monthly quota that much farther (in about a year of using Evernote Food, I have yet to hit my monthly quota even once).

Is Newer Always Better?

I can’t say I love all of the new additions in this version of Evernote Food. The new features are of limited use: One lets you browse recipes but doesn’t make it easy to actually read them, while the other lets you browse restaurants but doesn’t include diner reviews.  So, in the feature department, I’d have to say Evernote Food now suffers from a bit of bloat.

On the plus side, the new look works very well, and Evernote Food is a pleasure to use and browse. It remains my food log of choice on Android.

Do you log your meals? Do you use Evernote Food, or another app? Let me know below.

The post Evernote Food: A Beautiful Way to Keep Track Of Your Favorite Meals, Recipes, and Restaurants [Android] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

In the last several months, the iOS versions of Evernote have undergone a significant overhaul of their user interfaces, closely mirroring the design and features of the counterpart web and Mac applications. We have added the iOS versions of Evernote to our Best of iPad Apps, and Best of iPhone Apps pages where they sit alongside our other picks for the platform.

Evernote is a free universal app that works on the iPhone and iPad.

Basic Features

The Homepage for both versions of the iOS Evernote apps includes section tabs for viewing Notebooks, Notes, Tags, and Places (a view of your notes by the location they were created.)  There are also three Quick Notes buttons for creating text notes, shooting and adding photos directly into a note, and another camera features for scanning documents.

Tapping the Notes tab presents all your notes, sorted either by most recently updated, date created, or alphabetically by title. The iPad version of Evernote also includes a row at the top of the home page of your most recent notes that you can tap and access quickly. Previews of notes can be browsed in the List or Card view.

Because of the new card view, I typically try to add an image or graphic to my individually typed notes, which makes them more visual and easier to browse. In the browsing view of the Notes section, you can search notes, or tap the plus “+” button in the top-right to add a new note.

Notebooks

The Notebooks tab on the Homepage presents all your personal notebooks, notebook stacks (a collection of two more notebooks) and shared notebooks. In this browser view, you can also create new notebooks.

The Edit button at the top-right of this notebook section enables you to edit existing titles of notebooks, as well as share a public link to a selected notebook, or share the notebook with specific people. Sharing notebooks with specific individuals, however, requires a premium Evernote account. A URL link to a notebook means that the content of your shared notebook can be viewed in a web browser by anyone with the link. See my article for more details about sharing notebooks in Evernote and Springpad.

Unfortunately, the Notebooks browser is a little bland, lacking the visual context found in the Notes section.

Tags and Places

I tend to use Evernote mainly for current projects I’m working on, but if you find yourself frequently searching notes for current and past notes and other content, tagging notes might be of help to you.

Also, if you frequently create notes in various locations you travel, the Places feature may also be useful for quickly finding notes.

Notes

It goes without saying that notes can be created and edited in the iOS version of Evernote. The software keyboard of the iOS apps includes a collection of formatting tools (including bold, italics, check boxes and bulleted lists) as well as handy undo and redo buttons.

You can also add images to notes from your device’s photo library, or shoot photos using the app’s built-in camera. Individual notes can be shared to the usual places— Twitter, Message, Mail, or Print.

You can click on the little “i” icon at the top-right of a note to assign tags to a note, move it to another notebook, and view information about the date it was created and updated, as well as the geographic location of where it was added.

Storage

Using Evernote with a free account allows you to sync all of your notes between your computer and mobile devices, using the Evernote cloud service. Note that notes are not downloaded and installed on your iOS devices. You must have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to the Internet to view them on those devices. Premium account users do get the option to download all of their Evernote content to their iOS devices for offline viewing.

Unfortunately, you can’t selectively target individual notes for offline viewing, as you can with files in the mobile version of Dropbox.

The Bottom Line

The benefits of using Evernote and its cloud service is that your notes get synced between your Mac, PC, and iOS devices. The service and apps are also supported by a growing collection of third-party applications and web browser plug-ins that enable you to more conveniently add notes and other content to your Evernote account.

If you’re looking for a way to store lots of stuff on your iOS devices, Evernote is a good option among the many iOS notebooks apps. For a full overview of Evernote, download Mark’s Missing Manual for How to Use Evernote and do more with the service.

Download: Evernote iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad (Free)

Let us know what you like about the iOS versions of Evernote. What features would you like to see added or removed?

The post Evernote: A Must-Have App for the iPhone and iPad [iOS] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

In another article I wrote called Why You Should Be Using Evernote As Your Go-To Place For Remembering Everything, I made the point that it is strong at two things, one being searching for your notes quickly and easily. This is a feature that I feel doesn’t get a lot of recognition very often.

My goal in this article is to help you understand the available Evernote search tools, so that you will find it even easier and more enjoyable to use, than it already is. And if you’re not a current Evernote user, to encourage you to take a look (or another look) at it. Note that these methods can be used in both desktop and web versions.

The Two Most Common Evernote Search Techniques

These two techniques are probably ones you are already using and are used in two completely opposite situations – when you know exactly what you’re looking for… and when you have a vague idea of what you’re looking for.

Scan Through Your Notes By Notebook Or Tag

This is probably the least advanced method there is, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. If you know exactly where you want to go, and have organized your notes effectively, simply going to the notebook or tag that the note is categorized by is a great option.

The left panel has a lot of great features actually. More specifically it has the Attributes section, which I encourage to look through, open up all those minimized menus and see what they’re hiding.

Type a Search Term Into Evernote’s Search Box

The search box in Evernote is where all the magic happens. We’ll get to that magic in a bit, but first I want to acknowledge this as the most common way people search for something in Evernote. It works the same way like a search engine, so you already know how to use it.

Just start typing whatever you’re looking for and Evernote will begin narrowing down the results in real time. If you click a notebook or tag in the left sidebar first, your results will be restricted to just that notebook or tag.

NOTE: By default, the search automatically filters out common words like “a”, “and”, “the”, “these”, as well as others.

The default method will only display notes containing every word in your search query, but not necessarily in the same order as they are in the search box.

Boolean Searching & Wildcards

Now we’re getting advanced. We’ll stay with using the search box, but instead of just typing in a search term, let’s spice it up a bit.

Use The + Or – To Include Or Exclude Certain Words

Use case: makeuseof -microsoft +google.

This will display all notes with the words makeuseof and google, but not microsoft.

Note that these also work with other search operators, such as tag:, which we’ll cover later.

Example: -tag:apple will filter out any results that would have been tagged with apple.

Use * To “Read Your Mind” – A.K.A. The Wildcard Character

No this doesn’t really read your mind, but think of this tool like your best friend….who can always finish your sentences. The asterisk can be put at the end of anything and will give you the results of the search term before it. For instance, if you can remember how to spell a place, but remember part of it, type what you can remember and add the * at the end – Evernote will take care of the rest.

NOTE: This is especially helpful in cases where you’re searching for the base word, but want to include other variations of it, like plural forms.

Use case: kane*

In the example below, I’m looking for notes on K?ne?ohe Bay, but can only remember “Kane”.

Basic & Useful Search Operators

In addition to the Boolean search techniques, there are some additional tricks that you can use and even combine with the methods previously mentioned.

Search Any Words With any:

If you want the least specific type of search, this is your solution. As stated before, by default Evernote Search filters out common words. If you want to include those words, any: will do that. This method works best if your search query is a question.

Use case: any: feeding snakes

This will bring any articles that contain either words feeding or snakes, unlike the default search method.

Search An Exact Phrase With a ” At The Beginning

You might already use quotations to get an exact phrase. However, you may not have noticed that you only need one quotation ["] at the beginning of your phase.

Use case: ” feeding snakes

In this instance, I’m looking for any notes that have the words feeding snakes in that exact order, so I add a ["] before the words.

Find Stuff Within a Specific Notebook With notebook:

You could use the first option mentioned in this article to scan through a notebook, but if you have a lot of notebooks, physically searching through them may not be the best way to quickly find what you’re looking for. Instead, go to your search box (like we’ve been doing) and type notebook:[notebook name].

