Lisa & I on St. Patrick's Day 2009

Why St. Patrick’s Day?  For many reasons which include that it is the only day of the year (well maybe New Years) where everyone, stranger and alike, are friends and family.  Yet, it is not a holiday in which it is required to spend with friends and/or family.  Nor do you have the burden of gifts, cooking, traveling (unless you are going to Savannah, Boston or Chicago – the best St. Patrick’s Day cities in my opinion).

Lisa on St. Patrick's Day 2009

I start St. Patrick’s day with a Irish breakfast at the Irish Pub & Restaurant right by my house, and move on from there.  I think I counted in the Orlando area at least 25 Irish Pubs & Restaurants, so the day is full moving from one to another and meeting new friends!  This year my wife has the day off as well so she will be joining me.  I hope this becomes a holiday tradition for her as well as she does have Irish heritage!

St. Patrick’s Day blessing opun you!

Slainte.

The initial list of contenders I chose are:

• Evernote - http://www.evernote.com
• MyNoteit - http://www.mynoteit.com/
• UberNote - http://www.ubernote.com/
• Springnote - http://www.springnote.com/
• Google Notebook - http://www.google.com/notebook/
• Fruitnotes - http://www.fruitnotes.com/
• Notefish - http://www.notefish.com/
• Zoho Notebook - http://notebook.zoho.com

My needs for this are an easy to use application no matter what computer I am using (Windows, Mac, Linux), not matter where I am, is secure, easy to manage the content, fast to access, and pleasing to the eye.  I do not necessarily need an application that installs on all clients, thus the cloud applications I have selected above, although Evernote does provide an native client.

Evernote is the most well known of the online note taking applications.  Notes are only the beginning of what Evernote can do.  It is a place for all of your ideas you come up with, things you like with access from any device you use.  Capture and Organize everything is Evernote’s rule.  It may be the only application in this that recognizes and indexes images and PDF’s.

Visually, Evernote is very mature and provides the ability to create notebooks for different needs.  You can keep everything private or you can share specific items & notebooks.  Tagging is key to Evernote  and successfully utilizing all of it’s potential.

Evernote restricts by the amount you may upload per month for free (40 MB).  You can add via Evernote plug-in for both IE and Firefox, emailing to a private email address they assign,  importing from Google Notebook, and via Twitter.

There is also a $5 month premium account that adds SSL transfers, priority image recognition, no ads, monthly upload to 500MB, access to notebooks offline for iPhone and iPod Touch users, and more.

Evernote also provides downloads for Windows, Mac, iPhone+iPod Touch, Android, Palm Pre, Windows Mobile and Blackberry.  All devices will sync and work together with one account (if you have that many phones and computers).

My only complaint is that my workflow and Evernote’s seem to not mesh well.  Thus the Evernote interface is not intuitive for my purposes for me.  I have been trying to use Evernote for over a year and it has just not caught on for me yet.

MyNoteit is an interesting application.  It is also a free offering, but does have Google Ads included on the pages.  It is set up specifically for those that are in school as it has Courses and Assignments by default.  They provide external links regarding Term Papers and Learning Management Software.  The site did render a bit slower than expected and the interface is not as intuitive as I would like.  It does provide a to-do list along with the note taking, assignments and bookmarks.  Messaging also looks to be within the MyNoteit environment to help with groups and collaboration.  I did not see anything regarding a storage cap.

Overall, MyNoteit does not look to be the best product for my needs, but may be good for students in school, especially if they are working in teams and like to share assignments.

UberNote reminds me of Evernote.   It seems to be a direct competitor, using much of the same types of interaction.  There is a Firefox toolbar you can install that allows clipping and bookmlarking, as well as, UberClip which adds entire web pages directly into UberNote.  There is also a Netvibes widget, iGoogle gadget and user specific email address you can send items directly to your UberNote. Other methods of getting info into UberNote includes Twitter and importing of your Google Notebook and exporting to a an HTML backup.

Similar to Evernote, tagging is a big componant of UberNote and it also provides a task management section.  There is a mobile version that you can use on your smartphone as well.  They are working on a premium version that will provide more file space (can not find how much they give you now), secure connections and encrypted notes.  Overall I like what I see in UberNote, but am unsure if it would replace Evernote for me.

Springnote allows you to login using OpenID if you so desire.  Springnote provides a very clean interface, dashboard and 2GB for free.  You can have both Personal Notebooks as well as Group Notebooks for collaboration.  Springnote is interesting as it is based upon wiki technology.   When creating a Personal Notebook, Springnote creates a Bookshelf, Meeting Notes, Monthly Calendar, Monthly Schedule, Personal Profile, To Do List and Web Clippings by default.  You can create your own pages as well.   Bookshelf is an interesting addition for me as I am an avid reader.  You also have an Inbox and Comments section, both of which look to only be for within Springnote environment.  Within the setting section, you can turn off comments if you have a public page, back up your full notebook and change your profile image.  Exporting to your blog can also be configured here and they identify Typepad, Moveabletype, WordPress, and Blogger.   I run my blog on SquareSpace and it set up without issue.  They also have a plug-in page wiht all plug-ins developed by Springnote and not the community.  They also have what they call “Mashups” which include an iPhone App, a Messenger bot which allows you to add to your Springnote via Googletalk and MSN.  It uses XHTML and has Open API.  There is also an Open Source project for the Springnote editor at Xquared.

