Memonic - an Evernote Replacement?

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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 2, 2016 at 05:07 PM

Does anyone know if Memonic is still being developed? http://www.memonic.com/home

Has anyone experience working with Memonic?

From its site I don’t see anything after 2013. The Windows program downloads, but am unable to get it to open. There is a web version, but much as I like the cloud, a desktop version is also a must.

Thanks.

Daly

Posted by MadaboutDana
Jan 2, 2016 at 07:59 PM

Alas, dead as a doornail. Quite promising when it first appeared - I had quite a lot of data stored in Memonic. But they gave up in, yes, 2013.

Posted by Slartibartfarst
Jan 3, 2016 at 12:25 PM

Reading this discussion, I was interested in Memonic and its potential as a solution to my PIM and KM requirements, so I took a look at it.
I found I was able to download the 35Mb .MSI file to install the Windows Desktop app (Memonic desktop v1.0.0 (Jul 21-2011) installer.msi), and it installed to Win10-64 Pro OK.
I then installed the Firefox add-on (MemonicWebClipper{1.2.1.1-signed}.xpi), and it installed to Firefox 44 (Beta) OK (restart required).

I then started up MD (Memonic Desktop).
MD ran first time OK, but when restarted, kept crashing after briefly displaying its GUI screen, with an error message saying that it had created a crash log. After a cursory inspection, I could find no such log in any of the directories created by the installation.
I set MD’s Compatibility to Vista SP2 and gave it Admin status, but when MD was restarted, it still kept crashing after briefly displaying its GUI screen and the associated error message.
By trial and error, I discovered that if you succeeded in quickly mouse-clicking on a menu item whilst the GUI screen was being briefly displayed, then the app stayed running. Once I had succeeded in getting it to run, it seemed to start up OK with no messing about - this was repeatable.

There was also a “Titanium application” running in the Systray, which turned out to be a SICT (screen image capture tool) with a conventional on-screen crosshairs selector. Capturing a screenshot image with the SICT saved the image to the MD app (database), where it appeared in the GUI on a sort of sequential list on a “corkboard” as a record of a file, but with no viewing capability, though you could put it in a “folder” and “tag” it. Rudimentary data organising stuff. Reminded me of the early Evernote desktop app (so not of much use).
With all the crashing and restarts, I had managed to get 2 SICTs running concurrently in the Systray, and they provided no right-click shutdown option, so I forced them to close via the process Terminate command in Process Hacker, after which they did not seem able to start up again on a restart of MD.

Using the Firefox add-on web clipping tool (MemonicWebClipper{1.2.1.1-signed}.xpi worked fine, but in order to save it necessitated the user having a Memonic cloud account, which I didn’t have and didn’t want to bother with. In the “About this Add-on” at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/memonic-web-clipper/ , it says:
“Use Memonic for free, you don’t even have to create an account to get started. For our different free and paid plans visit http://www.memonic.com/subscription/plans”
- but the 14 (total) reviewers’ comments i- starting on May 14, 2011 and ending on November 2, 2013 - indicate that, though the web clipper might not have initially necessitated having a Memonic cloud account at first in 2011, at some later stage subsequent versions apparently forced that requirement on the users. So, rather redolent of Evernote again, I guess. This is a cynical and hackneyed marketing tactic to rope suckers in at the product launch by offering a “no-strings-attached” loss-leader and then subsequently withdrawing it once the prospects are captive (locked in).

I suspect it would probably work fine if one did have an account, though I am unsure whether Memonic cloud is operational or will be for long, as the omens don’t look hopeful - the MD app is still only in its initial release version, and the Memonic blog started with its first post on Jun. 20, 2012, and there are only 10 posts in total to it, the last being dated Nov. 25, 2012.
It thus seems as though development of the MD app ceased almost as soon as it was released, followed by a cessation to service improvement of the Memonic cloud-based service. Memonic therefore seems to have been what, in marketing terms, is called “a flash in the pan”.

So, all in all, the result showed a few app stability issues for the disappointingly rather useless-seeming MD app., and a cloud-centric service of unexplored but possibly doubtful use. Probably not a real Evernote alternative then.

I would postulate 3 scenarios which I have gone through, currently ending up at No.3 (though for how long, I do not know):
1: I required and was happy to be entirely dependent on a cloud-centric service, and was happy to pay Evernote rates as a user. I probably would stick with Evernote. As a past Evernote user and a Google services user, I know that the Evernote service is pretty good, and probably beats the Google Drive/Documents combo. - and (say) Zoho.

2. I required a purely desktop-based service and depended on that (and backups of same). I would definitely use one or more of the many excellent desktop-based PIMs or KM tools, coupled with a solid contingency backup plan.

3. I required a desktop-based service which gave me the option and the flexibility - if I wished at any stage - to move my database, partly or wholly, to a cloud-centric service and possibly back to the desktop again (for whatever reason), then I would use the OneNote/Onedrive approach. The difficulty with this approach IMHO is that, though it would not lock one in to a cloud-based service at any stage, it effectively forces the user to adopt and LEARN (implies change) to use the MS Office toolset that comes integrated with OneNote - that is, if one wanted to take the fullest advantage of the potential use of that toolset. (This is NOT intended to imply that I advocate the use of Office 365, or the purely web-based and severely constrained “FREE” OneNote functionality.)

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