Use case: notebook:resume

In this example I want to quickly access a notebook under the Professional stack, called Resume. It’s impertinent that you don’t put a space between the colon [:] and the notebook name, otherwise you won’t be searching through the desired notebook, but instead for any notes with that term, which would in this case be resume.

If you want to search a notebook containing two or more words in the name, you’ll need to add a quotation ["] between the colon [:] and the notebook name, but like before, you won’t have to add one at the end, although it won’t affect your results if you do.

Example: notebook:”business cards

Search Within The Title Of a Note With intitle:

If you know a specific set of words in the title of a note that you’re looking for, this is a great method to use.

Use case: intitle:quote

Search Within a Specific Tag With tag:

You probably know that tags are an excellent way to organize and categorize your notes. But do you know why? No, it’s not just to add an extra step to the note creation process. It’s for when you need to find them. But have you looked at the Tags from Notebooks menu in the left sidebar?

Scanning through that to find a tag would definitely not improve time efficiency and you might begin to wonder how using tags in Evernote is helpful. Well, wonder no more because using tags in Evernote is helpful, but you have to use them correctly and that comes down to how you search them.

Use case: tag:bicycling

Like previous examples, if you have a tag that contains multiple words, you will need to add a quotation ["] between the colon [:] and the tag name.

For instance, despite sending web articles to my Kindle Touch, I also like saving them in Evernote. So I clip them with the Web Clipper and tag them with read it later.

Example: tag:”read it later

Find a Note Based On a Certain Date With created:[datetime] Or updated:[datetime]

If you know the date a note was created or updated on or after, this is a nice search tool. To find a note based on or after a date, you must format it as YYYYMMDD.

Use case: created:20130113

This will find any notes created on January 13, 2013.

You are also able to search in relativity to the current day.

Use case: created:day-1 = yesterday and created:week-1 = one week ago.

The numbers can be anything and you can also use month and year in these instances as well.

To find notes based on when they were updated, use the updated: search operator, which works the exact same way.

Find Content Of a Specific Type Of Media (e.g. Audio, Image) With resource:

If you’re looking for, say, an image, you can specify and really narrow down your results quickly, unless you have a lot of images, in which case combining some other search operators would speed up the searching process.

Use case: resource:image/png

This will display notes only with images in the file format of .PNG – if you want all images, add an asterisk [*], a.k.a. wildcard, at the end.

Example: resource:image/*

Find Notes Containing Your To-Do Lists With todo:

Use Evernote for your to do lists? Well then your life just got better. Evernote sadly isn’t that great for to do lists, but there is a great search operator you can use to find all your to do lists.

Use case: todo:true = notes with a checked checkbox. todo:false = notes with an unchecked checkbox. todo:* = all notes with checkboxes.

Also, in case you are wondering, the results for todo:true and todo:false don’t strictly show only notes with all checked or checked. There only needs to be one of either or to show up. In my own opinion, I kind of wish that wasn’t the case, so I personally recommend just using the asterisk [*] – it’s quicker and simpler.

NOTE: For Evernote to detect notes containing your to do lists, you must use checkboxes – bullet points won’t be detected.

Find Notes That Contain Encryption With encryption:

Encrypting sensitive or private data in your Evernote notes is an excellent feature. In fact, it’s kind of forgotten by many, myself included. If you’re looking for a specific note that you know has encrypted data, there is a really fast way to find it.

Use case: encryption:

Notice that this search operator doesn’t need any additional values. If you have a lot of notes with partial encryption, consider using additional search operators such as notebook: or intitle: to narrow your search.

Search Notes Containing Recognition Information With recoType:

First let me explain what “recognition information” is. It is information acquired through Evernote in the forms of handwriting, pictures, speech, etc. that can be detected through text. For instance, OCR technology in Evernote allows you to search text in images. Evernote can also do voice to text, as well as handwriting to text.

Use case: recoType:picture, recoType:handwritten, recoType:speech, recoType:printed, recoType:unknown

NOTE: according to a discussion on the Evernote forums, this search operator is likely useless as of now due to changes in how Evernote works. I, personally, don’t have all the knowledge to explain why or how though. Why didn’t I just leave it out completely then? I thought about it, but in the case that it does prove useful in the future, I left it in as a reference.

Find Notes Created At Or Around Co-Ordinates With latitude:, longitude:, & altitude:

Alright, so let’s be honest here – this one is pretty nerdy, but still interesting. If you use your Evernote on your mobile device or on a Mac a lot, the location that a note is created is likely being added to the note. It’s pretty nice actually, especially if you use Evernote for travelling purposes.

Use case: latitude:-97

Again, this is probably not the best search operator to use, unless you really know your coordinates when you travel. And this is really only useful when you do travel because otherwise pretty much all your notes will have the same coordinates.

What is a better way to find something based on where a note was created? I’ll explain in the Combine Search Techniques section.

Save Your Searches

Moving on from the actual search operators, this is another tool that Evernote provides. If you find yourself searching the same thing over and over, why not save it?

To do this, expand the search options by click the arrow to the right of the search box. After you’ve typed in your desired search, click the magnifying glass with a plus sign over it. Name your search in the first field (this is solely for your use, so name it whatever you feel will make it easy to recognize). If your search is for some reason incorrect, you can check it in the bottom field in the window. Refer to the image below.

Sort Your Results

If you’re wanting to improve your searching experience even more, choosing how your results are sorted and displayed can make a big difference.

You might have noticed in most of the screenshots in this article that there are two dropdown menus to the left of the search box. If you haven’t ever used these, go to your Evernote and take a look at them real quick. The first menu include a lot of choices for how you want to sort them. Also, take notice at the very last option on the menu, Reverse Sort Order. This is one that could get easily overlooked, but is a great tool.

Moving on to the second menu, this one includes three different views for displaying your notes: List, Snippet, and Thumbnail. I personally prefer Snippet as it provides a nice balance between the List view (great for smaller screens) and the Thumbnail view (great for notes with images on larger screens).

Combine Search Techniques

This is a pretty basic one and has even been touched upon throughout the article, but I wanted to make the point that you can combine search operators to improve and narrow results. Using the Boolean techniques in combination with search operators is yet another way to improve results.

Simultaneous Search – Display Evernote Notes Which Match Your Query In Search Engines

Even if you already use the Evernote Web Clipper in your browser, you may not have noticed this feature as it is unchecked by default. You can enable it by going to the Web Clipper’s options. In Firefox and Chrome, this option is at the very bottom of the page.

Use The Search Hot Keys

Another very simple tip, but it can greatly improve your time if you are accessing the search box often. To access Evernote Search use Win+Shift+F in Windows and Ctrl+Cmd+F on Mac.

To search through notes for text you can use Ctrl+F in Windows and Cmd+F on Mac.

Note Preparations To Improve Your Evernote Searching Experience

Evernote recognizes that they don’t set you up with a specific way to use it and they pride themselves in allowing their users to create their own system and customize it to their needs. There are, however, some things which you can do to enhance Evernote’s benefits and make finding your notes simpler.

• Title notes accurately.
• Tag notes, but not excessively.
  • i.e. tags of words that are already in the note itself.
• When using the Web Clipper, add a description.
• Use notebooks – you can’t have too many.
• “Pin” commonly accessed items to the toolbar via drag and drop.
  • This can be a tag, saved search, notebook, anything.
• Use it. Use it a lot. And only use it.

The majority of these are self explanatory, however, below is a picture of what I mean by “pinning items”.

Also, the last one on the list, Use it. Use it a lot. And only use it., means that Evernote is only useful to you if you make it a part of your everyday life. If you’re bouncing back and forth between Evernote and some other similar service, you won’t remember where you stored something and it becomes more of a hassle. So dedicate yourself to one service, in this case Evernote, and create your own system within it.

Now it’s you’re turn to share – did I leave anything out? If so, share how you search through Evernote. Also, we’re always looking for unique ways that you guys have integrated Evernote into your life, so please share in the comments.

