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6176
@iphigenie: Yes, when you look on its options page, you realise that its blocking functionality and resource are quite extensive. They seem to work too, so far.
6177
General Software Discussion / Re: data binding
« Last post by IainB on September 05, 2011, 12:30 AM »
@kalos: I think you might find that you could do what you are looking for if you use Google docs and the Forms capability - e.g., as per this Lifehacker post: Track Your Spending with Gmail and Google Docs

Hope this helps or is of use.
6178
General Review Discussion / Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.
« Last post by IainB on September 04, 2011, 11:53 PM »
Quick Review: Ghostery - Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster:
I have been interested in maintaining my web privacy for years, wishing to defend myself from the continuing and increasing assault on that privacy, from the advertisers and the Google and other ad-click giants.
So, yesterday out of interest, I downloaded the Ghostery add-on that works in:
  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Chrome/Chromium
  • Opera
  • IE
(I am using it in Firefox and Chromium.)

I was so impressed with the initial results after installing it that I posted a review and gave it a 5-star vote:
Best blocker I've used since JunkBuster - Rated 5 out of 5 stars.
Great add-on! Since 1997 I had used JunkBuster to keep the junk out of my browsing and minimise bandwidth utilisation. It worked very well, up until the time when the JunkBuster project was abandoned. I later moved to Ad-Block Plus, then added NoScript, but they were never quite enough, and I have long missed having the fine degree of control over my web browsing that JunkBuster was able to provide me with.
However, with the addition of Ghostery, I think I have nearly got back to the degree of control I had in 1997 - 15 years ago.
Sadly, that is *NOT* a measure of progress.   :-(

You can see a summary of the Ghostery functionality on the website and the the settings tab for the add-on.
I am requesting that the developers consider adding some of the JunkBuster-like functionality to Ghostery.

JunkBuster: If anyone reading this is wondering why JB might be such a good comparison, it was because JB enabled you to generally reduce/stop the annoying useless content "noise" appearing on web pages in your browser and to selectively tell the web server to NOT send various items that would otherwise consume bandwidth (thus reducing bandwidth consumption).

It did this by using regex expressions and proxy technology to (for example):
  • Selectively block annoying or unwanted or bandwidth-consuming images, ad banners, advertisements. (So you could always see the ads you wanted to see.) This saved annoyance and bandwidth.   :Thmbsup:
  • Selectively block annoying or unwanted or privacy-infringing URLS or domains.   :Thmbsup:
  • Selectively block cookies.    :Thmbsup:
  • Accept cookies and quarantine them all in a "cookie jar", then periodically swap filled cookie-jars with other people, by posting them to a public forum set up for that purpose. (Thus defeating the purpose of cookies altogether.)   ;)
  • Send out other people's cookies from their imported cookie jar.   ;)
  • Generate "wafers" (dummy cookies) and send them out to sites that requested a cookie.   ;)
  • Insert false information about your brower or set a message - e.g., "Do not track me" into the http header - e.g., my http header declared that I was using an obsolete Apple Mac with the obsolete Mosaic browser.   ;)
  • ...and so on.

For interest, you can get a copy of the last known version of JunkBuster (executable and code released under GPU GP Licence - runs on Linux and as a DOS-based proxy for Windows), together with complete FAQ files, from here: JunkBuster 2.0.2 - ijb20.zip
Apparently, the JunkBuster client proxy did not play well with the changing SSL technology, and development petered out. The developers suggested you tried out Guideon (now defunct), then Ad-Block and/or NoScript (I forget which, but I have them both anyway).

The JunkBuster.com website now says:
Sorry, the Junkbusters.com web site is no longer maintained.
Related information may be found at the following sites:
    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) - http://www.epic.org/
    Privacy International - http://www.privacy.org/
    Privacy Rights Clearinghouse - http://www.privacyrights.org/
6179
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on September 04, 2011, 11:55 AM »
@rjbull:
1. Requirements: Your requirements are included in the User Requirements for CHS, and so are mine, but I have by no means expanded the requirements to fit all of the existing functionality that currently exists in CHS.
However, each requirement is shown where it matches a clipboard-type function, or a PIM-type function (there's a column for each function) or both. You could add a third column to reflect the Form Letter Machine-type application.
The spreadsheet can be used as quite a powerful tool to identify and define the specific user requirements. That's q good way to remove ambiguity.
@mouser will be able to easily identify from that which requirements he might not want to implement.

2. RDB theory: Sure, I am reading up an intro to this theory, but that's only to help me to understand more fully the technical aspects of CHS. I like to dig into a subject before I can feel that I more fully understand it. Currently I do not understand very much about how CHS works. I don't advocate that you or anyone else needs to read up on the theory though, unless you would like to.

3. IT comprehension of requirements: Good point. IT people are usually far removed from the users and do not usually have a good grasp of the users' business processes that tend to illustrate why their requirements are such-and-such.
That's why I provided the link to the post about a methodology for collecting user requirements, and I applied that method in building the spreadsheet.
If the IT people did not know what the CHS user wanted beforehand, they would know more by the time they had finished looking through the spreadsheet (assuming that the spreadsheet has been rigorously developed and "signed off" by users).

In my experience, it is a combination of poor method/rationale in confirming user requirements, coupled with arrogance and ignorance, that lead IT people to tend to impose a solution from above without consultation - that's what gives them the feeling that "they know what the user wants' ", I presume. It's irrational. I've seen it happen a lot of times, and I've had to help clear up the mess after it has happened.
6180
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on September 03, 2011, 08:57 AM »
@rjbull: Your requirements for:
...improving CHS as an application for keeping permanent notes, particularly when they're Web clips.
- are captured iin the draft of the provisional summary analysis of User Requirements for CHS

I have invested a fair bit of time in doing this, so I shall await @mouser's resonse. There are 21 or so items that he would need to review to see whether he is prepared to change CHS to meet the defined requirement.

