'Life-Organiser' App: What does Apple have? - Page 3

James Craner · 02:34 PM

If anyone else is looking at this thread, and does not have a requirement to have a Windows solution as well, and is interested in the OmniFocus workflow. David Sparks of MacPower Users has a number of great screencasts on using OmniFocus that can be found at his Blog. Even if you use OmniFocus at the moment I think you will get something out of them. The 3 Ninja trick screencasts will give you a good idea of the workflow of Omnifocus.

The last screencast - 'Do Stuff' also gives you a pretty good overview of how it works, before you dive into the Ninja Trick screencasts.

NMF · Mar 16, 2013, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacNoobGuy

does anyone know of something that doesn't sync to the cloud directly? OmniFocus looks great, but there's no Windows client....

Once again, why do you feel so strongly that you need a Windows client? The way GTD works is you quickly add items to your "Inbox" and then do nightly/weekly reviews to sort them into the correct project. You don't need access to the full app at all times, you just need the ability to quickly add something to the Inbox. That's what the OmniFocus iPhone app is for.

As for not syncing to the cloud directly, you can't have your cake and eat it to. If you want software that can be used on multiple devices and have all the same information, it's gonna sync to the cloud. That's just the way it is. WiFi syncing and/or manual syncing isn't reliable so most software doesn't support it.

MacNoobGuy · Mar 16, 2013, 10:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocknblogger

Sorry I don't know of any videos. As for setting it up, you can do it on the fly but if you take the time to set it up properly in the beginning it'll work better for you. If you try to do it on the fly it could become a mess. If organization is a problem for you doing it on the fly probably won't work that well in the end. If you set it up GTD style but for your own needs it'll force you to be diligent and consistent.

oh, ok thanks.

Beau Nash · Mar 17, 2013, 08:56 AM

Re: Security

Evernote don't encrypt your data on their servers because (they claim that) this will impair searching. And Evernote's immensely powerful search function is probably their USP.

You can encrypt free text in your notes but it's not strong encryption AFAIK (not sure of the algorithm and I don't think it's 128 bit but please correct if I'm wrong).

On the other hand, you can encrypt PDFs and other documents at source before uploading which is probably more robust - at least 128 bit encryption. There's also no reason why you couldn't upload a Truecrypt encrypted file, encrypted zip file, or sparse image if you so wished.

As to organising/organizing in Evernote, there's no "correct" way. And there doesn't need to be because of the aforementioned searching abilities. Some use loads of notebooks and stacks; others use one or two notebooks and a well-thought out tagging system. Evernote will search titles and text and if you have a Premium account, it'll OCR in your PDFs so you can search them too. It can also OCR in uploaded images.

Evernote isn't perfect and recent OSX and iOS upgrades have been flaky to say the least but it's still a very good platform-agnostic system.

And just to throw another option in the mix - Springpad. Free and with iOS and Android mobile apps but desktop access is via a web interface rather than a desktop client. Same security issues as Evernote and seems more designed for the Facebook/Pinterest crowd to share stuff but has some really nice ideas including things like an integrated barcode reader.

For what it's worth, I use an elaborate Evernote-iCloud-DropBox-SugarSync arrangement. A new cloud service called "Cubby" by the folks at logmein showed promise in beta with some neat USPs like local syncing (i.e. not over the cloud) but then they crippled all the good stuff unless you paid for the 100GB package.

MacNoobGuy · Mar 18, 2013, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beau Nash

Re: Security

Evernote don't encrypt your data on their servers because (they claim that) this will impair searching. And Evernote's immensely powerful search function is probably their USP.

You can encrypt free text in your notes but it's not strong encryption AFAIK (not sure of the algorithm and I don't think it's 128 bit but please correct if I'm wrong).

On the other hand, you can encrypt PDFs and other documents at source before uploading which is probably more robust - at least 128 bit encryption. There's also no reason why you couldn't upload a Truecrypt encrypted file, encrypted zip file, or sparse image if you so wished.

As to organising/organizing in Evernote, there's no "correct" way. And there doesn't need to be because of the aforementioned searching abilities. Some use loads of notebooks and stacks; others use one or two notebooks and a well-thought out tagging system. Evernote will search titles and text and if you have a Premium account, it'll OCR in your PDFs so you can search them too. It can also OCR in uploaded images.

Evernote isn't perfect and recent OSX and iOS upgrades have been flaky to say the least but it's still a very good platform-agnostic system.

And just to throw another option in the mix - Springpad. Free and with iOS and Android mobile apps but desktop access is via a web interface rather than a desktop client. Same security issues as Evernote and seems more designed for the Facebook/Pinterest crowd to share stuff but has some really nice ideas including things like an integrated barcode reader.

