What will we do with the money? We’re going to invest it into making our product better: more platforms, more features, and more polish (we’re working on Polish, too, along with Swedish, Japanese and a dozen other languages). We want Evernote to be your trusted, permanent and ubiquitous electronic memory. This investment gives us the runway to get there.

I’d like to thank our team, who’ve worked amazingly hard to build one of the brightest companies on the Internet today; our investors, for giving us their trust; and, most of all, our awesome community of users. Your voice has helped guide our product, and your enthusiasm for Evernote was a critical factor in our successful fundraising.

Thanks for finding us and thanks for sticking with us. We’re glad you’re along for the ride!

Whenever you come across a great campground or biking/hiking trail online, clip it into Evernote using one of Evernote’s Web Clipper options. Once in Evernote, tag the note or put into a dedicated notebook.

Find even more Evernote uses and tips at: Ron’s Evernote Tips

• Windows
• Evernote Web
• Windows Mobile

We’re always on the lookout for unexpected ways that people are using Evernote. When we heard about California dairy farmer Ray Prock and his Evernote use, we had to see it for ourselves.

On our recent visit to his family farm, not only did we get a tour of the dairy, but we also learned about the critical role Evernote plays in keeping everything running. Ray, like lots of business owners, has the huge task of managing enormous amounts of information. In his Evenote account, Ray captures information on his cows, including their numbers, treatments and feed details. He also keeps track of his maintenance needs, supplies, notes from meetings, and remaining tasks.

Check out the video below to get a peek at our visit to Ray Lin Dairy.

Download Evernote 3.5 Beta 3

Drag and drop

With this release, you can drag files onto the Evernote application icon to create new notes. Free users can drag images, audio and PDFs. Evernote Premium users can drop any file including Word docs and PowerPoint presentations. If you use a scanner with Evernote, set the scan destination to be Evernote.exe, and those scans will become notes automatically.

Pop-up control

If you’re like me, then you like seeing those informational sync and clip pop-up messages. Some of you…well…you hate them. Now you get to choose. Keep them on, or turn them off. It’s your call. Just go to Tools > Options > Synchronization to change the setting.

Tons of other improvements

• Significantly improved performance when switching between notebooks
• New global hot-key for searching Evernote (defaults to SHIFT+Windows+F)
• Improved search support for Asian characters
• Addressed PDF search issues
• Improved auto-import dialogs
• Improved copy/paste support
• Incorporated more standard keyboard short-cuts
• More configuration preferences preserved
• Improved task tray with easier access to clipping and short-cuts

Known problems

• Graphics and text can appear blurry in some monitor configurations
• Firefox clipper is currently not supported

To everyone that has tried the Beta. Thanks. Your feedback is helping us build a better Evernote.

Download Evernote 3.5 Beta 3

Evernote is great for comparison shopping and researching a big purchase. Trying to decide which TV to buy, or which car is right for you, can seem nearly impossible. Use Evernote to clip reviews, prices and features. Have all your research and necessary info in one place; fully searchable (with links) to help you make the right decision. When you get to the store you can pull up all that great research on your mobile phone.

Find even more Evernote uses and tips at: Ron’s Evernote Tips

Part of Evernote’s Food Month

We recently asked you, our blog readers, to submit some delicious fall recipes. We chose our favorite, clipped it into Evernote, and were off to the farmers market to pick up the ingredients. With goodies in-hand, we met up with Laurine Wickett, chef and owner of Left Coast Catering (and Top Chef contestant), to cook up this great fall meal. Here’s the video of the culinary excitement. The full recipes are below.

By the way, if you’re looking for an awesome Bay Area caterer for an upcoming event, you need to check out Left Coast Catering.

Recipes

Arugula salad with roasted beets, shaved fennel, toasted hazelnuts and blue cheese
Serves 4

• 12 oz arugula
• 16 baby beets ( red, chiogga or gold), or 2 large red beets
• 1/2 c. blanched hazelnuts – toasted and rough chopped
• 1 fennel – cut in half, core removed and shaved thin just before using
• 1/2 c. crumbled blue cheese
• 1/4 c. – ½ c. sherry vinaigrette – recipe follows
• Olive oil to coat the beets
• Salt and pepper

To prepare the beets, remove the beet greens (if any) and save for another use. Wash and dry beets. Coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place in pan and add 1/4 cup water. Cover tightly with foil and roast in the oven at 350F until done. Check after 20 minutes is using baby beets. If using large beets, check after 45 minutes. Beets are done once they can easily be pierced with a sharp knife. Cool, peel and cut into wedges for large beets, in half or quartered for baby beets.

To prepare the salad, mix arugula, beets and fennel with sherry vinaigrette just to coat ingredients, season with salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Top with chopped nuts and crumbled cheese

Sherry Vinaigrette
Makes 1 cup

• 1/4 c. sherry vinegar
• 1/4 c. olive oil
• 1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 t. honey
• 1/2 t. dijon
• 1/2 t salt
• pinch of pepper

Combine honey, dijon, vinegar, salt and pepper and whisk. Mix the oils together. Slowly add in the oil while continuing to wisk until all the oil is added and dressing is emulsified.