I can't see that there's any need for you to "read tomes on relational database theory", though.
I might find that interesting, as the whole area of the use if IT for information management - and especiallly knowledge management - is something that I find quite absorbing, but it's not everybody's cup of tea. It would be as dry as dust for many people.
6181
General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for very light IM (ICQ) client
« Last post by IainB on September 02, 2011, 07:04 PM »
I have a very similar requirement as per @apankrat. I became a Trillian user when they were just starting up and in "The Generic IM Wars" with the chat media providers. (This was at the time when they were all trying to block Cerulean Studios from interfacing with their chat medium by making the thing as proprietary as possible and deliberately making frequent changes to their IM protocol so as to lock Trillian out. All it succeeded in doing was making the users exceedingly pissed off and even more determined to stick with Trillian rather than be captives of the chat medium providers.)

However, if Trillian is going to stick with the model of forcing advertising on its non-paying users, then I want out too.
I had a look at Miranda and Pidgin IMs a while back and will check them out again.
I'd be very interested to read other users' experiences/recommendations re this Q, so as to save me reinventing the wheel.
6182
Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?
« Last post by IainB on September 02, 2011, 11:27 AM »
Just started to read "An Introduction to Relational Database Theory", by Hugh Darwen.
(Trying to better understand the potential of CHS.)
6183
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on September 02, 2011, 02:38 AM »
I have updated the draft of the provisional summary analysis of User Requirements for CHS

It now includes columns showing:
  • Functionality required
  • Why this is required.
  • Priority (A/B/C for Mandatory/Highly desirable/Nice-to-have)

This is according to a recommended tried-and-tested methodology for requirements-gathering, as per the blog post:
Tip - Defining your Information Management requirements

If users would like to edit the thing to make sure that it reflects their requirements, then go right ahead. @mouser will then have a pretty well-developed list of well-defined and categorical user requirements to work from.

Hope this helps or is of use.
6184
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on August 31, 2011, 10:03 PM »
@rjbull: re Requirements/Needs
Have you looked at the immensely long thread on notetaking software?  It eventually petered out without a definitive answer.
Interesting. In another discussion on this forum on Re: InfoQube & TreeSheets: Information managers of the future we have:
"Currently, I am most impressed by RightNote.  I can't put my finger on it, but it just seems to be awesome in every nook and cranny that I look."
It often seems that when we try to articulate our more cogent thoughts to others, we fail to do so because we tend to lapse into what seems to be for us the more normal/natural state of self-actualisation. The trouble with that is that whilst we are self-actualising all over the carpet, we are not in a state of mind where we can get anything useful done in the critical thinking department.
In an effort to avoid this thread degenerating into the same sort of thing, I have taken the liberty of drafting a provisional summary analysis of User Requirements for CHS

This might help: I have made a stab at it by adding in the things we have been discussing here and elsewhere on the forum relating to CHS and PIMs.
If we are interested in helping @mouser by cataloguing our user requirements and requested features in a systematic form, then all we need to do is add them in to the above summary. The document is enabled for public view/edit if you click on the link above. So view/edit the requirements as you see fit. Please try not to wreck the spreadsheet (it's a Google docs spreadsheet) - if you do, I will be able to rebuild it, but it will be tedious to do.
6185
I had not known that you could get OneNote as standalone though - i.e., not as part of MS Office - though I did know that it was originally standalone and had thought it was no longer so.
I chanced across this interesting blog post today - by someone who apparently found how to get hold of and install OneNote as standalone (i.e., without MS Office):
Perfect example of unintuitive Microsoft workflow
6186
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on August 31, 2011, 01:12 AM »
@rjbull:
I think you're herding cats.  Everybody has different data handling needs - well, preferences and perceived needs, but often vehemently held.  Have you looked at the immensely long thread on notetaking software?  It eventually petered out without a definitive answer.  There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution.
I'm not trying to "herd cats", and I consider that it is generally true that- as you put it - "Everybody has different data handling needs - well, preferences and perceived needs, but often vehemently held."
I reckon that you hit the nail on the head with "...preferences and perceived needs". However, what we think we need is often not what we actually need to resolve a problem, but we are too ignorant of our own needs and/or the possibilities of the potential solutions to appreciate that. As the saying goes, "Ignorance is bliss."

From long experience of business analysis and systems analysis looking at users' business requirements:
  • The first step out of the morass is to guide the user to realising that he actually does not properly know what he needs, or that probably "He's doing it wrong" or "There's a better way" anyway.
  • Unfortunately, that is usually the first hurdle for our egos to overcome and a very big one it is too, because of an internal dialogue - "I do not make mistakes in my thinking, so I cannot be mistaken". But of course the ego can't accept it (what De Bono calls "intellectual deadlock"), so we fall on that hurdle and don't get up again to discover anything new. Highly intelligent people are apparently more prone to this than others. (De Bono.)
  • The trouble is that, "What I need" is an ego-driven statement that all too often can equate to "I want to do it this way - the way I have always done it". This is an egotistically safe approach to avoiding change and especially to avoiding changing one's thinking. So I might (say) irrationally expect to be able to use a new-fangled hammer to perform the same function of my broken old screwdriver.
  • The more our ego-bound statements of "needs" are challenged, the more vehemently we feel obliged to defend them with subsequent rationalisation.
  • All this is safe-seeking ego-driven behaviour, irrational, and very human. We do it all the time. (De Bono et al).
  • If there is any thinking that we should probably not trust without testing and that we could control, it is our own thinking.

