Evernote and "The Wall Street Journal"

Posted by jamesofford
Dec 1, 2014 at 12:48 PM

An interesting discussion in many respects.

The University at which I work provides me with 50 gig of Box space. I also have 25 gig of space of my own on Box, 25 gig on Onedrive, and 15 gig on Copy and Google drive. My space on Dropbox is pretty small, I think I have 2.5 gig there. Most of the stuff that I have in the cloud is on Box. I have stuff in these cloud drives, but it isn’t stored there for use, nor is it backed up there. It is stored there so I can transfer it.

On the issue of data in the cloud-I don’t trust any of my data to the cloud alone. I store all of the data that I need to have access to locally. If a piece of software requires that I store data in the cloud for access, I don’t use it. (With a couple of exceptions, see below.)Given the cost of hard disks these days(even SSDs), storage is phenomenally cheap. I have no particular philosophical differences with the cloud, but I come from an era when networks were not as ubiquitous or as reliable as they are now, and became used to keeping things locally. I back up to a network attached storage device, but that is the only place that my data are found that is not my computer. The data that are on the tablet are transferred through a cloud-usually Box-but they live on the tablet while I work on them.

I also do most of my work on a MacBook Pro. I haven’t had a real desktop computer for years. First a series of Windows laptops at work(Lenovos. Loved those.). My personal machine has been a MacBook or MacBook Pro for the last 10 years or so. With a laptop and a big harddrive, it’s easy to carry your data with you. No real need for the cloud. I prefer having software that uses local data because I can work on it whenever and where ever I like. No network access needed. I have good network access at work and good network access at home. And in these days of nearly ubiquitous wifi I can connect many other places. But the nice thing is that I can disconnect from the webbie-web, and still do productive work. I don’t rely on internet access.

For me, the utility of the cloud is not so much as a place to keep stuff to be worked on, but more of a convenient place to put stuff so I can transfer it to my tablet from my computer, or the other way around. I also use the cloud to distribute files to others. That way I don’t choke up their email inboxes with lots of stuff.

I do have a couple of pieces of software that require the cloud. One is Notesuite, another is Onenote. For these pieces of software the utility of the cloud is that data can be transferred from my computer to the tablet and back. I also have calendaring software that syncs through the cloud. But the authoritative version of all these data is on my local hard drive.

On the issue of “lifestyle” software-I don’t use Facebook, or Twitter or any of those platforms. Not so much because I dislike them, mostly because I don’t see a use for them. I don’t think that anyone else is so interested in my life and what I am doing that I need to send tweets to them. With regard to Facebook, I call, write, or email my friends. I have no use for Facebook. .

I moved from the PC to the Mac a few years ago. There were a couple of reasons for that. One is that I prefer trusting to an industrial strength operating system that has been around for a while(I refer here to Unix, the underpinnings of the Mac). The other reason was Devonthink. I use Devonthink for nearly all of my important information storage. I bought Devonthink Pro Office several years ago. It is still my mainstay. I have tried other software(Initially Together and Eaglefiler. Also Evernote. Onenote has a different place in what I do.)Devonthink can’t be beat. For Devonthink, all of the data live locally.

Like the rest of us CRIMPers, I try other things as they come along. But one of my main criteria for the usefulness of software is whether the software is dependent on storing data in the cloud. If so, it goes lower on my list. I have never much liked Evernote. Not so much because of where it stores its data, but more of the way it works. I had a copy on my laptop but never used it. Last week I deleted it.

One other thing-as a working scientist I need to have access to the scientific literature. I use specialized software to keep track of that(Currently Papers 2.7)Again, those data live locally. The newest version of Papers (vers 3.X)stores libraries in the cloud. I upgraded to vers 3.0, but dropped back to 2.X because of the requirement for keeping data in the cloud.

Jim