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Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: barney on May 31, 2011, 11:15 PM
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OK, I've had it :mad:. I've been using InfoSelect (IS) since before it was a Windows app. Don't recall the name of the DOS TSR then, though. Anyway, InfoSelect has been a primary application in my life since its inception. Until now.
The latest version, 10.x.x, totally broke almost every usage I had for IS. Formerly, there was search capability on colored text - that's gone. Formerly there was limited capability to copy both text and image(s) from another document - HTML, PDF, you name it - but that's gone ... hindered might be more accurate, since I've seen it drop from roughly 30%-40% to less than 1%, significantly less. The devs added that damned ribbon and totally destroyed a reasonably comfortable menu system, which was very customizable. Currently there is a menu bar which, supposedly can be customized. So I spent half-an-hour customizing it when I first started using IS v10. Next time I started IS, all customizations were gone. Gave it another shot, and another thirty (30) minutes, with the same result.
I just upgraded to a new build - 70 - and lost my last month's work in the process. When I attempted to recover from internal backups, nothing was there :mad:. So, what had been reliable in the past was, along with other things, rendered unusable. There's more, but I'd be incited to extreme profanity should I continue in this vein.
What I'd absolutely love to find is something that has the following capabilities:
- allow drag and drop from almost any other application
- record the URL of the drag and drop origin if a URL, or the title bar if a non-Web application
- record the date (and time?) of any drag and drop operation
- include images along with text in any drag and drop operation
- allow creation of individual notes interactively
- allow - but not require - a tree/outline structure (in order to pre-classify note or drag and drop entities)
There's more, of course, but that would be a good start. I'm not quite willing to trade my immortal soul - if I still have one ;) - but such a software would indeed be so dear to me that I might amortize it :-\.
I've been trying WikeNotes - found it here a while back - and it does a lot of what I'd like, but still has quite a way to go, as far as automation is concerned. It holds much promise, and I suspect it'll be a primary candidate, young as it is, for my future workload. However, it's difficult to believe there's not a reasonably mature program already in existence.
IS is touted as being a personal information manager (PIM) and it is, but that is not my primary usage for it. I've used its email capabilities in the past, off and on, but that's not a significant need. Same thing with the calendar and reminder capabilities. I just want record keeping adequate to my needs/purposes. Some of those purposes are keeping code modules, some are aggregating data for reporting - and citing - purposes, some are for brainstorming/idea/concept purposes (much akin to a mind map, albeit non-graphical). There's also a daily journal I keep - a significant chunk of which was lost, btw - that could be kept elsewhere, but the convenience of having all this in one repository is to some degree beyond measure.
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I have been using UltraRecall (http://www.kinook.com/UltraRecall/) for about two years. It is highliy configurable and meets all your demands. I got a nice discount on the Pro-Version when it was dealed on BitsDuJour (http://www.bitsdujour.com/).
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@barney: You have my sympathies. I have been following the latest developments of IS. I have stayed at IS version 8 (IS8) as I cannot see that anything terribly useful is going on with the newest version (v10). The gathering of user requirements seems to have been a fiasco.
But as to your data loss, well, shame on you for not:
(a) having proper backup in place.
(b) not testing that the backup worked (could be recovered).
(c) keeping v10 away from your current data and backup, before you had tested it out.
You never know, v10 might have been just fine!
I intend trying v10 out at some stage, but it will only be able to access a copy of my live data.
I have come to the point where I think UltraRecallPro would probably be the way to migrate, having looked at the alternatives listed below, but I have not yet found anything to exactly/easily replace IS8:
- Chandler - waste of time.
- Compendium
- InfoQube - very good
- MaplePro
- Noah - hmm.
- Omea
- OneNote - I am using this.
- orGenta
- RagTimeSolo
- TaskCoach
- TiddlyDu
- TiddlyWiki
- TimeTo
- ToDo + planning
- TotalText
- UltraRecallPro - looks like this is the best migration path; can apparently import IS database files too
- Wild-in-a-jar
- Wiki-PIMs
- Winguide
- WireNote
- Zoot - pretty nifty, but has a steep learning curve.
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Tornado Notes - and it was great.
Somewhere around ver 5 or 6 I lost half my data when transferring to a new machine - and because it was a "no longer supported version" I gave up on the program.
Then EverNote looked like the way to go - until it disappeared into the cloud along with the readable ink feature - Grrr
Now I'm trying to learn my way around InfoQube
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But as to your data loss, well, shame on you for not:
(a) having proper backup in place.
(b) not testing that the backup worked (could be recovered).
(c) keeping v10 away from your current data and backup, before you had tested it out.
-IainB
Unwarranted assumption(s) on your part :D:
- (a) backup was in place - in fact it worked too well :(
- (b) see (a)
- (c) at some point, ya hafta commit.
Problem with my backup- solution - which had served well up to now - was that it worked too well - too quickly? - when disaster struck. I'd upgraded, on the advice of one of the IS crew, to a new build because of some recurring problem. However, the upgrade failed to run the first couple of times - and, in hind-sight, truncated one or more of the existing data files >:(, not something that was evident at the time. That's why I say the backup plan worked too well :o. And, since my major backup(s) be on a first of the month schedule, I ended up losing the last month's work. So there was a functional - and tested! - backup plan in place and in operation. Hindsight indicates there might be a better way to set the workflow, but then, hindsight has a way of doing that :P.
Tornado Notes - and it was great.
-David1904
That was it! One (1) of the four (4) or five (5) progs that were absolute necessities back then.
Yeah, I was using Evernote alongside IS, as some of its functionality augmented what I was doing in IS. However, I'm averse to cloud-based data stores for daily usages - too many times I might need the data and not be connected at that moment. And there are other times, fer instance on dial-up, when cloud access is simply unacceptable in terms of speed. And until there is some equivalent, cloud-data-wise, to SQL's commit/rollback routines in general usage, I am averse to most cloud-based solutions.
Remember playing with InfoQube a while back ... methinks a revisit is in order.
Remember seeing reference to UltraRecallPro ... don't think I've ever run across it, though.
I've tried several of the Wiki solutions: with the exception of WikeNotes, they've been inadequate.
Never could quite wrap my head around Zoot.
Never though of TaskCoach in that light, although I use it for general task/project scheduling.
Ah, well ... seems as though there's now something to fill the odd spare moment that occurs now and again :P.
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Another mention for Zoot. There's a full 32-bit version that handles rich text and images in beta, release expected soon (the current version is text only).
The differentiator for Zoot is its smarts, specifically its ability to automatically place products into their correct folders based on rules that you can define.
You mention that you couldn't quite wrap your head around it, and that's a common complaint (and I've certainly felt it). Unfortunately the upcoming new version doesn't do anything to improve that.
But there are some other compelling improvements in the new version. Most notable to me is its ability to collect notes from a remote source. Basically, you set up a Gmail account for it, and send new stuff to that account. Zoot, back at your desktop, monitors that account, and automatically loads new material from it. It's also got some good integration with Dropbox.
So Zoot does have its allures ;)
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Zoot is still going? Sheesh. That's one of the slowest developed programs I've ever come across.
