I use Evernote to collect all of the interesting things I see, wherever I am. For me, a big part of collecting is sharing, so I tend to make a lot of public Evernote notebooks (see: publishing notes). We recently added a new option that makes sharing a lot more flexible: The Evernote Widget.

Here is a widget of funny things I’ve found on the internet:

Think of the Evernote Widget as a portable version of a public notebook. You can create a widget from any public notebook and embed it directly into your blog, Facebook, and MySpace pages. Here is what you can do with it:

• Share notes from any public notebook
• Display thumbnails, titles, and links to the notes
• Search right from the widget, even for text within images

Get your own

Follow these steps to get your widget:

1. Go to a public notebook (yours or someone else’s)
2. Click the ‘Get Widget’ link beneath the search bar
3. Click ‘Add to Facebook’ or click the code to copy it
4. Paste the code into your blog or anywhere that takes HTML

Share your memories as they happen

Here’s how to set up the Evernote Widget to instantly share everything from mobile snapshots to web clips to audio notes as soon as you create them:

1. Make your default notebook public
2. Create a widget of that notebook
3. Embed the widget on your blog, Facebook, or MySpace page.

Now, whenever you create and sync new notes, your friends will instantly see them.

More sharing options are on the way. Stay tuned.

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced multi-selection checkboxes to Evernote Web. Now, we’re taking that once step further with the addition of drag-n-drop.

Here’s what you can drag

• Drag notes between notebooks
• Drag notes onto tags or tags onto notes
• Drag notes, tags, and notebooks into the trash
• Create nested tags

Give it a shot.

The great folks over at TUAW (aka The Unofficial Apple Weblog) are giving away instant Evernote accounts until 2pm EST tomorrow (May 20th).

Get your instant account now »

Not a Mac user? Not a problem. Register for an account, then download and install our Windows client or just use our Web version.

Hurry, before time runs out.

When it comes to snapping photos with your phone, the fewer clicks the better. Well, wouldn’t it be great if you could snap a photo and have it automatically go into your Evernote account? No emailing. Just snap and you’re done. Well, you can and here’s how.

Those of you out there with Windows Mobile phones have it pretty good, since Evernote for Windows Mobile will automatically send snapshots and audio right into your account.

But, since many of you don’t have Windows Mobile phones we thought you might want to give ShoZu a shot. ShoZu is an application that can be set to automatically send snapshots to your Evernote email address as soon as you snap the photo, and ShoZu works with a ton of different phones.

This video shows how ShoZu and Evernote work together.

Get ShoZu

1. Go to www.ShoZu.com, and click on Get ShoZu
2. Find your phone in the list of supported phones
3. Create an account and follow the installation instructions
4. Once installed, select Send to Email and configure ShoZu to send to your Evernote email address
5. Select Evernote and go to the Sending setting menu and set it to “Auto Send”

That’s it. Now, go snapshot crazy.

If you have any questions, check out the ShoZu support site.

Evernote for Mac version 1.1 just came out, and it’s full of the most requested features and improvements.

PDF Support

You asked for it and now it’s here: Evernote supports PDF files! You can now drag a PDF into an open note, onto the dock icon, or into a notebook. You can also combine multiple PDFs, text, and images in a single note. Notes with PDFs will get synced like any other notes (unless you specifically put them into a local-only notebook, of course), so you can access them from any computer or device capable of viewing a PDF. The Mac version will even search the text within PDF notes.

You can also “print” right into Evernote from any Mac application, just go to the File>Print menu, push the PDF button, and select “Save PDF to Evernote.” A fully-formatted copy of your web page or document will automatically be added to Evernote. This works great with Safari, Firefox, iWork, MS Office, whatever. Try it with this blog post!

Our image-recognition technology won’t work on images within PDFs yet, and the Windows and Web clients will currently display PDFs as attachments, and will not automatically search within them. We’re working on it…

Spotlight

Evernote is now fully integrated with Spotlight. Now, you can search through all of your files and all of your memories in one place. You can also make Finder “smart folders” that include Evernote content. Just set the “kind” drop down to “other” and type “Evernote” into the field that opens up. Neat!

New “Mixed View” Mode

Evernote for the Mac now has three views: List, Mixed, and Thumbnail. The new “mixed view” mode shows you a single column of small thumbnails and metadata for each note. Now there’s a view that’s perfect for any set of notes, monitor sizes, and user styles. Try them out and find the one the works best for you.

Vertical Preview Pane

The Mixed and and Thumbnail views now offer a resizable and collapsable vertical preview pane on the right.

The currently selected note is displayed in the preview pane and is fully editable, scrollable, and shows live search results. If you have the screen real estate, try opening the preview pane to a generous size and you’ll never need to leave your favorite viewing mode again. Hitting “New Note” in Thumbnail or Mixed view will no longer force you into List view. You can still open a note in a separate window by double clicking on it. Of course, if the preview pane is taking up too much room, just drag it closed and it’ll stay that way.