Yes, I have read - and contributed to - interminably long and wandering threads on notetaking software - in this and other discussion forums.
Yes, they do all seem to peter out without a definitive answer. But to say from that that "There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution" is a non-sequitur, and probably makes an implicit assumption that these dreary threads are seeking such a solution. They are not. They are not seeking anything. The minds of the people (including me) involved in such discussions generally seem to go to sleep as far as critical thinking goes - otherwise the discussions would not be allowed to develop in the way that they do. They are generally directionless and undisciplined rambling discussions where terminology is so ill-defined that you might as well be comparing apples with eggs but imagining them to be one and the same thing. Classic logical flaws. That is irrational discussion (uncritical thinking). For that reason, I generally try to save my cognitive surplus for something where I mighr be able to make a difference. I thus try not to become too involved and otherwise steer clear of them, unless I think I might be able to elicit something useful for myself from the discussion - even parts of a bad apple can be edible, if you are selective. For a good example of what I am talking about here, look at the otherwise unrelated discussion in the DC forum regarding the "fourth Reich" newspaper comment.
One's opinions, once stated, must be substantiated by the ego at all costs. This can be described as the interplay of a very real-seeming but illusory state called "ahamkara"

I'm amazed at what you've been able to do with this, which I certainly didn't realise was possible!   :o
I only played with what was there. What is amazing (and impressive) to me is that @mouser had the foresight to design/build CHS with all the embedded functionality that he has - and including the VF/SQL functionality. When he enabled the latter, I was able to play with it, and the potential of it literally blew me away. It also helped to explain (and @mouser has further clarified this) the background as to why CHS is the way it is.
All kudos to @mouser!   :Thmbsup:

Virtual folders are "only" a way of tagging/displaying the data, aren't they?  A particular way of displaying a subset?  In that case, you will presumably lose the data eventually to the automatic purge feature (assuming you have it set).  If so, I refer back to my OP where I wanted a separate hotkey to put the current clip into a special folder that isn't automatically cleaned up, so that data you want to keep stays kept.
VFs (Virtual Folders) are filtered views of those records in the d/base that match the criteria of the Boolean search you define in the SQL statement.
They can be "Tags" ("smart tags" I would call them), so you may no longer need, for example, to have the now arguably redundant separate static "Flag" or "Keywords" meta-data fields (i.e., some of the "column names" in CHS).
The simplest approach I can think of to avoid data loss from auto-purging of the d/base would be to set a specially-reserved VF to flag all records as "permanent" by default, or under certain conditions. For example (say), you might not want to retain clips (records) captured from your document editing in MS Word, so you could unset the "permanent" tag as the records are created. This is why I asked for the Condition-->Action function of the VF/SQL.
Having VFs + SQL that enable that could provide an incredibly powerful and flexible tool for automating information management tasks. You could make your RDBMS (CHS) stand on its head and probably not need any extensive coding to do it either, since the coding for that functionality may already be mostly in there. (I'm just supposing, here.)
6187
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on August 30, 2011, 11:29 AM »
@mouser:
Ah! Thankyou. I had not realised I could already do in CHS what I was asking for.
Reminds me that CHS is a pretty brilliant invention.    :Thmbsup:
Still learning/experimenting with it...

Update: Oops. On my system, double clicking or sending to the last active window (as above) works OK, but, focus immediately transfers to the last active window after each click. Can't see how to stop that.

Update 2011-09-01 1604hrs: Sorry. I belatedly realised that I could use grid View|Stay on top to maintain focus on grid, whilst multiple pasting.
6188
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
« Last post by IainB on August 30, 2011, 11:02 AM »
    I don't think we're disagreeing, but I'm alarmed by your sheer intensity!  :o  I only half-understand your concepts, which leads me to be concerned that, should you have your way, CHS might become too hard for ordinary folk to use.  cf. Ultra Recall, where I have a license for an old version, but never really got into it because it looks too complex.
    @rjbull:
    Sorry if the "intensity" shows. It's probably really my impatience showing. I have been trained to take a rigorous view towards optimising the ergonomics of computer systems, especially where the improved efficiency and effectiveness of data management could be effected.
    CHS is almost all the way there already. The depressing truth of the majority of PIMs/Wikis/Note-takers/Stickies that I have come across is that they are nowhere near achieving a similar state. They may be good on form (e.g., they look nice), but fall far short on useful data management function.
    I do feel that the UI should simplify things - e.g., like the use of Boolean searches/filters - as long as the facility for people like me to construct SQL statements is retained in the VFs.

    By the way:
    • Where you say "your concepts". None of the concepts I have used are "mine". I gather that they are pretty much bog standard concepts related to RDBMS, and would appear to have been enabled in CHS by @mouser, via the implementation of VF and SQL. Maybe even @mouser does not realise what he has achieved (?) - else why does he have 23 columns on the drop-down menu, where several of them seem to be meta-data fields (e.g., Keywords, Type) and which would be redundant if he substituted "smart" VFs for them.
    • A record will go into a VF:
            (a) If it gets filtered in there (e.g., with a Boolean search)
            (b) If you force it in there (e.g., by dragging/dropping a record into the VF icon.

    Look at this:
    I have set up a child group in the CHS "tree" called "Auto-Tags".
    Under Auto-Tags I have set up several sub-folders (child groups), all with VF selected, and each with a different SQL (Boolean search filter) statement.
    One of these is called "TEST01", and, because I am a fan of the late W. Edwards Deming, I have given it an SQL filter simply: (Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%deming%').
    That filter captured 7 records, 3 of which happen to be flagged as "Favourites", and they are displayed in a blue text colour.
    I then dragged and dropped a separate record - one which does not match that filter - into the VF folder TEST01. That record is displayed in a black text colour, and became an 8th record in TEST01. This forced record is "sticky" - i.e., it will remain in the VF even if I change the filter to exclude all the records currently in the VF.
    If I click on the parent folder, "Auto-Tags", it displays only the single forced record - i.e., the one with black text that was dragged and dropped into the "TEST01" folder. I think that, for flexibility, there may be a requirement here to be able to select whether a parent of VFs will display:
    • All inherited records (i.e., whether forced or filtered).
    • Just the filtered inherited records.
    • Just the forced inherited records.
    [/list]
    6189
    Just to respond to some points from the thread above:
       :up:
    Could you ellaborate on how to use Windows Live Sky Drive with onenote and multiple comps?
    I abandoned onenote partly because of the vendor lockin. Your onenote files are incredibly locked down. with EN we are in a similar situation, but it's mostly html, so export is easier.
    OneNote collaboration + Windows Sky Drive:

    Lock-in:
    There seem to be two main parts to typical lock-in in this case:
    (a) lock-in to a proprietary format for your data (so it cannot be accessed easily by/for other applications).
    The LCD (lowest common denominator) for data format, for automated migration of data out of the applications:
    • EN - is per @urlwolf's comment above; not sure how you could migrate all/any image text data though.
    • ON - XPS or PDF format (ON is just a collection of documented data, with embedded images; if you have used the ON OCR to capture all/any image text data, then that can be migrated too).

