EverNote

For the last year I have been using an app called EverNote.  For those users of OneNote from Microsoft, it is very similar.  I also found out that Google has a similar product called Keeper.  All of these apps are available on every platform; PC, tablet, and phone as well as having the ability to sync between the platforms. They are all electronic notebooks where you can keep notes, pictures, and website clips all in one spot. The data is stored in the cloud so you never will be without it.

They recently came out with another function for EverNote, called EverNote Hello.  This is a way to track your human interactions by being able to scan their business card, or connect with them when you are in physical proximity by pairing your phone with them.  The idea is that if you are in a meeting with a group of people you can keep the contacts from that meeting and the minutes from the meeting all in one place.  Of course, it will also sync with LinkedIn and Facebook so that you can maintain a social network presence at the same time.  The idea is great, but the business card scanning, which is what I downloaded it for, does not work on my Android phone or my 5th generation older iPod Touch. Apparently the scanning feature doesn't work well enough for a "pleasant experience". I found a way to overcome that by using the main EverNote app to take a picture of the card because I don't want to merge these people into my personal contacts and every other app for business card scanning provides that feature.

I like EverNote a lot.  I have found the syncing can cause problems.  For example, I created a note with a few business cards on my phone and tried to sync them so I could update on the PC through their web interface.  After exiting the app on the phone I went to the PC but only two of the four were there.  It said I had a network problem.  I am sure I can clear that up when I get back home this evening and connect with my home network.  The nice feature I noticed was that one card that was scanned last night from an event that I attended, tagged the picture with the event name as I had just attended it and the end time had not been reached.  It was smart enough to know that I were I was.  A little creepy, but very helpful.

Bottom line is that these three apps will do the same thing.  If you use Windows 7 and above, you can do the same with OneNote.  However, if you do not use that platform, EverNote and Keep are independent of the platform and will perform very well.  My recommendation, along with a comparison article I recently read, give EverNote the highest grades.