The List mode keeps the preview pane on the bottom of the screen to accommodate more horizontal columns in the list.

Encryption

Ok, technically we rolled this out in the last build, but for some reason the announcement fell through the cracks, so let’s pretend that encryption is a brand new feature. Just select any portion of text in a note, right-click on it, and select “Encrypt Selected Text.” If you haven’t selected a password yet, you’ll be prompted to do so. To decrypt text, just click on it. Notes with encrypted text can be synced just like any other notes, and are fully interoperable between the Mac and Windows clients; you can encrypt stuff on a PC at work and decrypt it on your Mac at home, or vice-versa.

There’s currently no way to decrypt stuff on our web or mobile versions. You’ll see that a note has encrypted information, and you’ll be able to see any unencrypted content, but you won’t be able to decrypt it yet. We do this because we don’t ever want you to transmit your password over the network and we never want to see it on our servers. There are ways we could work around this restriction, but they’re not trivial to implement so we just haven’t had the time to work on them. We’ll get to it sooner or later, but in the meantime just keep your secret spy stuff to the Mac and Windows versions.

Don’t forget your encryption password! We never see it or store it anywhere on the service, so if you lose it, you won’t be able to decrypt your secrets. Seriously.

Bug Fixes

Version 1.1 also has many bug fixes and stability improvements: you can now drag-n-drop images, text, html, and supported audio into a note, thumbnails look better, and everything is just a bit smoother. Of course, this is still beta software, so if you find any bugs or issues, please send them to us.

If you’re already using the Mac client, just select “Check for Upgrades” from the “Evernote” menu to upgrade to version 1.1. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you can always get the latest version here. If you need an Evernote account, just sign up.

Thanks to everyone who’s tested our Mac client. It may be the newest addition to the Evernote software lineup, but it’s really starting to look pretty good. Keep the comments coming!

Last night we released the latest versions of Evernote for Windows and Evernote Web. Here are some of the user-facing enhancements (there are a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements). We’ve also added a ton of new hardware in response to our fast user growth.

Bonus: We’ve given everyone more invitations!

Evernote for Windows [Download Now]

• Search: Searching is now significantly faster, especially over large notebooks and databases
• Synchronization: Sync now works through password-protected proxies
• Stability: Major improvements in stability and overall performance

Evernote Web

• Multi-select checkbox: Now you can move, delete, and tag multiple notes at once
• iPhone: iPhone users are now automatically redirected to the iPhone-optimized web version
• Search: Note searching is now faster

Thank you beta testers. You’re helping us make a better product.

We asked our Twitter followers to tell us how they use Evernote. Here are some of the responses. Many thanks to everyone that tweeted!

Work

• jvmoore1: Evernote has been great for IT work. I research something at my house or in the office and am able to access it on the web.
• blloyd: Snapping photos of whiteboards at meetings with my phone.
• PhoneTrips: My friend and I run a weekly podcast at whatsnewisold.blogspot.com. I put items in Evernote all week tagged “podcast.”
• ajfortin: Recently put screenshots of a health care conference live-tweets in public notebook so people can search for speaker comments.
• juliegomoll: Using it for planning new business - notes on vendors, products, ideas, etc. and for fodder for future blog posts.
• mmaslowski: I use it for collecting scraps ideas and outline specification of new apps I’ve been working on.
• RuudHein: Clipping, maintaining database of information retrieval knowledge for www.searchenginepeople.com.
• okwichu: Keeping track of work tasks, notes, and rough time tracking.
• WickedGood : I’m using it to create and manage show notes for my podcast: http://www.extra-points.com/.
• normc: Evernote has cleaned my office, my desk is no longer full of scraps of paper.
• bhugh36: I use it mainly for work stuff because I can easily sync between my Mac at home & my PC at work.

Personal

• aimeeisdrawing: I’ve been using it for collecting things I need to return to on the web, better than bookmarks. My boyfriend uses it for school.
• BobQ: For clipping recipes, doing research for projects, keeping multiple project-related lists, and for snapping images on my cellphone.
• kevinfrey: Using Evernote gloriously to be a smarter wine consumer. I can’t remember yesterday, let alone the name of the last wine bottle I drank.
• gcmandrake: I use Evernote for keeping track of photography ideas and notes. (I also use it for work & home.)
• shaneblyth: I use it for gathering info at home on tech topics, storing business cards, etc.
• xstealx: I use it as a note-to-self and reminders mostly but I intend to use it for work.
• zemote: I am using Evernote for work & personal. It has become my bucket for clipping everything!!!
• mjohnson16: I’m using Evernote for work notes, church projects, research, reminders, and general mayhem moments.

