Evernote First Impressions: Text in Image Recognition for the Masses

Yesterday I received an email from Evernote saying that I was invited to beta test their app. Evernote is an app for both Windows and Mac platforms that allows you to keep both text and image notes in Evernote’s servers. You can then refer back to them when needed.

What attracted me about Evernote was not that it allows you to keep your love letters from your ex-lovers. It was the text in image recognition technology. Initially, I thought that this tech is built into their app. However, after using the app itself I was slightly disappointed because the text in image recognition is actually done server-side, meaning all those tech stuff is actually being done on Evernote’s servers and not right on their app.

How it works is every few minutes your app synchronizes with Evernote’s servers uploading changes (such as additions of new notes). It takes a while before those text in image recognition process is done on your newly uploaded pictures. I’m guessing every few minutes the servers undergoes the process of “tagging” all the newly uploaded images by users. So it’s actually a matter of luck how long it takes for your images to get synced.

However, I don’t think the “few minutes delay” thing matters because the use of this technology is to allow you to search images that contain words that you remember. Unless your memory span is less than a few minutes, then you shouldn’t be worry about this.

This is how Evernote’s Mac app look like.

To test out how Evernote recognizes text in images, I used the “New Snapshot Note” feature and took a quick webcam shot thru my built-in iSight. I took a picture holding up Uncle Toby’s “what I eat for breakfast when I’m running late for classes”.

Right here you can see that it recognizes the word “Apricot” very well and highlights the word Safari-style. Other words that worked was “Uncle”, “Yoghurt” and the first few numbers of best before date. Anything smaller than the word “Apricot” was not recognized. Fair enough, those words are too blurry anyway.

Next, I took a picture of my book shelf with my digital camera and made sure the picture wasn’t too blurry.

As you can see, the smaller words such as “Socks” could be recognized.

Here, you can see that even vertical words can be recognized! This holds true for most of the words that appear on this picture except for those that are half-shadowed.

Just for fun, I typed in all alphabets a to z in the search box to yield all alphabetical results. Here you can see what words were picked up by Evernote’s text in image recognition system. It’s not too bad for a consumer-based product!

Of course, this is just one of Evernote’s many cool features. If you’re interested to know more, head on to www.evernote.com!

P/S: Evernote is currently invitation-only beta.

When Maintenance Calls (Windows)

Lately, I’ve been writing mostly tips for Mac users. So, I thought it would be nice for me to show some love to the Windows users. After all, they’re the majority.

I will showcase two apps that I’ve used for years that help me keep my Windows machine speedy.

Introducing CCleaner, a.k.a Crap Cleaner. If you’ve never run any rubbish files/cache cleaner, you have no idea how much space they occupy until you see the screenshot below.

A staggering 2,358.6MB worth of files has been removed. That’s enough for three dvdrip’s from the pirate bay, fellas.

Although there are probably better registry cleaners out there such as RegSupreme, CCleaner comes equipped with a rather modest cleaner, but it’s enough to keep your computer running well.

CCleaner is available as a free download from CCleaner.com

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Next app is Diskeeper 2008. I’ve been using Diskeeper for years. From the days of Windows 2000 till now. I sworn by Diskeeper for hard drive defragmentation.

For those of you who do not know what defragmenting does: it’s basically a process that moves data around in your hard disk in a collective manner. It’s like categorizing all the books in the library so that people can find what they want. This is basically what it does, it speeds up the process of finding data.

This app is responsible for allowing me to switch between two of my level 70 WoW characters in just 5 seconds. ;)

So, what makes Diskeeper so special? When it first started back in Win2k days, it was just another defragmenting tool - but with better technology.

Diskeeper has a small service that runs in the background, collecting info such as what games do you play all the time and which is your favourite porn. When you start defragmenting your hard drives, it will move those games and porn to the front of your hard disk so it allows your computer to fetch those data quicker the next time you launch them again.

Now, it’s even better. It defragments your hard drive while you use your pc! That’s pretty much what Mac OS X does nowadays, and that’s why Mac’s don’t really need maintenance.

As shown in the screenshot below, it’s defragmenting my hard drive automatically while my computer is idle (meaning I’m not doing anything intensive that requires my computer to throttle at full horse power.)

They call this technology InvisiTasking.

It’s amazing. I don’t need to defragment it manually anymore. It defrags while I’m surfing the web or chatting with friends.

Diskeeper is available from Diskeeper.com in several editions - Home, Professional and Pro Premier at $29.95, $49.95 and $99.95 respectively.