Image Credits: Evernote Logo via Evernote, Black magnifying glass illustration via Shutterstock

The post 20 Evernote Search Features You Should Be Using appeared first on MakeUseOf.

KustomNote is a web app which connects to your Evernote account. It allows you to use and create templates for virtually anything you might need one for. These templates provide the structure that you need for organizing the content within your Evernote notes.

About KustomNote

Knowing about KustomNote isn’t necessarily crucial at all, but I’d like to share its history. KustomNote started in 2012 as an application competing for Evernote’s DevCup, which it won the Silver Cup in and an awesome cash prize. Since then KustomNote has continued to improve. KustomNote was founded by Hussein Ahmed. You can connect with him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Template Options And Features

KustomNote has an abundant amount of features, yet it remains very simple at the same time. The majority of these features lie in the templates themselves.

• Default notebook per form template
• Configurable and automatic tagging
• Note title prefix and suffix
• Including fields in note title
• SmartFields
• Set fields to be required
• Preset values to select
• Icon Stamps
• Email reminders
• Browse and use public templates

Default notebook per form template

Each template that you create in KustomNote has the ability to be added to a specific notebook. This allows future uses of the same template to automatically send the note to the specified Evernote notebook.

In addition, you can also check a box to choose the notebook when each note is created with that template.

Configurable and automatic tagging

These are tags which you can set for templates that will always need that tag. Once set, KustomNote will apply them automatically for future forms of the same template.

Note title prefix and suffix

This feature allows you to choose what text (if any) adheres to the beginning and/or end of the note title. This isn’t a requirement by any means, but it is a nice feature to be able to add.

Include specific fields in the note title

This option is as simple as checking a box. Under the Note Fields section, you have an option to add any fields to the title.

SmartFields

This option is only available for the movie, music and Google Contact and Calendar categories at this time. However, the feature is pretty neat. SmartFields show up as an autocomplete field.

It may not seem like much after selecting the movie, but when you close the note you’re editing and open it back up to view it, you’ll see a beautifully designed snippet of the movie with an image, ratings, stars and links to IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.

The music SmartField is very similar. I was actually impressed by its database. I searched for an artist who I knew wasn’t really popular and it was found, leading me to the conclusion that as long as the song is on iTunes, you’ll be able to add it.

To enable this for Google Contacts and Calendar, you must first connect your Google account to KustomNote – then you’re all set.

In my opinion, this gives Springpad some real competition. As of now, Springpad has the edge on the visual aspect of notes, especially with its exterior integration similar to SmartFields. But with SmartFields, you are able to bring that integration right into Evernote

Set fields to be required

Under the Note Fields section on the template editing page, there is a column titled Required with a checkbox on every row. When that checkbox is checked for certain rows, that information will then be required to filled out for that form to be complete.

Preset values to select

If you’re wanting multiple choice for a certain field, that is possible in KustomNote as well. This feature is under the Note Fields section. To use this, fill out the Title field (as always), then under Type choose Multiple choice options. You can then type in your choices in the next field over under Possible Values.

Icon Stamps

This feature isn’t a “necessity,” but it does provide a nice level of customization. You’re able to choose from a pretty surprising amount of icons while editing the template.

Once you decide on one that fits your template, check out the final product.

Email reminders

I’ll be honest, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that I can be reminded by email. I know it was stated as a feature before signing up, but I somehow looked over it – but I won’t anymore. Being able to set reminders about different things is an excellent feature for Evernote… I think we all can understand why without further explanation.

Browse and use public templates

Perhaps you don’t know where to start with making your own, or you just want to save time – both are great reasons to check out the public templates that are on KustomNote. Because there are so many uses for Evernote, there are a ton of awesome templates too. Perhaps you could even use this area as some inspiration for new ways to use Evernote, such as for business or crafts or education, or even fitness, as well as many others.

Once you found a template that you want to use, click Clone and it will be added to your templates. You can then edit and modify it to fit your needs.

Of course, you always have the option of creating your own template as well, so if you don’t find what you’re looking for in the public templates, don’t be afraid to start from scratch.

Integration Within Evernote

As of now, KustomNote is strictly web-based, at least the template acquisition and modification part of it is. Once the template is used in a note, it then becomes available in Evernote on all platforms (mobile, web and desktop). Even the visual part of the template can be edited in Evernote (this is different from the modification process in KustomNote, however).

Mobile-Optimized Website

KustomNote currently doesn’t have a mobile app, however, they’re website is optimized for mobile use, so you can still use it on the go. It might be slightly less convenient then an actual app, but it’s still a huge step above not having templates at all.

Current Drawbacks And Possibly Future Updates

Two of the current drawbacks have actually already been mentioned: Limited KustomNote use outside of the web app and no mobile app. Another one is that there is no offline access. So if you’re an Evernote Premium customer because you want or maybe even need offline access, KustomNote currently doesn’t offer that.

Are these drawbacks going to always be drawbacks? The answer is hopefully not. Of course I can’t promise anything – I’m not the developer – but Evernote obviously saw something in this product since they have awarded it a total of $25,000. From what I’ve read, a mobile app and offline access is planned. What would really be nice is Evernote integrating these features directly into it’s apps on all platforms, but I haven’t heard any plans for that yet.

If you have more ideas that you’d like to suggest to KustomNote, you can do so on the Feedback page, also accessible by clicking the UserVoice “feedback & support” button on the right side of the screen.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve walked through all the features of KustomNote, I encourage you to try it. Is it 100% perfect? No, but what app is? The problem that KustomNote solves by organizing the interior portion of your notes is pretty impressive.

For further reading on Evernote check out the following articles:

• Evernote – Your Unified Notebook [Mac]
• 8 Great Evernote Widgets & Add-ons [Android]
• 5 Cool Features That Prove Evernote Is Still A Kick-Ass Service
• How To Share Notebooks In Evernote & Springpad

We’ve also done an entire manual on it: How To Use Evernote: The Missing Manual

Do you use KustomNote? What feedback to you have about the tool? If not, go on and check it out, then report back to us how it’s improving your Evernote experience. If you prefer using Chrome web apps, KustomNote is also available in the Chrome Web Store.

The post KustomNote: Experience Evernote Like Never Before With Custom Templates appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The first feature you’re likely to notice is the shiny new shortcuts menu – a quick swipe from the right side of the screen reveals a handy menu with access to almost anything you can dream of. Tap and hold any note, tag or notebook and choose “Add to Shortcuts” to have it available in the new shortcuts menu. This can save you quite a lot of taps when accessing frequently used elements.

The new camera mode adds a multi-shot feature which you can use to snap a series of photos and save them all in a single note for quick access later. Along with the camera mode, you’ll get support for the physical variant of Evernote notebooks – Evernote Smart Notebook. Instead of having to use a separate app, the functionality is now built right into the main Android app, which should come in handy if you prefer writing your notes by hand instead of on a smartphone keyboard.

This Evernote update comes at a strategic time, right after Google’s recent launch of its own note-taking application, Google Keep. If Evernote feels threatened by the new contender, this update should help it maintain its top spot in note-taking arena.

What do you think of Evernote’s new features?

Source: TheNextWeb

The post Evernote Updates Android App With Camera Mode, New Shortcut Menu, & More [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Evernote is a cloud-based service that allows you to save anything you want and then easily find it. But there are a lot of cloud services that allow you to save stuff, so what sets Evernote apart from the rest? Well, there really isn’t one clear-cut answer to that, but there is one clear-cut article.

Evernote Is Traditionally Strong At Two Things:

• Capturing anything you want to remember.
• Searching for them quickly and easily.

It’s Free

First off, before we go into all the in-depth details, you need to understand how Evernote works to truly appreciate the value of the product. No, not the software, but the business. Evernote does have a premium subscription at $5 per month, but they will never pressure you to purchase it. The free version simply has a small box where they advertise to you. But they’re good advertisements about things you can actually benefit from.

