A Modern Day Cure For Collectivitis

I have always been a keeper, a sorter, a filer, an archiver. It's a personality type characterised by the desire to put things in boxes, stick labels on the boxes, and stack the boxes in some kind of order. Sometimes it's a blessing (I am always the one asked to help find things) and sometimes it's a curse (I am always the one asked to help find things). Throughout my life the filing medium may have changed, but the message has always been the same : "clip it, tag it, and save it". At one stage it was things cut out and stuck onto filing cards, and then when computers came onto the scene, it would be complex databases of trivial information. My music collection has been catalogued more times that a Mozart symphony, my negatives have been archived with a care that would be more in place in the Library of Congress.

However, the day of the stand-alone database has passed, and more recently my base desires have gravitated towards the clouds - or to be precise, cloud cataloguing. Step forward, EVERNOTE. I don't think that I have been as happy with a system since the day I first discovered my first 6" x 4" file card. Evernote is a wonderfully simple piece of software which allows you to clip and save almost everything and share the results between a variety of devices. I use it to save on-line press cuttings, blog-posts, and interesting web-sites. I also use it to index my music collection, reference my photographs, keep my personal diary. and file my paperless collection of gas and electricity bills. Because things are filed on-line, they are protected from the ravages of computer failure or loss. It works on Mac and PC, iPads and other tablets, and even most smartphones. You can set up an account for nothing and this includes enough on-line storage for most needs. If, like me, you suffer from severe collectivitis, you can opt for a premium account for just a few pounds (dollars) a month and set about saving the world.

The point of this post is to celebrate the 1,000th item I have added to my Evernote collection (which will be a clip of this blog-post). And I should stress that this post is a response to having found a very useful piece of free software which I want to share with my friends. It has not been sponsored by, or paid for by Evernote.

Now, where did I file that recipe for Apple Crumble?