Store and find all manner of information with Evernote

Making notes on paper while researching on the internet feels anachronistic but keeping notes on the computer can be harder than it sounds if you use a word processor. Evernote is designed for research and includes plenty of useful tools.

Installation is easy but you will need to register with Evernote to get a username and password. This is because Evernote can keep notes synchronised across several computers. There is no charge for the basic account.

Evernote is designed to work with paper-based notes so you can scan in documents. The application includes text recognition for both printed notes and handwriting. This is often a missing link between using notes taken by hand.

The Evernote Premium account allows for larger uploads of up to 1GB a month, support for more file types and better collaboration, and has priority support. It costs US$5 a month or US$45 a year. Full details of the differences can be found on the Evernote comparison page here. It can also search within PDF files and show note history.

There are versions of Evernote for iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android,Blackberry, Palm Pre and Windows Mobile. There are web browser addins for Firefox and Internet Explorer.