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@barney: Sorry about making an unwarranted assumption.
I would always recommend you keep your prior version IS and database as a full backout/recovery set for a year before deleting it if all goes well with the newer version.
Yes, paranoid, I know.
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Punch line to an old joke: king talking to vizier about assassination prevention says, "Yes I know I'm being paranoid. My worry is whether I'm paranoid enough." :P
Yep, I do much the same, albeit within a somewhat shorter time frame. The rub, always, though, is that material which has been created with the newer version that is usually not backward-compatible :(. Or, in this case, loss of such material due to a failed upgrade >:(. That's always been one of my biggest complaints of IS - the devs don't seem to even have a concept of a change log, so there's no real way of knowing whether ya really need the most current upgrade :huh:. I've stayed with it because of its [comparatively] blazingly fast search, in spite of that.
Ah, well ... I've pretty well settled on UltraRecall Pro (UR) :-\, although I'm having a bit of trouble getting URL automation working. Also using WikeNotes. Don't have enough data stored to compare search speeds, but looks as though I'll have to live with what I get. Do wish WikeNotes had a - supertag? - classification system :o, e.g., software, how-to, website, but other than that and automatic capture of heading(s) & URLs, it seems to work well so far.
Oh, yeah, that ability to import IS data into UR? You have to first export it as text in IS, then import it into UR, a process that I suspect will take much time, considering the gigabytes of .wd2 and .wd3 files I have :(.
Ain't software wumderful :P?!?
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Have to add a +1 for OneNote. I'm not on the latest (2010) but also haven't heard any tales of things breaking horribly.
OneNote serves all my needs for "freeform information container and filer" very well.
Just about all the requirements from your original post are covered, although the outlining is probably weak compared to what you're used to with InfoSelect.
Try not to hold the fact that it's a Microsoft product against it. :P OneNote is one of the true software gems to come out of Redmond. And it benefits from the resources a big biz like MS has available to put into usability. It won't take you weeks to "wrap your head around it." You can be productive right away, even though it may take a long time to discover every productivity trick it has up it's sleeve.
Unfortunatley, at about $100 it's not cheap. Unless you compare it to Info Select. :D
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My understanding of OneNote is that it is primarily a cloud-based app, with, appropriately enough, cloud-based storage. I quit using EverNote when it went to the cloud: I don't see a significant advantage to opt for a different cloud entity.
(I don't have anything against MS ... I've used a lot of their stuff over the years, usually to my advantage, even though there has been a significant amount of creep and bloat in later editions of things I've used. Mostly, I'll use any software that does what I need done at the time :P.)
Since my work is pretty much solo, a collaboration tool would seem to be a kind of overkill. And, since I don't trust cloud storage - on several levels - anything cloud-based is pretty much anathema.
I was trying UltraRecall Pro along with WikeNotes, but I don't think URP is going to be able to do the job. I've sent a help request for the problem(s), but have yet to see a response.
On the other hand, WikeNotes, young as it is, does a significant part of what I want to do. It would help if it had an alternative tree/outline view along with the tag view - I'll try contacting the vendor to see if that's in the works - or even possible. If I can get reasonable response from the author(s), that looks to be the route I'll be taking.
Unless something better comes along, of course :-\.
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Onenote is NOT primarily a cloud storage app. It's primarily a desktop app. The cloud sync features have been added and improved as the newer versions came. It's cloud syncing features are not as simple and smooth as Evernote, but it works. It uses Microsoft's Sky Drive for the syncing, if I'm not mistaken.
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Looks as though I need to check OneNote. Since it's a $$$ app, I hope there's a trial, but I suspect that'll be the case ;).
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Got a friend who does heavy duty background research for his company's exec technical steering committee. He swears by UltraRecall Pro which you mentioned earlier. (He's also an absolute wiz with AskSam.)
I gave UltraRecall a try a few years ago. I found it extremely powerful. But something about it didn't sync with how my brain tends to work. It just struck me as being too much app for what I needed it for. But I have no doubt it's a very good app.
Might be worth giving it a try. They'll let you download a 45-day/20-use (item limited) trail copy. And they say they have provisions for extending the trial period or removing the item limit if you need more time or have to test it with a bigger database. That's unusual enough to make it worth checking out.
:)
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I gave UltraRecall a try a few years ago. I found it extremely powerful. But something about it didn't sync with how my brain tends to work. It just struck me as being too much app for what I needed it for. But I have no doubt it's a very good app.
-40hz
That's precisely how I've felt with UR also. And I've tried it out at least 3 times.
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As mentioned earlier, I got URP, but the tech writing for it leaves a lot to be desired ... and it took something like forty-eight (48) hours plus to get a response that didn't really address the question I asked. That does not bode well for future issues, although I might be a bit on the impatient side :P in that respect.
The biggest problem I have is getting the URL of stuff I've imported from the Web ... need it for source and, occasionally, attribution when it's from someone else's site. If I have to manually copy and transfer it, that increases my time per item by about 5%-10% ... when you're grabbing 300-500 segments per session, that becomes significant time :'(. There are some other issues - graphics come to mind - but that's the biggie, the show stopper, as it were.
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The biggest problem I have is getting the URL of stuff I've imported from the Web -barney
Easy to do. I think you must have captured them. Are you sure you are actually seeing what you have got? I always go to the data hierarchy one up from the level I'm looking at (or higher) & look at the URL column in the child list (you do have to have marked that column as one you wish to see).
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Hm-m-m ... if [I think] I understand what you are saying, a URL in the data tree won't work. I need a title there, the URL in the note- ? - that is produced.
To make that a bit more clear, a list of URLs is intrinsically worthless, since there's no indication what that URL references until you click on it. Sorry if I misunderstand, but I've had that result. Oh, yeah, it's also difficult, if not impossible, to edit the note attached to that URL.
I may be talking about something different than what you mention, but my experience to date has been ... abysmal, shall we say?
But that may go back to my - lack of? - appreciation for the documentation, I suspect. I do tech writing in my copious spare time ;D, and what I've seen to date falls far short of standards. Help files should be written for those who have not used the software, as well as for those familiar with it. Too many unclear terms :o.
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The URL is a document attribute in UR. You can view the attributes for any document by selecting Tools/Attributes from the menu. You can also copy the URL into the document itself if you want to see it there.
While I have been using UR of late for collecting stuff from the web, I must say that it is NOT intuitive or easy to work with. I much preferred Evernote 2.x for that purpose, but it is now history and Evernote 3+ costs $45/year to be really useful. Also, for some purposes, I want a local database.
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Yeah, they told me I could see the URL in the Attributes window ... but it ain't not never there. I see system attributes - which do not, on my system, include URL. I recall a reference to another attribute window, but 'tain't there, nor can I discover how to evince it. Maybe a bad install on my system, or maybe something else, system-wise, interfering, but I misdoubt. In the Tools | Attributes window, URL is selected. It just does not display. I'm not averse to being wrong, mind you, but so far, no one has been able to tell/show me how I am :tellme:.
