Last week, I reviewed a cool file sharing web application in private beta - DropBox. I have had a chance to get a sneak peek at another cool web application, Evernote, in the last few weeks. It’s quickly replacing my need for Google Notebook and I find it worth the hassle to login to yet another web application.

Evernote

Evernote, currently in private beta, is definitely Google Notebook done better. Way better.

I have used and liked Google Notebook for a long time. It is very easy to use and is very handy to store things I come across on the web. It helps me store information in different notebooks, with titles and labels so I can easily find what I need at a later time. The Google Notebook Firefox extension made it super easy to add notes without opening up a webpage right from my browser.

Recently, I read about Evernote and signed up for their private beta and have been using it for a few weeks and I am ready to share my findings with you.

Yes, I like being the guinea pig with these new web applications so you can sit back and read my posts and see if you want to try it yourself.

Lets look at what Evernote has to offer:

• Evernote is a note taking application with a motto of making your notes available anywhere.
• Evernote is available as a web application, a Windows application, a Mac application as well as a Windows Mobile application. Can you see the common thread with DropBox?
• All your notes in Evernote are always synchronized across all your devices!
• You can create new notes with desktop/web or mobile versions of Evernote
• Create snaphots using camera phone or webcam
• Clip whole webpages, screenshots or portions of web pages - I like the ability to tag and file a clip as I am clipping.
• Desktop clients for Mac & Windows even allow drag and drop
• With the account, you get an ultra-personalized (read: obsure looking) email address that you could use to send notes to Evernote by email!
• You are supposed to be able to record audio as well and listen to it whenever you want. Haven’t tried this one yet.
• You get to save your searches and this is a great feature that’ll come handy as your notes volume increases.

In fact, on my linux machine this makes a great web application for Mozilla Prism and it works great as a standalone app! See how the green matches so well with my desktop background.

I have tried everything except the audio part and they all work great. So far, I can hardly tell that it’s a beta product. Either it’s really good or I have been lucky to avoid the bugs. I am thinking it’s just that good.

Evernote is a Freemium product which means it is free while in beta and will stay so after going stable. But, there will be a paid subscription level in the future and the exact feature split is unknown at this time. I hope it will something like Remember the Milk where you get all the features in the free account but you pay for support and out of good will.

Take the Tour

If you’d like to see some of these features in action, take the tour and see it in video.

Beta Invites

My private beta account has 10 invitations in it and as always I would like to share it with my readers. Just leave a comment and the first 10 of you to leave a comment will receive it in their email.

I do have a request to those receiving invites. Since your account will probably come with 10 invites, if each of you could a spare a couple for our readers requesting invites after you, that’ll make it 20 more invites available.

If you’d like to share the good will, mention that in the comment (with number of invites you’d like to share) and I will send you the emails you can share your invites.

In fact, if you have any DropBox invites and would like to share, there are a lot of folks looking for one as I’ve exhausted mine, please visit this post or contact me and I’ll hook you up with folks who want one.

Popular in search engines: Who called us?

Hello newcomer, did I say welcome to ShanKri-la yet? Before you move on, just wanted to thank you for visiting and we hope you come back and see us again!

One gripe I have about the US cell phone companies is the exorbitant amount of money one gets charged if we ever go over the monthly minutes allowance.

I usually watch my minutes well and hardly ever go over my allocation. But, all it takes is once a year for a misstep and the overage bill could be as much as the monthly charge and if you were roaming or out of the country it could be a very fat figure.

WatchMyCell is a little freeware that is designed to run in your Windows computer and watch your cellphone balance minutes.

WatchMyCell Quick Facts

• Watches your balance minutes and sends an email or SMS alert if you are close to your limit
• Auto-starts and lets you configure the alerts
• Checks your minutes every 3 hours
• All information are sent by 1024 bit encrypted connection
• None of this information is stored ever in a website and all this information resides in your computer
• Works with AT&T/Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, Spint/Nextel.
• It is totally FREE!

I am not sure if you need a utility just for the sake of watching your cell phone minutes. But, in this busy life it is all too easy to lose track of your balance minutes and it might be worth your while to have this running atleast more towards the end of the month.

I am not sure how many of the cell phone carriers offer an alert when a subscriber is about to reach their minutes for the month. I am not surprised that most don’t because they make a big chunk of their money from the overage charges.

WatchMyCell

Download WatchMyCell

[via MakeUseOf]

Wesabe has been my favorite online money management tool for a long time. if you haven’t heard, you can read my review of Wesabe and in fact check out others reviews tagged with the same name.

If you are a Wesabe user with an Internet enabled mobile or someone looking for an online money management application that has mobile support, you are in luck. Wesabe Mobile was just released this week.

With Wesabe Mobile, you can

• Check account balances
• See recent transactions
• Enter cash transactions
• Keep track of your travel expenses on the go
• Ability to enter minimal information to identify the transaction & clean up later from your computer
• Phone browser needs to support SSL (which means your stuff is encrypted unlike SMS based money management services)
• If you are a Blackberry user, consider using Opera Mini.

The biggest hardship with tracking your expenses are the cash transactions that trickle out of your wallet. You have no clue what you did with the $40 cash withdrawal from the ATM after a week. Wesabe Mobile cuts that gap for those with a data enabled cell phone.

I don’t travel as much or have a data plan on my Sony Ericsson W810i. But, I am sure this will be useful to my iPhone/Blackberry wielding readers.