Pork and Orange Stew
From: At Home with Michael Chiarello

• 1-1/2 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into bite-size chunks
• Gray salt or Citrus salt
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 teaspoons NapaStyle Fennel Spice Rub or 2 teaspoons fennel seeds (toasted and ground)
• 2 tablespoons Cointreau
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• 6 cups chicken stock or canned low salt chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• 1-1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra virgin olive oil
• 3/4 pound potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
• 12 pearl onions, peeled
• 2 cups shiitake mushrooms, quartered (stems removed)
• 12 baby carrots, stemmed
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
• Gray salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 pound cooked wide, flat noodles
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Full recipe is available at NapaStyle.com

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• Caleb Troughton profile: A food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes
• 10 Ways to Run a Restaurant with Evernote Chef John Andrews shares how Evernote helps him run a restaurant
  

• Mac
• Windows
• Phone: Evernote Mobile Web (http://www.evernote.com/m)
• iPod Touch
• Evernote Web

Part of Evernote’s Food Month

John Andrews is a chef and manager of Victoria Station in Salem, Massachusetts. Over his fifteen years in the restaurant business, John has figured out many ways to deal with the immense organizational challenges of operating a restaurant. With Evernote, John has created a system that keeps him sane and keeps his restaurant running smoothly.

Why Evernote Works For Me

Evernote has become a critical tool for running my restaurant, Victoria Station. Operating a restaurant is so much more than cooking the food–it’s a huge juggling act. My biggest challenge is dealing with the sheer amount of information being thrown at me from every possible angle. I need a place to put it all, and for me that place is Evernote. Getting that finished dish onto the table takes tons of coordination. Here are some of the ways that Evernote helps the restaurant function.

1. Coordinating food vendors

In any given week, I might interact with 10-15 different vendors and purveyors, each with their own product guides and point of sale flyers for any new items. Multiply this by the hundreds of products from each vendor, plus the need to maintain a fully functioning kitchen seven days a week and you can see how it could easily get out of control. To keep it under control, I throw everything into Evernote.

2. Finding new ingredients, creating new recipes

Today’s culinary consumer is well-informed, which makes my job of coming up with unique dishes on a daily basis a challenge. Since I don’t like to limit myself to one style of cooking, I tend to do a lot of research online, especially for new products and ingredients that I haven’t used before. With Evernote, I can clip or email ideas into my “Recipes and Food Ideas” notebook from my computer or phone. Then, whenever I do a search, not only does Evernote display the product, but also any related ideas, along with information on which vendors carry that product. I have also shared this notebook with some fellow chefs so that they can contribute their ideas, as well.

3. Keeping everything organized wherever you are

I spend most of my time in the kitchen, which means that I don’t always have access to a computer during the day. Having Evernote on my phone is a big deal because it allows me to stay on top of things wherever I may be. If I get an email from a vendor for an interesting product or an important proposal, I just forward it along to my Evernote account. Then, later when I get back to my desk at work or at home I can pull it up in Evernote.

4. Getting rid of paper clutter

As a chef, I work long hours and the last thing I need is to waste time reorganizing paperwork (receipts, bills, etc) or spending additional time trying to locate loose papers that become lost in the clutter. With Evernote and my scanner, I easily convert the paper mess into digital notes that are always available whenever I need them.

A sampling of some of the vendor flyers and product sheets

5. Staff training

I have specific notebooks for Wait Management and Service Training. I keep all relevant training documents and information in these Evernote notebooks. Whenever I find something new, I simply tag it (waitstaff, kitchen, management) and then add the name of the restaurant. This way, I can pull up specific information for my current restaurant or establishments that I have managed at in the past.

6. A complete backup of my Food Life

Having all my information backed up and available on multiple computers is an essential feature for me. I ran restaurants in the past, and whenever I left, I lost years of specials and ideas that I would love to have back. Now that I have Evernote, I have everything backed up and available in my account. I’m no longer tied to a single computer that I may not have access to forever. Now, wherever I go, my ideas stay with me.

7. Keep track of your ideas for a website redesign

For the redesign of our website, I created a Shared Notebook to share ideas and inspirations with our graphic designer and webmaster. I clipped images and pages that I liked from other restaurant sites. I also saved all the graphic work that my designer created. The three of us are able to access the shared notebook at any time to pick and choose what we need for the project regardless of what computer we happen to be using. I can also remotely check the progress of everything using my phone to make sure things are being handled efficiently.

This photo is on the home page of our website. Evernote allowed me to save a high-quality image, and then share it with the designer without worrying about email restrictions.