It’s Versatile

Evernote is a tool that can really be used for anything. People of all trades have found ways to add more value to their daily routine and businesses with Evernote. At first, you might not know all you want or even can do with Evernote. But don’t let that discourage you. I think that pretty much every Evernote user at one time or another felt the same way.

As you use Evernote more and more, you’ll develop a system and continue to find unique ways to let Evernote work for you.

It’s Portable

With Evernote, you can access it literally from anywhere – your smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop or a public computer via the web interface. Evernote comes with a desktop app for Mac OS X, Windows desktop and Windows 8 (Touch), as well as support for the mobile platforms – iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone and WebOS.

It Comes Loaded With Features

There are a lot of features and tools that Evernote has which enables you to capture what you want to remember and find it again later. Remember the part about it being free? The majority of these are available to you through the free version – which differs from the way a lot of other free software works.

Let’s take a look at some of the features and how they all fit together.

• Notebook Stacks.
• Great storage options.
• Source URLs.
• Note geolocation.
• Shared notes/notebooks.
• OCR.
• Merge notes.
• Send to Evernote via Twitter and email.

Notebook Stacks

In addition to just having notebooks, you can also categorize them by “stacking” them under other notebooks. You might also call these “sub-notebooks”, but Evernote officially calls them stacks.

Great Storage Options

What about space? Honestly, yes – the free version does have less space than what you’d get if you were to upgrade. But 60 MB per month is more than enough for notes and low-quality photos. Now, if you want to start using Evernote to save lots of high quality images, you’ll definitely need to upgrade. Each month, though, the amount resets to zero, and you get another 60 MB for the following month. You can also see how much you’re using as well.

In addition, there are some data limits. For instance, you are currently only allowed a size of 25MB per note if your a free customer and 100MB per note as a premium customer. Evernote also does put a limit on the amount of notes, notebooks, tags and saved searches that you can have. You are allowed 100,000 notes, 250 synchronized notebooks (all of which can be shared), 10,000 tags and 100 saved searches. As of now, this is the same for both free and premium customers. Think of a binder that has everything you need in it – 100,000 notes and 250 notebooks worth.  That’d be a huge binder – except now think of the binder as the size of your phone, tablet or laptop. Not so overwhelming now is it? That’s Evernote for you.

Is Evernote’s storage unlimited? No, not technically. But it still is more than I will probably ever use, and I use Evernote for everything. And the great thing, again is that there is no long-term storage limits. Yes there are monthly upload limits and note-size limits, but in the long run, you won’t ever have to worry about running out of space. Most services don’t work that way, which is one thing that makes Evernote so awesome.

Source URLs

If you ever copy a text or image from the web, such as an email or from a web article, Evernote will automatically attach the URL which the content was derived from to the note. Pretty nifty huh? If it doesn’t or you’d like to manually do it yourself, you can always copy and paste the URL in the Source URL field in the note.

Note Geolocation

Geolocation allows for the ability to look back at your notes and know where they were created. On many mobile devices, and even Macs (I think), this is automatic whenever a note is created. On my Windows computer, however, I have to manually add the location in. Even with the manual option, it still is a nice feature to know about.

Shared Notes/Notebooks

In addition to being able to save anything you want, you can also share anything you want in a variety of ways including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email and simply by copying the link to the notebook or note and pasting it wherever you’d like.

OCR – Optical Character Recognition

If you’re unfamiliar with OCR technology, Evernote will blow you away. Basically, OCR allows you to search text in images. So if you scan a document in as a JPEG and you want to search for a specific word in that document, Evernote will detect it in that search.

Evernote also can index your PDF files to make them searchable via the OCR technology as well. This does come at a price, though at $5/month for Evernote Premium. That said, once you’ve indexed your PDFs, they will forever remain searchable. So if you opt to only pay for Evernote for a single month and scan all your PDFs in as documents, you will still be able to search them later once you’re back as a free, non-paying customer. However, you should realize that any PDFs you add after that point won’t be searchable via OCR.

Merge Notes

If there are ever two or even a series of notes that you’d like to combine into one note, Evernote allows you to do that. This works great when consolidating information from all over the web into one single document. Also, there are sometimes websites which break up articles into several pages. By clipping each one, and then merging the notes together, you’re able to keep the entire article together and read it offline whenever.

Reddit even explains how to use this feature to make an eBook (they talk about using Evernote Clearly, but the Web Clipper works just as well).

So how do you do this? Select the notes you want by holding down the Shift key and clicking the notes, then right-click on one of the selected notes and click Merge Notes.

Send To Evernote Via Twitter & Email

With Evernote, you get your very own email address which is unique to you. Don’t share this with anyone (although you are able to reset it). Just add it to your contact list and then whenever you want to save an email, forward it to Evernote.

In addition, there is a Twitter bot which you can tweet to and it will automatically send it to Evernote. Obviously you have to set it up first. Mark highlighted this feature in his article Archive Your Twitter Tweets Into Your Evernote Account With @myEN. And for more information on this, you can also check out the Evernote blog article Evernote + Twitter = Instant Memories.

Additional Tools To Enhance Your Evernote Experience

Not only is the Evernote app an excellent tool, but so are some of the other tools and apps that they create like Skitch, Clearly and Web Clipper. Of course, there is also Evernote Hello and Evernote Food, which are both mobile apps.

Evernote Web Clipper

In reality, the Evernote Web Clipper is a must-have if you’re going to use Evernote at all. It’s a browser extension and bookmarklet that allows you to save whole webpages, articles, links and PDFs right to Evernote. From the Web Clipper you can specify the title, notebook, tags and add an additional description to it if you want.

Evernote Clearly

Clearly is another browser extension by Evernote that allows you to read articles without all the “bloat” (ads, website themes, etc). If you’re looking for a stable extension with the ability to send articles to your Evernote, you should definitely give Clearly a go. And by referring to your previous settings, it can even automatically tag and send articles to the appropriate notebook if you choose to save the article.

Of course, you can always change it. For more information about Clearly, check out Justin’s article about how it removes clutter from webpages, allowing you to read just the content.

Conclusion

Of course, this barely scratches the surface of Evernote. Evernote has a whole “trunk” full of apps and services that it is compatible with. Its interface is exceptional with a balance of customizations and cleanliness. I recommend that you really check out the service. But like I said, there’s a lot more to it, so be sure to check out the following articles:

• Get Creative With Evernote- 10 Unique Uses You Haven’t Thought Of
• 5 Cool Features That Prove Evernote Is Still A Kick-Ass Service
• Evernote – Your Unified Notebook [Mac]
• 8 Great Evernote Widgets & Add-ons [Android]
• Do You Need More Evernote Use Ideas- Here Are 3 Ways I Use It

Previously linked to in the article:

• 5 Uses For The Evernote Desktop Clients [Windows & Mac]
• How To Share Notebooks In Evernote & Springpad
• Try Out Hello & Food- Two Stylish Evernote Apps For the iPhone

And last, but definitely not least - How To Use Evernote: The Missing Manual. Ready to jump into using Evernote? Download it here.

If you use Evernote, how have you integrated it into your life? If you don’t yet, has this article changed your perception of it and convinced you to give it a shot? If you have your very own Evernote tips and tricks, we’d love for you to share them with the MakeUseOf community.

Image Credit: Evernote

The post Why You Should Be Using Evernote As Your Go-To Place For Remembering Everything appeared first on MakeUseOf.

If you haven’t been paying close attention, you may be wondering what Google Keep is all about. Essentially, it’s a mobile service for Android 4,0 and up, which lets you to quickly jot down information if you don’t have a pen or paper on hand. It’s also capable of recording and transcribing voice memos, as well as capturing and saving photos. Furthermore, every single item that you add to Keep is pinned to a browser-based dashboard.

On your Android device, you can make use of a widget that lets them rapidly take and review notes right on their homescreens. For those of you with Android 4.2, a similar widget exists for the lock screen as well. The interface is reportedly clean and simple, featuring a mosaic layout that includes color-customized entries and a drag-and-drop function for rearranging your materials.

