Evernote and Yinxiang Biji are separate services that are developed in parallel and share much of the same code-base and features (you can read more about that here). Yinxiang Biji Business will offer the same great speed and quality of service that users have come to expect from Yinxiang Biji.

Evernote Business: Already 5,000 Strong, And Growing

Since we launched Evernote Business in December of last year, it has grown to nearly 5,000 businesses worldwide and is now available in 77 countries. We’re excited to see more individuals benefiting from Evernote in the workplace to discover knowledge, help their teams be more productive, and empower employees to work together.

If you live in China and want to sign up for Yinxiang Biji Business, then please go to http://www.yinxiang.com/business. Users outside of China can sign up for Evernote Business: http://evernote.com/business/

With Mother’s Day around the corner, you might be thinking of ways to pay tribute to that fabulous lady in your life. Today, we’d like to give you a few tips for planning a Mother’s Day Brunch with Evernote.

1. Start capturing recipes. As you come across recipes you might want to make, clip them to your Evernote account using the Evernote Web Clipper. Download Evernote Food and use the Explore Recipes search feature to browse recipes from your favorite blogs and websites, then clip them to your Evernote Food cookbook. BONUS: if you use Evernote Food, the recipes you save within the app and in Evernote will show up in your Evernote Food cookbook.
2. Plan your menu. Scroll through your clipped recipes in Evernote or Evernote Food, then select the top 3-4 that you’ll want to prepare. Create a New Note in your Evernote account with your Mother’s Day Brunch menu. BONUS: Add Note Links to recipes in your menu to quickly jump to them inside your Evernote account.
3. Create a shopping/ grocery list. Create a checklist of items needed to make your brunch a success. As you purchase items, check them off on your mobile phone (remember: Evernote syncs your notes across all of your devices, so any checked items will be reflected in Evernote, everywhere).
4. Don’t forget the flowers. Clip a few bouquets/floral arrangements you see online using the Evernote Web Clipper. View arrangements side by side in Evernote on your desktop, then click on the source URL of the note displaying the arrangement you’d like to order. Place your order and clip your order summary right back into your Evernote account using the Web Clipper or Evernote Clearly, our app for enjoying a better reading experience online.
5. Skip the brunch, take her out! Don’t know how to cook, or have a great space for hosting your Mother’s Day Brunch? Treat her to a fabulous meal out. Use Evernote Food to peruse restaurants, and book your table using the OpenTable integration.

Evernote and Evernote Food can not only help you get organized around planning your brunch, but also capture invaluable memories so don’t forget to snap photos of your mom, the food you prepare and eat, and any other special touches and items you’d like to remember from the day.

Want more ideas for using Evernote to plan an event? Check out some of our other tips.

Find the recipe featured in the Web Clip above on the West Elm blog.

Getting ready for baby with Evernote

Planning for the arrival of a new baby is exhilarating, stressful, and overwhelming…all at the same time. There are registries to create, nurseries to decorate, pediatricians to select, books to read, and hospital bags to pack. If you’re getting ready for the arrival of a little one here are some ways Evernote can help.

1. Create a ‘Baby’ notebook and share it with your spouse, partner, or supportive family member/friend. Save everything baby-related to this notebook so you have a comprehensive place of reference that you can access from any device or computer and that both of you can update.

2. Keep track of advice and recommendations. You’re going to get a lot of advice from all sorts of people about everything from how best to raise your baby to what laundry detergent you should use. When you receive advice you think might come in handy, drop it into a note. Remember: you can capture notes when you’re at your desktop, as well as with your mobile phone or tablet.

3. Start creating your registry. Download the Evernote Web Clipper and start clipping baby products you like, reviews for strollers and car seats, etc. There are lots of great resources out there; clip blog posts such as this and this that can help you figure out what items you should register for. Once you’re ready to register, remember that all of your Web Clips will include the source URL so can immediately add products to your registry (I used MyRegistry.com, which allowed me to add products from multiple websites into one location).

4. Record memorable milestones. When was the first time you felt the baby kick or had a contraction? Use Evernote to record milestones throughout your pregnancy and keep this habit going after the baby is born.

5. Document your doctor’s appointments. Come prepared for every doctor’s appointment. Create a list of questions you’d like to ask your doctor in Evernote so you don’t forget them when you’re on the spot. Jot down your doctor’s tips and advice, as well as any important updates related to your progress.