    (b) lock-in to a solution approach:
    • EN wants to lock you in to a paid-for online solution, so it pushes you in that direction, and only provides a crippled client application- i.e., with reduced functionality - for offline use;
    • MS wants to lock you into their MS Office tools, but cannot, because ON is self-contained as a standalone product. So, the new ON 2010 functionality forces you into an upgrade in order to use the latest, integrated cloud solution and MS Office package.

    After migration of data, I would suggest using a good reference management tool (e.g., I would probably use the brilliant Qiqqa) to access, index and use any migrated PDF output. I'm unsure what to do with XPS output, so I might avoid using that.

      :up:
    I think you read too much into EN's "OCR" feature. It is not OCR in the traditional sense, although what it does is probably even better for its intended purpose.

    EN uses OCR only for searching, as opposed to turning an image into a canonical textual representation. It appears that this means that it can be far more liberal with its interpretation of the image, allowing for search hits on all likely solutions.

    Imagine that based on the image, the OCR software can't decide whether the text is "them" or "thern". With EN, it'll match both (or such is my understanding), ensuring that a search will almost never miss its target -- although it may come up with false positives.

    But the cost of this is that there may, internally, be multiple textual representations, so it's not possible to take the next step and extract the actual text.
    I presume that ON does the same as EN in making flexible text-searches of text in images, because it seems to be equally accurate. However, if you extract the OCR'd text from an image in ON, you get the usual sorts of errors. I still do that anyway (extract the OCR'd text) and then clean it up manually.
    This might seem excessive to some people, but I am paranoid anyway, though more importantly I have a solid rationale for this. The rationale is that the object is only worth capturing in the first place because it contains text, so then the text has inherent value, so adding value to it by data editing/correction is cost-justifiable. This is a theoretical approach that I learned during a project I worked on in Thailand years ago, which resulted in capturing 20 million hardcopy land/property deeds as images, with the image - and the printed and handwritten text thereon - becoming the primary document. You couldn't afford to make any mistakes, and there was "no going back".

      :up:
    I also use OneNote. I find it's useful for a completely different range of things than Evernote, but is also fairly ponderous and limited in many ways. I tend to use it only for research into complex areas. Its value is increased if you spend a lot of time working with its Office colleagues (I avoid Outlook like the plague wherever I can, and only use Word when necessary to edit or review other people's documents).

    I have used Jello Dashboard in the past and it does make Outlook a little more tolerable. But I just didn't find it nice enough or good enough to make me want to use Outlook.
    Yes, I tend to agree with most of what you say here, though I have not yet concluded the trial of Outlook+Jello, so I may yet change my mind, though I reserve the right not to change it.
    "When given the choice between changing one's mind or proving one's point of view, most people get busy on the proof." (JK Galbraith)     ;)
    6190
    Living Room / Re: Centurylink is on CracK
    « Last post by IainB on August 29, 2011, 07:36 PM »
    I suspect that the nature of the majority of the Level 1 (first point of contact) work in customer HelpDesk/TechSupport in telcos is probably so mind-numbingly boring that the people who really could/do have the capability or technical savvy or know-how cannot put up with it for long, or are moved to Level 2 or Level 3 support before they leave. If you looked at Level 1 staff turnover statistics you would probably find that it was 20-30% per annum. So the average level of knowledge and expertise in anyone answering your customer call will likely be very low. Word gets around, and it becomes increasingly difficult to recruit people into such jobs.

    If you are responsible for providing such a customer service, then what do you do under those circumstances? Well, typically, what seems to happen is that you try and automate the queue management as much as possible, because you only have (say) 3 or 4 human customer reps dealing with live customer calls. (You simply can't afford to pay to have an army of capable people available all the time, who would be sitting on their thumbs most of that time with nothing to do.) Hence those long waiting-times with softly-spoken assurances that "Your call is important to us. All of our customer support people [all 4!] are busy right now [they are!]. Please continue to hold the line and one of them will be with you soon [if you're lucky!]. Thankyou."

    Sure, your call might be important, but it's not likely to be that important, is it? How could it be for the peanuts you are paying for your telephone service in what is a cutthroat business? It would be important as all hell if there was revenue/profit in handling your call, but there isn't, so it isn't.

    I have worked on setting up and streamlining/operating similar call centres for clients (coincidentally, one of them was Vodafone), and I have every sympathy for all the parties involved regarding the difficulties and stresses that they face. Call centres are a real loss-maker, eroding a telco's potential profits. For this reason alone, I can fully understand why call centres are outsourced to India or to some other third-world country where you employ people for absolute peanuts if they can speak/read a bit of English and can be trained to follow a script. You can rest assured that, if a chimpanzee could do it, then chimpanzees would be employed (and for real peanuts too). All they have to do is work through the script (flowchart) for each call. The training these people are given (and the work they are paid to do) is to never deviate from the script, and never whatever they do, employ any thinking.

    Generally speaking, if customers are getting annoyed because their calls are not being well-handled, then it's not the people in the call centres who are idiots or incompetent (though they might be so or might seem so if they are poorly trained for the work they have to do), it's the management of the call centers who are negligent/idiots/incompetent - because they have not implemented a better process. In my experience, most such processes tend to have a grossly unexplored potential for dramatic  improvement.
    6191
    @urlwolf: - a very interesting post. Thankyou.   :up:
    You might be interested in my experiences.
    I had trialled EN (Evernote) a while back, and saw that it had got to the stage where it could "work offline" in the way you describe.
    However, from what you say, I'm not sure that it is yet free of what I saw as the single greatest drawback to using it - namely, proprietary "lock-in" of your data to, and your dependence on, an offline service which you cannot control. Nor can you be assured that the Evernote company's service isn't going to let you down flat at some stage.