IE8 Beta Comes With RSS on Steroids, Among Many Other New Features

So I’ve been playing around a bit with IE8 Beta 1 since yesterday. I’m not much of an IE fan but being a curious cat got me to install it. Part of the installation requires scanning your pc for malicious software, no idea how effective was that because it was quicker than a commercial break.

IE8 came with many new features, but only ‘Activities’ managed to impress me. As seen on the screenshot below, I was able to translate my blog from English to Chinese with just a click of a button (ok, maybe not one click but two). There are many other languages available for translation as well such as Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Korean and who knows maybe in the future they’ll add translations for Klingon as well.

IE8 also came with what’s called WebSlices, from what I gather this is just RSS with more advanced features. It allows webmasters to put content such as Video as a ‘WebSlice’. This is nothing new actually, IE8 only made it easier with a one-click-view-all interface. Haven’t really tested this feature BECAUSE…. There wasn’t really any site that came with WebSlices. Maybe they should have just mimic’d Mac’s Web Widget feature, that requires no implementation on the website’s end.

Also, the zoom feature in IE8 is improved just like the ones in Firefox 3, allowing both Image and Text to be scaled. However, it is way too buggy and laggy for usage. As seen below is how the website Digg f**ks up when I zoom it up. Even though the zoom actually worked on sites such as this one, the zoom process is not smooth yet as it felt like playing quake at 3 fps.

IE8 also crashed on me when I attempt to hover links on my site to bring up the SNAP window.

So, is IE8 poised to defeat the upcoming Firefox 3? Probably not. Much work has to be done before that can happen, we won’t be seeing an IE8 fan base anytime soon. In the meantime, keep wagging your foxy tail.

If you’re interested in trying out IE8 beta yourself, head on to:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/ie8/readiness/Install.htm

And The Best BitTorrent App Goes To…

None other than… uTorrent.

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words.

This one is worth a thousand and five.

And the best ISP in Australia (and possibly, the world) goes to Internode. :)

Debunking Common Mac Myths

Mac’s or Apple Computer’s… Ask any tech-illiterate what they think of an Apple Computer. The answer you probably will get is “Oh, Apple’s damn good for graphic designers!”

Then ask them, “Would you consider getting a Mac?”

A long pause…………………

“Ermmmmmmmmmm… But there are a lot of programs out there not compatible with Mac’s!”

If the above conversation took place 10 years ago, then that dude is probably right. The number of Mac apps are limited a decade ago. But time’s have changed, Mac’s have evolved from a baby cat to a Tiger, Panther and recently even a Leopard (these are the codenames for Mac OS X builds btw).

Mac’s are not only good for graphic designers anymore. I mean, why would I get a MacBook Pro myself if I can’t even draw anything more advanced than stick figures?

Therefore, I shall now attempt to debunk some common Mac Myths and unveal the ugly (or pretty) truth about Mac’s capabilities.

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Myth #1: Mac’s are only good for graphic designers

Well, it was true maybe a decade ago. Now, Mac’s are for everybody. Mac’s have everything you need to do your daily tasks whether you’re a clerk or a programmer. Heck, you could do all basic office tasks such as word processing on Mac’s fresh off the box.

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Myth #2: A lot of programs are not compatible with Mac’s

If you’re talking bout Windows Notepad or Pinball then yes of course those are not compatible with Mac’s natively. However, a huge number of applications are out there available for the Mac. And I dare say there are more apps out there for Mac’s than Windows. I bet you’re surprised that Microsoft actually makes an Office suite for the Mac’s. That’s right, you can have MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc all on the Mac (except for Access). Programmers will find Mac’s to be a pleasantly nice platform to work on, because since Mac OS X is built on Unix (BSD) platforms, you can harness the power of the shell to dish out amazing stuffs. Ruby on Rails guys will know what I’m talking bout.

Mac’s also have a lot of alternative free apps available out there that do practically the same job as their Windows counterparts. Not satisfied with the Mac apps? Then INSTALL WINDOWS!  Yes, that’s right folks. You can install Windows on a Mac (only on Mac’s that are made since 2-3 years ago) now thanks to the transition of the craptastic Motorola PowerPC processors to Intel Core processors. There are many ways to run Windows on a Mac,most people prefer to install Windows as a guest OS inside Mac OS X so you can actually RUN BOTH together. That’s right, you can actually have Windows Pinball or Utorrent on your Mac desktop. This can be done by using either Parallels or VMWare Fusion software that enables you to run Windows side-by-side with Mac OS X.