Keep’s most obvious competitor is Evernote, a well-established veteran service that offers users the ability to remember everything. Evernote offers both a free and a premium version while Keep can be installed on Android free of charge, and will soon be available directly on Google Drive as well.

You can download Google Keep from the Play Store.

With Google’s recent track record and the new service’s lack of monetization, do you see Keep sticking around for very long? Or do you believe that Keep is a strong challenger to Evernote?

Source: Official Google Blog via TechCrunch

The post Google Officially Launches Google Keep, A Free Evernote Competitor [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The most noticeable change you’ll find is a major improvement in the way the application handles PDF files. The update adds a feature that enables you to jump to different pages of the PDF file via buttons on the bottom of the screen. It also lets you to search through documents to find specific items, and adds a dual-page landscape view and a rotation lock to keep the device’s screen in the same orientation regardless of position.

The update also adds new options for formatting. Actually, it adds the ability to get rid of all the formatting offered in Evernote with just a couple of clicks. Users can strip any formatting from their notes and start afresh.

Two of the new features only apply to users with an iPad: The first is called snippets, and lets find your notes easily using a date picker on the right. The second feature is called Evernote Trunk, and can help you find other iOS applications that extend Evernote’s abilities. The items you find using the Trunk are clickable, so you can jump to the App Store and download them right away.

The last part of this update is for Evernote Business users, and adds support for offline notebooks and for Evernote’s Business Library.

Have you tries this update yet? What do you think of it?

Source: Evernote Blog

The post Evernote Updates iOS App With Better PDF Support & Other Goodies [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

But one thing hasn’t changed: having to decide which notebook to use. Instead of deliberating over Moleskine, Piccadilly, and Stifflexible, now we need to decide between Springpad, Catch, Evernote, OneNote, and a whole host of other up-and-coming note taking apps. The medium is different, but we’re still tasked with making that final choice of which one we’re going to use.

Don’t know which one is best for you? Keep reading and I’ll show you the ups and downs of each, making it just a smidgen easier for you to reach a conclusion.

Comparison Methodology

I’ll be looking at each of the follow main Android note-taking apps with an eye on the following criteria:

• Aesthetics. One might argue that a proper note-taking app is nothing more than a blank canvas, but I disagree. Proper interface design and ease of use is crucial for an app. If a map is pretty to look at and intuitive in terms of navigation, there’s all the more reason to use it.
• Features. While note-taking apps don’t really need much more than the ability to jot words and save them, extra features can really elevate an app from “pretty cool” to “must have”. I won’t list every feature that these apps have, but I’ll point out the really cool ones that deserve mention. I may also mention mandatory features that are missing.
• Performance. There’s no point in using the most feature-rich app if it takes a year to open and a decade to save your notes. I’m exaggerating a bit here, but my point stands: a smooth, fast, and clean operation is going to work wonders for user experience. An app that performs poorly is an app not worth using.

Springpad

Aesthetics: My first impression is that Springpad is extremely aesthetic. The colors are vibrant, the design is cutting edge, and everything just feels very fresh and new. The interface is extremely newbie friendly; all of the steps for setup are simple. The app holds your hand and guides you all the way.

Features: Springpad is more than just your everyday note-taking app. Notebooks can include a bunch of different items: notes, photos, places, songs, movies, books, sound clips, to-do lists, events, links, and more. You can easily add items that you stumble across while browsing the web. You can also invite others to view your Springpad notebooks for collaboration.

Performance: Surprisingly, Springpad is blazingly fast. I expected something so pretty to be quite laggy, but it wasn’t. For so many features, it barely hiccupped once. Everything ran smoothly and I didn’t run into any bugs while trying it out.

Overall: B+. The only reason I don’t give it an A is because the app doesn’t seem to have a singular coherent focus. It’s an all-in-one sort of scrapbook but, because of that, it feels overly complicated. If you can find a use for it, great! But as a note-taking app, I think there’s too much going on without enough refinement.

Catch Notes

Aesthetics: Catch Notes is my note-taking app of choice and the aesthetics are one reason why I love it so much. It’s not minimalistic in any sense, but it’s very sleek and clean all the same. The layout is smart, compact, and saves on a lot of screen estate in clever ways. Nothing is hard to find and I find that I enjoy taking notes with Catch.

Features: Input notes as voice, text, or even photos; automatically sync to Catch’s cloud servers; share checklists and note categories with multiple users for collaboration; share notes instantly through social media; set reminders for important notes. Lots of great features for productivity without going overboard.

Performance: Previous iterations of Catch Notes were smoother and faster, in my opinion, but the current version works just fine. All of the stated features work perfectly and I’ve yet to ever run into a bug. Catch Notes has never crashed on me.

Overall: A. Catch Notes was my first ever note-taking app so it has a special place in my heart, but I promise you that my opinion of it is unbiased. It’s a very strong app and it rivals other great apps in its category like Evernote. Click here to read a more complete Catch Notes review.

Evernote

Aesthetics: Evernote’s interface looks very modern. There’s a certain feel to it that just screams “quality” and I can’t help but be enamored by its sleekness. With that said, there’s a whole lot of stuff you can do with Evernote, which means there are a ton of icons and buttons everywhere. There’s a learning curve, but once you get over it, it’s just plain pretty.

Features: Evernote is the quintessential note-taking app and everyone knows it. Features include: voice, photo, text notes and to-do lists; easily sync, share, and save your notes online and across multiple devices; access Evernote with Windows, Mac, Web-based interface, iPhone, and Android.

Performance: Apps that look as modern as Evernote are often slow and bulky, but Evernote is surprisingly lean. Even on my three-year-old Android phone, the transitions and effects are smooth. Note-taking is fast, syncing is fast, everything is as it should be. I have no complaints here.

Overall: A. Evernote is the industry standard when it comes to portable note-taking that can be synced and accessed everywhere. It’s updated frequently and user reviews are filled with positive remarks, so if you’re looking for reliability across multiple platforms, Evernote might be the one for you.

OneNote Mobile

Aesthetics: OneNote’s interface is reminiscent of its desktop counterpart: simple and to-the-point. It’s not bland by any means, nor is it flashy and beautiful. The utilitarian design makes it easy to learn and painless to use. That’s about as good as it gets for note-taking.

Features: While OneNote started as a desktop application in Microsoft’s big suite of programs, the Android version is much more refined and simple to use. It syncs with your Microsoft SkyDrive account, which is awesome in and of itself. Each note can have bullets, checkboxes, pictures, and videos.

Performance: As a Microsoft app, I was expecting OneNote to be a bit slow (biased, I know). Imagine my surprise when the app proved to be fast and without any hiccups. It may not be packed with too many impressive features, but the performance is quite good.

Overall: B+. Personally, as a minimalist, I think OneNote is one of the best note-taking apps on the market. However, seeing as how many users would prefer to have more features than I tend to want, I think OneNote is a little lacking in that area. For that, I’ll drop it from A to B+, but it’s still a fantastic app.

Conclusion

So which one is best for you in a nutshell?

• Springpad if you really like pretty colors and lots of flexibility. It can store tons of data types inside notes, which is probably really good for creative types.
• Catch Notes if you like a clean interface with robust features. It’s particularly good if you need to collaborate on categories of notes with other people.
• Evernote if you need to sync your notes across multiple devices (computers and mobile phones). Everybody knows what Evernote is, so that’s another plus.
• OneNote if you like something small, sleek, and quick. If you use SkyDrive, even better since it syncs with it seamlessly.

The post Springpad vs Catch vs Evernote vs OneNote – Which Is Best On Android? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You might think: “I am too lazy to save stuff when I’m just clicking around the Internet“. And to that I say, alright. Just remember that next time you’re trying to find something. Nonetheless, there are some excellent tools that are free as well and work practically flawlessly.

Evernote

Although there are some viable alternatives, some even mentioned in this article, Evernote has definitely established itself in the tech community (but also in other niches) as a “use it however you want” kind of tool. That’s the great thing about Evernote – it fits into your life no matter how you use it.