For what it's worth, I use an elaborate Evernote-iCloud-DropBox-SugarSync arrangement. A new cloud service called "Cubby" by the folks at logmein showed promise in beta with some neat USPs like local syncing (i.e. not over the cloud) but then they crippled all the good stuff unless you paid for the 100GB package.

oh ok thanks bro.

how do you use Truecrypt with Evernote? can you explain that please? sounds like a good idea.

thanks a lot!

----------

how do i use Evernote offline on an iPod Touch by the way?

Jessica Lares · Mar 18, 2013, 08:44 AM

Hi there, saw your PM and thought I'd reply here instead of there...

I use Evernote for multiple things.

1) There's a newsletter I subscribe to, and I save all the little notes at the bottom that are mainly nice bits of further reading, or a list of things to think about. I use Printopia to "print" the articles that are linked in the newsletter to Evernote for later reading, and I use MacTubes to pull out any YouTube videos mentioned.

That same guy has a blog, and I save that in an additional notebook.

2) I save my class notes. I write my notes in a tiny notebook that I've been using for a year and a half now, and then I get up the next day and write them again in Evernote with proper formatting, tables, and all that nice stuff. I make note of all the videos our teacher showed us, and do the same thing as I do with the newsletter. I also pull stuff from Wikipedia and other sites with the "printer" that is briefly mentioned.

3) I have a notebook for inspiration, and then another for manuals (seemed like the best place to put those

). I also keep one for tutorials. Stuff on the internet is not really permanent, like in the sense that if you don't save it, you're going to have a hard time finding it down the road if all you have is a bookmark in Safari. So I have a lot of stuff in my Evernote account like that.

I'm not too worried about Evernote in general, but it was like the third or fourth account that was leaked in the last year. I'm very worried about identity theft at this point (I do keep an eye on my credit score though).

Since a lot of people mainly use it for educational purposes, it's not a big threat. No one wants to download a goldmine of 100TB of someone's lectures. The same thing with to-dos. I don't use Evernote for to-dos, but I know some people here might. The Smart Notebook they have is especially designed for that (I have yet to use mine though).

They have an API too, so I guess better encryption could actually hurt developers?

But yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. The service is getting better everyday, and I would still highly recommend it. If they see it as big of an issue, they'll up the security, which they have with the two-factor authentication for now.

Beau Nash · Mar 18, 2013, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacNoobGuy

oh ok thanks bro.

how do you use Truecrypt with Evernote? can you explain that please? sounds like a good idea.

thanks a lot!

----------

how do i use Evernote offline on an iPod Touch by the way?

Ignore that comment. I got it wrong about uploading. You can, however, encrypt your local Evernote database as a Truecrypt volume to keep your local stuff secure but you can only upload encrypted PDFs and other docs that have been encrypted by apps.

Truecrypt with DropBox works well for sensitive stuff though (but that wasn't the point of your post).

Here's a blog piece on Evernote's attitude toward security from 2008; I don't think their thoughts have changed much since then.

MacNoobGuy · Mar 20, 2013, 08:35 AM

ok thanks. one thing i wanted to know was if Evernote does reminders or a calendar when something important is coming up?

i'll reply to the other messages when i get off work.

Beau Nash · Mar 20, 2013, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacNoobGuy

ok thanks. one thing i wanted to know was if Evernote does reminders or a calendar when something important is coming up?

Nope. It's an often-requested feature but it doesn't seem to fit with the company's philosophy of what EN should be.

MacNoobGuy · Mar 31, 2013, 04:30 PM

ok thanks a lot for the help!

think i'll stick with EN. i just wanted to know if someone could recommend a guide on how to 'best use' Evernote? i really need help with this because i feel like i'm being overwhelmed!

rocknblogger · Mar 31, 2013, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MacNoobGuy

ok thanks a lot for the help!

think i'll stick with EN. i just wanted to know if someone could recommend a guide on how to 'best use' Evernote? i really need help with this because i feel like i'm being overwhelmed!

You can try the following books. The first one is $2.99 and the bottom link is $1.99 and its newer so it may cover some newer features. I honestly don't know if the first one was updated since it's publishing.
http://www.amazon.com/Hour-Guide-Mas.../dp/B009ZIU9SQ

By the way, if you're a Prime member you can read it for free.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-G...evernote+bible

Mar 16, 2013, 02:17 PM	#51
James Craner macrumors 65816 Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Bristol, UK	If anyone else is looking at this thread, and does not have a requirement to have a Windows solution as well, and is interested in the OmniFocus workflow. David Sparks of MacPower Users has a number of great screencasts on using OmniFocus that can be found at his Blog. Even if you use OmniFocus at the moment I think you will get something out of them. The 3 Ninja trick screencasts will give you a good idea of the workflow of Omnifocus. The last screencast - 'Do Stuff' also gives you a pretty good overview of how it works, before you dive into the Ninja Trick screencasts. __________________ Productivity Orchard Be more productive with your Mac Last edited by James Craner; Mar 16, 2013 at 02:34 PM.
	0