6. Capture inspiration for your nursery. Snap photos of decorations and products in-store and use the Web Clipper to capture ideas for furniture, DIY projects and storage solutions. You can visually scan through all of your nursery decorating ideas if you create a tag for your nursery inspiration and search for all notes containing that tag.

7. Save important documents. You’ll be inundated with documents throughout your pregnancy — from doctor’s bills to sonograms, you’ll want to scan everything to your Evernote account so you don’t have to find yourself searching for your insurance information or important phone numbers in scattered corners around your house, your bag, and in your nightstand.

8. Don’t forget to thank your support system. Create a checklist of people to thank for baby shower gifts, cards, and support. You’ll be busy, but Evernote can help you make sure you don’t forget about the people who matter.

9. Pack your hospital bag. Create a checklist for everything you’ll need for your hospital bag. Reference it when you’re out shopping and check off items as you purchase them (your updates will sync to Evernote everywhere you have it installed). Need to double check you have everything before you rush out the door? Pull up your list on your phone.

10. Keep frequently-referenced information handy. Want to know what fish you can and shouldn’t eat while you’re pregnant? Save frequently-referenced information in Evernote and find it by doing a quick keyword search. I used American Pregnancy Association’s breakdown of mercury levels in fish to remind myself what I should avoid at restaurants.

11. Track your eating habits. Download Evernote Food to your iPhone, Android, and/or iPad and use it to keep track of what you’re eating throughout your pregnancy. Adjust your habits accordingly if you feel that you’re not eating enough nutritious foods.

12. Prepare yourself for the big day. Forward your hospital registration information from your inbox to your Evernote account using your Evernote email, create a note with important contact phone numbers, insurance information and your pediatrician, and save your birth plan in Evernote.

Are you expecting? How are you using Evernote to help you get ready? We’d love to hear in the comments! Also, be sure to follow Parenting Ambassador Carley Knobloch for more tips about ways to use Evernote for Parenting.

Bio

David Brown has been writing professionally since 2008. He is a correspondent for The Atlantic and also has standing columns in The Week and Mental Floss. The author of three books, his latest release, Deep State: Inside the Government Secrecy Industry (published on April 1, 2013) had been in the works for two years.

I use Evernote, Everywhere:

• Mac
• iPhone
• iPad

I love:

• My Livescribe pen for writing on paper and having my notes automatically save to Evernote
• ifttt for keeping all of my apps in sync, with Evernote as the hub

I use Evernote for…Researching and writing my columns and books

I started writing full-time in 2008 and have been using Evernote consistently to the point where I don’t remember a time before Evernote! I use it so much, it’s become transparent. Everything goes into my Evernote account — from recipes to notes for my next column. I recently finished my latest book — a project that I worked on for two years — and Evernote was there every step of the way.

For non-fiction writing

For my latest book, a work of non-fiction, I spent a lot of time researching at the library; it’s where the heavy lifting happens. If you’re writing about the CIA, as I was, having access to physical materials was a must. At any given time, I have about 40 books checked out; it’s a colossal project. Often, I only need one or two pages of information from any given book, so I use Evernote to snap a picture of the page in question, the cover, and boom — it’s in my Evernote account so I know exactly where to look when I want to incorporate this information into the manuscript. Instead of going to the copy machine, I can immediately save it to my Evernote account and make this content portable and searchable. That said, most of my research is Web-based, and having the Evernote Web Clipper is invaluable for saving information as I come across it. Research-wise, everything from interview notes to photographs lives in Evernote.

When you’re doing a lot of research, you begin to build this mountain of information. I try to keep things organized, but I’m bad at it. The beauty of Evernote is that its search function is so robust, it does the work for me, so I don’t have to spend so much time organizing things. I have one notebook for the book and I tag everything. The more notebooks I have, the more ambiguous things become so I prefer having just one notebook per project and use tags so I can easily pull up everything that has to do with that subject. For example, I’ll tag ‘military campaigns for the 20th century” with tags like 20th century, military campaigns. I like categorizing things — it helps keep me on track as a writer.

When I get into the writing stage, I turn to Evernote because it’s already my central place for accessing information I need to build my story. Everything autosaves in Evernote, so all I have to focus on is getting the words down.