> Instructions for Wesabe Mobile

> via Wesabe Blog

Are you annoyed by those calls from 1-800-number missed calls when you come back from work and wondered ‘Who called us?’.

Wonder no more. There really is a website named Who Called Us where you can enter the number you want to look up.

It is also interesting to see the most frequently reported/called numbers and most called states as well. California sits at the top of the list there.

For any particular number, you can see all the comments for that particular number a map overlay of how the calls are spread out throughout the US. You could not only figure out who called you, also most often what they wanted from the comments.

The lookup is not limited to just 800 numbers as a lot of marketing people these days use regular numbers as well.

Next time you wonder about the number on your caller ID, you know you’ll use this bookmark.

Ever forget to print and take directions and a map with you while traveling? It’s not fun getting lost in a big city. Even if you are well prepared, plans might change and you might need to go to a place that you didn’t get directions for.

No worries. Just dial ‘DIR-ECT-IONS’ (347-328-4667) from your mobile phone to get directions to where you are going via SMS. You just call this number and say where you are and where you want to go. You will get turn by turn by directions to your mobile phone by SMS.

Quick Facts about Dial Directions

• It’s free but the SMS message will be counted in your cellular plan.
• You can specify an address of intersection for your location
• You can specify an address, or a business name or an event listed with Dial Directions.
• No prior registration required. Just dial the number.
  
• It is available right now in beta in 15 major metros in the US - Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Philadelphia, Sacranemto, San Fransisco,  and Washington D.C.

Google 411

Google 411 offers a similar service where you dial 1-800-GOOG-411. You will can get the address and phone number of the business you are interested in. You could optionally choose to get this information sent to your phone by SMS. The SMS has the name, address, phone number and a link to Google Maps if you have internet enabled in your phone.

Microsoft LiveSearch 411

Microsoft has a similar 411 service where you dial 1-800-CALL-411. It is similar to Google’s service but you could also get weather, travel and movie information from here. You could also opt to get this info by SMS as well as have it shared with a friend. This will be awesome if your friends are on a different car and you can send this info to them as well.

Traveling can sometimes have its antsy moments when you are lost are trying to find a place. Having these free services at your disposal would definitely help ease such moments. I will be giving Dial Directions a test drive when I am in Las Vegas next weekend.

Have you ever been lost in a big city? How did you manage to find your way back? Let’s here some interesting/funny/scary stories.

Mofuse is a web service that lets you instantly create a mobile version for any blog or RSS-enabled website.

Quick facts about Mofuse

• You can track visitors to your mobile version
• Anyone can create a mobile version for any RSS enabled website or blog
• You can Brand your site with custom logo
• Option to integrate Google Adsense or Admob to monetize your mobile site
• Very nice Dashboard
• Ability to create pages and ability to reorder with easy drag and drop.
• You can create an auto redirect to your own mobile domain site
• I was able to create a mobile site for ShanKri-la in under 5 minutes
• It’s free

Introducing ShanKri-la Mini

For those with iPhone or any web enabled smart phone, you can now read ShanKri-la directly from your mobile phone. Simply go to

http://shankrila.mofuse.mobi

I have opted to use Google Adsense in ShanKri-la Mini but let me know if it is too obtrusive. I don’t have an iPhone or data plan to check this out but I will remove this option if you tell me you hate those ads.

I am looking for a good placement for the following chicklet for anyone with an internet enabled phone to grab the mobile friendly URL for ShanKri-la.

Sorry for the slow posting this week. I have been resting a lot this week and looks like for another week to come. In spite of the free time I have had in the past few days, I couldn’t bring myself to get on my laptop. I have been catching up on some movies and lots of popcorn!

I did come across a few interesting posts today to share with you:

• When you want an old version: Brown wrote about a very useful site OldVersion.com where you can find old versions of your programs. Very useful when you are facing problems with the shiny new version.
• Convert to PDF with KoolWire: KoolWire is a simple service to convert your documents to PDF with nothing but your email. Simply email your document to PDF@koolwire.com and shortly receive and email in PDF format.
• Have old cell phones?: Mark of MeAndMyDrum tells you about how you can cash your old cell phones. If you are just looking to dispose it off in an environmentally friendly way, you can at least recycle it for free here.
• Everything you need to know about Favicons: Kyle has written a great article to know everything there is to know about a Favicon. I have to get one soon but I can’t make up my mind on the logo!
• Virtual Surfing with ZoneAlarm ForceField: Ryan of CyberNet News has reviewed the new ZoneAlarm ForceField that creates a safe and secure browsing environment. Even though its is free for beta testers, it is supposed to retail around $29.95.
• Publish Blog Posts with Word 2007: Vaibhav of Techie’s Den shows you how you can use your Microsoft Word 2007 to publish blog posts to your blog.
• Learn a Foreign Language for Free Online: TD of Make You Go Hmm has reviewed a free online service Mango that helps you with learning a new language. It even has voice that helps with correct pronunciation when you hover over a word.

Hope you enjoyed these links and found some useful and fun stuff in the internet. I have introduced a couple of new blogs in my feed reader here. If you drop by, give them some comment love.

I am going to attempt an upgrade to WordPress 2.3 tonight as I am excited about all the new features in it. So, if you see a few things go awry around here in the next couple of days please let me know.