Some Reflections on Evernote and MyInfo

Posted by WSP
Jul 22, 2012 at 05:00 PM

A long-winded postscript to this discussion.

Several months ago I decided to follow my own advice by trying to use Evernote for all my note-taking for a book-in-progress. In many ways, I found EN admirable: it was extremely easy to move information of any kind (especially a number of large PDF files) into my EN notebook, searches were speedy, and the tagging system was really outstanding. Best of all, the inter-note links made it possble for me to create several “outline” notes in which I laid out some rough outlines of my projected book, with links to particular notes.

Then, suddenly, a couple of weeks ago, EN stopped syncing. The obvious thing to do was to reinstall the program, but I was under the impression that uninstalling might erase all EN data on one’s computer and that the data would then be downloaded from EN’s servers again. However, this summer I’m in a remote French village with extremely slow wi-fi, and I was convinced that downloading all my EN data (which was swollen with thousands of notes created some years ago) would take several days.

At this point I created an EN ticket and received, within a day or two, a message that I should uninstall and reinstall—but with no response to my questions about the problem of downloading all that data from their servers. Out of curiosity, I checked to see what the FAQ on the EN website might have to say about my problem, and I was amused to discover that the message I had received from the EN help desk was merely a verbatim copy-and-paste from their FAQ. In other words, the EN folks were pleasantly courteous but on automatic pilot.

As I thought about this more, I realized that though EN is an outstanding program, there are some things about it that make me uneasy. On the most superficial level, I am annoyed by their silly advertising slogans (such as “remember everything”—what sane human being would want to do that?).

I noticed that Phil Libin, the CEO, remarked in a recent interview that EN is not meant to be a note-taking program at all; instead it is an instrument for recording all your memories of things like wine and food and people you meet. Sorry, Phil, but I already have vivid recollections of my meals, thank you very much; what I need is a program for gathering and organizing information for my writing projects.

EN’s decision to put all one’s data into a single file also makes me deeply uneasy. Yes, of course, there is always the backup in the cloud when things go wrong, but, as in my case, it’s not always easily accessible. One humungous file seems to me asking for trouble.

Finally (I hope this doesn’t reveal a dark streak of paranoia in me), EN’s monstrously large customer base—something like 35 million, I believe—makes it a very inviting target for warrentless fishing expeditions by law-enforcement agencies. Libin and the other EN executives keep reassuring us that our data is our own and will not be exploited in any illegitimate way, but EN’s leadership will inevitably change in the future (or the company may be bought out), and inevitably there will be changes in policies. At some point it may be very tempting for EN executives to try to mine all that data (just think of it: enormous files by millions of users containing an infinite variety of personal information) for commercial purposes—a la Facebook.

I continue to believe that my syncing problem with be resolved eventually (probably when a new version of EN is released, or perhaps just when I get access to better Internet service at the end of the summer), and I will continue to use EN for lots of miscellaneous bits of random information. But the notes for my book have now been shifted back into MyInfo, that wonderful, solid, unflashy two-pane note-taker.

Today I had a very small technical problem with MyInfo. I sent a note to Petko, the developer, and within an hour (on a Sunday afternoon, no less) I had a friendly and helpful reply from him. I’ve decided there’s a lot to be said for small software companies.

Bill