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36
Excellent work and contributions. I've been searching and examining this category of software for over 6 years now. I've seen new apps enter the  market and others die away. If I want to summarize my contribution after all these years, I have to say this ...

I have years and years worth of content that is so priceless. I can even envision this content to last for years to come even after I depart this life to be shared by my grand children. So, be extremely careful where you put your data. Use these guidelines ...

- any given app must use an INDUSTRY known storage system or database. Do not let the eye-candy stuff distract you from how the app is storing data. Unfortunately, this information is not typically put on the front pages. Most of the time I have to dig deep in the web site to find it. But, I ALWAYS search this fact as the very first step. I can tell you at least of 5 apps I used where I lost my data in full or part.

- Do not use or invest in apps that are either dead of dying away. Unless you see and hear from the development team, do not even bother looking.
- Listen to other users input, but ALWAYS rely on your own. Install the app and test it for yourself. I have some apps that I installed several times and they never appealed to me based on feedback I read on the forums. It was only when I installed it for the 6th time till I realized how much I was missing. I regretted the time I lost without really knowing any better about that specific app.

Once you get past these 3 conditions, then you need a solution that can satisfy these 3 operations ...

- capture content from most if not all sources
- organize it (physically and logically)
- share it in multiple formats.

Any app that does not have a clear list of features to do these operations, should be ruled out. This should really eliminate a good deal of these distractor and intruder apps.

Now you are left with the serious contenders ... for these look for the following ...

- performance. Does what it does in an acceptable time.
- Stability: un-handled exceptions and crashes.
- Security: you do want to have your data selectively protected. If not today, believe me, you will tomorrow. The very least I would expect is to have the DB files in binary format. I just can not comprehend these apps that put your data in xml, HTML, or some flat file system where any one can simply open them up in notepad.

Based on all of the above, few of the apps qualified. I have put them to the test for years and none has failed me ...

- MyBase: Almost 4 years of usage with not a SINGLE crash. I have not lost a single word in all my databases. I have collected over 5 GB of data and they are as safe today as they were 4 years ago. The developer truly has spent over 2 years working on the DB engine itself and it paid off. Top of bread.

- UltraRecall: Again, over 2 years of usage and I'm happy with it. Using solid rock DB engine and great deal of DK development, the team has delivered a fine product to the world. The fact that I can dump thousands of articles in one folder and later tag this content is absolutely great. On top of this content, sits almost a hundred view and subviews. The logical linking they provide is unparalleled.

I read the thread in its entirety and I would rather liked it to discuss the subject and the candidate app with some more depth and analysis. But if anything, it certainly a good start for any one who's interested to know more about this category of software.


Thank you.



37
I used both and still do for over 3 years now. as much as I wanted to consolidate all my content in one app, such perfect one still does not exist. I use Mybase as my primary, however. These are the pros/cons in a nutshell ...

Mybase
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1) most stable and performing app I have ever used. I have over 423MB of data in it and it NEVER crashed once or under-performed.
2) I have never seen an app that comes even close to MyBase when it comes to compression (zlib). Above data resides in a 10MB files after using compression.
3) It has 90% of the features you would expect from an information manager in the areas of capturing, sharing, organizing, and so forth.

Now, the not so great stuff
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1) support and development is slow (took over a year to release 5). You can tell from the forum activity.
2) integratoon with other apps is sometimes cumbersome if not dysfunctional e.g. outlook.
3) even thought MyBase SDK has been published for a while,  i did not see any add-ons developed .for some reason, was not embraced as good as i expected.
4) can organize data at 2 levels only, tree and labeling system. Some user find this limiting. i did not.
5) limited RTF support specially tables. this is common for so many apps i have seen since they tend to use MSoft's controls. They shy away from developing their won or acquiring 3rd party ones due to cost or support consideration.

UltraRecall
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1) Uses the solid rock db engine sqllite. you get the full protection and reliability of such engine. I have at 5 DK apps that uses it and it never failed me. UR claim that db sizes can grow up to 2TB and still have an acceptable performance.
2) UR developers are very very distinct when it comes to programming and writing Dk apps. They are known for that in the development community.
3) Support is exceptional. They take it seriously and it shows on the forums.
4) Program strikes a clever and unparalleled balance between free form and structured data. You can tag your free content with system as well as user generated attributes. this gives you unlimited choices organizing, categorizing, and searching your data.
5) I love its content capture facilities. With UR3, you can (with click of a button) capture from MS OL, IE, FF, TBird. It also has a global capture key you can use from any app. This is so convenient and it works.


The not so great stuff
Despite the below issues, they truly stay on top of user and bug reports. they actively release patches (4 or 5 patches since the release of 3 in march of this year). This minimizes the impact on their user base.
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1) Program can and will crash more often than what i like it to. This week for example, it threw 2 unhandled exceptions and some cpp debugging messages.
2) RTF editing is badly limited. They provide 'limited editing' and if you want more, they allow you to open up the node in an external app like msword.
3) They implemented a feature where you can 'edit content externally' instead of the integrated RTF editor. i have seen at least 3 posts on the forums for uses complaining of data loss. I did experience it myself with both releases 2 and 3.
4) can only display the content of a single info item at a time. with MyBase, you layout content from multiple items in so many ways (using windows tile/cascade) functions.

I truly have not put UR to the test with large volume of data to tell about its performance. but so far, it has been performing great.

Again, there is not such an app when you can get all what you need. but between MB and UR, i have all my need satisfied.



38
ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer works...but not on all apps!
« on: May 12, 2007, 10:07 PM »
I downloaded what i saw on this site last week and was using it, though, for at least 6 months. I has an issue with process eating up my CPU every time I started windows. It was caused by 'svchost.exe' and it was related to windows updates. This utility was never able to tame it. It worked fine on many other processes, though.

39
I can easily recreate it, but what is it that you're asking for? Do you mean the link target i.e. UNC path?

40
ok,
I figured out and it was not something new. I noticed that this severe slowness was only occurring at home office but did not occur at corporate office. I suspected some network resource time-out. The option to 'show search subdir details...' was really great since it showed me where is FARR hanging. Digging in over 500 files I was eventually able to narrow it down to link pointing to a file on the network. Once I removed it, FARR was acting just like an Arabian horse, agile and performing.

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