Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Why EVERNOT(E)...? (Remember Everything)

I don't know about you but I never lose anything.

I know exactly where everything is.

I have never lost my keys, my passwords, or my notes... as far as I can remember.

Ever looked for technology to help you organise your chaos? Well, I did.

First I invested a PC with my text documents, my Encarta encylopaedia and my time in a marvellous digital diary which was perfect.


As soon as I left the house I had to jot the contents of my schedule down on the back of an envelope and transfer my stuff onto a floppy disk.

To do list: 'Don't forget to remember the envelope!'

Then came a PDA  or Avigo, as we called it in my home, which sychronised my faithful digital diary in a portable monochrome form. Finally I was able to know where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing; when I remembered to synchronise the thing. The Avigo was accompanied by  my easy to forget USB key.

More recently, I have been delighted with Google Applications and bathe in the sea of  tranquility somewhere over my netbook, PC, any other PC's or Macs and around my smart iPhone. USB keys I now lose unthinkingly. Who needs keys in the clouds? I am so blasé now.

There are of course no clouds in the clouds.

Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Zoho, et all intermingle (or not) above our heads in a fight to be at our service. So much of their service is free. Flickr, Yahoo!

How does one find what one is looking for in the clouds? How does one select the best cloud to entrust one's life?

Well personally, I don't put my trust in any one (particularly not me).  I have invested much in Google, quite a lot in Apple, very little in Microsoft and just recently a tiny share in EVERNOTE.

EVERNOTE is my current favourite helper. I admit to being enthusiastic. Present in every device it seamlessly takes my bits and pieces (those which are not in my diary, my presentations, my class notes, my links, my photos, my videos)  wherever I am and keeps them to be shared with whoever after. This friend trips through operating systems, in and out of Twitter and Facebook, recording text, photo, sound and location. It understandstands that a smartphone can complement a PC, a PC can converse with an iPad.

This my friends is the future of my digital environment. I have servants at my beck and call who are comfortable wherever I am, in any context, in any social system, discreet, un-demanding of my attention, close to hand and almost, like me, entirely free(ish).

3 comments:

  1. Free as in "free speech" or "free beer" ? Thanks anyway for sharing how you use the clouds ;)

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  2. Yes. I owe you a beer for your RT and your first EVER comment on my new(ish) blog. You shall be remembered Remi without Evernote. The rest of this reply will be in DM or Secret(ish) mail.

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  3. I am just starting out with Evernote and already seeing the benefits. I can't wait to experiment with some of the features you have mentioned above.

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