In addition to helping capture thoughts and research, Evernote is invaluable in terms of collaboration, especially with my co-author. Once you bring in an editor and various other individuals, working on the book can become a headache. Nobody has the time to sit down to learn a new application, so I suggested we use Evernote to share information. Everyone picked it up and learned it intuitively. Having it available on all platforms made it an easy transition and I was happy because everything related to the book stayed in Evernote.

For fiction writing

While most of my work is non-fiction, I have written a novel and, of course, found Evernote to be extremely useful. Every novelist is supposed to carry around a notebook, and mine is a Moleskine that I have with me at all times. It’s funny how often you run into something and say, “I have to remember THAT!” I’ll jot down how kids are playing in a playground, or what a bird looks like. Sometimes, I’ll just snap a photo with Evernote on my phone and tag it for later reference. You never know how it might end up fitting into a story.

For journalism

Evernote is, as you may have guessed, also my main tool for writing my columns. I depend on Evernote to help me stay on top of the news cycle by clipping articles that I can quickly reference as I’m writing my latest column. I create outlines in Evernote for all of my columns, and often have the app open both on my computer and iPad so I can do quick reference checks; it’s great that all of my Web Clips have built-in citations to the original source and are tagged.

Bio

Joelle Alcaidinho is a freelance writer and consultant who splits her time between New York City, London, and Sydney, Australia working with tech start-ups, educational institutions, and retail organizations. As a writer, she covers topics ranging from technology to travel (you can find some of her posts about Evernote on Apartment Therapy). In addition to writing, Joelle designs children’s knitware and consults on UI/UX design for mobile apps. “Without Evernote, I’d be lost,” she says.

I use Evernote, Everywhere:

• Mac
• iPad
• iPhone 5
• Nexus 7
• Galaxy Nexus
• Galaxy Note II
• Microsoft Surface Tablet

I use Evernote for juggling all my projects. Between my travels and the great number of things I have going on (writing, consulting, running my Etsy shop), I needed a tool that could be there with me at all times. Evernote is a place where I can store a lot of important content at the same time, and always be able to access it. I used to have tons of notebooks around for sketching and writing. Evernote has become my digital version of these notebooks.

I keep separate notebooks for all my projects. For example, I have notebooks for my writing for Apartment Therapy, my technology blog, my travel guides, as well as my Etsy store. Because I’m always working on multiple projects at any given time, being able to compartmentalize is vital. Evernote is a great place to store work-related documents, such as meeting and conference notes, as well as more creative things, like pictures of fabrics and yarn that I like, or inspiration for a baby hat. I also create a notebook for each city when working on a travel guide, which becomes the place I keep all the information about which restaurants I visit, maps (I use Skitch to annotate these), and other essentials that I will need when I later craft the guide entry for The Tech Bird.

I use Evernote to save my research. For Apartment Therapy, I cover tablet apps for Android, Windows 8, and iPad, and because I write about different platforms I often change mobile devices from week-to-week. Evernote is the one constant. Coming up with fresh ideas every week is exhausting, but with Evernote I’m able to keep track of interesting apps throughout the weeks so that when I’m ready to sit down and write I always have a starting point. I tag apps I come across with ’roundup ideas’  and also store various templates and HTML snippets in Evernote for handy reference. Half the work associated with preparing a blog post is done before I even begin writing!

I use Evernote on the go. In addition to my tech writing, I also do a lot of travel writing. When I’m working on a travel guide, I use Evernote to take photos of the signs of the places I visit, menus, and anything else I want to remember. My notes are all geo-tagged, so it’s easy to organize them and have all my notes associated with a certain location in the same place. I also snap photos of my receipts so I’ll remember what I ate and can easily submit expense reports.

I record interviews that I can replay later. When I am working with a client on a consulting project, I use Evernote to record conversations. Audio notes allow me to concentrate on the conversation I’m having, while also allowing me to revisit it later when I’m in brainstorm mode.

I’m able to achieve long-term goals. Evernote played a key role in helping me complete NanoWriMo last year. Before it began, I went into Evernote and was able to pull together a bunch of ideas I had been saving for a long time that were related to a novel I was hoping to write. Once NanoWriMo kicked off, I was already ahead of the game and was able to jump into writing. Evernote has been a huge help with my novel and I find the marriage between Evernote and Scrivener to be all kinds of awesome.

