Thing 10: Nota Bene, or else please, don't bother noting at all...

Thing 10 is the first time I have ever used online note-making/file organisation tools, for want of a snappier way of referring to them. As I about two weeks behind, I have tried to keep my observations as unbiased as possible (even though I couldn't help reading Gareth's hilarious reflections here)...

Pushnote. Before I even signed up I wasn't sure of how much use it would be to me. Luckily this was cleared up for me quite soon: it is of absolutely no use whatsoever.

Who are your notes for? And why would anyone want
to read them? Photo by styro

The main problem is that it seems to have cause and effect round the wrong way. As Aidan notes, it is self-defeating from the off if you view people's comments on sites you visit, as the site itself is there to be viewed and explored, and can probably speak for itself far more eloquently than most Pushnote users. As an example, the comment "a wholly remarkable site" on the BBC homepage constitutes nothing more than wholly remarkable hyperbole. Furthermore, the stream of {un}consciousness from 'friends' commenting on any old site is not as effective a way of sharing links as, say, Twitter or Facebook. This is probably exacerbated by the fact that my stream consists almost solely of Stephen Fry who, love him as I do, seems to get a little bit overexcited and just mark everything as 5-starred. I find that his link suggestions on Twitter have far more impact, not least because they're at one remove from the site, and therefore must have taken a little more consideration. (Having said that, one of my favourite Pushnote comments was on twitter.com, and read "this one [site] is good if you have capacity for digital noise". Exacte.) In fact, there are so many things that I could say about the pointlessness of Pushnote that it's pointless to even keep going.

So, if you haven't already guessed, I won't be using Pushnote again. It adds absolutely nothing to my use of the internet. Would Evernote fare any better?

From the off, the premise seems to make a lot more sense. I interpreted it as a kind of mixture of a bookmarking site and a kind of scrapbook for photos and bits of text - essentially what I've been using Google Docs for, as I mentioned here. It looks more professional than Pushnote and is clearly better developed in terms of the FAQ pages and suggestions for ways to link it in with other products (plus, like many others, I love the little elephant logo)! There is some new lingo to deal with - the slogan "remember everything" grates, and it took me a little while to realise that 'folders' are now called 'notebooks'. There are also some little issues which slow you up, for example the fact that there is no way to cancel or abort a new note if you decide it's going nowhere, and the fact that it doesn't copy across the complicated layout of some websites very well. It takes a little bit longer to familiarise yourself with than Pushnote, but then again it's a far more sophisticated programme (sorry, couldn't help it!) One of the features that I particularly like is the facility to email things to your account through a special email address (which is alterable if it starts receiving spam), though the fact that you have to enter locations by latitude and longitude smacks of a bit of self-aggrandizing nerdery.

Sometimes the old ways are the best ways...but Evernote
shows promise. Photo by .Bala

In summary, it's not perfect by any means, but I think that it could develop into a useful tool for me. It could even come in handy for my postgraduate studies next year, as it seems a more friendly and flexible way of dealing with links at the beginning than just ramming them straight into a bibliographic program.