8. Collaborative menu creation

The shared notebooks work great for collaborating on creating a menu with other managers and chefs at my restaurant. I also take pictures of finished dishes with my phone, pop the pic onto my desktop, add descriptions and recipes, then share with the others. This way everyone can know exactly what the finished dish should look like, and have a record of each dish.

9. Catering projects

Whenever I need to work on catering projects and functions menus, I use Evernote as a way to keep the menus organized with my function coordinator and day manager. If they have any questions about what type of event it is, how the event should be set up, or how the food should be presented, they can go to my Functions shared notebook in Evernote. There they can access the contract, menu, table setting, and food instructions. I keep everything tagged with the name of the event for easy searching.

10. A system designed by Me for Me

The best thing about Evernote, is that the system is completely open. It is really only limited by your imagination. Evernote is so flexible that I was able to adapt it to work specifically for me. Once I came up with my system it was able to do everything I needed. As a chef, I was able to integrate it into my work-flow and perfect it, rather then having to adapt my work-flow to fit into an already established system.

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• Caleb Troughton profile: A food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes

Podcast #12 (season 1 finale) topics

• Advertising in Evernote [interested in becoming an advertiser?]
• Total Recall by Gordon Bell [buy the book]
• Integration spotlight: reQall for iPhone [related post]
• Clipping webpages from the iPhone [how to]
• Help improve our handwriting recognition in your language [related post]
• Twitter questions, use cases, and a new analogy

Call me!

We’ve set up a voicemail box just for you. Call us and tell us how you use Evernote-–don’t forget to tell us your name and where you’re from. We’ll choose the best ones and play them in our podcast. Call +1 (347) 497-3572 and leave a message.

Any questions?

Have a question you’d like us to cover in a future podcast? Leave it in the comments section or send a tweet with the hashtag #EvernotePodcast.

Here’s a short tale of my list-making woes: I’m going shopping and I need olive oil, so I write down “olive oil.” This somewhat sensible decision quickly turns into 20 minutes spent staring blankly at the supermarket’s wall of olive oils. Or when traveling, I’ll write “visit the Corn Palace” only to misplace any relevant information about its history or importance.

You’re right, I should be more organized, but this whole process needs to be easier. My lists shouldn’t be denser, they should be smarter. Enter reQall’s Evernote integration.

reQall in their own words

reQall is a voice-enabled memory aid that seamlessly integrates your mobile phone, email, text messaging and IM into a powerful organizer, reminder system and productivity assistant. reQall lets you capture your ideas, tasks and commitments before you forget, and it proactively keeps you well-prepared and memory-strong.

The integration

reQall used the Evernote API to make lists and reminders incredibly useful. Whenever you speak or type an item into reQall, their service automatically searches your Evernote account to find any related notes. Then, when reQall reminds you of your task, you can quickly call up any relevant Evernote content without leaving the reQall application. It’ll even search for keywords inside of images.

Why this is cool

Here’s a Food Month-friendly example of why this is exciting. You’re throwing a dinner party and you need to pick up supplies. First, create your shopping list by speaking or typing it into reQall on the web or your iPhone.

Once at the store, tap on “Zinfandel,” and reQall brings up the note in Evernote of a Zinfandel you loved while on a trip through wine country. Need some wine glasses? Good thing you clipped the page from Crate and Barrel into Evernote.

The beauty of all this is that it’s incredibly simple and doesn’t require changing your workflow. From shopping to event planning to business meetings to travel, everything you need to remember is right at your fingertips. No extra effort required.

Get reQall

The Evernote integration is a part of reQall Pro. Sign up for reQall on their website, upgrade to Pro, then link your Evernote account from the Settings menu. Make sure to get reQall for iPhone from the AppStore. Learn more from reQall.

Limited time offer: 20% OFF

For a limited time, reQall is offering Evernote users a 20% discount off of reQall Pro. Get it now »

The Evernote API

Learn more about the Evernote API on our developer page, and join the many hundreds of developers currently working with the Evernote API to create new and exciting integrations.

Our translation program is moving along at an incredibly fast pace thanks to the tremendous effort of hundreds of lovely Evernoters from across the globe. In fact, things are going so well that we’re looking to translate Evernote into even more languages. Here’s the latest list:

The new languages

• Japanese
• Dutch
• Finnish
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Portuguese (Brazilian)
• Swedish

These are in addition to the languages that we are either currently working on or already support:

• French
• German
• Italian
• Spanish
• Russian

If you would like to help, please go to our translation program site and get started. Even more language are coming soon. Stay tuned.

Write for us

We’re simultaneously running another project aimed at improving our handwriting recognition in some of these languages. You can help by sending us a sample of your handwriting. Check out our recent blog post explaining this project.

Blog: Food Goes In Mouth
Twitter: @foodgoesinmouth

Part of Evernote’s Food Month

Caleb Troughton is a web developer, blogger, and Evernote user from the Central California coast. His blog, Food Goes In Mouth, follows him through experimentation, development, and cooking of fantastic original recipes.

