Tag Archives: evernote

ReQall v. Remember The Milk, Round 2

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About a year and a half ago, I chose ReQall over Remember The Milk as my GTD/productivity reminder app of choice. I eventually upgraded to the Pro version of ReQall because I liked the idea of adding items by voice and the integration with Evernote. After upgrading to my iPhone 4S though, ReQall stopped recognizing my location and therefore couldn’t remind me to do something when i was near a particular location (i.e. pickup milk when I’m near the grocery store). I’ve been in contact with ReQall’s tech support since October 24, 2011 and they’re in no rush to correct the issue. They say the developers are too busy working on a new product called ReQall Rover. Personally, I think three months is too long to have to wait for a bug fix, especially since I’m a Pro user.
Because ReQall has been pissing me off lately, I’ve decided to give RTM another try. They’ve found a way to use Siri to add new reminders to RTM. I never really used the Evernote integration but it was nice to know that feature was there, should I ever want to take advantage of it. RTM also has the ability to remind me by location.
I tried using the built-in Reminders app in iOS 5, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. If I wanted to assign a location to an item, I had to have the address attached to a contact in my address book. I didn’t really like that I had to create a contact for my grocery store or my pharmacy just to add a location to an item. I did, however, like that I could have the Reminders app notify me about an item when I leave a location, instead of only when I’m arriving or near one. I’ve used it several times to remind me to do something when leaving work or home. I would use the Reminders app exclusively if there were a web interface through iCloud to add items more quickly and if there were a way to dictate a list of items to Siri and have her/it recognize it as a list and create one entry per item (instead of one entry for the entire list).

 

Springpad v. Evernote

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I’ve been using Evernote for a couple of years now; and recently I subscribed to their Premium service. For the last few months now, I’ve been trying out a competitor to Evernote – Springpad.
While Evernote has a client for Windows and Mac OS X PCs, Springpad is only available through a web browser. Both though have apps for iOS and Android devices.
Springpad recognizes what you’re “clipping” and classifies it accordingly. If you clip a recipe from a website, it will mark it as a recipe to make finding it later much easier. Springpad considers recipes as copyrighted material, so they link to the recipe online instead of including the directions. The downside is that if a recipe you have stored winds up getting deleted, you lose the directions. The only solution is to manually copy and paste the directions from the recipe into your note. I was going to use Springpad for this reason but immediately changed my mind when I learned it only linked to the instructions.
One feature I do like about Springpad involves remembering movies. Let’s say you’re really looking forward to a movie coming to the theaters. If you add it to Springpad, you’ll receive alerts when it’s

  • released to the movie theaters
  • available on DVD/Blu-ray
  • available on Netflix

Unlike Evernote, Springpad can scan a barcode and add the appropriate item to your notebook.

Will I switch? Probably not right now. There are still a lot of things I find useful with Evernote. I would like it if they added some of the features already available in Springpad (auto-detection of note type, barcode scanning, alerts). Until then, I’ll use Springpad when it’s the better app to use; otherwise I’ll stick with Evernote.

Below are videos about Springpad and Evernote created by each company.


 

Genius Scan

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Genius ScanI found a very cool program for my iPhone called Genius Scan. It comes in a free version and a ‘plus’ version, for $2.99, called Genius Scan+. Both versions allow you to

  • Scan a picture with the camera or pick one from the library.
  • Crop and straighten your page thanks to Genius Scan frame autodetection and perspective correction.
  • Enhance your document. Genius Scan turns your grayish documents into real black and white. And it makes color documents look more vivid.
  • Group pages together to easily create PDF documents.
  • Quickly copy documents to your computer via Wifi sharing
  • Share your documents by email or export them to iBooks

The ‘plus’ version allows you to export your documents to Dropbox, Evernote or Google Docs.
I decided to upgrade to the ‘plus’ version since I use Dropbox and Evernote a lot.

 

Evernote

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I’ve been using Evernote for a while now, so much so that I’m surprised I haven’t written about it yet. The beauty of Evernote is that it can help you remember anything. You can type a text note, clip a web page, snap a photo or grab a screenshot. It’s all searchable too!! Premium users get priority image recognition, though. I’ve been using Evernote recently to keep track of different jewelers my girlfriend and I have visited and engagement rings we’ve looked at. I took photos of the business cards of the associates who assisted us. On the back of the cards are the specifications about the ring(s) my girlfriend liked. I can go back and search for keywords in the specs and view the entire card. I don’t have to keep track of the original card. As long as I have an Internet connection, I can also view the notes on my iPhone. If I mark a note as a favorite, I can view it even if I don’t have Internet access.
Premium accounts can upload 500MB/month (free users only get 40MB/month) and notes up to 50MB in size (free users can only upload notes <25MB). One nice feature about Evernote is it can be configured to monitor selected folders for importing files. I have mine set to monitor my Dropbox folder on my home PC. I wish Evernote offered a referral system, similar to Dropbox, and would grant additional upload capacity (10MB?) per month for each referral.

 

ReQall v. Remember The Milk

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For a while now, I’ve been using ReQall to remember tasks that needed to get done. I tried using Remember The Milk but didn’t like that the iPhone app wasn’t free (you had to sign up for a Pro account). Now, RTM has decided to offer the iPhone app for use with free accounts but limited the functionality. The limits imposed on the free accounts are very similar to what you get for free from ReQall.
One thing I do like about ReQall (should I ever upgrade to Pro) is the integration with Evernote. I can add items to ReQall either by voice or text. I can follow my ReQall calendar in Google Calendar using the iCal URL. I can add items using the official Firefox plugin; RTM doesn’t have an official plugin.
One of the features I like about RTM is that I can tell it that an item repeats however often, in plain text, and it’ll recognize the time frame; ReQall only gives you a dropdown menu to choose from. RTM has a tighter integration with Google Calendar but I like being able to turn the calendar on/off when a day/week gets too crowded with appointments/tasks. RTM allows you to tag an item with a location, regardless of the account type; this feature is only available to ReQall Pro users. The free version of RTM only syncs once a day, whereas ReQall Standard syncs constantly.
They both offer something that the other only includes in the pay version, so I’m going to keep using both until I can decide on one over the other. If I ever do pay for one, right now I would pay for ReQall Pro.