I’m able to be more creative by letting go of ideas. Evernote helps me compartmentalize ideas, which takes away the stress of having to remember them. Whenever an idea pops into my head, I always have a device handy. Evernote is consistent and accessible everywhere, so I can capture my thoughts and move on. The effect? I’m able to clear my mind and focus on other things; this gives me the freedom to be more creative. Once I save an idea in Evernote, I know I can mull the possibilities later. This is helpful both for creative and tactical projects. I’m able to stay on top of to-dos and also come back to ideas that I may not necessarily have an an immediate use for.

How do you use Evernote to organize your professional and personal lives? Share your stories in the comments!

One of my favorite aspects of Evernote is the sharing features—Shared Notebooks and Public Notebooks, in particular. I create Shared and Public Notebooks for a range of things that are at the core to my agency’s approach to management, strategy and execution.

Shared vs. Public Notebooks

You can share a notebook with one or more individuals and, if you’re a Premium Evernote user, grant modification rights to other users. You can also create Public Notebooks by creating a public link to a notebook that can be posted anywhere, allowing anyone who has access to that link to view your notebook and ‘Join’ it. When you join a Public Notebook, it will automatically be saved to your Evernote account, where you can sync it along with your other notebooks from any device where you have Evernote installed.

At my agency, we create Shared Notebooks for:

• Events: To easily share information including itineraries and digital programs, speaker and sponsor content, as well as valued resources for attendees.
• Clients: When we sign on a new client, we create Public Notebooks to easily share their content with social networks.

Evernote’s really accessible API allows us to easily create automated sharing scripts for our notebooks, but non-techies can use integrations like IFTTT to automate tasks, such as publishing updates to Shared Notebooks directly to their Twitter account.

Onboarding new clients with Shared Notebooks

When onboarding new clients, we create two notebooks; one is shared with only a handful of individuals and holds encrypted information like email addresses and payment details, and the other includes contracts, reports, and checklists for project collaboration. The second Shared Notebook is accessible by multiple team members, so we can all work together more efficiently. Not only am I able to provide my clients access to their content instantly, I’m able to scale my small business by automating tasks.

Public Notebooks for sharing information with my local community

In addition to using Public and Shared Notebooks for my work, I also create Public Notebooks to contribute to my local community. My Emergency Preparation notebook, created for Newark, NJ and its surrounding areas during Hurricane Irene, is a model that communities can use to easily prepare for major emergencies and, wireless Internet permitting, disseminate information quickly. In this Public Notebook, users will find emergency checklists, FEMA information and local emergency numbers. Gaining access to these resources quickly and easily can make a big difference in emergency situations. (Pro Tip: Save important notebooks like this offline for use even without wireless Internet with the Evernote Premium Offline Notebooks feature.)

Evernote Business

To get the most out of notebook sharing at work, we recommend checking out Evernote Business.

Evernote Business is the optimal solution for sharing knowledge across your organization, and comes with all the features of Evernote and Evernote Premium, plus a variety of new features specifically tailored to the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. Evernote Business features include the ability to create Business Notebooks that can be shared with others, access to the Business Library, where users can publish Business Notebooks for the benefit the entire company, powerful knowledge discovery capabilities with Related Notes and Related Results, increased monthly upload allowance and more. Learn more about Evernote Business.

Do you use Shared Notebooks or Public Notebooks to be more productive? Share you stories in the comments!

When I first started going paperless, my goals were pretty simple:

1. Reduce clutter
2. Easily find things that I was looking for
3. Have access to my paperless data anywhere

I started out gradually. I didn’t worry about scanning in my entire filing cabinet, because I almost never used the paper in that cabinet. Instead, I focused on scanning in all incoming paper. Over time, I began capturing other things like electronic receipts and statements in Evernote so that I had all of my documents in one place. Eventually, I discovered two pleasant side-effects of a paperless lifestyle that I hadn’t expected:

1. I could automate some things that had been manual processes in the past.
2. I could whittle down what I carried around with me to the point where I could carry an entire mobile office in my messenger bag.

These went above and beyond my original goals, but they have made my life substantially easier, allowing me to focus on the things that matter and get things done, no matter where I am.