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@barney: In search of an alternative to InfoSelect
I had exactly the same questions as you, some time back, and gathered a lot of information. It took a lot of investigative work on my part. Here are pointers to the info I gathered, and which might save you some considerable time.
I collected most of the info into the FREE Scrapbook add-on for Firefox. Scrapbook is extremely useful for capturing local copies of webpages (and their URLs).
(With Scrapbook, you can copy just specific things - e.g., images, files - and go several levels deep and scrape off whole chunks of a website if you want.)
This is all Useful information on PIMs (Personal Information Management) software generally (not just InfoSelect).
These links from my Scrapbook could be useful:
- List of outliners (http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/807/0/list-of-outliners)
- Discussion on PIMS in DC Forum. (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8442.0)
This image - a list of PIM-related content - from my Scrapbook directory could also be useful.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
The PIMs I have tried out over the last 2 years are:
- AgendaAtOnce
- Chandler
- Compendium
- InfoQube
- MaplePro
- Noah
- Omea
- orGenta
- RagTimeSolo
- TaskCoach
- TiddlyDu
- TiddlyWiki
- TimeTo
- ToDo + planning
- TotalText
- Wiki-in-a-jar
- Wiki-PIMs
- Winguide
- WireNote
- Zoot
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An impressive list, indeed.(
I think I've tried about half of those, although not always with current purposes in mind ;).
Nothing ever came close to InfoSelect, but the latest version of that has proven to be unreliable.
Just encountered a problem with URP - the last seven (7) items I copied were all identical copies of a former - but not immediately previous - copy. Well-l-l, the copies weren't, but what was pasted was. I think I'm converted to WikeNotes - at least it hasn't screwed me up - yet :P.
(Yeah, scrapbook is very handy. Don't know, yet, if it functions with 4.x, though.)
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Re InfoQube (IQ):
I'm a fairly basic user and am not familiar with any other comparable apps - but I'll chance a comment.
It's essentially a two pane outliner/database.
Grid/Outline (text, with html formatting possible) and the HTML pane, which contains rich-text/html + images (related to the items in the grid).
Drag n drop does not work the way you want it but
There are other methods:
- Win+C - very easy :) copies selected text [& images] directly to the html pane (via a new item dialogue), title of window is used for the grid text, and the url is saved. By default it goes to an inbox grid but this can be changed from the dialogue, or later.
- there's an extension for FF & IE so I can copy selected text or full pages via context menu or a button.
If you can live without the drag n drop aspect, all you other requirements are met.
Caveats might be that it's still is in Beta, the interface need work to make it more friendly. Some people do have difficulty at the beginning with it.
OTOH there is documentation which may be imperfect but is being improved all the time. You'll always get help quickly at the forum http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=tracker. I've been using IQ for years for work stuff without losing anything and what with it being in development it's been updated a lot. It's portable too ;)
[edit] download link (go for the portable version) http://www.infoqube.biz/download
and 'help' page here on dc InfoQube (IQ) Information Management System Q & A (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=26326.0) [/edit]
edit2/ minor, in [square brackets]
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To make that a bit more clear, a list of URLs is intrinsically worthless, since there's no indication what that URL references until you click on it. Sorry if I misunderstand, but I've had that result. Oh, yeah, it's also difficult, if not impossible, to edit the note attached to that URL.
-barney
Two egs: one in the child pane at the bottom, one in the attributes pane at the side.
Easy to attach notes etc if you want.
One just a copy page instruction, the other just a copy selection instruction. URL collected and saved without any other action.
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
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Aha! Your 2nd example shows information that does not present on my system, the Document attributes. Even though they are selected in the View | Choose Columns (?) menu window. That is, both Web site and URL are selected, but neither shows in the item attributes window. And for some reason, the UR folk apparently don't believe that, even with screen shots :huh:. I don't doubt that the product is good, but it simply does not perform as advertised on my system. My next step, when time allows, is to deinstall, reinstall, see if something went awry in the original install. That seems more and more likely, as new [non] events occur :o.
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Even though they are selected in the View | Choose Columns (?) menu window. That is, both Web site and URL are selected, but neither shows in the item attributes window. -barney
I don't have either of those boxes clicked there :(
What I do have it those attributes ticked in the menu - Tools>Attributes :)
And I bring up the Attributes panel by the menu - View>Other Windows>Item Attributes (or just CTRL 4) :) :)
CTRL 5 brings up the item notes (or otherwise just go through the same View menu)
And for some reason, the UR folk apparently don't believe that, even with screen shots :huh:. I don't doubt that the product is good, but it simply does not perform as advertised on my system. My next step, when time allows, is to deinstall, reinstall, see if something went awry in the original install. That seems more and more likely, as new [non] events occur :o.
-barney
I do sort of understand where they are coming from. This sort of thing just works in UR - as long as you know or can work out how to do it. It is, to my mind, rather like Directory Opus: lots and lots of possibilities and controls - but so many places to do it and so many things you need to understand. I don't think I ever read the manual; I did find some really informative key posts in the forum written by the developers. Just a question of finding the ones you need. My guess it is not your install that is a problem, just your settings somewhere.
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I'm inclined to agree. However, I've made so many changes/adjustments, I suspect starting from scratch might be advantageous. And there is the possibility that, since my system is kinda sorta overloaded, something else is interfering that I wot not of :-\. For instance, after dropping an indeterminate number of clips, every drop becomes one (1) particular clip. Only thing I've found to cure that is to kill, then restart, URP. But it shouldn't be happening, and it's likely something else running is interfering. However, I can't afford the time to hunt that particular needle - it's a big haystack :P.
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For instance, after dropping an indeterminate number of clips, every drop becomes one (1) particular clip. Only thing I've found to cure that is to kill, then restart, URP. But it shouldn't be happening, and it's likely something else running is interfering. However, I can't afford the time to hunt that particular needle - it's a big haystack :P.
-barney
Completely agree.
And UR is very complex. My own approach was like my normal approach to many even slightly complex programs - a few minutes here and there seeing what it does, reading the forum regularly etc over a long period of time before I decided I got it and it would do some aspect of what I wanted and started actually using it. Pretty much the complete opposite of your situation.
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I've just been reviewing these:
AgendaAtOnce: The latest version - AgendaAtOnce (http://www.datalandsoftware.com/)
Looks like it's been quite improved.
Could be well worth considering as a possible alternative to InfoSelect.
Tomboy: Uses a WikiWiki-like linking system - Tomboy (http://projects.gnome.org/tomboy/features.html)
Looks pretty useful. May require you to change your way of thinking though.
Hope these help or are of use.
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Used Tomboy as a cataloging tool under linux, but [that iteration] wasn't really suitable to current requirements. The current Windows version seems to have gone a bit too minimalist, although it might be a useful note[only]-taking app.
I'll take a look at AgendaAtOnce. Currently getting more comfortable with WikeNotes. It seems to be the most workable of everything I've tried so far, although they've not answered their help form. I'd had high hopes for UltraRecall Pro, but I don't have the time to translate its help file into non-developer-level English :P.