Overall I am very impressed with Springnote and can actually see myself using.  I looks like it could replace a number of specific apps I currently use.  All I would need is a paid version with more storage as well as secure usage.

Google Notebook was abandon by Google (stopped development and no new users), but if you are in the Google world already you may want to check it out.  It provides you with a barebones notebook application.  Similar to other Google applications, they make it simple.  You can creates different notebooks, use labels similar to tagging, and share for collaboration.

You may find Google Documents a better experience if you want stronger collaboration and tools. 

I can tell just from the logo, FruitNotes is very Web 1.0.  Not going to be high on the design and visual appeal.  But how is it to actually work in?  What it provides that is unique is the ability to record phone voice notes.  It provides you with a US or UK phone number to do so.  You can also upload photo and videos and tag your notes.

You can share your notes or publish to “your” blog.  However, “your” blog is a blog on their site and not really “your” blog.

What is amazing is that this is “beta” and the footer of every page says “2007 FruitNotes.com”

I struggle with this one.  It just never looks right on the screen, the fonts are awful, calendar seems to be from 1995 Microsoft Access.  Not for me.

Notefish tagline says “Revolutionize your Web Research”.  You save information you find on the web into a Notefish page for organizing and/or sharing.  Similar to Google Notebook, Notefish has a simple interface with little advanced organization available.  You can color code your notes and tag notes. 

Plug-ins are available for both Internet Explorer (Windows only) and Firefox.  Very simple, very plain.

Zoho Notebook is apart of the Zoho office products which includes Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho Show, Zoho Wiki, and others.  You can sign up using your Google Account, Google Apps Account, Yahoo or Facebook. 

If you use any or all of the Zoho applications, it is well integrated and easy to switch between them.  They do provide plugins for both Firefox and Chrome and the ability to import your Google Notebook.  Zoho Notebook is the most like an application that happens to be online.  You can add new notebooks, spreadsheet pages, writer pages, web pages and others to notebooks.  It supports images, audio, video, RSS, etc… as well.  You choose which notebooks you share.  It is really focused on content creation more than the other notebooks reviewed here.

The forums for users look to be robust.  They are working on a mobile version, but none yet.  My big issue is the lack of subfolders for how my brain organizes.  It also does not have some of the advanced features from Evernote like OCR nor does it have task lists like Springnote.

And have I mentioned the Skype integration?  Yes, it has this.

Let me know if you are using something I missed and I will check it out and update this post!

My first choice right now is to buy a Kindle book so that I can read and sync on both the Kindle and the Kindle app on my iPhone or even a computer. 

Unfortunately, no all the books I like to read are on the Kindle.  Some are free and although can be sent to my Kindle, they can not be shared and synced with my other Kindle devices.  Also are books that I get at other eBook stores in which require their own eBook reader.  Thus I currently have 3 eBook readers on my iPhone.

Stanza – For free and open eBooks (http://www.lexcycle.com/supported-formats)

Kindle – for Amazon Kindle eBooks (.AZW, .MOBI & .PRC – without DRM)

eReader – for Barnes & Noble/eReader/Fictionwise eBooks

Thus a book is stuck on one reader and can not be shared and synced to the Kindle.  This is frustrating.

Help me Apple, you are my only hope! 

Now we have the iPad and does it add to the complexity with it’s own iBook store?  It says it will support ePub, but I am sure it will be a DRM version. But what the iPad can solve, is due to having all of the ebook readers available on the device, I will no longer need the Kindle itself and can read any book from any format, all on one device.  The next question is… will they sink to the iPhone for on-the-go reading??

As I have no insider information, this is coming from me and only me.  So take it with a grain of salt.

There will be a tablet, but more.  The tablet will be a 10in 720p OLED tablet for reading books, magazines and newspapers, internet browser, media player (movies, tv, radio, music, podcasts, Audible) and will run all of the iPhone Apps, especially social networking type apps. It will be the same iPhone/Touch gaming platform for casual type games.  It will have built-in Wifi (wireless N), Bluetooth and 3G for always on connectivity.  Nothing new here that you may not have already heard about.

There will also be an Apple television (not the box, but an actual television) that will integrate with the tablet.  You can be watching a show on the television, switch to the tablet to watch and back to the television seamlessly.  Television will have built in wireless to run apps from the tablet.  When watching on the television, the tablet is a universal remote with a slick touch interface to run the media on the television and other devices.  The tablet is the ultimate computer in the living room. 

In addition to the AppleTV Box or MacMini, you will have DVR capabilities.

Apple will be introducing a new ENTERTAINMENT platform that the tablet is just a part of.

The only negatives are if you hit a wall in regards to what you want to do, chances are an upgrade to the next level at more $$ will allow you to do it.  Sometimes even simple things will end up costing you more $$ each month.  Real CSS pros may be able to figure it out without the upgrades, but those of us that are not pros have to pay. Another issue was that my tags did not import from Wordpress, so I have to re-tag hundreds of posts.  Last, it does not support tag or category clouds, or at least I have not found a solution.

My website has gone from self-hosted, to hosted, back to self-hosted and now I am again on a hosted service.  I got tired of the updating and security issues and trying to keep the site going.  Now I can spend more time on content and design vs. database and server support.  Hopefully this will kick start my posting here.

You can try Squarespace for free, no credit card required.  So go ahead and try it out.  I recommend it.

Just be aware for those of you thinking of moving over, it is more work than you may have been led to believe.