Automating with Evernote

I took Evernote’s slogan, “remember everything” as a challenge. In addition to the usual assortment of documents I’d capture in Evernote, I wanted to see if I really could remember everything. I’m a fan of personal analytics and happen to capture a whole bunch of data about the things that I do. It’s interesting to look at, and you can learn things about yourself that you never knew. Some examples: I use a FitBit Ultra which counts the steps I take (and the calories I burn) each day. I have key count loggers that count how many keystrokes I’ve typed. This data is collected automatically, and thanks to Evernote’s variety of interfaces, it makes it easy to collect it all in Evernote. My weekly summary emails from FitBit are automatically filtered through Gmail into an Evernote notebook, as well as my key logging data.

But I can capture even more. All of my tweets go into Evernote automatically, using an IFTTT recipe I created. Starring an article in Google Reader will send that article to Evernote.

For all of this I take almost no action, just go about my day as usual, and when I run my saved search for “Yesterday” I see every note that was created. I can tell you how far I walked, how many calories I burned, what I tweeted, what I ate (thanks to Evernote Food), what I read, what came in the mail (can you say “royalty statement!”), what new word my little girl said. You name it, I’ve “remembered” it. I can do this for virtually any day.

It’s always amusing to go into a meeting with someone and impress them with how much information you have at-hand and how quickly you can pull it up. Once I went paperless, there was almost no effort to this.

My mobile, paperless office

I’m also able to work from pretty much anywhere. I no longer have to carry around books, laptops, folders full of paper. I can fit an entire mobile office into my messenger bag:

As a freelance science fiction writer and blogger, being mobile like this means I can work anywhere. Indeed, I am writing this very post on vacation, and while I haven’t laid out my mobile office as neatly as I did for the above picture, here is my paperless workspace:

With this office I can write fiction and write blog posts. I can transact business. That is, I can receive and sign contracts, review royalty statements, and more. I can read books for review. I can edit and annotate photos. I can listen to my music. I can scan in documents with my Doxie One scanner, which takes up virtually no space in my messenger bag.

It seems to me you don’t have to be a writer to take advantage of a mobile office. By going paperless, just about anyone can do it. You also don’t need a bunch of fancy gadgets. Substitute a laptop for a tablet. Use ear buds instead of a noise-canceling headset. Snap images of documents with Evernote on your phone, instead of carrying around a scanner. It still works. There’s only one things that I can’t do right from this very table, and that is print.

But then again, I haven’t needed to print anything out for going on a year now.

Interested in going paperless? Join in on Evernote’s Paperless Challenge and get started!

For those of you whose New Year’s resolution is to go paperless (or just live a more paperless life), we’re kicking off our 2nd Paperless Challenge! Join Jamie and fellow Evernote users in a quest to rid yourself of paper piles.

The Challenge officially kicks off on January 8, 2013 and lasts 30 days. We encourage you to use the next week to get yourself organized and be sure you have the proper tools (Evernote downloaded to all of your devices, as well as a scanner of your choice). Check out the scanners in the Evernote Trunk, if you don’t have one already.

Download Jamie’s Guide: The Evernote Paperless Challenge Checklist

To participate in the Paperless Challenge:

• RSVP for the Paperless Challenge Facebook event.
• Download Jamie’s guide, The Evernote Paperless Challenge Checklist, and save it to your Evernote account so you can access it from any computer or mobile device.
• Save the Evernote Paperless Challenge Checklist document to your Evernote account.
• Use Jamie’s recommended paperless flow and checklist to get started.
• Connect with fellow Challenge participants and Jamie on Facebook, the Evernote Lifestyle forum, Twitter, and your blog (if you have one!). Ask questions, share your story, discuss best practices and keep us updated on your progress.
• Complete as many of the Challenge tasks as possible by February 6, 2013!

Stay tuned for more tips, virtual chats, prizes and more

Be sure to RSVP to the Facebook event and follow @evernotelife on Twitter so you don’t miss out on announcements around Challenge prizes and virtual events, as well as more paperless tips from Jamie and the Evernote community.

The Evernote Pledge

Throughout the holiday season, we’ve been sharing tips with our community for using Evernote to make your holidays better. Now that the New Year is upon us, be sure to take the Pledge (if you haven’t already) to receive occasional tips from Evernote and our Ambassadors.