Mar 18, 2013, 08:44 AM	#56
Jessica Lares macrumors 68040 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Near Dallas, Texas, USA	Hi there, saw your PM and thought I'd reply here instead of there... I use Evernote for multiple things. 1) There's a newsletter I subscribe to, and I save all the little notes at the bottom that are mainly nice bits of further reading, or a list of things to think about. I use Printopia to "print" the articles that are linked in the newsletter to Evernote for later reading, and I use MacTubes to pull out any YouTube videos mentioned. That same guy has a blog, and I save that in an additional notebook. 2) I save my class notes. I write my notes in a tiny notebook that I've been using for a year and a half now, and then I get up the next day and write them again in Evernote with proper formatting, tables, and all that nice stuff. I make note of all the videos our teacher showed us, and do the same thing as I do with the newsletter. I also pull stuff from Wikipedia and other sites with the "printer" that is briefly mentioned. 3) I have a notebook for inspiration, and then another for manuals (seemed like the best place to put those ). I also keep one for tutorials. Stuff on the internet is not really permanent, like in the sense that if you don't save it, you're going to have a hard time finding it down the road if all you have is a bookmark in Safari. So I have a lot of stuff in my Evernote account like that. I'm not too worried about Evernote in general, but it was like the third or fourth account that was leaked in the last year. I'm very worried about identity theft at this point (I do keep an eye on my credit score though). Since a lot of people mainly use it for educational purposes, it's not a big threat. No one wants to download a goldmine of 100TB of someone's lectures. The same thing with to-dos. I don't use Evernote for to-dos, but I know some people here might. The Smart Notebook they have is especially designed for that (I have yet to use mine though). They have an API too, so I guess better encryption could actually hurt developers? But yeah, I wouldn't worry too much. The service is getting better everyday, and I would still highly recommend it. If they see it as big of an issue, they'll up the security, which they have with the two-factor authentication for now. __________________  Have You Hugged Your Mac Today? Daily Expressions \| Power Mac G5 \| Late 2011 13" MacBook Pro \| iPod Nano (7G) \| iPod Shuffle (2012) \| iPad Mini
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Mar 17, 2013, 08:56 AM	#54
Beau Nash macrumors newbie Join Date: Nov 2012 Location: York, UK	Re: Security Evernote don't encrypt your data on their servers because (they claim that) this will impair searching. And Evernote's immensely powerful search function is probably their USP. You can encrypt free text in your notes but it's not strong encryption AFAIK (not sure of the algorithm and I don't think it's 128 bit but please correct if I'm wrong). On the other hand, you can encrypt PDFs and other documents at source before uploading which is probably more robust - at least 128 bit encryption. There's also no reason why you couldn't upload a Truecrypt encrypted file, encrypted zip file, or sparse image if you so wished. As to organising/organizing in Evernote, there's no "correct" way. And there doesn't need to be because of the aforementioned searching abilities. Some use loads of notebooks and stacks; others use one or two notebooks and a well-thought out tagging system. Evernote will search titles and text and if you have a Premium account, it'll OCR in your PDFs so you can search them too. It can also OCR in uploaded images. Evernote isn't perfect and recent OSX and iOS upgrades have been flaky to say the least but it's still a very good platform-agnostic system. And just to throw another option in the mix - Springpad. Free and with iOS and Android mobile apps but desktop access is via a web interface rather than a desktop client. Same security issues as Evernote and seems more designed for the Facebook/Pinterest crowd to share stuff but has some really nice ideas including things like an integrated barcode reader. For what it's worth, I use an elaborate Evernote-iCloud-DropBox-SugarSync arrangement. A new cloud service called "Cubby" by the folks at logmein showed promise in beta with some neat USPs like local syncing (i.e. not over the cloud) but then they crippled all the good stuff unless you paid for the 100GB package.
	0

Mar 20, 2013, 08:35 AM	#58
MacNoobGuy Thread Starter macrumors 6502 Join Date: Apr 2012	ok thanks. one thing i wanted to know was if Evernote does reminders or a calendar when something important is coming up? i'll reply to the other messages when i get off work.
	0

Mar 31, 2013, 04:30 PM	#60
MacNoobGuy Thread Starter macrumors 6502 Join Date: Apr 2012	ok thanks a lot for the help! think i'll stick with EN. i just wanted to know if someone could recommend a guide on how to 'best use' Evernote? i really need help with this because i feel like i'm being overwhelmed!
	0