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I am a longtime IS user. At present I rely on IS 2007, which I run from USB (works well). However, with the advent of IS 10 I have been looking elsewhere, and recently came across another contender:
Smereka TreeProjects (http://personaldatabase.org/?src=fsite)
Really quite impressive!
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TreeProjects looks good. Even has the tagging capability I'd hoped IS would adopt. Dunno from a cursory read whether it'll do graphics or not - WikeNotes has indeed spoiled me in that respect - but I'll check out the trial copy, see what it does. At half the price, if it even comes close to IS' [former] functionality, it'll be a bargain :).
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@barney:
Currently getting more comfortable with WikeNotes. It seems to be the most workable of everything I've tried so far, although they've not answered their help form.
Dunno from a cursory read whether it'll do graphics or not - WikeNotes has indeed spoiled me in that respect -
Well, as a result of reading your posts, I tried out WikeNotes.
Conclusions:
- It doesn't do graphics, as far as I can see, though it looks as though it tries to in html format.
- It's very kludgy.
- It offers some novel ways to lose your data for good.
- I would therefore recommend that you avoid using it.
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Funny, I've not had a problem with WikeNotes anent dropping web stuff onto it and holding them. However, if you tried the latest version - 0.4 - you do have to pick the right create icon - one of 'em is text only.
I have had a few sites render as though I'd hit the view source button on the browser, but I suspect - since I've seen the same with other products - it's likely do to malformed Web pages rather some fault with WikeNotes.
Yeah, can't argue with the kludgy aspect. Suspect, if the devs keep on it, that will improve with time,though.
I've yet, except as noted in the previous view source comment, to lose any data with it. I'm not particularly happy with the password aspect - it seems poorly, or perhaps clumsily?, implemented - but I've lost no data for the last several weeks, actually since this thread started, which is more than I can say for URP.
All in all, it seems the best candidate to replace IS functionality in this arena, albeit not a total replacement.
BTW, looked at the TreeProjects app. It's nice, and has tagging capability - a strong plus for me - but didn't see any graphic copy/storage capability worth mention.
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@barney: Ah, I see! I was using WikeNotes v0.2 not v0.4.
I had been confuzzled by their website (which is also kludgy). It took me three tries to download v0.4 from their WindowsLive website - without corruption errors.
When I started up v0.4, I immediately saw what you meant. Much better.
I take back my comments above. Still kludgy, and you need to take care.
Well worth following WikeNotes' development, but, since it's apparently still under development, I'd not recommend that you entrust your valuable data to it without lots of backup.
By the way, I noticed that it takes copy/paste of text and/or images from MS OneNote just fine - which some applications seem to have great difficulty with.
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Suggest you check out Compendium (http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/about.htm).
It was in my list in an earlier post, but I haven't used it for a couple of years. In the link provided above, it says this:
Personal Use
Many people use Compendium to manage their personal digital information resources, since you can drag+drop in any document, website, email, image, etc, organise them visually, and then connect ideas, arguments and decisions to these. Compendium thus becomes the 'glue' that allows you to pool and make sense of disparate material that would otherwise remain fragmented in different software applications. You can assign your own keyword 'tags' to these elements (icons), create your own palettes of icons that have special meanings, overlay maps on top of background images, and place/edit a given icon in many different places at once: things don't always fit neatly into just one box in real life.
If you're technical, you can exploit our XML scheme, the Derby or MySQL relational database, and public Java classes to connect Compendium to other databases and computational services. (If that sentence meant anything to you, then check out our developer website!)
There are informative links to follow if you go to the website.
Wikipedia have a good entry on Compendium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compendium_%28software%29).
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He-he ... pulled down Compendium ... from first reads, I'll need a doctorate - at least a masters ;) - just to get started. Actually, it looks pretty decent, but it'll take a lot of reading to get it working, methinks :P
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pulled down Compendium
-barney
So did I (thanks IainB) looks interesting and it was fast and easy to set up superficial collections.
I thought that I couldn't function without InfoSelect, which I'd used ever since it grew out of Tornado Notes. That was until some circumstance that I no longer recall in detail (moving offices I think) divorced me from it. I lost track of my data and also the software itself. On coming across it a couple of years later I found that getting updated to a current version seemed to be quite a hassle and rather costly. I also found that it was starting to look and feel a bit dated — this was around 7, I think. Perhaps my needs are simple, but I haven't missed it as much as I had expected. In a perverse way I'm not sorry to have left the train at an earlier station now that I see remarks about the current offering.
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Yeah, you might have been lucky ... I had to lose significant data in order to jump that particular ship. I stayed with it because I'd not been able to find anything that could perform searches as rapidly ... but this last version broke most of my search configs, as well as adding that damned ribbon and providing a toolbar that could not hold configurations ... ended up with less screen real estate, less functionality, and an ersatz menu [substitution] system that was non-intuitive (at least to me) at best. So now it seems I'll be using URP for some stuff, WikeNotes for some stuff, Personal Brain for some stuff, maybe Compendium for some stuff ... wonder how many other pieces I'll need to adopt to compensate :P. Hell, I'd even go back to the Tornado TSR :P.
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ended up with less screen real estate, less functionality, and an ersatz menu [substitution] system that was non-intuitive
-barney
Ouch! :o
Fortunately, a lot of the info I'd had was of only passing value. Project notes, costings, that sort of stuff. Basically, once a project was completed those notes weren't worth the heck of a lot as the material wound up in printed reports. Anyway, that's where a good secretary p.a. shines.
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Personal Brain for some stuff, maybe Compendium for some stuff
-barney
If you ever do get something non-trivial up and running under either, could you please be sure to share it with us? (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/esmileys/gen3/1Small/63.gif) Pretty please even?
I've wanted to like both of those programs ever so much since the day I first learned about them. But despite giving them decent try-outs, it's been "no joy" I'm afraid.
Maybe I just don't have the right category of project to use either of them with. (And thinkertoys do tend to be domain specific, sad but true.) Still...something in the back of my head keeps alternating between thinking the king has no clothes - and that I'm seriously missing something.
So any input - especially with a real live working example application - would be greatly appreciated. :)
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Yeh. I've tried Compendium too. Could never think of a use for it that it was the best solution for.
Sort of opposite problem to that I have with IQ - plenty of possible uses for it and recognise that it might be efficient if I thought the way it does, but never see an easy way of doing what I want. And probably never will unless the failure of other tools forces me to try and adapt to its way of working. May need to have another look sometime.
Would take a lot more persuading/examples to make me try Compendium again.
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This is going to sound waaaay out of left field...
I think the biggest problem with all of these information managers is none of them offer the user a good way to customize how they want to SEE the information. Look, storing information is easy. Even without any special programs, it's easy to just use a good file manager to organize a bunch of files and folders. What a lot of these programs do is focus on the STORAGE of information, which to me is not a big deal. That's why i always struggle with that part. I'm fine with basic file management, I don't need a new way to manage files.
The presentation is where it gets bad. All of these programs either want you to view your data in THEIR way, which usually only resonates with a specific group of people. But you don't have the ability to tweak it to what you need. Just to prove my point further, most of these information managers have really awful printing support. Most of them are very basic, maybe the default IE type print preview thing.