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Myth #3: Mac’s are not user-friendly

That’s just bullshit. How do you call something user-friendly? Some people don’t seem to like the Mac OS X graphical user interface and just call it not user-friendly. From my observations all this while, I find that people tend to build a habit towards using something until he/she becomes familiar with it. Take Windows XP for example, it probably took someone who is tech-illiterate centuries to become familiar with it. If you were to force that particular person to use Mac OS X, he’ll probably mentally explode because since Windows are so prone to problems or errors if you accidentally f**k something up, he’s probably taking this bad experience over to all computers no matter what platform it’s running on. When you give this guy a Mac to use, he’ll probably be like “oh f**k, how do I use this while not f**king shit up!?”

Well friends, It is safe to say that Mac’s are MUCH, MUCH MORE user friendly than Windows. Sure, it takes time to get familiar with Mac OS X. But I guarantee you it won’t take more than a week of usage to get familiar with it. The learning curve for Mac OS X is not that curvy or however you describe it.

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Myth #4: Mac’s have viruses too

No. Mac’s have no viruses YET. No Spyware, Adware, Crapware, Trojans, Roddens or whatever crap that will make your computer explode. Viruses that can infect Windows cannot infect Mac’s and that’s a fact. It’s like saying bird flu can infect human beings but not aliens. That’s the difference. Viruses are usually tiny little programs (like .exe files) that will f**k shit up on your computer. However, Mac’s can’t natively run these. So Mac’s are actually safe from viruses for the time being, until some mad genius finds a way to build a REAL Mac virus (not those hoaxes that Symantec throw in once in a while to get Mac users buy their Anti-virus suites).

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Myth #5: Mac’s are more expensive than PC’s

Wrong. You get what you pay for. The reason MacBook Pro’s are more expensive than some dictionary-thick Dell notebook (not laptop as laptops are lap-safe) is because MacBook Pro’s are not only 1-inch thin, but it is built with material that are far superior that those used in Dell notebooks. My MacBook Pro still look good even though it’s 2 years old while my friend’s Dell XPS notebook that cost twice my MBP has BAD scratches on the palm area. Also, MBP’s have backlit keyboard, power connectors that connects magnetically so you don’t trip over, motion sensors so that your MBP hard disk turns off in the event of falling dangerously etc. MBP’s are engineered with special features while Dell notebooks are just a box with goodies thrown in without effort. That’s the difference.

Also, if you were to use the computer for commercial purposes. Software licenses for Windows will cost MUCH more. Why? Because you gotta pay for anti-virus, anti-spyware, internet firewall, black sheep wall etc. Don’t get me started on FREE alternatives because commercial products often work much better.

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Myth #6: Mac’s are slower than Windows

Ok, this could have been true if it was 10 years ago. But now, Mac’s are actually FASTER. You have no idea how I love multi-tasking, and Mac’s are damn good for that. If you’re burning a DVD on a Windows machine, chances are your whole PC feels sluggish and chokes up while your mouse pointer warps from one pixel to another. On a Mac, you don’t get such bullshit, you burn the DVD, you can do other stuff with little to no speed impact.

Also, Mac’s don’t require maintenance. Windows machines will slow down as time goes by if you don’t defragment, clean caches, clean useless registry entries, clean your toilet etc. Often people will just format their PC when their PC feels really slow. Mac’s don’t feel slow as time goes by.

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Ok, there are many more good things bout Mac’s but I think that’s enough for now. However, nothing is perfect. Mac’s have their own downsides too. For example,

Ugly truth #1: Mac’s have a VERY limited number of games

There’s no blame on whose fault is this. Money runs the world and if there’s not enough people playing games on the Mac, there’s not much point producing or porting games to the Mac. Oh well, I mean there’s still World of Warcraft right… The game that wins Best Mac Game of the year every year…

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Ugly truth #2: Mac desktops are behind in hardware

Sadly, Mac Pro’s graphics card option only have Geforce 8600’s or ATI 2600’s as their greatest cards… I mean… WTF?

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Ugly truth #3: Right mouse button is craptastic

For some reason Apple engineers think that everyone lifts up their left finger while clicking the right mouse button. Because I don’t, and this has forced me to switch from Wireless Mighty Mouse to Logitech MX Revolution.

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Till the next mythbuster, I hope you enjoyed this one! :)

Image Source: AppleInsider.com