One example of this is using it to save classified listings before they expire. In an article by Nancy, Get Creative With Evernote: 10 Unique Uses You Haven’t Thought Of, it’s explained how to do this with the Evernote Web Clipper. This is the key tool for saving stuff you find around the web. It comes in the form of a browser extension and bookmarklet, so the choice is yours.

In addition to web articles, if you open a PDF in your browser, Evernote can also clip that.

Highlights

• Mobile app: Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry and WebOS.
• Desktop program: Windows, Windows 8 (Touch) and Mac.
• Browser extension: Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE.
• Bookmarklet.
• Web clipper has four functions: custom select, article select, full page and URL only.

Readability

Readability is first a tool to read webpages in a cleaner way and second a tool to save them. Combined, you get an awesome little tool. Readability also has the ability to auto-detect text on a webpage and only send what you want to read to your Kindle. The tool comes in the form of an extension or as three separate bookmarklets.

Readability: Readlists

In addition to being able to read one article, you can also put together what are called Readlists, which are a series of links that you collect from around the web and add them all to one list for easy access. Then you can export that list to various places, including your Kindle, iPhone/iPad, and even download it to your computer as an eBook.

In addition to exporting them for personal use, they can also be shared to Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else with a custom link.

Highlights

• Mobile app: Android, iPhone/iPad.
• Browser extension [not specified].
• Kindle support.
• Mac support via Reeder.
• Bookmarklets.
• Readlists.
• Compatible with various services.
• Clean reading interface.

Clipboard

Clipboard was previously known as Clipmarks, which was previously mentioned on MakeUseOf. If I could briefly describe the service, it reminds me a lot of a slimmed down version of Evernote. Upon creating an account, you’re prompted to create “boards” to organize your clips. It provides you some suggestions, but you can also create your own.

After you log in, you see that Clipboard is a very visual-based service, which for some users is a plus and for others is a negative – it just depends on your tastes.

The clipping tool is available in a Firefox or Chrome extension, and a bookmarklet. The clipping tool is actually quite functional. In the image below, the bookmarklet is being used.

Once you’ve clipped the desired content using one of the various forms, a window like the one below is displayed and you can choose what board to add it to, publish it publicly to Clipboard, and share it to Facebook and Twitter, while even adding hashtags and mentions.

Highlights

• Mobile app: iPhone.
• Browser extension: Chrome, Firefox.
• Bookmarklet.
• Quick to set up and simple to use.
• Social integration with Twitter and Facebook.
• Multiple methods to clip content.
• Clipper has several preferences.

Instapaper

Instapaper is a service which we haven’t been shy of at MakeUseOf – it’s certainly had its fair share of coverage. Sure there are alternatives to it, but there’s a reason it’s so popular. It’s simple and practical to use, but full-featured at the same time.

Once you create an account and log in, you’ll need to get the bookmarklet to start using Instapaper. After you’ve added a few articles to Instapaper, check out the Unread page to view all your articles. You’ll notice that in the same row that Unread is in, there’s also a Browse, Liked, and Archive. The Browse tab lets you view popular stories as well as articles from friends that you follow on Instapaper.

The Unread page also has a sidebar that features folders to organize your saved articles, an Archive All option, a Download option to print the page and save as a Kindle or ePub file, and an Export CSV option, which generates a file containing a list of your saved articles.

Instapaper also has quite a few extras, including a previously mentioned bookmarklet. There is a universal app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, which costs $3.99. Instapaper also has an Android app and apps specifically for the Kindle Fire and Nook, all of which cost $2.99 each. Instapaper gives you your own dedicated Instapaper email address to send links and long messages to for reading later.

You can also send items directly from Google reader with the Instapaper bookmarklet, which even works on the mobile Google Reader site.

Related Reading: Make Instapaper Beautiful & Usable With Scripts & Apps

Highlights

• Mobile apps: Android and iOS.
• Bookmarklet.
  • Including a Text-only version.
• Works with Kindle’s automatic wireless delivery.
• Send from Google Reader.
• Email into Instapaper.
• Supported by many iOS apps.

Pocket

Pocket, formerly Read It Later, is, as James refers to it, the ultimate digital bookmarking service. The tool is very simple to use. Once you’ve signed up and installed the extension into your browser (or dragged the bookmarklet to your bookmarks bar), just click the button and that page is saved. Whether it’s an article, image, or a video Pocket will save it.

Then you can sort by types content which you’ve saved in the Queue, as well as mark them as a favorite and archive them.

In addition to the browser tools, there are a lot of other applications compatible with Pocket which you can view on the apps page. The Pocket mobile app is available on iOS and Android (including the Kindle Fire) and the mobile bookmark works on other popular mobile platforms such as Blackberry, Windows Phone and WebOS.

Unfortunately, there is no dedicated tool to send content to an eBook reader as of yet. You can connect Pocket to Calibre, though to fill this void. Some users might also want a browser extension with a bit more functionality. If you’re one who does, check out the Pickpocket extension, which is available for Safari and Chrome. It isn’t officially by Pocket, but it does offer many more options.

Highlights

• Mobile apps: iOS, Android and Kindle Fire.
• Browser Extension: Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera.
• Desktop app: Mac.
• Bookmarklet (Mobile version works on virtually every platform).
• Email items into your queue.

Diigo

Diigo is a service that strives to be the tool you use to collect and organize anything from bookmarks to highlights to notes to pictures and so on. Web articles are obviously included in this and they have a couple specific tools for reading articles later, including the Read Later bookmarklet and the Read Later Fast browser extension for Chrome and Firefox.

If bookmarking is all you want to do, they have a the “Simple Bookmarklet” that does nothing, but bookmark the page. If you want a tool that is a little more robust, look no further than the Web Highlighter for Chrome and the iPad. The bookmarklet version of this is known as the Diigolet and the Internet Explorer and Firefox versions of this is simply the Diigo Toolbar. These can all be found on the Diigo Tools page under Browser Add-ons.

Highlights

• Support for most mobile platforms (depending on tool).
• Several different tools to fit different kinds of users.
• Bookmarklet and extension versions of many of the tools.

BlinkList

BlinkList is a simple bookmarking tool that allows you to save links in an organize fashion without taking up extra space in your bookmarks bar. You can create lists for various categories that your saved links fit into. BlinkList functions via a simple bookmarklet.

Highlights

• Bookmarklet.
• Ability to organize links into lists.
• Simple and intuitive web interface.

Springpad

Springpad, if you aren’t very familiar with it, is a visual-based tool for saving content. The content can be anything from movies you want to see to interesting recipes you’d like to try. Think of it like a visual version of Evernote. In fact, Bakari wrote about why visual orientation matters in an online notebook and I encourage you to read it.

The article goes into some great features of Springpad as well, such as Smart Notes and mobile compatibility.

As far as saving tools goes, Springpad has mobile apps along with browser extensions and a bookmarklet.

Highlights

• Mobile app: Android and iOS.
• Browser Extension: Chrome.
• Bookmarklet.
• Visual bookmarking.

Zootool

Zootool is another visual bookmarking service, with a slightly different vision and direction than Springpad. Zootool, like Springpad, is solely web-based and has quite a few features. We’ve actually written about Zootool before. It is great because it is simple, yet stylish. Content can be organized by type – Images, Videos, Documents and Pages (text).

Zootool can be used in any browser by using the bookmarklets, however Safari, Chrome and Firefox all have dedicated bookmarklets and extensions.

Highlights

• Mobile app: iOS and Android.
• Browser extensions and bookmarklets.
• Versatile for any browser.
• Easy to learn and fun to use.
• Visual bookmarking.

Conclusion

These are certainly not the only tools to help you save what you want to read for later, but they are some of the best. Of course, the Internet is full of great new innovations so if there’s a service that you use and love, definitely share it in the comments for your fellow readers.