Caleb describes his cooking style as daring and instinctive; he rarely sticks to straightforward recipes–rather, he often plays with ingredients and always takes photos of his delicious and, occasionally, unexpected creations.

How does Evernote help you?
I use Evernote to record ingredients and recipes for my shopping, cooking, and blogging. During my day job, whenever a recipe inspiration hits me, I record the idea in a text note. Before I go to the store, I look over my notes and start testing things in the kitchen. I am constantly editing and revising the note as I go. Evernote is my whiteboard. It’s where I can play around with flavors in my head, without needing to be in the kitchen all day long. Over time, these notes evolve into complete recipes and eventually blog posts.

Here’s an example of a recipe brainstorm, which led to the recipe below:

Caleb shared one of his original recipes with us. You can clip the recipe below.

Vegan Umami Risotto (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Arborio rice
• 1/8 cup barley
• 1/4 cup fresh white corn
• 1/4 cup fresh shiitake mushroom, diced (4 mushrooms left whole)
• 2 medium-sized shallots, finely diced
• 15g kombu (dried kelp) sheets
• 2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
• Fresh italian parsley
• Fresh tarragon

Instructions:

• Spread the barley out on a baking sheet and dry roast at 425°F for 5 minutes. Set aside for later use. Take equal parts of fresh parsley and tarragon and finely chop.
• Set aside 1/4 cup of this mixture.
• Make kombu dashi by following these four steps. Clean the kombu by wiping it with cloth, soak it in water, heat that water to just below a boil, and remove the kombu. For the amount of kombu I’ve listed in the ingredients, you will want to use approximately 8 cups of water.
• Keep the heat on the kombu dashi so that it stays just below a boil. The dashi will be our stock for cooking the risotto.
• In your favorite skillet heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add shallots and some salt and cook until translucent.
• Add the Arborio rice and roasted barley. Stir, coating the grains in oil and keep cooking over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for two minutes.
• Kick the skillet to high heat. Pour a ladle of the dashi into the skillet. Start stirring.
• Whenever the bottom of the skillet is visibly dry, bring another ladle of the dashi over. Always keep stirring. You’ll notice things start to get creamy and thicker almost immediately.
• After 10 minutes of this, add the corn. Continue with the cycles of adding dashi.
• After another 8 minutes (18 minutes total now) add the diced mushrooms and continue.
• At 25 minutes, make your next liquid addition your last. Things should be al dente at this point. If not continue the cycle until you reach al dente.
• During the last addition, salt the risotto to taste.  I avoid adding salt before this because with all the liquid reduction going on, it may become easy to overdue things.
• When the bottom of the pan is nearly dry, add the whole mushrooms on top of the risotto, cut the heat, put a lid on the thing, and walk away for 3 minutes while the mushrooms steam a bit.
• Remove the lid and stir in the fresh herbs.
• Serve up a pile of risotto and top it with one of the steamed shiitakes.

Visit Caleb’s blog to see more delicious recipes.

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• 10 Ways to Run a Restaurant with Evernote Chef John Andrews shares how Evernote helps him run a restaurant
  

What is Foodzie?

Foodzie is a marketplace devoted to small and artisanal food producers from around the US. They carry an obscene amount of deliciousness (just wait till you see the food photos). Best off all, they help you discover locally-made foods that you never knew existed.

What’s the theme?

As any San Franciscan will tell you, a party ain’t a party without a theme. So, for our tasting, the theme will be Tasty Gifts. Although I’m convinced that anything from this site will make a tasty gift, the folks at Foodzie have hand-selected their absolute favorite products just for us. Personally, I’m a fan of this, this, this, and this.

As a very special bonus, some of the producers will be on hand to tell us about their gourmet vittles.

When? Where?

Date: October 29th
Time: 6pm
Location: San Francisco, CA

Special gift from Yak Pak

In addition to the culinary goodness, all attendees will get a super special gift from the great bag-producing folks at Yak Pak. If you’re not familiar with these guys you need to check them out.

Interested in joining us?

If you would like to join us, please leave a comment below telling us your favorite way to use Evernote. We will randomly select six (6) people from among the commenters. Everyone selected will be allowed to bring one guest to the event. We will contact the selected individual via email, so be sure to use a valid email when leaving your comment. To be considered, comments must be submitted by 12pm PT on Wednesday October 21st. Good luck!

Can’t make it? Don’t worry. There’s more Foodzie excitement to come. Stay tuned.

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• Caleb Troughton profile: A food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes
• 10 Ways to Run a Restaurant with Evernote Chef John Andrews shares how Evernote helps him run a restaurant
  

I just got back from eight hectic days in Japan. It was wall-to-wall meetings with no room for sightseeing, but I did make time to eat a quick bite here and there. And there. And at that place around the corner.

