My wife says I look like a cop since I carry a little black flipover notebook, either one with a leather cover that’s refillable or a moleskine.

I finally have found a usable notepad application. Not a notebook, a notepad. I use Circus Ponies notebook for blog creation, and articles. A notepad is good for the things I see that I want to look into later or for jot notes like a shopping list. I tried Jott and it was cool until it became chargeable.

So here I am advocating this cool app called Evernote. It’s a perfectly functional free application but you can use on your Mac, on Windows, on your iPhone, on Windows Mobile and on Sandesk U3 devices. To create an account go to Evernote and signup. The basic service is free but you can buy a premium subscription that gives you more storage for rich media and encryption. $5/mth or $45/yr USD is a pretty low price if you really like the service.

What makes Evernote really useful is that you have a number of different methods to take a note. On the iPhone, you can create a text note, a snapshot note (using the iPhone camera – great for stuff you want to price before you buy), a saved photo note or a voice note. On the Mac you can create a note either as text or an iSight note. The program leverages what it’s running on. You can have multiple notebooks and search is really very good. A feature I use regularly now is Clip to Evernote that grabs a screenshot and fires it into Evernote. The Evernote servers also do character recognition! Yes, servers so all your Evernote installs are kept in sync.

The example above shows Evernote holding a screenshot of the active MarsEdit window.

And of course, you can see everything you have stored even if you don’t have your computer or mobile device.

If you travel, have more than one computer, use a smartphone (no Blackberry support yet), or like cloud services, and ever take notes, get Evernote.

Highly recommended.