    "Cloud": I love the idea of, and the potential flexibility of "cloud" technology, but am paranoid about MY data and my ability to access it - it forms an extensive knowledge base which I depend on having access to a lot of, for it to be able to effectively support me in my work. I do not see the cloud as providing a sufficiently reliable/certain service for my purposes - with the possible exception of Google, and unless you pay for it (e.g.Amazon S3).

    My strategy: has got to the stage where I control everything via a local client-based PIM and other applications, using local data stores (all religiously backed up) - with some of the data stores being synced to Google docs or Windows Live Sky Drive.

    To this end, I have trialled numerous PIMs over the last few years to see how well they work as a PIM and how they can be synced to the cloud, and used for collaboration - or where the "collaborator" is me from a different remote PC. I have to say that MS OneNotes - used in combination with cloud services as above - increasingly seems to be able to fit the bill in a uniquely useful way, and if I look at MY requirements and the features I might need, it knocks spots off anything else. All for the price of the client software (OneNote is apparently available standalone, but I got it bundled with MS Office).

    Evernote: You quote from a review:
    "I found that as a paid user the OCR process usually occurred in less than a minute or two. If I instead logged in using a non-Premium account, the OCR usually took no more than five minutes."

    "Paying users also gain the ability to enable other people to both see and edit their notes on the web, making Evernote a powerful collaboration tool for groups to work together (that’s another article all by itself)."
    By comparison, using OneNote:
    • OCR: Using OneNote purchased for a onetime cost, the user's images that are saved to OneNote are instantly OCRd and thus instantly text-searchable and text-copyable. So I can now photograph a lot of objects (e.g., physical boxes and even documents) which have data on them (effectively using my camera like a scanner) - and when I clip part or a whole of an image into OneNote, I experienced "immediate gratification" from that data being instantly available. That's hard to beat. There's no waiting for a delay that is artificially created or arising from a queue or inefficiency from a remote cloud-based service (whether free or paid for).
    • Collaboration: Instantly possible via Windows Live Sky Drive, with a 25GB (free) storage bucket.

    OneNote + Outlook + Jello Dashboard: I have never been a great fan of Microsoft's, and I detest and avoid using MS Outlook except where I am obliged to use it on a client's workstation. However, I appreciate good technology and its potential use for me. OneNote looks to be a real winner, and, being able to run standalone, it does not necessitate the use of Outlook, but there are some features in OneNote that integrate with Outlook, which could improve your management of your information. So I am now trialling Outlook, and have found an Outlook add-in called Jello Dashboard that seems to enable an impressive alternative to the already impressive GTD tool that you can find in the shape of OneNote.

    Where to from here?: This experience has led me to the point where I am seriously considering abandoning my use of InfoSelect - which PIM I have been a committed user of since 1997. There is still one thing I would like to check though, and that is the potential use of @mouser's CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell) as a PIM - if he can be persuaded to further develop it down that path. The reason I say this is that CHS has a relatively recently-enabled function called VF (Virtual Folders) which blew me away. VF, which gives you the potential ability to automate the dynamic allocation of tags to records, based on the data in the record. This is a very powerful feature that I have wanted for years and so far have only experienced working effectively in a DOS-based PIM called Lotus Agenda. (I have discussed been ranting on about this in separate posts on the forum, so will try to avoid doing so here.)
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    General Software Discussion / Re: How can I download or record streaming audio
    « Last post by IainB on August 27, 2011, 09:26 PM »
    @mouser:
    Nice one @mouser! I had not fully realised the potential use (for me) of using URL Snooper until I saw that.
    Thankyou for that.    :Thmbsup:
    6193
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 26, 2011, 09:35 PM »
    @mouser:
    Suggested feature request for "direct/indirect pasting"
    (This is from the discussion Re: Any better Clipboard program.)
    ... I am not sure my opinion on software can help any one... My first concern is if the program is easy to use, and stable. Yes, I have tried many and I have disabled them all - except one of course: "CFi ShellToys Clipboard+". I like this one the best.
    1) http://www.shelltoysxp.com/default.asp
    2) http://www.shelltoys...om/clipboardplus.asp
    On the webpage at the link (2) above, it says:
    Text clips can be sent directly into a word processor, bypassing the clipboard.
    This is a good example of the kind of thing that I think has been referred to above. I'm not sure whether this would be easy to build in to CHS, but it's probably the sort of potentially very significant timesaver that I and other users would appreciate having - e.g., to paste clips directly into (say) a specified PIM, or into a specified documentation or note-taking tool. It looks like it could be a much better version of Info Select's proprietary and failed "lightning-bolt" clipping tool that I have referred to previously in this discussion thread.
    It would be really handy - using CHS as the medium for directly or indirectly gathering lots of separate clipped notes into a single document - ie., you could do it directly from CHS whilst staying on the CHS grid view to do it, or indirectly via CHS from the source page/document. In either case you would be avoiding some of the tiresome/tedious clip/paste to-ing and fro-ing that you might otherwise be obliged to engage in to achieve the same thing without this feature.
    6194
    Site/Forum Features / Handy search tip for the DC forum, using Firefox
    « Last post by IainB on August 26, 2011, 08:23 PM »
    I came across this post in one of my Google reader feeds: 5 awesome Mozilla Firefox secrets
    I added this "secret" as a shortcut for searching the DC forum from Firefox. It works a treat!   :Thmbsup:
    1. Customize search with Smart Keywords
    A little-known Firefox feature lets you run searches within any given Web site from the browser's address bar. For example, to search for "TouchPad" within Amazon.com, all you'd have to do is type "amazon touchpad" in the Firefox bar.