Naturally, I decided that I would photograph every single thing that I ate and put it into an Evernote shared notebook. I had three good reasons for this:

1. It’s Evernote Food Month, and this is a great way to remember your trip (and shortcut all those, “what’d you have for lunch?” conversations with the relatives back home).
2. It was a good excuse for me to buy a new camera and Eye-Fi card (read about Eye-Fi and Evernote).
3. It would prevent me from eating anything that I would be too ashamed to share with the world.

That last reason turned out not to have any impact.

My notebook

Here is my shared notebook of every single thing I ate in Japan. Since this is clearly the sort of content that you’ll constantly want at your fingertips, you can link the notebook to your own account.

The setup worked great. The Panasonic GF1 was small enough to bring everywhere and it took great, low-light shots of the food, which the Eye-Fi Pro automatically geotagged (try hitting “Map it” on most of the notes) and magically transferred into my Evernote account. I did some light editing in Evernote itself (putting in titles, text, and occasionally right-clicking the photos to open them in my photo editing software to crop things non-edible) and then dragged all of the food notes into this shared notebook.

All in all, a great experience! I’m going to do this whenever I go anywhere interesting from now on.

And now for something completely different…

While on my food cataloging spree, I realized this process would also work well for those (clearly not me on this trip) that are keeping tabs on what they eat for dietary reasons. Just make a few small changes to the procedure:

• Photograph only the portion you eat (some of my pictures are of communal-sized dishes, which I shared with several people).
• Add a known-size object (like a business card; yours or the restaurant’s) to each shot for scale.
• Add any calorie or nutritional info as text.

And voila, now you have an always-accessible dietary log.

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• Caleb Troughton profile: A food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes
• 10 Ways to Run a Restaurant with Evernote Chef John Andrews shares how Evernote helps him run a restaurant
  

Download the latest Evernote for Mac now »

The Beta track

For the more adventurous souls among you, we now offer the option to join our Beta release track. By checking the box in Evernote preferences, you’ll get an update whenever we put out a beta release. Although this does mean that you’ll get access to more frequent updates and new features before the rest of the Evernote-using population, it also means that you’ll be trying a less stable build. This isn’t meant to be for everyone, but if you do try it you’ll be helping us improve Evernote. Thanks.

More languages

Our translation project is beginning to bear fruit. If your Mac is set to French, German, Italian, or Spanish, the Evernote interface will now show up in that language. The process of improving the text recognition is still ongoing. In fact, you can help us by submitting a handwriting sample here.

Safari toolbar

We recently learned that our Safari clipper was acting in ways unbefitting a friendly elephant–causing other toolbar items to disappear (1Password) or disappearing itself. In this update, we hope to have fixed the problem, though we’ve heard reports that some issues remain. We’ll keep at it.

And the rest…

New features

• Added support for viewing of digital ink notes.
• Improved searching for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters.
• User’s Evernote email address added to the Account Info window.

Bug fixes

• Improved support for importing large ENEX files.
• Fixed an issue which caused a pink error message to occasionally appear.
• Fixed an issue which resulted in a blank note appearing when merging notes.
• Fixed an issue related to searching for notes with words surrounded by punctuation.

Download the latest Evernote for Mac now »

October is food month here at Evernote and so I thought I’d share a personal food-related story about how Evernote helped me save a treasured family recipe book.

The book

My grandmother was an amazing cook. She loved to devise and collect recipes into a massive recipe book, which was a constant fixture on her kitchen counter. Spending time in that kitchen became a family pastime—full of delicious smells and flavors. Some of my earliest and most vivid memories are of standing beside her looking up as she worked her magic.

It has been many years since my grandmother passed away, but everyone in the family still reminisces about her baking. At a recent family get-together, someone mentioned a cookie my grandmother used to bake and how delicious it was. The next thing I knew, my aunt went to the other room and brought out a faded, stained book loosely held together with rubber bands. We all instantly recognized it as The Book.

As we huddled around flipping through the brittle pages, you could hear whispers of “Oh I remember those” and “Mine never tasted the same as hers.” Each recipe, in her familiar handwriting, bringing back special memories for each of us.

This book was important to my family and I didn’t want it to disappear. So, I took it upon myself to digitize it and then share it. I turned to Evernote.

How Evernote helped

Preserving this book was incredibly important. Here’s how I used Evernote to transform this old recipe book into a digital notebook:

• First, I took pictures of the individual pages with a digital camera. I chose not to scan the book for fear of damaging it further, though scanning into Evernote is also a great option.
• Then, I created a new notebook in Evernote and add the images.
• I titled each note with the recipe name.
• Finally, I shared the notebook by going into the Sharing settings on Evernote Web.

With a little help from Evernote, I was able to turn this family heirloom, which had been tucked away in a dusty closet, into something that is now archived and easily accessible by the whole family.

