Monday, November 26, 2012

My Top 5 Evernote 5 Features for Students

Pretty recently, Evernote updated both Evernote for Mac and Evernote for iOS. Safe to say, Evernote 5 is pretty awesome. Each app got a complete makeover and they both look great (plus I still can't get over the fact that I'm in the intro of the iOS app). Evernote introduced a ton of new features into their apps and you can check them all out here (Mac) (iOS) but I wanted to look at 5 features that I think will be especially helpful to students.*

1. Shortcuts: There are certain notes/notebooks that I use all the time. My Homework Planner notebook comes to mind. With the Shortcuts feature in Evernote for Mac, you can add these notes and notebooks to your shortcuts on the upper left hand side, giving you access to your most important information quickly and easily from anywhere in the app. Right below your shortcuts is a list of your 5 most recent notes, which is also helpful for multitasking.


2. Activity Feed/Shared Notebooks: We all share information with someone. Whether we are using shared notebooks to work on a group project or just to make sure that someone else has access to important stuff, shared notebooks come in handy. It's great that now these notebooks are shown right with all of your private notebooks, both on your Mac and your iOS devices. Also, in Evernote 5 for Mac, Activity Feed is better than ever too, so you always know when someone has updated a notebook.

3. Notebook Stacks on iPad: Pretty self explanatory, but you can now view Notebook Stacks on iPad, which makes staying organized on the go that much easier.

4. Improved Page Camera: As students (or anyone really), just because we try to go paperless, doesn't mean that everyone else does. So sometimes we have to get our paper into our Evernote account. There are plenty of ways to do this: scanners, photos, etc. But Evernote has improved the Page Camera from within the iOS app. This is one of the easiest ways to get stuff into your account as quickly as possible.

5. TypeAhead Search: Last but not least is TypeAhead Search. College students are often pressed for time. While it may not seem like a huge time saver, seeing ahead to what notes you have in your account can be really helpful. Sometimes we have so much information in our heads that we can't remember exactly what we named a particular note or what information was where. Now we can see ahead, helping us remember.


What are your favorite new Evernote features? Let me know @OtterMC!


*All of this is my personal opinion.


Monday, November 12, 2012

My Visit to Evernote Headquarters

As I get closer and closer to graduation (166 days and counting), I've been thinking a lot about the things that have gotten me through the past few years. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Redwood City, CA, to visit Evernote Headquarters. As the Student Ambassador, Evernote is something that I definitely cannot picture my college experience without, which made my visit that much more exciting.

While I was sitting in the airport waiting for my connecting flight, I heard that Evernote 5 for iOS had gone live. Talk about perfect timing! I had just enough time to download the update onto my iPhone before I had to board the flight. Needless to say, I spent a good portion of the flight playing with the app rather than doing all the studying I promised myself I was going to do. If you haven't checked out the new app yet, do it now. And be sure to log out of your account once you've downloaded it. Then you'll get to see some User Stories, featuring five of the Ambassadors including myself!



After finally making it to Redwood City, I had the chance to meet up with my fellow ambassadors at Martin's West for some great food. It was so good to see everyone again and meet some new people as well!

Friday morning kicked off early with a workout at Evernote HQ with the Fitness Ambassador, Chad Williams (@AnthroPhysique). It was a great workout. Afterwards, we had a little time to explore before everyone else arrived.



Eventually the rest of the Ambassadors joined us for breakfast, which was accompanied by this awesome gift box.



Even before I opened it, I knew that it was going to be filled with complete awesomeness. I was right.



Lots of goodies from San Francisco, another Evernote Ambassador T-Shirt, some gift certificates from partners, and yes, a LiveScribe Sky Smartpen! Literally five minutes before opening this up I had been talking about how much I wanted to try this pen out. I can't wait to use it in my classes and meetings. Look out for a post on how it works soon.

In addition to all of that, I now have a smaller Moleskine notebook to keep my larger one company. I'll be writing up a post about using these for school as well.



The rest of the day was packed with sessions from pretty much every department imaginable from Evernote. We got to meet with product managers, developers, PR, plus the great people that we email and collaborate with all the time through the program. Oh yeah, and CEO, Phil Libin. Everyone was incredible and made us all feel like celebrities (that may have also had something to do with the cameras following us around all day as if we were on a reality show).

At the end of the day, we got to gather with all of the Evernote employees for drinks and… A S'MORES BAR. Anyone who knows me knows just how much I love s'mores. As if Evernote HQ had not already become my favorite place ever, this completely secured it in the top spot.



Overall, this trip was amazing. I can't wait to go back and see everyone again. If you aren't using Evernote, check it out. Feel free to ask me any questions that you have! Also, check out some of my fellow Ambassadors' posts about our visit:


You can find all of the ambassadors here.