    To create a smart keyword, head to a Web site and locate the search field. Then, right-click the search field and select "Add Keyword for this search...". Create the bookmark, store it in a folder, and your smart keyword is now enabled. Try it with reference sites like Wikipedia and IMDB for quick access to answers.
    I have now added it as a shortcut to searching all my favourite websites (where they have a search box on the web page) from the browser address bar. It's a real timesaver compared to the somewhat awkward approaches to searching that we may otherwise be obliged to use on various websites.

    Hope DC forum users find it useful or of interest.
    6195
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 26, 2011, 11:38 AM »
    I don't want to learn SQL, so like the idea of having a nice UI for the main functions, with bare-naked SQL available for those skilled in the art.
    Sorry, if you thought I was suggesting that anything in this requirement of yours should not be met. I apologise for not explaining myself very well above. I was suggesting pretty much exactly what you say you do/don't want here. No disagreement at all, though I would not use a tautology to describe SQL.

    I don't see OCR as a must-have.  When I used to have to extract data from scanned-image PDFs of patents, I was content to use a separate application do the job.  The more so, as OCR is often imperfect, so it was better to put the converted text into an editor/word processor for spell-checking and reformatting.
    Sorry again if I did not not explain myself very well above. It's not that I disagree with what you say, it's just that I think we have to strive to move forwards in the use of technology, to use it more effectively and efficiently, and to overcome the constraints of that technology. History has shown that we can do this. That's how we got men on the moon, for example. In our OCR case, I can better explain if I make a comparison: OCR is to data gathering/extraction what push-button dialling was to the telephone. I feel sure that some people may have felt that the push-buttons were an annoying but passing fad and didn't work terribly well, but would we be advantaged nowadays by retaining the circular phone dial? The answer is self-evident - "No". Though I have to admit that I dislike push-buttons on cellphones, because my finger-ends are too large and spatula-like for the smaller buttons, I would not recommend returning to the dials.

    I'm not keen on tags/keywords.  You have to know what you need in advance, and be consistent in applying them.  I'd rather have really good retrieval from title + body text of the clips, which is why I like to see Boolean searching.  If you must have keywords, then yes, it would be nice to be able to apply them to multiple clips at a time.  Also to have a CintaNotes-like feature where you had some kind of drop-down or auto-completion.
    Sorry again if I did not not explain myself very well above. I share your lack of keeness for tags/keywords, and for pretty much exactly the same reasons as you give. Which was why being able to turn a group or "favourite" into a VF (Virtual Folder) in CHS - by enabling the use of some SQL - blew me away. That's exactly what you need to enable Boolean searching, see? It's what you want, and it was exactly what I had been used to using in Lotus Agenda. VF = Virtual Tag. As a worked example, I decided that I wanted to filter out all those records (clips in CHS) that contained a reference to one of the main religions. So I used my budding arcane knowledge of SQL to write an SQL filtering statement like this:
    ((Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%islam%') OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%muslim%') OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%roman catholic%') OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%christian%') OR (Lower(ClipText) LIKE '%anglican%'))

    A user-friendly UI would turn that into a VF with the name "Religion" with something like this: ("Islam" OR "Muslim" OR "Roman Catholic" OR "Christian" OR Anglican")

    For obvious reasons, I want to be able to perform these Boolean searches on date and time fields. I would also want to have Condition-->Action, where Boolean Conditions can be used to result in an Action: e.g. IF ("Islam" OR "Muslim" OR "Roman Catholic" OR "Christian" OR Anglican") THEN Keyword = "Religion". Though you don't really need to do that in this case, because you can simply check to see if a record is a member of a VF/group named "Religion", forcing or setting a Keyword or label like "Religion" has the advantages that you can automate the labelling of many records at once (saves time over manually setting each record to that Keyword) and that once you have done that you can then disable the SQL that did it, thus ensuring that your population of "Religion" records is fixed at that point, unless you directly manually assign other records to that Keyword at a later stage. This has a lot to do with "flexibility" in creating your meta-data - you can meet your data managment needs very precisely.

    I don't expect very close integration with an e-mail client.  There are too many clients  to service them all.  I can either include information through the clipboard, or by exporting from TheBat! and importing or clipping the resulting text file.
    Sorry again if I did not not explain myself very well above. The requirement is to use emails (some, not all - only those that you feel would be useful) as records in your database. Importing sent/received emails to the database from an email client or from a web-based email service would suffice.
    I learned from my experience of Info Select: Version 7 was integrated with Outlook, which was of no use to me as I did not use Outlook. Version 8 started to abandon Outlook integration, and incorporated its own rather good email client. I used that email client to manage most of my email, though I tended to continue to use Pegasus - the email client I preferred at that time - for managing Listserver groups. Info Select 8 enabled you to convert emails (which were in text or html format) to plain unformatted text, at the press of a button - a very handy feature.

    It should be possible to store everything within the database, even if only a copy, to make the database portable and easier to back up.
    Whenever I read that such-and-such "should" be the case, it usually means that what I have read is an arbitrary, unsubstantiated opinion (unless there is some special law or rule that supports it). The case would seem to be no different here.
    I would recommend that we leave the design of the database to the engineers who are building the thing - or, as my mother used to say to me, "Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." The engineers are usually far from stupid, and are likely to be able to fully appreciate the need for portability and backup and a few other things, some of which we might not even have thought about, as well.
    In the case of CHS, we seem to have the text records held within the database, and the image clips as .PNG files held in a defined folder outside of the database. There will be good theoretical and/or pragmatic reasons for this.

    I just want CHS to become a really good storage and retrieval database for information that passes through the clipboard, with an accent on Web clips, as well as a transient clips tool.
    So do I, except that CHS looks to me as though it is already a pretty good database to hold clipped data/images, enabling increasingly flexible and sophisticated filtering/tagging, sorting and retrieval - through the use of SQL (that enables Boolean search filters). CHS now retains the source URL of clipped data, and I think @mouser is probably contemplating how best to deal with partial/whole web clips without reinventing the wheel.