Take a look

I would like to share this book with you, too: http://www.evernote.com/pub/ronoledo/recipes. Feel free to link it to your own account by clicking the “Link to my account” button at the top right of the page.

All those wonderful food memories that we thought were lost can now live on forever, thanks to Evernote!

Food Month posts

• Welcome to Food Month
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• Caleb Troughton profile: A food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes
• 10 Ways to Run a Restaurant with Evernote Chef John Andrews shares how Evernote helps him run a restaurant
  

Download the latest Evernote 3.5 Beta »

What’s new

• Synchronization is improved, it is now both faster and more memory efficient
• Existing users can copy their Evernote 3.1 database into the 3.5 client during installation
• Note editor functionality is improved
• Premium PDF Search functionality is now working more reliably
• Premium users can disable ads
• Single note windows can be minimized correctly
• Thumbnail zoom level is maintained throughout the application

Work in progress

We are aware of (and working through) some problems in the current Beta:

• Graphics and text may appear blurry in some monitor configurations
• The Firefox clipper is currently unsupported, and does not clip into 3.5 on the desktop
• Note text encryption and decryption behaves inconsistently
• Note editing format display is not always up-to-date
• Menus do not always disable properly to reflect context

Download the latest Evernote 3.5 Beta »

If you’re anything like me, then food-related thoughts enter your mind with embarrassing frequency. From recipes to restaurant reviews to gadgets to cookbooks, it seems there’s always something worth throwing into Evernote for later. Without exaggeration, Evernote is the greatest food companion I’ve ever had (sorry friends and family). As it turns out, I’m not the only one who feels this way.

Welcome to Food Month

And so begins Evernote’s Food Month, our exploration of all the many ways gastronomy and Evernote intersect. Throughout October, we will bring you user stories, videos, tips, community projects, giveaways, and tons of other great stuff all around the topic of food and Evernote.

Let’s get cooking!

We’re really excited about our first Food Month activity: seasonal recipe cooking class. We’ve enlisted the help of Laurine Wickett, chef and owner of Left Coast Catering (and Top Chef contestant) to use Evernote to put a new twist on your favorite seasonal recipes.

UPDATE: The video is up! Thanks Kanton for the recipe suggestion.

How it works

Leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite fall main and side dishes. You can either give us the name of the dish, a personal recipe, a favorite one, or link to a recipe on the web. If you provide a recipe, make sure to always give appropriate attribution.

Later in the month, Laurine will use Evernote to prepare her favorites from among the submitted dishes for a special video segment.

Lots more to come

Stay tuned for tons of great ideas on how to use Evernote to turn your notable world into an edible one.

Food Month posts

• Cooking up memories: Digitizing a prized family recipe book into Evernote
• The things I ate in Japan: A visual culinary diary of our CEO’s trip to Japan
• San Francisco tasting event with Foodzie.com
• Caleb Troughton profile: A Food blogger uses Evernote to keep track of ideas, food experiments and recipes

We have a big announcement to make…the new Evernote for Windows is here, kinda.

Windows has always been a big deal for Evernote. Fully 46% of our desktop users log into their Evernote accounts through our downloadable Windows version, compared with 38% on Mac and 16% on the web. However, over the past few months our Windows users may have felt a little left out, especially given all the rapid development on our other platforms.

It was all part of our cunning plan… Deep inside our secret lair, we’ve been discreetly (errr not so discreetly) working on a complete, from-the-ground-up rewrite of Evernote for Windows. The goal: make it faster, sleeker, more powerful, and—most importantly—easier to enhance in the future. Now, you can see the results in the brand new Evernote for Windows 3.5 Beta. We think it’s pretty neat. Get Evernote 3.5 Beta »

What’s new?

Evernote for Windows 3.5 has dozens of visible and under-the-hood improvements. In a nutshell, you’ll be able to capture stuff faster, find it easier, store more of it, and manipulate it in more powerful ways. It’s also quite handsome. Here are some of the changes:

Three different ways to view your notes

• Thumbnail view: Rendered thumbnails showing the contents of your notes, images, and PDFs for easy browsing and filtering
• List view: Multi-column “List View” with sorting on any column
• Mixed view: Mixed thumbnail + detail view
• Can zoom thumbnails to see more detail
• Can display thumbnail or mixed views in visual groupings by date, size, source URL domain, and start of title

Note editing

• Auto-complete tagging and easier tag creation
• Spell checking as you type
• Better support for advanced markup
• Can now create tables within notes
• Can specify default font size for text in notes
• Better handling of longer text notes
• Creating ink notes in easier with the new canvas-like layout

More functions available in single-note editor window

• Detailed note information and attributes
• Emailing notes
• Printing notes

Editable description of the search filter

• Ability to add or remove individual criteria from current search filter
• Save the current search for use later as a Saved Search

And so much more…

• Find and Find next/find previous (both within and across notes)
• Better consistency across the Mac and Windows versions of Evernote
• New icons and buttons
• More user-friendly “Folder Import” feature to automatically create notes from a watched folder–great for scanner and other integrations
• “View on Map” button opens geo-tagged notes in Google Maps
• Evernote for Windows introduction video included on launch
• Multi-lingual spell check included in application
• Quick access to your online account information
• Improved screen clipping requiring fewer steps, with on-screen explanations
• Menu options for attaching files to notes without requiring drag-and-drop
• Extend note search capabilities with ANY or ALL search criteria
• Remove tags from notes with a single click
• Advanced note text editor based on Google Chrome
• Improved synchronization performance via networking optimizations
• Improved database performance for faster searching and sorting of notes
• Single binary for all supported languages

Why is it in Beta?