The Timing:

We’re kicking off the Challenge on Monday, January 7th. The length of the Challenge is 30 days (it wraps on Tuesday, February 5th).

To get started, RSVP to the Facebook event.

The Challenge: Create your own Evernote Workout Journal

Get your workout on in as many creative ways as possible and use Evernote to snap as many photos as you can, logging your day-to-day progress. Here are some ideas for photos you can capture using Evernote on your mobile device:

• Show us how you’re working out at home: lifting cans, doing push-ups with kids on your back, walking the stairs with your dog, etc.
• Show us your favorite outdoor workout spaces such as the park, trail, hill, or monkey bars you use.
• Show us your favorite gym equipment.

After snapping a picture, you can add some text to the same note stating how many reps you did, how long you did the exercise for, etc. Logging workouts is an important part of being able to compare results and visualize your progress.

To help you track your progress, save Chad’s document, “Creating an Evernote Workout Journal,” to your Evernote account.

Find Chad’s document in our Public Notebook. Join the notebook to save Chad’s document (and more useful tips for using Evernote and our products) to your Evernote account.

Tracking what you do and your results will help keep you motivated throughout the Challenge and the New Year.

Be sure to share photos on our Facebook page and Twitter using the hashtag #evernotelife and @evernotelife @anthrophysique.

Get more out of the Challenge with Evernote and iHealth

We encourage those of you who have an iHealth device to share screenshots of your results throughout the month. If you’re not already familiar with it, be sure to read up about our cool integration, which lets you easily keep track of your blood pressure or body composition over time, right in Evernote.

Stay tuned for virtual chats, prizes and more

Be sure to RSVP to the Facebook event and follow @evernotelife on Twitter so you don’t miss out on announcements around Challenge prizes and virtual events, as well as more fitness tips from Chad and the Evernote community. Here’s to a healthy and active 2013!

The Evernote Pledge

Throughout the holiday season, we’ve been sharing tips with our community for using Evernote to make your holidays better. Now that the New Year is upon us, be sure to take the Pledge (if you haven’t already) to receive occasional tips from Evernote and our Ambassadors.

Jump start the New Year with Evernote >>>

*Always check with your doctor before beginning any new exercise regimen to make sure you are medically able to participate. Stop exercising immediately if you experience any pain, discomfort or difficulty breathing.

We were thrilled to see over 300 people join the event and share inspiration, photos of projects, and tips on our Facebook event page.

Here are a few of the things people had to say about the event and how Evernote came into play (shared on our event page):

• Raven M said, “I created a ‘Master To Do List’ note and listed each task that needed to be completed each day leading up to Christmas, including links to tutorials, recipes and ideas. It has definitely helped me stay on task!”
• Amy Vander Vorste said, “I’ve already completed my Christmas projects. But Evernote helps me keep all my crafting notes and research in one place and easy to hunt through!”
• Gwen Wafer said, “I can keep my knitting patterns and notes on my tablet and phone instead of having my projects *and* various pieces of paper floating around in my bag.”
• Sherrie Lee Escue said, “I learned a lot about using Evernote because of the Christmas craft project.”

For more tips on using Evernote for crafting, check out Craft Ambassador Jenni Lathrop’s tips document (save it to your Evernote account for handy access from any computer or mobile device)

We were overwhelmed by the number of fantastic submissions we received. Below are a few that our team selected as our favorites.

Above from left to right: Homemade client gifts (pup treats) submitted by Natalia Martinez, ‘It had to have ears’ submitted by Coral Pearce, Tea Wreath submitted by Betsy Kaage, holiday floral arrangement submitted by Sherri Smith.

Thanks to Chronicle Books for teaming up with us to put together a fantastic prize pack. Without further ado, the winner of the Evernote & Chronicle Books Craft-Along is… Nicole Valentine! Check out more photos of her project, Greenery, here.

Above: The winning entry, ‘Greenery’ submitted by Nicole Valentine

Wrapping up your holidays with Evernote

Now that the holidays are all said and done, check out some tips for wrapping up the holiday season and preparing for an even better one next year.

Join our public note to see this and other tips. >>>

Stay tuned for more community events

Stay tuned for a lot more community activities to help you do more in your work and your life with Evernote’s products and partners. Is there a community event you’d like to see us host? We’d love to know your ideas. Please share them in the comments.