EverNote 2.0 Beta 2

There’s no shortage of note-taking applications for Windows, but most programs aren’t suitable for all users. For instance, some programs are very hierarchical, requiring the user to place every note in a folder, but some folks find this constraining. Others are totally free-form but offer virtually no useful searching, sorting, and categorizing functionality. Some are clearly intended for transient thoughts and look like yellow sticky notes, while others look like miniature databases and make you fill out forms to manage long-term storage. EverNote, however, manages to straddle the fence of almost all these descriptions and even offers free and portable versions, potentially making it the best note keeper for all users.

EverNote organizes notes into a scrollable list called “tape.” Notes can contain text and graphics, and there are other note formats, as well, such as shopping list, phone message, and others. EverNote stamps each note with a date and category, and you can assign multiple categories to any note and even create your own.

The central pane contains your roll of notes you can scroll up and down until you see what you need. To find a note by date, click the Time Band button on the right side of the window and type in a date, or click any month or year in the Time Band to see the notes you’ve saved. Expand the Category pane to filter all notes in whatever categories you select. The beauty of categories vs. folders is that you can apply multiple categories to a note when appropriate.

EverNote also comes with Web Clipper, which makes capturing parts of Web pages and emails into a note a one-click task. You can password-protect note files and encrypt any text you select within a note with a unique password.

The latest beta works smoothly and looks totally gorgeous. What’s more, even the Help file is complete and, well, helpful, making EverNote well worth a look.