Sunday, August 18, 2013

It's more fun to compute

If you're not currently addicted to Evernote, I pity you.

Yes, this is meant to sound inflammatory. I am not overselling how much more in control of all the crazy things that go on in my life with the use of this technology.

What is Evernote? 
Evernote is an application that allows you to create "notes," in which you can type information, take and attach an image, record and save an audio file, add reminders, draw images or annotate  and tag notes with labels to categorize them. Also, like a billion other things but that's the gist. It's available for iPhone, iPad, PC, Mac, and online.

Here's some reasons it's amazing for scientists:
1. All those notes/tips/protocols that I lose in my haphazardly organized and bulk lab notebook? Yeah, I took pictures of those motherfuckers and now they're stored electronically forever and I can find them whenever.

2. It offers incredible functionality within a web browser and allows me to "clip" things I select online directly to my collection in a snap.

3. It can scan handwritten notes and makes that shit searchable.*

4. If you imported pdf files, the content is searchable. No more creative file names, no more organizational mishaps or printed stacks of articles.*

5. I've been using it to put together my thoughts/ideas on data analysis, manuscript design, and graphs.

6. You can share the notes with people through links or by email.

7. A note is almost instantly synced to every device on which you have the software, including the web version.

Beware: You will start using Evernote for all of teh things, all of teh time. 
It's also awesome for recipes, music/restaurant recommendations, prescriptions, remembering where you've parked, and just about anything for which you'd like to stash some information to rapid retrieval later.

Want to learn more about Evernote? Try this Beginner's Guide from Mashable.

*These features are available through the paid version of Evernote (called Premium), which is $45 for the year.


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