The reason why this is bad is because why am I going to spend all this time importing/creating the database, if I'm not going to see or get out the end result of what I want?
Which is why I think my ultimate idea for a program like this would be awesome, but I don't have the talent to create it:
The ultimate information management program:
First, it should be able to import content in easily. Especially content that is "very normal". text files, ms office files, pictures, popular database formats. That takes care of bringing things in.
Then, it should offer a flexible way to establish relationships among all these items. Hierarchies should be easy to make, like in infoqube, ecco pro. Hierarchies are essential. I don't care if you call it tagging or outlining, but relating content needs to be easy.
Now for the best part. I should be able to take all these content elements and like a desktop publishing program, specify how they should be laid out and so forth. So I can print it, export it to an image or html file, etc. This is what most programs lack big time.
Once you like a certain layout, you should be able to save that layout as a template or something and reuse it easily with other data.
That's an idea worth exploring, I think. We spend too much time designing how to bring content into the application. There are tons of programs that do this. Any program like MS Word is going to be better at writing stuff than an information manager, yet they all go through the whole exercise of giving us a Word-lite editor, that people keep requesting more features to make it more like Word. Then they don't have this feature or that feature, like image resizing, rotating, etc...but all this stuff is done better with programs specific for that. This is what most developers spend their time doing.
What is consistently neglected: printing features, export/import features, interface improvements. No. we keep doing the same mistake everyone else in this world does: make it bigger, bigger, more stuff, more stuff...yet never go back and fine-tune or fix things that we have now had a chance to use and improve. Just like google, it used to be awesome, now there's so much crap on it that it's 99% crap, 1% useful. So you might argue it's still worth it for that 1%, but after a while, you give up because your tired...you're tired of wading through all the crap to find that one thing.
I'm on a big fix with elegance lately, since I see so little of it in my life. granted, I'm an engineer in los Angeles (how ugly and boring can it get?!) but I still see very few examples of it around. Plus, I'm super cynical now.
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I actually don't care how easy it is to use. If it does what I want, I'll put in whatever effort it takes to master it. The problem for me is when it isn't easy to use - and it still doesn't do what I want.
Right now (and much to my surprise) the very inelegant (ok, more like hokey) wiki approach seems to work better than most for most info projects.
Maybe wiki is as good as it gets right now with the generally available paradigms and technology we have available for garden variety PCs?
Hmm...
Man do I hate 'fuzzy' anything. (I'm the son of an engineer, in a family of engineers, so I guess my bias is to be expected even if I'm not one.) And I know fuzzy is the reality you usually have to deal with. But I hate it just the same. I'm an "elegance" junky - where elegance is defined as the ability to bring simplicity and precision to the accomplishment of a task. )
;)
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The subject of the perfect information management software can be discussed endlessly and yet... No magic formula will emerge for at least 3 terribly banal and cliché reasons : users' needs are often different, users come/are from/in various contexts, users possess various degree of geekiness... That's why you'll have people immensely enjoying Compendium while others will find that TiddlyWiki or oldish Ecco are the best things since slice bread... While I'll just be left scratching my head :tellme:
As far as the original requirements were... I'm not sure why Barney didn't explore OneNote more (jimdoria's heartfelt suggestion) as, really, it seems to fit the bill almost perfectly. Not to mention that it's sexy and does what it does really well.
- allow drag and drop from almost any other application : CHECK
- record the URL of the drag and drop origin if a URL, or the title bar if a non-Web application : CHECK
- record the date (and time?) of any drag and drop operation : CHECK (last modified date, at least... IIRC, a while ago)
- include images along with text in any drag and drop operation : CHECK
- allow creation of individual notes interactively: CHECK (well... I have to admit I'm not sure exactly what that means... But if does mean what I think it does : CHECK... :))
- allow - but not require - a tree/outline structure (in order to pre-classify note or drag and drop entities): CHECK (but OneNote isn't a pure outliner)
+ one million other things.
So, apart for the last element, maybe, OneNote seems to be a winner -- well I admit that I haven't tested Zoot 32 (not enough time).
And, of course most of you know I use InfoQube for everything data related (or almost), with its current imperfections. But I'd be very surprised if it fitted the bill here. Yet, apart for "recording the URL of the drag and drop origin" stuff (which could probably easily be done), it does everything mentioned above. Like I said : it boils down to one's needs, level of geekiness and usage context...
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As an update and in case it is of use to someone, I have revisited something that I think we have not discussed in this thread so far, but which was discussed a while back in DC forum - KN (KnowledgeNotebook):
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22336 (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22336)
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22592 (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22592)
I had previously found KN to be restrictive and a bit kludgy.
Having reinstalled it and having played around with it a bit, I think it is a lot better, but it still seems a rather odd kind of tool to me. It's a sort of Wiki, I think. I don't think I have discovered all of it's potential in my brief look so far. There is a version for "business" use and one for "student" use. I only tried out the former. I did watch the associated tutorial videos, and saw that the student version apparently has some handy study aids - e.g., simple mind-mapping charts, flash cards (as an aid to rote learning), and a very rough method for comparing your own notes to those of your tutor to see how well-aligned they are.
The KN website is here, if you want to download and try it for yourself: KnowledgeNotebook (http://www.knowledgenotebook.com/index.html)
For this latest install of KN, I looked at what the KN installation puts onto the disk, and it seems it's based on Railo - an Open Source ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). It uses a lot of Java scripts, and, I'm not sure about this, but the installation batch files seem to require .NET Framework and MS Access(?). The data files seem to be buried in the C:\Program Files directory in Win7. KN will not install properly except to that as its root directory, and it leaves loose files in that root, which I think is a bit untidy on the developer's part.
So, it looks interesting, but I don't know how well it might meet the user requirements of different potential users.
The point about requirements made above by @Armando is not insignificant:
The subject of the perfect information management software can be discussed endlessly and yet... No magic formula will emerge for at least 3 terribly banal and cliché reasons : users' needs are often different, users come/are from/in various contexts, users possess various degree of geekiness... That's why you'll have people immensely enjoying Compendium while others will find that TiddlyWiki or oldish Ecco are the best things since slice bread... While I'll just be left scratching my head
Each PIM user will have different, and usually unspecified requirements - may not even know what they are or may not be able to articulate them coherently to others. These "requirements" will form the paradigm or lens through which they look to see whether any given PIM is "perfect" for them. This is obviously a complete lottery and therefore it would be highly unlikely that any PIM will meet your needs under such a scheme.
As an aside: Perhaps little wonder therefore that the Info Select developer has been given such a hard time by his users in their Yahoo forum. However, it is probably his own fault to a large extent as he did not seem to engage in or own up to any systematic gathering, cataloguing and publishing of user requirements before going into redevelopment. He seemed to be entirely focussed on "features" which are not at all the same thing as "user requirements". A lot of the users followed his lead and became focussed on features as well, thereby missing the opportunity to better understand and define their own requirements.
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I was just cleaning up my Program Files directory and I realised that after uninstalling KN, there was still a Railo directory. I read through the install log and discovered that it was a set-up of the Railo/Resin Web Server. Now I think I understand a bit better how KN works - it is indeed a web-based wiki provided on a local (127.0.0.1) host or web server (my laptop, in this case).