Below is some related reading:

• Hate Open Tabs- Save Webpages For Later With These 3 Lightweight Extensions [Chrome]
• ReadKit Syncs Your Instapaper, Pocket, And Readability Bookmarks [Mac]
• Use “Later” Buttons To Avoid Being Distracted Online & Get More Work Done

Image Credit: Woman lying in a hammock and reading via Shutterstock

The post 9 Tools To Save What You Read On The Web For Later appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Evernote Hello made it to the list of my top 10 favorite apps of last year. But its 2.0 update deserves a full review for the useful features it now includes. I prefer using Evernote Hello because it’s a great way to store the contact information of people I first meet, rather than inputting such data alongside the permanent contacts in my iPhone’s address book.

While the previous version of Evernote Hello was useful for my needs, the added features in 2.0 make the app three times more useful.

Adding Contact Information

In order to use Evernote Hello you need to create an account with Evernote, where all your contact data will be synchronized. Next, you need to set up a profile including information and a photo that you will share with other people.

Evernote Hello lists your contacts by the date, time, and month you input them into the app. So this is how you add contacts. After launching the app, tap the green and white + button, and then select to add contact information in one of three ways :

• typing the details yourself, or passing your phone to the contact and allowing him or her to input the information.
• by scanning and snapping a photo of the contact’s business card.
• by using Hello Connect, in which you wirelessly exchange your Hello profile with other Evernote Hello users.

In the 2.0 update you can now add contacts from your existing address book, or start off by entering the contact’s email address. Next, the app invites you to take a photo of the contact. In the first version of Hello, this photo taking feature actually took four consecutive photos of a contact. It’s great that Evernote has changed that feature because it kept me from using it. It was very odd to snap four photos of the same person.

In the next screen, you add additional contact information including the person’s name, phone number, and their Twitter username. All of these pieces of information are not required in order to complete each step. If Evernote Hello finds the email address you entered connected to a LinkedIn or Facebook account, it will pull profile information from that account and add it to your Evernote contact.

In my tests, the business card scanning feature for Evernote Hello was not able to capture contact data from any of the five cards I tried to scan. It seems as though the automatic flashlight gets in the way of the scanning and it prohibits the app from recognizing the contact information.

If the app cannot scan the card, you can still snap a photo of it and make it a part of your contact’s profile in Hello. It’s a simple process also to manually add the information yourself. Typically when you’re collecting someone’s contact information, you will probably not want to stop and scan a business card in the middle of a conversation. You can always snap a photo of the card later at a more more convenient time.

The latest update of Hello also enables you to edit and add the location information of where you meet contacts. The app will try to use GPS information, but if it is not accurate, you can change it. You can also change the date and time of meeting details, as well as add additional notes and snapshots that will help you remember the contact.

If you happen to meet a contact again, you could even go back and add additional information. You will find that Evernote Hello is a powerful alternative to collecting business cards and information written on scraps of paper that you normally can’t find after you attend an event, party or social function.

If and when you need to delete a contact from Hello, simply tap on the person’s name, then tap on the last meeting entry you made for that person, and then scroll down the resulting page and tap the red “Delete the Meeting” button.

You can also of course add Hello contacts to your permanent address book on your iPhone by tapping on the address book icon.

Sending Your Contact Information

What’s also unique about Evernote Hello is that after collecting a contact’s profile information, you get the option to send your profile information stored in Hello to the address you just inputted for the contact. This is saves the contact the trouble of collecting information from you.

Also in version 2.0, you can wirelessly exchange your profile with other Hello users. I haven’t had the opportunity to use this feature yet, but while I was writing this article I did get a request from someone to share my profile information while I was typing in my home office. I’m not sure if this is a bug or if requests can be made over Wi-Fi. Evernote makes it seem as though this request can only be done when you’re in close proximity with other Hello users. I did not accept the request because the feature does not indicate whom I’m exchanging information with.

The redesign and update of Evernote Hello makes it probably the best app in this genre. There are very few other apps like it, and it is one that I highly recommend for any iPhone user. If you download the 2.0 version of the app, please let us know what you think of it.

Are there any additional features you would like to see added?

The post Evernote Hello 2.0, The Cutting Edge Way To Add Contacts To Your iPhone appeared first on MakeUseOf.

These days, when it comes to working collaboratively on computer-related projects, notes, files and documents, doing so via email can become time-consuming, and even counterproductive. Both Springpad and Evernote allow users to share links to content in their notebook accounts, but more importantly users can share entire notebooks or folders.

These sharing features are great for personal family use, as well as for businesses and organizations needing a central location for sharing notes and documents.

Basic Sharing

If you’re new to Evernote, you can learn more about it by downloading Mark’s free Missing Guide On How To Use Evernote, and my recently published article which introduces the basic features of Springpad and how they compare to Evernote.

In terms of sharing individual notes and documents, both Springpad and Evernote allow you to quickly share URL links to selected content on Facebook and Twitter (Evernote also includes sharing to LinkedIn). But when working collaboratively, email sharing is especially useful because it reduces the need to copy and paste content to a separate email message. Both of these services will paste selected notes and other content into an email message for you. You don’t even have to open a separate mail client.

Even better, the resulting email from both services not only includes the shared content, but the layout of the emails look professional.

The more advanced form of sharing, however, is sharing entire notebooks with other Springpad or Evernote users.

Sharing Notebooks In Springpad

Though Springpad has not been around as long as Evernote, its sharing features are a little more advanced. Springpad is set up like Pinterest in that you can select to share your notebooks publicly with other users.

Publicly shared notebooks, and “new springs”, are also spotlighted and searchable within the site so users can follow them, and selectively add (“spring”) content from them to their own selected notebooks. This type of sharing can be very useful for teams and organization, or even small businesses who want to share content with clients and employees.

But another level of sharing notebooks in Springpad is to invite users to be contributors/collaborators of your selected notebooks. When one or more contributors accepts your invitation, your shared notebook shows up alongside the notebooks in their account, and changes made to shared notebooks get updated automatically. This type of sharing can be a powerful way to work collaboratively on projects, to share travel plans and documents with family members, or to build a shared bucket list of ideas.

Unlike Evernote, shared notebooks do not require a premium account – the feature is available for free to all users. You invite contributors to a notebook by clicking on the Settings gear button found on the front of a notebook’s preview icon, or the button to the left of an open notebook. In Settings you click on Contributors and send invitations to collaborators, who must also be Springpad users. Your notebook won’t show up in their account until they have approved your invitation.

A shared notebook will include the avatar photo of the member(s) contributing to it. Shared notebooks also include a comment Activity box for contributors. However, keep in mind that shared notebooks in Springpad automatically allow contributors to both read and edit content.

You are by default notified by email when a contributor adds or makes exchanges to a shared notebook. You can disable this notification in the Settings of your Springpad account.

Sharing Notebooks In Evernote

With Evernote, user notebooks can also be shared, but unlike Springpad, Evernote notebooks are not publicly posted for searching or browsing. You have to either invite other Evernote users to join your notebook to their account, or post a public link to one or more notebooks you want to share.

Ron’s Evernote Tips is an example of an Evernote notebook you can subscribe to. Shared Evernote notebooks will show up alongside your own notebooks, and they include a special icon on the top-right.

You will see new content added to a shared notebook as it’s updated, and the content of shared notebooks is also searchable.

In addition to the basic sharing features of Evernote I described above, you can also share links to your Evernote notebooks. Evernote users with a basic free account can only invite other users to view the contents of shared notebooks.

To share an Evernote notebook, you click on the Sharing button on the front of a notebook’s icon, and then select “Invite Individuals” or “Create a Public Link” in the drop-down window.

Note however, in order to allow other Evernote users to add and edit content in shared notebooks, you will need an Evernote premium account. Evernote does though provide a few more options at the premium level for sharing notebooks. You can select to allow invited contributors to either just View notes, View notes and activity, Modify notes, or Modify and invite others to a shared notebook.

If you are working with sensitive data, Evernote’s access sharing features will probably be of more use to you.

You can also select to have notebooks previewed (but not modified) without recipients logging into Evernote.

It is also useful to point out that Evernote recently started a special business platform that allows users to share and edit notebooks throughout their company.

