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Evernote and "The Wall Street Journal"
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Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 2, 2014 at 05:06 PM
I have a lot of apps for content creation on my iPad—apps that sync via a cloud service (the Dropboxes of this world) or proprietary (the Evernotes)—but I can’t think of anything that syncs in the background, which I what I believe would have to be happening in order to fulfill the requirements “whenever I need it, even if there is termporarily no Internet”. I believe iCloud Drive is supposed to do this, but it doesn’t seem to work out that way in practice. If iCloud were working then the Pages/Keynote/Numbers suite would do what you want.
A feasible replacement for Evernote is Alfons Schmidt’s “Notebooks” app—available on iPad, Windows and OS X. It syncs via Dropbox, or directly thru wifi, or through WebDAV. The iPad app will only sync when you tell it, and when it fails to sync it creates a simple-format failure report explaining just what went wrong. Notebooks are folders accessible thru the desktop file system and documents are non-proprietary formats (PDF, Markdown, “formatted text”, HTML, images).
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I want to write a note on my laptop, iPad, desktop and know that I’ll be
>able to access it from any of those devices whenever I need it, even if
>there is temporarily no Internet. I don’t want to think about syncing
>the data. Does anyone feel they have this kind of experience now? If so,
>what app(s) are you using?
Posted by Ken
Dec 2, 2014 at 05:11 PM
Dr Andus wrote:
>E.g. just this week I needed to restore a damaged file on my PC, from my
>MozyHome online backup service, which I set to automatically back up my
>PC twice a day when the PC is idle, just to find out that due to
>whatever quirk Mozy failed to back up for the last 7 days and properly
>alert me about it, which means that my changes to that file in the last
>7 days were also lost… Ouch!
Have you looked at alternatives like Crashplan? There are a number of members at another forum where I am a member who use Crashplan, and they like that it allows you to both backup via the web and to a local hard drive. I have not used it myself, but number of folks use it as part of their image archiving strategy, and it seems to be well regarded.
—Ken
Posted by Paul Korm
Dec 2, 2014 at 06:08 PM
I use CrashPlan for full-disk backup (minus the OS) and it works well. At least, I think it works well. I’ve never had to recover an entire disk with it, but I have recovered folders and files from time to time. CrashPlan usually backs data across the network to either their servers or a “friend’s” computer. It can also be configured for backup from one-machine to another on a local network. It is silent—nothing tells you the sync started or finished, and nothing tells you it failed unless you go look for status. Oh, there is a weekly email about status, but by then failure is often too late.
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 2, 2014 at 06:36 PM
Ken wrote:
>Have you looked at alternatives like Crashplan?
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m aware that there are probably some better services out there, but that brings me to another problem with cloud services. Once you’re heavily invested into one, it’s not that easy to switch… I’d need a week (that I currently haven’t got) to re-upload masses of data that would hog the bandwidth and CPU during that time… Just can’t afford to lose that sort of time just now. But when vacation time comes, then again I don’t feel like spending my precious free time on it… You see the catch 22?
Posted by Dr Andus
Dec 2, 2014 at 07:51 PM
Speaking of Evernote, I just received an email from them today announcing their new feature:
“Do the work, share the work, and talk about the work all in one place. Evernote’s newest feature, Work Chat, connects you with colleagues to achieve your best.”
I’m wondering if I’m just in a totally wrong demographic or profession, but I don’t get this overwhelming focus on constant sharing and collaboration. It’s nice to be able to do it when you need it, but does that mean that every single app needs live collaboration and sharing? Is everybody out there really constantly chatting and sharing while working?
Anyway, it just feels like a lot of development time and energy is going into these collaborative and sharing features, when that sort of thing could be achieved at the OS level or by some specialist (screen-sharing, teleconferencing) tool, rather than having to build that into every single app…
Unless it’s just a ploy to use the power of social networking (i.e. peer pressure) to force the product on one’s colleagues… OK, rant over… :)