I ran the uninstall file in the Railo directory, and it declared itself to be the Railo 3.1 Server uninstall. It removed itself very tidily.
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The aforementioned Smereka TreeProjects is one of the upcoming deals on BdJ, 50% off for $24.50
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Hello to all Info-Select fans ...
I am proud to offer a modern clone of Info-Select ver 1.0 as a portable freeware:
Info-Base http://freeware.persoft.ch/
J.Agam (since Tornado ...)
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Welcome to the site Jochanan :up:
Thank you for sharing your software.
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Always up for Notes DB/PIM alternatives. Thanks, will try it.
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I used Tornado Notes until it became Info Select. I stopped using it when I was switching between work and home computers and overwrote files with earlier versions. Since then I've been using The_Guide ( http://theguide.sourceforge.net/ ) as a very small, reasonably powerful alternative that will run from a USB stick. But The_Guide is no longer supported and lacks many of the features discussed here.
Work provided One_Note and I have been trying to like the program. It is powerful, it is good at annotating entries with source and date, it has excellent cut-n-paste support. Overall, I find it to be annoying.
The use of notebooks on the left side, tabbed sections of a notebook across the top, and pages in the section down the right side takes some getting use to. I often delete a section instead of a page.
Cut-and-paste works well but the fastest way to use it creates new pages within a section; then later I have to re-arrange everything to my liking.
But my biggest complaint is that it is too . . . pretty? I want to paste into a note and all of the formatting pastes as well. Now my notes have multiple formats. I click within a note to add a new entry and a nearby entry is selected rather than creating a new entry. I want to create space between two entries and I need to use a tool from the ribbon to do it reliably. I put in three entries and all three have different right margins and widths and don't align. I find I am spending more time making the page look good than collecting data.
This topic has given me several more tools to look through. Thanks, folks.
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For several years now, I've been happily using Surfulater (http://www.surfulater.com/). At $79, it's a bit pricey, but that price permits you to use it on up to five computers. I'm happy that I was able to get it for less, but knowing how well it serves my needs, I'd willingly pay the full price if I had to. What do I like about it? Well, I can save material from just about any source, online or off. Most of the time, I simply right-click on an article, or part of an article, or a website that I want to save and select one of four possibilities: Add new article, Add new article plus Page, Attach Page to Article, or Bookmark this Page. To be honest, I almost always select the first option: Add new article. Surfulater automatically records the source of the article, and I can easily edit the article, link it to other articles, add tags to make it even easier to find, etc. I can also search my database(s) VERY quickly. And if I encounter a problem, there's a forum and a very responsive developer to turn to for help.
All in all, I'm very happy with Surfulater. Admittedly, I'm a little nervous about the developer's plans to have the next version make use of the cloud, but apparently one will still be able to have one's database on one's computer (my preference, at the moment). However, at least for now, I recommend Surfulater very highly as an information manager. :Thmbsup:
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After trying - and cursing - several alternatives, I've pretty much settled upon MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com/myinfo?utm_source=milenix-com&utm_medium=myinfo&utm_content=company-website&utm_campaign=myinfo6). I'm a bit disappointed with the tag system, but it works well enough for most usages. The interface has a few foibles, e.g., the interface doesn't always retain changes from one (1) instance to the next, but it's the best I've found to date. I am still looking, however. In the process, there needs to be a transparent, almost instant backup system for the portable version. Right now I'm using Syncless (http://code.google.com/p/big5sync/), but it tends to lose the sync instruction if the synched folder/files be missing when it is started.
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But my biggest complaint is that it is too . . . pretty?
-James-B
Yeah, I actually had a similar problem with it. Somehow its skeuomorphism stands in the way of its functionality (despite the fact that it seems to be a very sophisticated software).
But the problem with these sorts of PIM and note-taking applications is that there is such a wide variety of user needs and software features and benefits that it takes a lot of careful analysis of one's needs and the software available to find the perfect match. E.g. there are ones that focus on capturing, or storing, or organising, or analysing notes, but few that can do all of those functions equally well.
E.g. if you want to store and organise notes, then there is the decision whether it should be a "tape", a hierarchical tree, a wiki, or some sort of a database interface. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
And then there are the needs and computing skills of the user. Some software might turn out to be too basic, while others have too steep a learning curve.
There is a big difference between The Guide and OneNote, for instance. What functionality are you particularly looking for?
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After trying - and cursing - several alternatives, I've pretty much settled upon MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com/myinfo?utm_source=milenix-com&utm_medium=myinfo&utm_content=company-website&utm_campaign=myinfo6). I'm a bit disappointed with the tag system, but it works well enough for most usages. The interface has a few foibles, e.g., the interface doesn't always retain changes from one (1) instance to the next, but it's the best I've found to date. I am still looking, however. In the process, there needs to be a transparent, almost instant backup system for the portable version. Right now I'm using Syncless (http://code.google.com/p/big5sync/), but it tends to lose the sync instruction if the synched folder/files be missing when it is started.
-barney
For the record: MyInfo on offer on BDJ @ 51% off on the 19th Dec
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=36816.msg344682;topicseen#new
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What functionality are you particularly looking for?
-dr_andus
It's kinda polyglot. I capture certain Web pages, recipes, save code snippets, save registration information/keys, general notes, data about sites I've created or support, personal notes, access information (passwords, access codes & the like), calendar data - appointments, medical, ... - schedule data, and more. Yes, there are applications that do all those things, but I prefer to have it all in one (1) place. MyInfo has been the best I've found to date. It doesn't do well with Web graphics when the graphic is linked rather than embedded. And the tag system is overly simplistic. But it's the best I've found so far.
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After trying - and cursing - several alternatives, I've pretty much settled upon MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com/myinfo?utm_source=milenix-com&utm_medium=myinfo&utm_content=company-website&utm_campaign=myinfo6). I'm a bit disappointed with the tag system, but it works well enough for most usages. The interface has a few foibles, e.g., the interface doesn't always retain changes from one (1) instance to the next, but it's the best I've found to date. I am still looking, however. In the process, there needs to be a transparent, almost instant backup system for the portable version. Right now I'm using Syncless (http://code.google.com/p/big5sync/), but it tends to lose the sync instruction if the synched folder/files be missing when it is started.
-barney
wondering:
- which alternatives you tried (and cursed) ?
- what do you mean by a "a transparent, almost instant backup system"?
Re backup. With InfoQube, I can set it up to backup every 'x' minutes. If these backups are also timestamped, I can auto-delete all but one per day (after 'n' days). That still adds up, so I clear out the backup folder manually occasionally. Web content is saved in a subfolder. This has to be backed up by another app, or manually. (Text versions of web content are saved in the main file.)
Not perfect, but a good start.
If you want instant backup have you tried some backup software that will monitor the file/folder? (Dont know would that disrupt use of the file(s)...)
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which alternatives you tried (and cursed) ?[/li]
[li]what do you mean by a "a transparent, almost instant backup system"?[/li]
[/list]
...
