Evernote Essentials 3.0 is now available for download.

This update has been well over a year in the making (which is a little embarrassing, frankly), but I’m incredibly happy with how it turned out. It covers all of the latest features in Evernote for Windows and Mac, plus boatloads of new content that I think you’re really going to like.

If you’re already a customer, you’ll be receiving an email shortly with instructions for downloading the new version.

If you’re not a customer, I must say: it’s a perfect day to change that :)

More than 18,000 people have used Evernote Essentials to jumpstart their Evernote mojo. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, get your copy today!

Reading is good. Especially when you’re reading great stuff written by smart people who really give a crap about what they’re saying. Here’s a couple things you might consider reading because they’re awesome.

60 Mountain Lion Tips

Not one to sit back on his Paperless laurels, my good pal David Sparks—who I’m now convinced doesn’t actually sleep—has released another new ebook in his MacSparky Field Guide series. This one is a collaboration between Sparks and Brett Terpstra. It’s called 60 Mountain Lion Tips. If you buy the iBooks edition, you get all the fancy multimedia and formatting that is quickly becoming a hallmark of David’s work.

And he must have bumped his head or something because he’s only charging $7 for it. It’s got 53 separate screencasts with over 90 minutes of video. You should grab it (iBooks or PDF) before he realizes the mistake he’s made.

Read and Trust Magazine

Speaking of Capt. Sparks and Brett Terpstra, all three of us—as well as Matt Alexander of one37.net and David Chartier of, well, everywhere—contributed articles to this month’s Read & Trust magazine. The topic is productivity and it’s got some great stuff that I think you’ll enjoy. My article is in there, too!

Grab your copy of this month’s Read & Trust magazine (or sign up for a monthly subscription and you’ll get it automatically each month).

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Have a great day, friends. Don’t forget to read awesome stuff. If you have suggestions for additional awesome stuff, give me a shout on Twitter.

My good buddy Patrick Rhone is, this very day, launching his second book; a collection of essays entitled Enough. Grab the ePub or the the Kindle version.˛

Click here for more info.

In this week’s episode of the Internet’s favorite cooking-related podcast, Myke and I discuss iPads, English witticisms and a whole bunch of other stuff!

Click here for more info.

Stephen Hackett:

Today, I’m happy to share that my first ebook, Bartending: Memoirs of an Apple Genius is well underway. It’s a collection of short stories from my time behind the Genius Bar.

Can’t wait.

Click here for more info.

If we played corner boys against dock workers, murder-polices against hoppers, and craven politicos against enigmatic not-actually-Greek human traffickers, in matchups as arbitrary and occasionally unjust as life and death on the mean streets of West Baltimore, would the king stay the king?

Click here for more info.

David from The Rise to the Top was kind enough to have me on as a guest on his video interview show. We talk at length about Evernote Essentials, how it was made and sold, etc. If you’re interested in the business-y side of making stuff, you’ll probably find something to love in here.

While you’re there, be sure to check out some of the other insanely cool interviews David’s done (Seth Godin and Chris Guillebeau are a couple of my favorites).

Click here for more info.

My good friend Stephen “Consuela” Hackett, stalwart author of  512pixels.net, has launched a brand new podcast called the 512 Podcast with my friend and cohost Myke “Yardie” Hurley on the 70Decibels podcast network. Don’t miss it.

Click here for more info.

Matt Gemmell, who sorta had me up until this point (regarding those “Tweet this to win a free bag of feces” promotions):

To argue that the promotion itself is alright, and that if the customer chooses to participate then it’s their own fault, is akin to denouncing cancer warning labels on cigarettes, or disagreeing with bans on cut-price alcohol promotions.

I certainly won’t argue that a portion of Internet marketing (and those perpetrating it) is off-putting and that it’s annoying to see people tooting about the new gadget they just entered to win, but absolving the participants and placing the blame squarely with those running the promotion tacitly makes two statements:

1. The marketers driving the promotion are malevolent puppeteers who ring the iPad-shaped bell as their Pavlovian supporters blindly do their bidding.
2. Their supporters are the dumbest kind of idiots who can’t be expected to think for themselves nor take responsibility for their own actions.

A marketer’s job is to sell things to people — so, it’s incumbent upon them to figure out the most effective way to do it. Nobody’s arguing that maybe these folks could be a little more scrupulous, but these marketing departments simply wouldn’t employ these tactics if they didn’t consistently produce results. It’s not illegal and it works, so they do it.

Yeah, it’s annoying when people toot about the free iPad 2 they just entered to win. But, if we really want to choke this problem off, then we should start with the (mostly) grown men and women who are perpetuating the problem with each and every “like” instead of admonishing the sleazy marketers of the world to somehow grow a conscience.

Click here for more info.

Daniel Wajda over at Swipe the Linen kindle invited me to share my iPhone 4S home screen along with some commentary about my choices in apps. Click on through if that sort of stuff is interesting to you (it totally is to me).

Click here for more info.