[fr] Evernote est un must si vous avez un iPhone. Cette application vous permet de prendre des notes dans toutes les formes (audio, texte, et image avec un bout de reconnaissance de caractères), les taguer, et les synchroniser via le serveur d'Evernote avec votre accès web ou l'application qui tourne sur votre ordinateur. Il y a également un plugin Firefox. Même si vous n'avez pas d'iPhone, je vous encourage vivement à voir en quoi Evernote peut vous être utile.
Pour ma part, voici quelques utilisations que j'en fais:
- photos de cartes de visite, d'horaires de bus/train, d'heures d'ouverture de commerces
- liste-photos de choses prêtées
- notes de recherche ramassées sur le web
- idées à creuser quand je serai en ligne
- choses à écrire/bloguer
- choses à acheter
- livres lus et films vus
- photos des choses que j'ai laissées au chalet, pour savoir si j'y ai déjà un pyjama ou non
- ... et je cherche encore!
Et vous?
When I told you about my favourite iPhone apps, I wasn’t sure yet whether I’d like Evernote or not, as I had only just installed it.
I now know.
Evernote is your ubiquitous backup brain. It’s a place to store all the stuff you want to remember, be it snapshots (with text recognition to some extent), text, or audio notes. You can add notes and access them from the web, the desktop app (Mac <strong>and</strong> Windows, please), or your iPhone or Windows mobile phone.
If you have an iPhone and aren’t using Evernote yet, do not waste one second. Download the free Evernote iPhone app immediately, and sign up for an account. Even if you don’t have an iPhone (or a phone running Windows mobile), I really recommend you sign up, install the desktop app, and take a close look to see how it can be useful to you.
You should also install the Firefox extension or the bookmarklet if you’re using another browser.
Now that you’re done, here are some screenshots and ideas to get started using Evernote with your iPhone. First, here’s what it looks like:

The little “Tips” tab near the bottom has a bunch of good ideas in it that made me go “oooh” and “aaaah” as I read through them. Amongst other things, I learnt to take screenshots on my iPhone:

You can easily record any kind of note from your iPhone. Take a snapshot, or record some thoughts in audio format. The notes sync with the server, which will in turn sync with your desktop app — so you have everything everywhere.

As you can see, notes are tagged. You can prevent the iPhone from syncing over 3G if you’re worried about bandwidth limits. I’m personally so way under mine that I turned it on.

Here’s a list of what I’ve been putting in Evernote so far:
- business cards (a bit disappointing with the MacBook iSight, haven’t tried with the iPhone camera so far — but I was a bit let down by my high hopes for textual recognition in photographs; expect it to work “a little”)
- bus and train timetables (Lausanne and elsewhere)
- opening hours
- photos of things left at the chalet
- photos of things lent to people (books, DVDs)
- ideas for blog posts (with or without photo)
- things I need to look up or think about
- books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen
- things I want to buy
- “quotes” from books I’m reading
Other ideas:
- recipes
- research material
- & (limited here only by creativity and current needs)
Bus timetable, to come back home from town without missing my last bus at night:

Contents of my drawer at the chalet to help me remember that I already have a woolly pullover, a cap, a pair of pyjamas and toothpaste up there next time I go:

Now, even if you tag your stuff, the pile of notes is going to build up, and you might want a little more organisation. You store notes in notebooks. Here are some of those I’ve created (with the desktop app):

Notebooks can be public. For example, “Things Read and Seen” is online for everybody to see.
As notes may be a little slow to load on the iPhone (and connectivity might abandon you) you can mark some notes as favorites — they will be available offline.
With the Firefox extension, you can put snippets of web pages into notes (just highlight and click on Evernote), as well as whole pages. You can import bookmarks and notes from delicious or Google Notebook.
I’m curious. What are the other great uses of Evernote I haven’t discovered yet? The comments are yours.
Thanks to Stowe for pointing out Evernote to me way back when, even though I didn’t “get it” at the time. Thanks to Julien for recently telling me how much he liked it on his iPhone and how he was using it.