If you want instant backup have you tried some backup software that will monitor the file/folder? (Dont know would that disrupt use of the file(s)...)
-tomos
For the first query, I've tried MyBase, EssentialPIM, amongst others. Don't remember all of 'em anymore. None were really bad, just not good enough :huh:.
For the second query, as mentioned previously, I'm using Syncless. It does real-time sync w/o any delay that I've discerned, but it loses the target if the target is not available when Syncless starts.
<sidenote> I tried InfoQube, but it just didn't measure up to my needs.</sidenote>
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For the second query, as mentioned previously, I'm using Syncless. It does real-time sync w/o any delay that I've discerned, but it loses the target if the target is not available when Syncless starts.
-barney
okay, I wasnt clear that that was real time. (But would have realised if I had read more at the link. Sounds like a very interesting implementation.)
<sidenote> I tried InfoQube, but it just didn't measure up to my needs.</sidenote>
-barney
ah yeah - I was going to recommend it if you hadnt tried it. If you have tried it - you like it or you dont; it does what you want or it doesnt ;)
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I know, this is an ancient topic & thread. But I suspect there are people still reading it from time to time, and I do have some helpful information to contribute.
1. I think Scrivener is one of the best alternatives to InfoSelect (or "Info Select" as the developer spelled it) for users who used InfoSelect to draft text documents, manage text information, and/or organize outlines of text documents, quotes, etc. Scrivener has no calendar or email capabilities, or spreadsheet grid capabilities, or database forms. And no doubt there are other InfoSelect features missing from Scrivener too.
But Scrivener does have a very cool "compile" feature which compiles multiple documents into a single doc file, or pdf file, or webpage, etc. It even supports MultiMarkdown for producing webpage content. And it will leave out the top portion of documents, allowing you to add blurbs, comments, or descriptions to documents.
It also supports linked inline notes (via internal links to a sidebar of notes for revision todo's -- or for footnotes/endnotes)
And it can deftly manage 100s of pages of text. After all, it was originally intended for novelists, screenwriters, etc.
Yet I'm now discovering that it can be used for a vast array for purposes by others who work w/ text. And the labels in Scrivener can be changed so you're not stuck in a program that uses lingo like manuscripts and characters and scenes and scripts. The compiling process itself can be changed too -- globally and/or per document or per item. This way you can prevent it from automatically inserting the word "chapter", among so many other things.
It supports project templates and document templates too.
I encourage former InfoSelect / Info Select users to check out Scrivener. Like Info Select, the more you look into it, the more powerful and flexible you'll find it to be. But it does take some learning. I've read that it's supposed to be "intuitive" but that's bunk. I recommend the YouTube webinar recording called Boot Camp for Scrivener by a sci-fi novelist whose name escapes me. The video is nearly 90 mins, and it doesn't rely on the default starting points, ou learn lots because he doesn't rely on a template, and he shows how to change some labels, add inline notes, and provides tips for compiling.
2. That said, I continue to use InfoSelect -- but only the last build of InfoSelect 9 (IS9), not v10, which I tried out, and knew, sadly, that it meant the end of InfoSelect's development.
Now, however, I use multiple installations -- each installation has it's own shortcut on my Start menu (and Quick Launch toolbar), and each installation has its own purpose. Sure this means there are some redundant .dlls on my hard drive, but so what? The hard drive space consumed by the program files of my now 10+ installations is minimal, and the memory consumed is truly inconsequential even when multiple installations are running at once.
I publish a newsletter, so one IS9 installation is for drafting the content of the newsletter, and managing most of the research. Another IS9 installation is for drafting the text of my website content. Another IS9 installation is for tracking and managing my bill payments -- and here, the Template feature is really handy, because I just generate a new checklist every month (and the login links, etc, for online account info and online payments are contained within each checklist).
Enough said.
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Thanks for your comment - I'm always interested in this thread.
Scrivener is pretty impressive, and I have trialled it and thought of using it, but the reason I am using OneNote is that I have discovered new requirements by using it, and they can't be met by other software that I have trialled, so far.
I have trialled IS9 but still haven't migrated away from IS8 though. It's hard to beat for my requirements.
I find your "multiple installations" (that's databases, I guess) for IS9 (IS 2007) a novel idea, but I would suggest that it may be unnecessary since one installation of IS can open several separate databases simultaneously or sequentially, as required. You don't need them all open all of the time, just the ones you are using. You can keep the databases automatically closed on startup by default, and just open the ones you want (and later close them and open others). That's a feature of IS that I have been using for years.
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Forgot this was here :-[.
Been using MyInfo for quite a time, now. Not as complete as InfoSelect (name as was sold to me), but close, and I don't have to pay $100 annual update - although I might, with a few changes - as was necessary with InfoSelect. My disaffection with InfoSelect began when an update trashed my file history, running into nearly a decade, with no chance of recovery within the program. Yeah, there were backups, but the same thing happened. Lamentations to InfoSelect went unanswered, so I quit the program - I've no use for developers that don't respond (reminiscent of my lifetime license to WinZip which was not respected when Nico Mak (?) sold it to current developers).
Right now, MyInfo serves to capture and retain my needs/preferences. Several limitations exist, but they be bearable, and the developer(s) seem amenable to suggestion, albeit somewhat dilatory in implementation at times.
(I distrust OneNote, Evernote and the like because too many cloud leaks/break-ins/intrusions have occurred. Was an avid Evernote user until it migrated to a cloud-based format/venue.)
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A couple of interesting related threads lately:
stickies Notezilla memoboard as full-blown personal note system (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=40122.0)
and
TreeDBNotes Pro - Christmas and New Year Discount: 50% (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=39824.0)
(other software is also discussed in each of those threads)
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EVERNOTE.COM! Sorry I shouldn't have shouted. I was an Infoselect junkie for years. Evernote does everything Infoselect did and it is available to me on any machine anywhere I am as well all the computers in my network. I highly recommend it. http://www.evernote.com.
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Forgot this was here :-[.
Been using MyInfo for quite a time, now. Not as complete as InfoSelect (name as was sold to me), but close, and I don't have to pay $100 annual update - although I might, with a few changes - as was necessary with InfoSelect. My disaffection with InfoSelect began when an update trashed my file history, running into nearly a decade, with no chance of recovery within the program. Yeah, there were backups, but the same thing happened. Lamentations to InfoSelect went unanswered, so I quit the program - I've no use for developers that don't respond (reminiscent of my lifetime license to WinZip which was not respected when Nico Mak (?) sold it to current developers).
Right now, MyInfo serves to capture and retain my needs/preferences. Several limitations exist, but they be bearable, and the developer(s) seem amenable to suggestion, albeit somewhat dilatory in implementation at times.
(I distrust OneNote, Evernote and the like because too many cloud leaks/break-ins/intrusions have occurred. Was an avid Evernote user until it migrated to a cloud-based format/venue.)
-barney
Hi Barney,
I have been a fan and promoting MyInfo for a while now. I wasn't aware there is any $100/year annual update! I do recommend the Pro version, but I thought if you get it once, you should be good for a while. I landed on MyInfo because it was the only other program I found that did certain export features and I found a "nuclear" bug with TreeDB that made that program absolutely unusable at any level, right at the same time they took down the support forum and never answered a tech support question from me ever again!