Evernote and Springpad have powerful unique features that make them both very useful. However, it will be even better when each service adds the ability to assign timed reminders to selected notebooks, which is useful when working on projects with timelines. It’s also useful way to get notices about reviewing content added to selected notebooks.

Let us know what you think of the sharing features in Springpad and Evernote. Are there additional features you like to see added? Let us know.

The post How To Share Notebooks In Evernote & Springpad appeared first on MakeUseOf.

I’ve already written about the advantages of the visual orientation of Springpad, and if you’re looking to use the service on your iPhone or iPad, Springpad‘s iOS cross-platform is well designed and straightforward to use. For the most part, it mirrors the user interface of its popular web browser platform.

Basic Layout

Springpad is highly useful for saving recipes, scanning barcodes to create wishlists of products, bookmarking articles and documents for reading later, developing personal to-do lists, collaborating with coworkers on a project with notes, planning your vacation, and much more.

It’s best to get started with Springpad using its online platform. All of your content of course will sync to the Springpad app on your iPhone or other iOS device. Springpad’s mobile app has a simple two column interface, with the left side listing all of your notebooks, and the right sliding column displays the content of selected notebooks.

You can view content as a List or a Gallery. I personally think the Gallery listing has always been the advantage of Springpad’s user interface. Most people are visual readers, and the Gallery listing typically helps you to locate specific content faster.

Adding Content

The nice size circled + button at the bottom of an opened notebook is what you tap to add new content to a selected notebook. In addition to regular text notes, Springpad can handle photos, audio files, task lists and checklists, bar scans, and event and contact listings.

Springpad also has special listings for movies, TV shows, music, books, products, wine, recipes, and of course bookmarks. For example, tapping on the Movies icon will get you a listing of the most recent popular movies released. You can select a movie and “Spring It!” to a new or existing notebook, as well as post that listing to Facebook and/or Twitter.

The Place icon will show you a list of nearby restaurants, and you can also do custom searches. The Contact listing is useful for adding contacts that you don’t want to go into your default iOS contact list. And Springpad’s Reminder feature also includes an alarm.

Other Features

From within the Springpad app you can share links to individual notebooks, as well as items within. And like Evernote you can share entire notebooks with other Springpad users.

The Explore feature allows you to view spotlighted Springpad notebooks, new “Springs” (new content added to Springpad), as well as the ability to search for particular topics. All of the public content added to Springpad can in turn be added to your own notebooks. You can also subscribe to the notebooks of other users, similar to how it is done in Pinterest.

The advantage of Springpad over Evernote is that Springpad offers a way to share notebooks publicly so they can easily be found and followed.

The Settings in Springpad includes a way for you to add the Safari Web Clipper that allows you to save things to Springpad directly from websites in the Safari browser of your iPhone. You can also install a Quick Add Shortcut that places a button on your device’s homescreen so you can quickly add new items to Springpad.

The settings for each notebook allows you to customize the color, theme, and accent of each notebook, as well as select privacy settings, and category and tags.

I use both Springpad and Evernote, and personally I find the user interface of Springpad easier to navigate. However, Springpad does not have the popular third-party support given to Evernote. In other words, you can directly share selected content from many other iOS apps, as well as the web, to your Evernote account. Such direct sharing is not widely available to Springpad.

Let us know what you think of Springpad and how you’re using it.

The post Springpad’s User Interface Makes It an Awesome iPhone Cross-Platform Notebook appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Whether it’s taking advantage of Evernote’s checklist feature, or the fact that you can save photos in the app on the go, using the mobile app, don’t be afraid to get creative with your Evernote use. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to download our Evernote Manual for free.

Save Classified Listings Before They Expire

How many times have you bookmarked a Craigslist listing only to find that the post has expired next time you go to check it out? With Evernote, you can save the entire listing, with all of the information, contact information and photos by using Evernote’s Web Clipper. This feature can come in handy on sites like eBay, Craigslist, or just about any online classified site you can think of.

Take Notes While Reading a Book

If you’ve already made the switch to eBooks, making digital notes while you’re reading is nothing new, but if you’re still attached to reading books, and don’t want to put your notes in the margin, why not use Evernote? Create an individual notebook for each book, take photos of the page you want to jot a note down about with your phone, and type in the note with the image.

By using Evernote, you have a digitized and easy to search database of your notes – just make sure to include the page number in your typed up notes.

Keep Measurements, Sizes, etc. Handy When Shopping

Whether it’s measurements for your furniture, clothes sizes or even your printer’s ink type, you can take that kind of information with you everywhere you go. That way, next time you’re at the store, you’ll always have that information handy if you happen to find something that you want to buy.

Create Lists Of Everything From Goals To Groceries

Because Evernote allows you to create checklists, there’s no end to the kinds of lists you can create using the app. Whether it’s for day-to-day tasks like groceries, to life-long goals that are on your bucket list, or even just a list of movies you want to watch, you can take your checklists with you everywhere using the mobile Evernote app.

Record Your Prescriptions

If you have a lot of prescriptions, you can keep them organized using Evernote. Take photos of the doctor’s prescription, of the pill box or bottle, and even how each individual pill looks. Keep track of how often you take them, and how often you need to refill the prescription.

Save Photos Of Your Takeout Menus

Rather than keep a drawerful of messy takeout menus, why not take photos of the menus and save them to Evernote. Create one notebook for all of your takeout menus, and use one note per restaurant. While the images aren’t searchable, you can at least put in relevant tags making it easy to look up all the menus for certain types of cuisine, or better yet, searching for specific restaurants by name.

Save Your Favorite Meals At Restaurants

While it does require an additional Evernote app, in this case Evernote Food, you can keep track of your favorite meals, drinks and more while you’re out and about. Recently updated to add an awesome set of features and iPad support, Evernote Food can be the ultimate alternative to Instagramming your food.

Rather than share it with others, using Evernote Food is all about making it easy to remember which restaurant serves your favorite salad and where to go to get the best cup of coffee.

Save Important Documents: Warranties, Contracts, Birth Certificates, etc.

Any kind of important document that you want to keep track of, you can simply save in Evernote. Whether it’s an important contract, your birth or marriage certificate, or any other important papers, take photos of them, or save them as PDFs and save them to Evernote. That way you have important information handy with you no matter where you go.

Create a Virtual Library Of Your DVD, Video Game Collections, etc.

If you have a large collection of DVDs, video games, books, or anything else, you can take photos of each item, add notes about them, and even make a note of when you lend them out and who you’ve lent them to, and you can keep track of your personal belongings. Nothing is more annoying than lending a book to a friend and forgetting who you gave it to, so why not let Evernote help you remember?

Use Evernote As a Rolodex

While there are a lot of great apps that make it easy to exchange contact information simply by touching phones, the traditional business card is far from dead. Rather than keep a messy box of business cards, take photos of the individual business cards and save the note with the contact’s name.

Are you looking for more ways to get the most out of Evernote? Check out 3 more ideas here.

The post Get Creative With Evernote: 10 Unique Uses You Haven’t Thought Of appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The new features are available on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. There is also a redesigned interface to accommodate the new features. The first new feature is called Explore Recipes, which lets you get ideas from websites all over the Internet. You can use this feature to browse through recipes or use the search feature to find specific types of foods if you have something in mind.

The next part of the app is called My Cookbook. This is where every recipe you clip will end up. You can also clip recipes using Evernote Web Clipper, which will allow you to view them in the Evernote Food application. You can also type your own recipes in Evernote, and the app will automatically detect them and add them to My cookbook.

A big new feature of the app is the implementation of restaurants. You can use this feature to discover new restaurants, add them to your list, and then track where you’ve been. If you don’t want to make food yourself, then this is the section of the app you will love.

The final new section is called My Meals. This is where you can store all of your favorite finished products. It’s akin to Instagram, in that you can take all kinds of pictures of the food, but it comes with a good amount of Evernote style.

For Evernote Food users, this update should be quite useful. It has all the features a foodie and Evernote user needs.

Source: Evernote

The post Evernote Food Adds Awesome New Features And Full iPad Support [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.