School

• LtFielding: I’m using it for school.
• lrei: I’m using Evernote for college notes, personal projects, planning trips, notes for writing my blog and general personal notes.
• iamhannah: School and work. I use it for my radio show to be organized.
• richgould: Using Evernote to help with my son’s 3rd grade project on chickens. Finding everything we can: pics, info, facts, etc. It’s great!
• whoisvince: I’ve been primarily using Evernote to store any and all info about scholarships.

Travel

• molgar: I am using Evernote to collect info for my next trip: New Zealand!!
• barron: I am using Evernote to plan our summer vacation. It keeps all my notes in one convenient place.

Organization and productivity

• ChrisWarren: I use it as my mobile @rnd folder for GTD. Marvelous!! I now have ink notes too.
• levibethune: I track my paystubs, tax forms and bills in Evernote, as well a separate notebook of beer and wine bottle labels.
• androvski: I use it for all my geeky stuff, reminders, ideas, to-do lists, bookmarks, school stuff, etc. All my life is within Evernote.
• lbcapt: Really loving the app - using it on Mac, PC, and web to keep track of reminders, future blog posts, etc… Great job!!
• Kforbriger: EVERYTHING… keeping my online world organized on Evernote now.

Research

• SherylSisk: I’m using it to collect, research, and process “blog fodder” for my blogs.
• joeyinteractive: We are the developers of Desktoptopia (http://www.desktoptopia.com), we use Evernote to capture new ideas and artists we discover.
• shaneblyth: I use it for gathering info at home on tech topics, storing business cards, etc.
• leanda: I use Evernote for keeping scrap books of design ideas and inspiration - type, colour, pattern, shape etc.
• sharpstick: Keeping political news articles to refer to later on in the year.

Shopping

• pattyman: I keep track of things I want to follow up on Craigslist, and also comics I see in the shop that I want to pick up next time.
• duncanmike: My wife takes cell phone pics of fashions in mags/stores > Evernote to create a “looks to recreate” reference.

We are huge (HUGE) fans of the Apple iPhone. While the current Evernote mobile web interface works well on iPhones, it’s just not the same as having an application that’s tailored to the device.

Today, we’re unveiling the new Evernote iPhone web interface at:

http://www.evernote.com/iphone

We’re still testing and improving it, but we didn’t want to wait to give you access

In creating the Evernote iPhone web interface, we were able to rethink our mobile user experience. Whereas our standard mobile web application allows users to find notes by performing text searches, the iPhone version adds the ability quickly filter notes by navigating through lists of tags, notebooks, and note attributes to construct complex searches without typing. We think users are really going to like the ability to search and filter on their phone just as they can on the web or desktop applications.

One challenge we faced when designing the iPhone web interface was how to deal with large, complex notes. We decided that although the iPhone UI makes it easy to zoom and pan a web page, for Evernote the best experience should be more like reading email. Also, as in the standard mobile web version, we scale all the images on our servers, so you don’t have to download your 12MP images to your phone’s small screen. In addition to being able to email and delete notes, you can also zoom into a note, which will open it up in a separate browser tab with the full size images.

We know you’re going to ask, so here are the answers to some questions:

• Yes, we will begin auto-detecting iPhones soon. For now, iPhone users will need to go to the URL above
• You can use the two-finger gesture to pan around large images

The new Evernote closed beta is about two months old and we’ve just passed an important milestone: our first one million notes!  During this time, we’ve made lots of improvements to the service and we’ll be announcing a few more big things in the next couple of weeks.  Stay tuned.

To celebrate (and to do some stress testing on our registration servers), we’re giving away instant beta accounts to everyone who clicks on this secret url (http://www.evernote.com/Registration.action?code=1MN0tes) from 6 am to 9 pm, California time, today.  If you miss the time window but want an account, just sign up using the normal beta application and we’ll send you an invitation soon.

Big thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to test Evernote and send us feedback!  We couldn’t do it without you.

Say you’re using Evernote to plan a trip. You’ve been clipping webpages of hotels and restaurants, typing itineraries, snapping photos of your travel documents (just in case). Now, you want to give all of your travel buddies access to this information. Evernote lets you do that.

By default, everything you create in Evernote is private, but you can easily publish any notebook to the web. Here are instructions for how to do this using the web and Mac clients. This is coming very soon to Windows. For now, Windows users can publish their notebooks using Evernote Web.

1. Select the notebook you want to publish
2.
- Web: Click on the Actions dropdown and select Settings
- Mac: Cmd + click on the notebook and select Notebook Settings
3. Click Publish
Optional step: Add a description
4. Copy the URL (don’t click the URL yet, the notebook isn’t saved)
5. Click OK or Save
6. Mac only: Click Sync

That’s it. That URL is now publicly available, so send it to anyone, even subscribe to the RSS feed. Stay tuned for more publishing and sharing options in the very near future.

Here’s a notebook I made during a recent trip to the Napa Valley.

Do you have an interesting public notebook? Post a link in the comments.

Visual step-by-step: Evernote Web

Visual step-by-step: Evernote for Mac