    Flagging records as "permanent" or "transient" could be done by enabling some of the functionality decribed above - as I put it (above), "This has a lot to do with "flexibility" in creating your meta-data - you can meet your data managment needs very precisely."
    6196
    Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Allow commenting of files in directory listing
    « Last post by IainB on August 25, 2011, 02:14 AM »
    @MilesAhead:
    Where I said:
    This shell integration worked fine in XP but does not yet work in my Win7 (64-bit). I intend to figure out how to fix this
    - is your view that it cannot be fixed because the dll is a 32-bit one and needs to be made compatible with the OS as a 64-bit one?

    By the way, what you have done re the AHK function looks very intereresting. Thankyou. I shall try it out.
    I am using AutoHotkey_L latest version (64-bit).
    6197
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 25, 2011, 01:44 AM »
    @mouser:
    As an aside: What I've said before is that I am always open to creating a *new* notetaking/pim tool, if someone could convince me that there is a real need for one that is highly specialized and focused on solving a narrow particular need/approach/workflow/personality.  There are some really good general purpose note tools out there that I have no interest in trying to compete with.  But if someone could come up with a streamlined focused idea for a lightweight notetaker with a specific point of view i'd bite.
    Yes, there are indeed "...some really good general purpose note tools out there" and I would not recommend that anyone try to compete with them, simply because most of them are off down the same GP ("general purpose") track and with a moronic design approach that has them stuck in a "fixed tree structure" paradigm and a self-defeating focus on superficial "features" and "look and feel". Info Select v10, for example, has just implemented "The Ribbon" interface, but apparently not because any users wanted it or even asked for it! Oh no, it was the Chief Designer who seems to have thought it would be "a good idea". So the ribbon was implemented (mandatory) and several valid requests to consider their genuine and long overdue requirements for functionality - from users (such as myself, for example) - remained largely ignored. So I and others have walked with our feet.

    The major requirements for a PIM would typicaly include:
    • That information/data can easily be captured from anywhere in its databse, and referenced. (Not forgetting email, which is data.)
    • That the database be of as non-proprietary a structure as possible, to avoid dependency.
    • That the creation of meta-data be automated in a rational and standardised fashion wherever possible.
    • That the information/data need not necessarily always be stored in the database, or may need to be secondary copies of the data, if other applications may need to reference the same data or search/index it, or if it is inefficient to store that data because of bloat.
    • That the information/data can be stored in a highly flexible structure for categorisation and identification, such that the structure can be restructured/re-arranged or the information/data be re-categorised or resorted to meet a new requirement for a different presentation or view of that information.
    • That any restructuring, rearrangement or re-categorisation be as automated as possible, thus minimising/avoiding the need to make manual updates or changes to the data or the meta-data, except those necessary to update the data for currency/correctness.

    The points I would make, in response to your "aside", are:
    (a) that in CHS, you effectively already have a *new* notetaking/PIM tool. You could either branch it into the new tool, or keep it integral with CHS. I would recommend the latter, until you are driven to make them separate (see rationale below).

    (b) if, as you say, you need someone to convince you that there is a real need for one that is highly specialized and focused on solving a narrow particular need/approach/workflow/personality, then you have me and a small army of people with like/similar needs. This is not an imaginary army, though it might be difficult to estimate its actual numbers, but you will find them in forums on the Internet, writing disconsolate reviews of these GP PIMs and often decrying the GP PIM rubbish and bemoaning the obsolescence of Lotus Agenda, for example.

    The important differences are that Lotus Agenda (by design) and CHS (apparently by accident?!) are lightweight RDBMS tools. I would respectfully suggest that you may be so close to CHS that you could be unable to appreciate the full power/potential of what has been done in CHS already.

    Capturing data/content (text/images): This is the rationale for my suggesting (above) that you should keep the clipping tool and the PIM together (consolidated) until driven to make them separate.

    Capturing data/content efficiently and effectively is of critical importance - a mandatory "must have" user requirement for a PIM.
    However, the GP PIMs are mostly hopeless at efficiently and effectively capturing data/content in a usable form. Typically, you have to go into the blasted PIM, press the insert button or do something specific to prepare the PIM to recieve external input in the PIM's proprietary format, then go to the external source to select/capture the input. And you still can't do it properly. This is why I use the Firefox Add-in "Scrapbook" to capture web pages - there's no better tool. I have to put up with the fact that my database is in disparate islands - the Scrapbook files are one such island. I can search that using Scrapbook functionality (slow) or Desktop search (I used to prefer Google desktop, but Win7 search is pretty good now).

    Info Select was a bit different:
    • It has a "cliipper" tool that sits in the Systray with a yellow lightning bolt icon. You select your text/material to copy in (say) your browser, then go to the Systray to click on the lightning bolt, which turns red whilst it is busy doing the copy, and then turns green when it has succeeded. About 98% of the time, it does not work. Mostly it stays red and you have to manually copy/paste the material. Good idea in the desgn, but a failue in execution on the implementation. So nobody uses it now.
    • It also could read and store web pages using its internal browser. This was based on the IE engine, but was broken by new versions of IE, so it is of no use at all now.
    • It had an ability to integrate with and process email. The functionality for this brilliant design idea was poorly implemented and has been broken by newer technology on the input side, so it is of no use at all now. (I think email functionality may have been removed altogether after v8.)

    One major lesson there is to have the PIM application control the clipping and input and the conformance to clip format and other input standards. (Get the point?)

    OneNote 2007 was a bit different:
    • It has a "Clip to OneNote" button that appeared in most of your applications. You just selected the area (text/image) to copy, pressed the button, and an image clip went to OneNote. This was pretty efficient, effective and useful. However, the "Clip to OneNote" functionality was broken by the Win7 x64 OS, and to make it work now you have to use a really kludgey workaround devised by a clever OneNote MS engineer. I don't use it much now. What a pity.

    One major lesson there is to have the PIM application control the clipping and input and the conformance to clip format and other input standards. (Sorry to labour the point.)
    6198
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 24, 2011, 11:46 PM »
    @rjbull:
    I don't know SQL, and don't really understand tags or CHS's virtual folders, so I hope that the more useful features can be accessed without writing code...  I'd like to have at least simple Boolean logic.