We see Evernote 3.5 as a big (BIG) improvement in terms of features, performance and stability, but it’s such a big change that we want people to use it for a couple of months before it becomes the official version. This means that we won’t be auto-upgrading current users just yet. If you’re new to Evernote for Windows, by all means download and start using the 3.5 Beta. If you’re an existing user of 3.1, you’ll have to follow a few simple steps to migrate to 3.5:

1. Export any local notebooks
2. Completely quit Evernote 3.1 (including the taskbar clipper)
3. Install Evernote 3.5 Beta
4. Allow Evernote to sync your notes from the server (this make take some time)
5. Import the local notebooks

Once Evernote 3.5 is ready for primetime, we will allow everyone to automatically upgrade to it. In the meantime, you can use both on the same machine or just keep using 3.1.

Which versions of Windows?

The Evernote 3.5 beta uses the latest Microsoft development frameworks so it runs great on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. If you’re running Windows XP, particularly on a fairly old computer, you may notice some graphical glitches. We’re working to fix these problems, but if the 3.5 Beta doesn’t work well on your configuration, you should switch back to 3.1.

What’s next?

Now that we’ve made the investment in modernizing the Evernote for Windows codebase, we’ll be able to release future enhancement much more rapidly. Look for lots of exciting features in the near future.

Big, big thanks to the hundreds of people who participated in our alpha testing!

Get Evernote 3.5 Beta »

Updates!

Evernote for Windows Beta keeps getting better:

• Evernote 3.5 Beta 2: read about it
• Evernote 3.5 Beta 3: read about it

Podcast #11 topics

• Evernote’s business model [New York Times article]
• Evernote for Snow Leopard [blog post]
• JotNot integration [blog post]
• New video: Evernote to the Rescue [link]
• The new Evernote website! [link]
• Our super cool Rubbermaid giveaway video [link]
• Twitter question lightning round!
• Use cases

Call me!

We’ve set up a voicemail box just for you. Call us and tell us how you use Evernote –don’t forget to tell us your name and where you’re from. We’ll choose the best ones and play them in our podcast. Call +1 (347) 497-3572 and leave a message.

Any questions?

Have a question you’d like us to cover in a future podcast? Leave it in the comments section or send a tweet with the hashtag ‘#EvernotePodcast‘.

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again, we want there to be an Evernote in your language. To make that happen, we recently launched a community translation project to translate Evernote into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. This has been going really well, and now we’re ready to start the next part of the project: optimizing our handwriting recognition for these new languages.

Once again, we would like your help. Below are text samples in the languages we are currently working on. Please write them out in your language of choice, using your natural handwriting. If you make a mistake, just cross it out and keep going. Then, send us the result.

Cool bonus: Helping us means that Evernote should recognize your handwriting particularly well. That could come in handy later.

What you need

• Blank, white sheet of paper
• A pen with black ink (preferably a roller ball)
• Scanner or digital camera

How this works

1. Write out one or more of the sample texts below
2. Scan or photograph the piece of paper (separate ones for each sample)
3. Email the image (JPG, PNG, PDF) to our translations mailbox

Four text samples

• French PDF
• Italian PDF
• German PDF
• Spanish PDF

Visit our translation project page for more information. Thanks for helping us make Evernote better.

JotNot for iPhone is a nifty app that corrects your less-than-perfect photos and sends them into Evernote. Whether you’ve taken a snapshot of a business card at a wacky angle, a photos of a whiteboard under poor lighting conditions, or an off-kilter receipt, JotNot will magically fix contrast and let you correct the angles—turning your snapshot into a straightened, cleaner version of its former self. It’s like turning your iPhone camera into a scanner.

The results are pretty impressive, and (here’s the best part) it’s great for Evernote.

The integration

JotNot used the Evernote API to develop their latest release. The paid version of JotNot allows you to send your improved images into Evernote (you can even assign titles, tags, and notebooks right from their app). Once in Evernote, those images will be processed by our recognition technology and made available on your computer, phone, and the web.

How to use it

• Install JotNot on your iPhone
• Snap a photo of a whiteboard, business card, book jacket…
• Adjust the image in JotNot by aligning the edges of the blue box
• Let it process
• Send the image to Evernote

Voila!

