Evernote had a big update today. I just now tried out the new goods. Here’s a quick review:

Mac Desktop client:
+ I love, love, love the new “Merge Notes” feature. Great way to clean up a big notebook. Thank you Evernote!

• Unfortunately, there’s no way to export a merged note to anything other than an Evernote Archive. For instance, if you merge a bunch of jpeg images of scanned document, that you’ve brought into evernote, you cannot export them as one big jpeg image. Bummer.

~ I’m undecided whether the Growl notifications are nice or not. Maybe I’ll get used to them.

Safari web clipper:
+ It works with Safari 4 public beta (build 5528.16). What’s nice is that it takes the title of a web page and saves it as the title of the note. A small thing, but saves 15-30 seconds each time you clip, which adds up when you clip many times a day.

Firefox web clipper add-on:

• Does NOT grab the title of a web page, as the Safari web clipper does. Duh. I can’t tell what advantage the web clipper add-on provides over a bookmarklet. Uninstalling for now.

You using any of the new Evernote versions? If so, what do you think?

Hate Office 2007? Try Search Commands.

If Office 2007 has been as frustrating for me as it has been for me, check out a new feature from Microsoft Office Labs called Search Commands.

The problem that Search Commands solved for me is this: even after using Office 2007 for a few months, I still can’t easily find what I’m looking for, and still get frustrated having to look at many toolbar icons that I’ll never use. The way I solve this problem today is by either digging through the Ribbon and cursing, or using Google. Surprisingly, the latter method is often faster.

Search Commands solves that problem, by letting you "google" your Office 2007 commands, and find the right one. It might seem kind of odd to search for commands rather than use a menu, but consider that Word, Excel, and PowerPoint each have at least several hundred commands. It’s a lot faster to type a few keys than it is to browse and scan through a dozen drop-down menus.

If you like QuickSilver, Firefox search keywords, YubNub, the Unix command line, or other keyboard-oriented ways of working, you’ll probably find Search Commands a welcome addition. It’s not perfect, but it’s a big step forward.

One last thing: Search Commands is still considered by Microsoft to be an experimental feature, meaning that it might not be rolled into the Office 2007 code base. This is surprising given the positive feedback this feature has received, and we’ve known for over a decade that the majority of users like to search, not browse. So, if you like Search Commands, express your support here.