TEC #032 – Roberto Civille interview (EV)

Posted by pjournel on


TEC-032-20121119.mp3

Hello,

I am happy to present you with the Bronze medal winner of the Evernote Trunk Conference 2012 DevCup, Roberto Civille Rodrigues from the company called EV which has a very cool service which allows you to use your Evernote account with a simple feature phone via SMS.

For your information, the other winners of the DevCup were:

Until the next episode, happy evernoting !

Pierre.

TEC #031 – Evernote powered Moleskine test

Posted by pjournel on


TEC-031-20121102.mp3 (12min 27s)

Hello,

I received  two weeks ago the Evernote Moleskines I bought online (pics are here). Now is the time I share with you the results of the test I did with those notebooks.
Let’s review first the Evernote Moleskine  features :
  • Custom designed cover
  • Smart stickers allowing tagging and notebook filing at the scanning stage (settings done in the Evernote mobile app to customize each stickers).
  • Exists in 2 sizes 13x21cm (5″ x 8,25″) and 9x14cm (3,5″ x 5,5″)
  • Each notebook include a 3 month Premium code
  • Special line to improve scanning and OCR
The iPhone app settings for the smart stickers:

The test

Method
  • On 2 notebooks (1 Evernote, 1 normal) I wrote as much as possible the very same text with a dummy drawing
  • Test 1 : scan of the Evernote Moleskine with the iPhone Evernote app with the phone held parallel to the page
  • Test 2 : scan of the Evernote Moleskine with the iPhone Evernote app with the phone held with an angle to the page
  • Test 3 : scan of the standard Moleskine with the iPhone Evernote app with the phone held parallel to the page
  • Test 4 : scan of the standard Moleskine with the iPhone Evernote app with the phone held with an angle to the page
Page from an Evernote Moleskine used in tests 1 and 2:
Page from an standard Moleskine used in tests 3 and 4:

Results

  • In all instances the smart stickers worked perfectly. The tags were applied and the notes were put in the designated notebook (settings can be changed in the Evernote mobile app).
  • No notable difference in the OCR performance between the Evernote powered Moleskine and the standard one.
Search of the key word “bonjour” :
Search of the key word  ”bidule” :
Search of the key word  ”petit” :
Search of the key word  ”feedback” :

Conclusion

The good
  • The gorgeous cover
  • The smart tickets work perfectly
  • Can be an excellent conversation starter in a meeting to introduce Evernote around you
The bad
  • Not really convinced that the special lines are actually helping the OCR (see my simple test)
  • Might be seen as a little too expensive compared to a standard Moleskine if you don’t take into account the 3 month access to the Evernote Premium service
Overall, as a long time Moleskine user and big fan of Evernote, I am very happy about the Evernote Moleskine I bought.
Nevertheless I have no use at the moment for the 3 month Premium access code as I am already a yearly Premium. I might use the code at the end of my subscription though. The smart stickers feature works great but is it really faster to put a sticker in your note than to tag your note after the scan in the Evernote app ? Not sure. I hope Evernote will include more integration between Moleskine and Evernote.
My recommendations
  • If you are Evernote AND Moleskine fan, you HAVE to get an Evernote powered Moleskine
  • If you are only an Evernote users without already using a Moleskine or another paper notebook, you don’t need this as the added smart features are not that worth it alone in my humble opinion.
  • If you want to introduce Evernote to someone around you, this could be the perfect Christmas gift
Please share you thoughts and question
  • on the blog elephantchannel.net,
  • on Twitter @elephantchannel,
  • on Facebook facebook.com/elephantchannel
  • and by mail TheElephantChannel@gmail.com.
If you want to send an audio comment please mail them to me to share your experience or ask a question.
If you use iTunes, please post a review of the show with plenty of stars, it really helps.
Until the next time happy evernoting!
Pierre.
PS: thank you Eric for your feedback on the Evernote Moleskine.

TEC #030 – Pete Wright interview

Posted by pjournel on


TEC-030-20121018.mp3

Hello,

It’s through Twitter that I got the contact with Pete Wright (@PeteWright). As he uses Evernote intensively in his job as a photographer I thought it would make an interesting use case to share.

In the interview he shares how he uses Evernote to scout for locations to take photos for his clients and how Evernote is part of his workflow.

You can check Pete’s wonderful photos on his superb web site: rashpixel.com

Here’s a pic I took from his website:

Until the next time, happy evernoting !

Pierre.

The Evernote powered Moleskines are here !

Posted by pjournel on

Hello,

Here are the Evernote powered Moleskines (after a couple of phone calls to the Fedex customer service…).

The box :

The big and small models side by side (note that the small is really…small, it fits easily in a jean pocket):

The big one with the stickers:

The small one with the stickers:

The  stickers (6 different sort) and the arrows in magenta:

The gorgeous cover:

To give you an idea of the size, here’s the small model with my Faber Castell pencil:

To give you an idea of the size, here’s the big model with my Faber Castell pencil:

Here you go, next step is to use those nice Moleskines and test the method to scan the content using the mobile app in conjunction with the smart stickers.

To be continued…

Pierre.

TEC #029 – Hussein Ahmed interview (KustomNote)

Posted by pjournel on


TEC-029-20121006.mp3 (13min 36s)

Hello,

On episode #028 I presented you an interview of the 2012 Evernote DevCup Gold medal winner, in this episode you are going to listen to Hussein who won the Silver medal for his very cool web products called KustomNote.

KustomNote basically gives you the ability to create notes from templates. You have the choice of plenty of existing templates or you can create your own.

KustomNote is accessible online only at the moment through a web interface but Hussein said in the interview that he intends to add more interfaces and features in the near future.

Kudos to Hussein for developing such a cool FREE service.

Here’s how to use the service.

1 – You choose a template (or create one)

2 – You create the note by filling the fields of the template

There’s no step 3. You’re done ! The note is created in your Evernote account.

Until the next time happy evernoting !

Pierre.

Twitter broke IFTTT, do you still want to archive your tweets to Evernote ?

Posted by pjournel on

Hello,

Recently Twitter changed its policy meaning the triggers in place in IFTTT will no longer works on September 27th. It’s a pain but one cannot really blame Twitter to try to regain control over their ecosystem (but that’s another matter).

Here’s a cool workaround to archive your tweets to Evernote. I discovered it through a tweet from Jamie Todd Rubin (aka @jamietr).

You can follow the easy 6 step method by reading his blog post.

Or you can use this IFTTT recipe https://ifttt.com/recipes/58229 and modify it with the Twitter account you need.

For more information on all the great stuff you can automate with IFTTT, see episode TEC #004 – IFTTT and Evernote.

I have implemented his method and it works great, thanks Jamie. This method which uses RSS should work until March 2013, that’s still better than nothing (thanks @cybermarmotte for the info).

Until the next time, happy evernoting !

Pierre.

Update 25/09/12

Another solution to archive your tweets to Evernote: twtr2src twtr2src.ogaoga.org

Thanks Joseph aka @tamegoeswild for the info.

Update 16/10/12

Just received an e-mail from IFTTT saying the recipe I used with the RSS method is no longer working.

So we’ll have to find something else to archive tweets.