EverNote

new! Updated August 16, 2005

I work at a computer a lot. For years, I always kept some type of text editor open at all times to type and copy notes as needed. Phone numbers, scraps of code, internet urls, I would type in anything that came up throughout the day. At the end of the day I would go through the notes and save what I needed. This worked, but not perfectly. It was often difficult to find old notes, and it would be nice to be able to paste pictures or format the text.

Enter note-taking applications.

Note-taking applications let you take notes through the clipboard, drag-and-drop, typing, or even handwriting (for tablet PC's). They collect web pages and pictures, and, very importantly, allow you to easily find your notes through date, category or rapid search. You don't have to save any files, that's done automatically.

A couple years ago, Microsoft came out with a program called OneNote that did all these things, and I loved it. After using for quite some time, I became slightly disillusioned because it was a little sluggish. Taking a quick note should be, well, quick. Even though I had it running as a quick launch application, it still took a few seconds to load up. That was irritating. I also would have liked a way to store sensitive information without being afraid that it could be seen by someone else.

EverNote solves these problems. It's fast, fast, fast. It supports encryption on a per-note basis. I vastly prefer its interface. It even has templates for such things as shopping lists and contacts. I cannot recommend it enough. If you need this type of application, this is the one to get.

http://www.evernote.com/