Free is Good……….but…..

I recently had to deal with yet another casualty resulting from the recent re-imaging of my work computer.  You see, I’m a big fan of www.giveawayoftheday.com, which is a site that offers free applications that you can install and run.  We’re not talking neutered trialware, but the full mojo apps.  The kicker is that the apps have to be installed within a 24-hour period, after which the installer no longer functions.  A great way to get applications that you would normally have to pay for.

By far, the most valuable tool I obtained from the site was the full Pro version of Evernote 2.  Evernote 2 was an amazing information collection tool, with web page capture, note taking, Outlook message importing, and a host of other really cool capabilities.  What set Evernote 2 apart from other tools (at least for me) was the blinding fast search combined with the auto-categorization of items, along with sub-categorization in search.  Hard to describe, but very powerful.  No other tool I’ve used worked as well in meeting the need to packrat information.  Evernote 2 did everything I needed, and I would have gladly paid for a license.  But when I went to download it to re-install on my system, a harsh reality came to light;  Evernote 2.2 can no longer be purchased or downloaded.  It seems the Evernote team has changed the strategic direction of the application and has moved Evernote v3 to a web-centric application model where you can access all of the information you collect from a variety of devices.  They offer a free account with a 50MB per month upload, plus downloadable desktop and iPhone clients.  Their platform support is impressive, and I think the model is one that could succeed.

<Sidebar>  There is some chatter in online groups that one contributor to the change in their strategy is because Microsoft OneNote seems to be impinging on the same space.  I can certainly understand their concern, as Microsoft’s release of Outlook essentially killed a number of excellent PIMs available back then (e.g. Ecco Pro).  The Evernote situation has a certain sense of Deja vu about it…….</Sidebar>

I had been monitoring the release of Evernote v3 and actually had already set up an account on it.  But I had also read where the Evernote v3 client does not have the same keyword auto-categorization capability, instead relies upon tagging.  With Evernote 2, I had set up an extensive list of keyword categories and categorization rules, which I am reluctant to lose.  Well, now it seems I have no choice, but to download the Evernote v3 desktop client and see what happens when I import my Evernote v2 data file.  It’s quite unfortunate that they actually stopped selling the Evernote v2.2 client, as I will be forced to abandon Evernote if I don’t care for the new client.  That would be painful for me as I really am not looking forward to yet another tool migration, especially since I had grown fond of Evernote during the past year I have used it.

I’ll post the result of my Evernote v3 test later……