Triangle Trip

Ever jot down your shopping list on your desktop computer and go to the grocery store and wish you had jotted it down on your smartphone? Ever type in an address on your smartphone and wish you had it on your laptop so you could copy and paste it into Google maps? Ever save a password on your smartphone, desktop computer, and laptop only to change it later and have to change it on all three devices?

If you ever wanted to sync notes across all your devices, here is one solution: Evernote.

Evernote is a free note taking tool that is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone/iPod, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile. The beauty of it being available for multiple platforms is that it allows you to sync your notes across most of your devices, if not all.

To get started you first need to create an account on evernote.com. The next step is to download the Evernote application for each of your devices. Finally, configure the Evernote app for each of your devices with the Evernote account you created. It’s as simple as that.

Now you can use the Evernote application to jot down all your notes on whichever device and you will have access to all your notes regardless of device. You can configure the Evernote application on each of your devices to either sync manually or sync every so often (every 5 mins, 15 mins, etc.).

I’ve been using Evernote with my Macbook Pro and my iPhone. The iPhone application is particularly neat because it also allows me to take voice and picture notes with a timestamp AND a location-stamp.

I discovered Evernote when I was trying to find an alternative to MS Office OneNote for the Mac, which leads me to another feature of Evernote. When I was transitioning all my notes from OneNote to Evernote, I was pleased to find that Evernote had a OneNote 2007 import wizard (this is only available for the Windows version of Evernote). I was able to export my notes from OneNote 2007 and import them into Evernote on my Windows machine.  Then, when I synced or uploaded all my notes from my Windows machine, I was able to sync or download them on my Evernote application on my Macbook Pro.

Since I’m cheap, I’m using the free version of Evernote which gives me a limited allowance of 40MB per month on note uploads. However, since I usually just jot down text notes I’ve never ever come close to my 40MB limit in any given month. Also, the free version comes with small ads that are tucked away in a corner so it hasn’t really bothered me.

In my previous post on syncing calendars between your iPhone and Mac, I mentioned that my life was fully synced. Now all my knowledge is n’sync as well, this I promise you.  Bye bye bye.