It’s a funny thing, software. Sometimes, you spend ages looking for something that will do just the job you need, and you keep trying this and that, and maybe you eventually settle for something that’s good enough, and you get on and do whatever it is you wanted to. Then there are the times when you find something that you didn’t know you needed at all, and you read about it, and maybe you don’t quite get it at first, but you give it a try, and before you know it, you’re hooked. Yesterday, I mentioned Skitch, a prime example of something I didn’t know I needed, but I’m already finding incredibly good to have around. It was drawn to my attention by a post on TUAW[1], which mentioned using Skitch with Evernote, which I hadn’t heard of at the time. Since it was the weekend, I had the time to check it out…

Evernote is another application/service hybrid thingy that’s currently in free beta mode. Like Skitch, you have to sign up for an account to use it. Unlike Skitch, you really need that account for it to be useful. So what is it? The concept is that it’s meant to be your “external brain”. It’s a convenient place to put, well, stuff. Web pages, pictures, notes – anything that you need to save for later, or to just keep a note of.

I often see things on the web that I really want to look at properly when I have more time, but I tend to have trouble remembering them. Sure, I can bookmark them in my web browser, but then I end up with loads of bookmarks with (if I’m lucky) a short label to remind me why I wanted to check them out. Evernote lets me select a relevant part of a page and save it as a clipping. If I’m so inclined, I can add notes or keywords to the clipping so I’ll have a much better chance of remembering what I wanted that page for in the first place. I can organise all these bits and pieces into notebooks, in whatever way I like. To maximise its general usefulness, Evernote is available as a web page, and as an application for Windows, Mac OS X and Windows Mobile phones. Other phones are expected to be supported later.

I often see odd things when I’m out and about, and if I don’t have the real camera with me, I’ll take a quick snap with my phone. This would be OK, as the phone pics are quite acceptable for web use, but more often than not, by the time I get home, I’ve completely forgotten about the odd thing I’ve photographed. But with Evernote, I’m covered. My account comes with a special email address. Anything I send to that address is automatically added to my Evernote notebook.[2] As my phone automatically resizes images to a sensible size before emailing, this works very well. I can then either extract the image from Evernote, or use the note as a reminder to get the full-size image off the phone to do something with.

But there’s more! Evernote synchronises everything between the web and whichever client you happen to use. And when it uploads stuff to the web, it makes a good try at recognising text in images and notes. It then synchronises the data back to your client, and you can then search on the contents of your notebooks, including text in images. It had no trouble at all with the title of that scary book, for instance.

I’m using it to keep notes on things I want to write about, websites I need to read, and I’ll most likely use it to mark books I want to read and CDs I need to listen to.

If none of that made much sense to you, there’s a demo of Evernote in action on the Evernote Blog. This shows how Skitch can be used with Evernote in quite clever and useful ways. Good stuff, really. Skitch is Mac-only, but Evernote is for Windows too. Currently, the clever stuff on the web doesn’t work with Firefox 3 beta 5, but is happy with IE7 and Safari. If you’re still using Firefox 2, you’ll be fine.


[1] The Unofficial Apple Weblog, one of many sites I keep an eye on through NetNewsWire
[2] They’ve even thought about the risk of the address being spammed – you can get a new address at any time from the web interface. Good one.