And the developer of MyInfo really is pretty responsive.
It might be fun if we traded a couple of MyInfo notes ... pun intended!
:D
There are several good programs out there, each with a slightly different focus. So my top level advice when people wade into this topic is to do it in stages - first take a slightly dreamy approach if you've never used any program like these before, and just dawdle with semi-made-up data, like if you have a few hobby text files. Not "asdfasfdsgsdgds", but for example I have a collection of fortune cookies, and another file on tv actor info. So then you can see what "real" data looks like, dreamily.
Then softly begin to wonder "would I want a program to do X"? Sometimes it's possible, sometimes it's not.
And then slowly keep an eye out for what you think is a "killer feature" that you "just must have". That can often break a tie when two programs have slightly different sets of annoyances, but if one has the killer feature, it wins the tiebreak.
Does that make sense to y'all? It's what got me through testing about 10 of these programs to a finalist I am quite happy with for a decent time now.
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I wasn't aware there is any $100/year annual update!
-TaoPhoenix
Sorry I was unclear - that was a reference to InfoSelect's annual (?) update pricing.
Evernote does everything Infoselect did and it is available to me on any machine anywhere I am as well all the computers in my network.
-alexi
Was a quite strong user of Evernote until they made it cloud-based. I simply do not trust cloud storage of data that is sometimes private to me. Even if it's not private per se, I have a personal dislike of other folk being able to predict my actions/proclivities based upon what I've stored more-or-less generically.
TaoPhoenix, I've been through a substantial number of variants on this particular theme. MyInfo comes closest to my needs. Biggest problem I have with it is the unwieldy - at least for me - tagging system. When I store something, it'll have multiple tags. However, I'm unable to search on combined tags. That means that my tag input is increased significantly. Example would be
- Donation
- Coder
- Donation Coder
That 3rd tag should not be necessary, but it is, as far as I can tell. Should be able to search/limit, for instance, Donation + Coder without having created the Donation Coder tag.
Another thing that is irksome is that automatic backup will sometimes take as long as twenty (20) minutes to complete, as it apparently does not perform that as a background task (and I have a lot of data stored). All things considered, though, it does seem to be best of the breed for my purposes.
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Biggest problem I have with it is the unwieldy - at least for me - tagging system. When I store something, it'll have multiple tags. However, I'm unable to search on combined tags. That means that my tag input is increased significantly. Example would be
- Donation
- Coder
- Donation Coder
That 3rd tag should not be necessary, but it is, as far as I can tell. Should be able to search/limit, for instance, Donation + Coder without having created the Donation Coder tag.
-barney
Slightly off-topic, but maybe worth sharing:
That's why I find that the best way to manage tags in any DB (or anywhere, in fact) is to use
1- standard text fields
2- an OSwide (so to speak) system that's managed through a separate application -- a text expander/script application, like AHK.
I've been using AHK to manage my tags for years now, and I use these tags everywhere : from PDFs comments to filenames, to InfoQube's fields (as many here know, IQ is what I've chosen to manage most of my data for years -- won't develop on that.). After 8 years using this system, I know it works well...
when using standard text fields, search operations like "Donation + Coder" are easy. If the tag system is well thought out, it's also easy to make mass modification to specific tags (using search and replace tools)
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I suppose that one alternative to InfoSelect could be the next version of InfoSelect!?
From the IS User Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/InfoSelect/conversations/messages
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Not sure if anyone ever reads this thread anymore, but I just discovered TreeDBNotes Pro 4 (v3.5, actually), and it is the first software program I've found which I think compares favorably to InfoSelect v9.
(I refer only to v9 because, as the person who started this thread pointed out, v10 deleted just about everything that made InfoSelect unique & useful to many of us. And the only "features" v.10 added were some 3rd-party components which don't even integrate well with InfoSelect's interface, and some of the new "features" are trivial at best. It's the ugliest program interface I've ever seen, actually. The text features are nice, I guess, but the interface is clunky and if I want a word processor, then I'll use a real word processor...)
Anyway, if anyone is still interested, check out TreeNotesDB Pro. And do use the Pro edition -- the Free edition is missing a ton of significant features! Also, check out some of the Demos to see things like variables, etc.
One final note:
In any earlier post, I mentioned that I have multiple installations of IS9 on my C drive. Somebody replied pointing out that this is unnecessary because a single IS installation can contain multiple files, and those files can be opened or closed, etc. Um, I know this already. And used those features and much more (In all honesty, I've used ALL the IS9 features, even those buried in the help file, like email merges which actually send out emails one at a time to different contacts, enabling one to send a newsletter or broadcast email to a relatively small number of contacts w/o the recipients seeing it flagged as a mass mailing. I could truly write the manual on IS9.
Anyway, I needed multiple installations because the enormous amount of information I have in IS made it unwieldy (and yes, I used a couple different methods for hiding what I didn't want to see or work on at any give time). And I don't mean that it became very sluggish; it just became too much for me, and I found myself not focusing on my present task like I should, etc. I also came to appreciate the clean appearance of an installation devoted to one purpose -- with many files, and subtopics, of course, but all for one thing, like: contact management; or webpage content development; or email newsletter content development (which are then emailed via the contact mgt IS9, using the mass mail feature).
Of course, I created my own custom IS.INI file, so each new installation reflected my color preferences, custom keyboard shortcuts, etc.
I recommend trying multiple IS9s if anyone is still dependent on IS. With hard drive space nowadays, the duplication of some DLL files and one EXE file doesn't matter at all. And, I recommend trying TreeDBNote Pro too, of course.
Actually, even if I begin switching some work to TreeDBNotes Pro, I don't see myself abandoning IS9 altogether unless it just stops running in an OS I need to use, or unless nothing pastes into IS9 anymore due to its lack of unicode support, or new security formats, which do seem to be emerging now in browsers....
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@skas: Well, I for one am always interested in this thread, so thanks for posting what you did.
Yes, TreeDBNotes Pro looks like a rather good PIM, to replace not only Infoselect 9 (or IS8 in my case), but also as a OneNote Replacement (http://www.mytreedb.com/view_blog/i-16.html).
The difficulty I have is that my requirements for holding what I now regard as "data" have changed to include other things not previously considered as feasible for PIMs. Hence my post about using OneNote as a 21st-Century Zettelkasten.
I'd much rather be able to navigate around my OneNotes database using something like IS8 or TreeDBNotes Pro, but I can't, and they can't meet my changed requirements, so I'm currently stuck with OneNotes as the only option (for me).
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Not sure if anyone ever reads this thread anymore, but I just discovered TreeDBNotes Pro 4 (v3.5, actually), and it is the first software program I've found which I think compares favorably to InfoSelect v9.
-skas
I really like TreeDBnotes, especially for writing. I do remember some complaints in the, now defunct, forum about data loss but never had a problem myself. Use it much less than I did because I switch platforms a lot and need programs that make my life simpler. Agree that Pro is much the most useful version.