Google Calendar and Evernote: Thing 8 and 9

There seems to be a theme between Thing 8 and 9....organisation! I love organising, so I was interested to investigate more. I've used Google Calendars last year when I was involved in a week long programme of events and we needed one central location where we could gather all our daily activities. This did make it easier to see at a glance what all our partners were organising for World Mental Health Day and Time to Change campaign, although it is obviously very reliant on different organisations putting their information in the calendar in the first place! So I was interested to read Musings about Librarianship post regarding how different library authorities use Google calendar for workshops, events and much more. I personally like how you can add these calendars to your own google calendar (how many times have I kicked myself about seeing an event and then forgetting about it completely? Too many times to remember!), although I think I like the list layout more, rather than the calendar view, as I find the information more readily digestible that way (it must say something about my brain - maybe I'm more linear than visual!). However, I already have an online work calendar through outlook, which can be shared, as well as my trusty old paper diary (and believe me it's hard enough trying to combine the two), so I'm somewhat reluctant to add another calendar to the mix. However, we do use a Google calendar at work for event information, which can be seen at Newcastle Libraries blog and it's great to have on central point where all the library branches and customers can check what's on in their own and other libraries.

Unlike Google calendars, Evernote was something I hadn't seen before and reading through, I did like the concept - one place to store all your photos, documents, notes etc and the ability to download and update your account on multiple devices. So I created an account and had no trouble downloading it to my PC and happily uploaded some kitchen appliance manuals that I'm always loosing, as well as some notes and some recipes. I also liked the way you could take content straight from the web and put it into a note, meaning that you can take those bookmarks with you wherever you go. I started to get a bit frustrated however, when I tried to download it to my mac book and realised my operating system is simply too old and then when I realised you can only save PDFs and not word docs and spreadsheets on the free account. For me this really limits it, along with the fact that Evernote wouldn't be able to be downloaded on to my work PC unless IT gave me permission to do this, so it all started to get clumsy and half hearted. After having read some inspiring stories on the Evernote blog, I do think it could be useful if you have the ability to save any document type and you are able to get it on all your devices, but I think you have to go with an all or nothing approach to get the best out of the product. Only time will tell to see if I use my account much at all. Maybe that's just another good reason to get a new Mac!

Image: The image used in this post is available for use from Flickr under the Creative Commons Licence: Johan Larsson