Get it

The Evernote integration is part of the paid version of JotNot. Get it now »

The Evernote API

Learn more about the Evernote API on our developer page, and join the many hundreds of developers currently working with the Evernote API to create new and exciting integrations.

Download now »

The following issues have been fixed:

• Disappearing Safari clipper
• iSight note problems
• Quick Look issues
• Firefox clipper not clipping to desktop (update your Firefox extension)

If you are still experiencing issues since upgrading to Snow Leopard, please contact our tech support.

Hear Brandie debate & debunk life’s
organizing myths on her weekly
internet radio show & podcast “The O-Myth”

Part of Evernote’s Summer to Unclutter Series

My Name is Brandie, and I’m the “The Home Office Organizer”. In addition to being professional organizer, I am also an author, speaker, blogger and small business owner. My specialty is empowering busy professionals with information, technology, tools and simple organizing solutions.

I had heard of Evernote a while ago. Then recently, a friend said she was using it and couldn’t live without it, so I thought it was time to give it a try. Boy, am I so glad I did! Evernote is such an open concept, that, at first, I had trouble figuring out where to start. Let me tell you how I have been using it, and share some tips on getting started. Hopefully, this will help you see some of the possibilities.

3 Ways to Get Started Organizing with Evernote

1. Just jump in

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to use Evernote. Since I learn best by doing, I decided to jump right in. I started with capturing websites, because there seem to be more of those than there are grains of sand. There was a lot of useful information that I wanted to refer back to, but I didn’t know where to put it. So, I captured the link (or a clip of the page), tagged it and filed it away.

2. Use notebooks

I set up one personal notebook for quotes (I post these weekly on my blog) and then had separate notebooks for ongoing projects.

As an example of an ongoing project, I co-host a podcast but I am also working on a second podcast to integrate into my blog. I have a gazillion good ideas, and I was having trouble capturing them. Now, I have an Evernote notebook titled “Podcast XYZ” and “Podcast ABC”. This way, I can take notes, and file them in the appropriate notebook, and everything I need for each project is always accessible.

3. Use tags

What if you come across a bit of information and you aren’t sure what notebook to put it in, because you might forget, and then….Relax. Just use tags. Let’s say I find a podcast show that I like, and would like to learn more about their format for my own education. However, the podcast doesn’t cleanly fit into a single existing bucket? It could easily go in either my “Podcast ABC” or “Personal” notebooks. So, instead of fretting, I put it in Personal and tag it with “podcast”. This way, I can find it later, and it’s neatly put away.

Finding What I Need: The Five Minute Rule

Evernote helps me stay organized. What does that mean? When I speak, I tell my audiences and clients that “organized” means you can find most anything in about 5 minutes. Evernote definitely helps you follow the five minute rule.

Evernote has been great in corralling all those little notes, pictures, snapshots, websites and other tasty bits of information. It’s working wonders so far. I have Evernote installed on my desktop and on my iPhone, and I sync between the two. It couldn’t be easier or more portable! I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.

Evernote’s Summer to Unclutter

Check out our previous post in this series:

• How to Unclutter with Evernote and Rubbermaid in 4 Steps
• 5 Ways to Organize Your Busy Family Life — Guest post by Erin Doland
• 5 Ways Evernote Maximizes Your Organizing Potential — Guest post by Lorie Marrero
• Using Evernote to Solve Everyday Organizational Challenges — Guest post by Deb Lee

Release candidate installation

• Quit Evernote (if you have it running)
• Go to you Applications folder and drag Evernote into trash
• Download and install the release candidate

We’re really excited about Apple’s Snow Leopard release (OS 10.6). It’ll help make future versions of both Evernote for Mac and Evernote for iPhone much more powerful. The current version of Evernote for Mac runs well on Snow Leopard, though we (and you) have identified some issues. We’re working on an update that will be out soon. In the meantime, here are some workarounds.

Safari Clipper

Problem: Safari Clipper doesn’t clip when running Safari in “64-bit mode”
Workaround : Switch your Safari to 32-bit mode by locating Safari.app in your Applications folder, select it, then right-click and choose Get Info (or use Cmd+I) to open the Information panel. Click the “Open in 32-bit mode” checkbox as shown in the screenshot below.

iSight Note

Problem: iSight Note doesn’t save the picture
Workaround: Take the photo using Photobooth and drag it into Evernote

Quick Look

Problem: Quick look for file attachments doesn’t display a preview
Workaround: Double click the file to launch it.

Firefox Clipper

Problem: If you have Evernote for Mac installed, the Firefox clipper sends clipped pages to the web first, instead of sending them to Evernote on your desktop.
Workaround: No workaround for this one. You are still clipping the page, it just goes to the web first. We’re working on a fix to bring back the old functionality.

We’re also investigating a few reports related to synchronization and Spotlight.

A fix will be available soon. In the interim, please use these workarounds.