EverNote is a Mac, Windows, iPod, iPhone and Web application. EverNote syncs to the web which allows internet access to your notes from a browser. EverNote has a web clipping feature that makes it easy to save information found while surfing the web. It has many other features so I suggest going to http://www.evernote.com to check all its features plus view its videos and tutorials.

Oh, and did I mention that it is FREE. The Free version limits the amount of data you can upload monthly to the web. They have a Premium version which greatly increases the amount of data you can upload monthly to the web. The Premium version costs $5 monthly or $45 a year.

The product is rapidly being upgraded plus the company just announced that it has received $4.5 million of additional VC funding. EverNote recently won the Crunchie award for the best 2008 Mobile Startup and the Open Web award for best Mobile Application.

File Maker Pro – if you want to do robustness.
Bento by File Maker – if you want elegance and simplicity.

this post is about Bento, since that was my choice to buy. For $50, it is very nice and simple to work with. It is a nice addin to a missing product that was desparately needed in iwork. It lacks a little with custom defined reports and SQL queries, but for what most small busniesses or home users need, this product far beats my expectations for the price. If you need to export your data to something else, you can export to a CSV (comma delimited file) and import it into another app rather easily.

Bento also has another nice advantage, a field called file list. Here I add this field to my database, and then drag the file on my hard drive to that field in bento. when I want to use like information (ie, I have a table that tracks all my python [programming notes). I just double-click the file in the file list, and it opens the file in its native application.

Creating forms is also easier than in MS-Access too.

I can see very quickly where Apple will start making in-roads into major businesses. Price alone is the reason to use Bento over MS access.

i found this line a bit odd for a long time PC user such as yourself.

anyway, still a well written piece about your switch:)

I found an interesting tidbit about how to download videos. On the Windows side, you have to find software and pray that it works.

On the mac, all you have to do is openthe activity window in safari, open the download window, find the largest file size in the activity window copy/paste that line to the download window. Once the download is done, you will have a file called get-video (no extension), simply rename it to what the video is and add the .flv extension and play it in VLC (or what ever you use to pay flash videos).

it may sound like a lot of work, but it is not. takes a couple of seconds (well, except for the download depending on your internet connection). It sure beats having to buy software or have trial versions that do not capture the entire thing as the “alloted time” ran out.

I also found a lot of good information on:

http://www.macosxhints.com

For recording sound, I also suggest Audacity.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac

I take a y connector and plug my headsets into both the audio out and mic jacks – this causes a loop back into the mic port. Start up audacity and set your preferences and you will be recording streaming audio in no time. I also found it to be crystal clear. It even sounds better than what I used to used on the Windows side (MP3 My MP3). Audacity also gives you more options.

I am also finding that mac has some need software available that could not even dream was possible on the windows side.

Even my Quickverse software, I use for my bible studies and ministry is available on the mac. since the mac version is completely written with mac people in mind, itfunctions nothing like the windows version (it is better and simpler to use and does not keep prompting me to insert the CD, and it does not error on me). Besure to download the update patch since leopard made a couple of changes for safari over tiger. Quickverse uses Safari as its display to make it totally native on mac.

Love the blog, keep it up.

Nice post. A couple of comments. First you said “Because Apple is a bit more proprietary, they can focus more on stability with their finite mix of hardware devices. I’m typically very against anything proprietary when it comes to technology, but in this case, it does make some sense.”

The second sentence to me is a bit of an oxymoron. You claim to be against anything proprietary and yet for years you used Windows, a very predatorially proprietary operating system. You really can’t escape a certain measure of proprietary-ness, especially in technology. Apple is more proprietary in hardware, while their OS is bulging with open source elements. In fact, the core of the Mac OS is open source with their UI remaining primarily proprietary.

GREG: I Was speaking mostly of the proprietary hardware. My point is that Apple only has to worry about a finite set of hardware. Windows developers have to worry about openess so that tons of other vendors can make their drivers/SW work.

With regards to Time Machine, if you want it to stop backing up during working hours, simply disconnect the back up drive. Time Machine’s background processes will still check and monitor changes to the file system and will resume backing up when the Time Machine drive is reconnected.

GREG: My drive is a network drive so I’m always connected as long as I’m around my office. I just turn it off during the day and on during the night

Also If you really need Outlook, since you’re already running VMWare’s Fusion for times when you need IE, you could also just install Outlook.

GREG: I miss some of the features of Outlook, but not enough to always have another OS running in the background. You are right, this would be a solution for the Outlook die-hards. Thanks for your comment!!

Just my two cents

GREG: The sites I have trouble with want to install an ActiveX control so I’m forced to use IE. I’m testing Crossover which is working great (installs IE6). Thanks!!