    As for OCR, that sounds to me a step too far.  That is, a lot of effort required to build something that wouldn't be used all that often.  But as CHS now stores images, and can accept external tools, is there any way of adding an OCR program as an external tool?
    SQL: I don't know SQL either, but am learning it. The UI (User Interface) should probably be more friendly and insulate the user from having to use SQL unless he/she wants to use it (I would, for example). That's kinda how CHS has the SQL implemented in Virtual Folders at the moment, I guess, but the insulation and the UI-frienliness bits could probably be improved upon.

    OCR: Actually, OCR is arguably well overdue and a step in the right direction, rather than "a step too far". That's why I gave the examples above on the subject. Quite a few applications seem to be using OCR to scan captured images (e.g., photos, fax, scanned document images, PDF-based images) to make them text-searchable (where text is detected in the image), rather than transcribe the OCR to text as data. I gather that there is some good public domain software about that can be used to do this, so you don't have to reinvent the wheeel  - for example, for CHS.

    Examples of applications that do this "OCR for text-searchable" are:
    • Evernote.
    • Qiqqa (what a brilliant reference management tool that is!).
    • OneNotes (a pretty good PIM).
    • Google docs (can also do OCR-to-text, if you ask for it).

    Some applications also make the text in the image copyable to clipboard, but do not actually produce a text output file. This may be as good as full OCR-to-text for most users' purposes.
    6199
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 24, 2011, 11:16 PM »
    @mouser:
    My argument against reviving the idea of CHS as a general note-taking tool is simply that I don't think it performs this function particularly elegantly from a user interface perspective.  It's just too clunky for this, and to schizophrenic in terms of trying to provide both clipboard and note-taking functions.

    Although the underlying operations are very similar, the look and feel demanded by the two different tasks seem too much in conflict.

    So I'm fairly decided that CHS should not try to be made into a general audience note taking tool.

    But I am willing to entertain adding limited specific functions to the program that people thing would serve a real need, and might saddle the two worlds.
    Good, and thankyou for not rejecting my suggestions out of hand. I gather from the above that you have a relatively open mind about it anyway - that is, seeing as you are happy to contemplate how CHS could straddle the two worlds.

    I think I am qualified by experience as a profficient PIM user to make some valid comment here.
    Experience:
    • I became an "expert user" of the first PIM that I started to use in 1989/1990. It was Lotus Agenda, a relational database tool that provided for hierarchical (or other arrangement) note-taking and reporting (output to printer). That meant you could use it to produce highly structured document hardcopy from different on-screen views of data, as displayed on-screen. It was so flexible that you could make it do pretty much whatever you needed, but to do so required a degree of understanding of logic that probably made it unappealing to the greater majority (a bit like the later Zoot.) It was/is a brilliant tool (I still use it a bit.).   :Thmbsup:
    • I became an "expert user" of Ashton-Tate's Framework III, IV and V - a DOS-based PIM that enabled the creation of files and documents which could be a mixture of text, spreadsheet and database. It was a brilliant tool (though I no longer use it.)   :Thmbsup:
    • I became an "expert user" of the PIM Info Select. I stuck with it because it was pretty good - the best of those that I had been able to find. I still use it quite a lot, but have stuck with version 8 (current version is 10).  It is an excellent product, though currently it seems to be stranded in the design doldrums.  :Thmbsup:
    • I have trialled 50 or more would-be PIMs, Wikis, Sticky Notes and Note-takers, but they all have major limitations as PIMs - with the exception of InfoQube and Zoot, but these too are constrained in their design.

    So, though you may say, as you do, above, that you feel that CHS does not perform the function of a general note-taking tool particularly elegantly from a user interface perspective, I would suggest that it does everything else so well that the user interface perspective is the last thing you need to worry about at this stage. Of those 50+ PIMs I have trialled, some were rubbish, and some had very nice UIs, but all (excepting InfoQube and Zoot) just didn't cut the mustard as a truly flexible PIM - including Info Select.   :(

    For years I have been trying to find a proper and modern replacement for Lotus Agenda, and I had just about given up hope and was wondering which modern programming language I would need to learn to carry out the development myself, when you belatedly enabled the Virtual Folders feature that you had already built-in to CHS.
    When you did that, I started to play with Virtual Folders. The best expression I can think of is that "I nearly fell off my chair with surprise" at the potential power of the Virtual Folders concept and using SQL as implemented in CHS - it was looking a lot like Lotus Agenda v2011!
    Sure CHS is still in a developmental part of its life-cycle - or "a state of dynamic change" - but it already works rather well as a PIM, and is a superb clipping tool!   :Thmbsup:
    That's why I have been trialling CHS as a PIM.

    I would like to assist in the development and as a ß user, if possible.
    My qualification for this are technical as well:
    • I have developed programs or program modules in the past using:
    • PAL (the ICL 1900 mainframe Program Assembly Language).
    • FORTRAN 77 (FORmulaTRANslation) on DEC PDP15/30 minis and UNIVAC 1108 mainframe computers).
    • Use of Logica's RAPPORT (FORTRAN-callable RDB subroutines)
    • BASIC (Beginners' All-pyrpose Symbolic Instruction Code).
    • Scripting languages.
    • (and tinkered with Java script.)
    • I am familiar with the development and application of a good deal of Windows-based technology.
    - but I have yet to learn to use SQL(*)! I am slowly learning that by trial-and-error, now.

    *(Structured Query Language - a programming language designed for managing data in relational database management systems or "RDBMS".)
    6200
    Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Feature request: Web clipping, permanent note keeping
    « Last post by IainB on August 24, 2011, 09:23 PM »
    @mouser:
    You can also already enable the "keywords" column in the grid and add keyword tags to any clip just by typing in the grid.  The quick search filter will scan this field.  Same goes for the "Notes" column.
    Thanks, yes, I had been experimenting with the Keywords and Notes columns.
    I think Keywords is for meta-data only and Notes is more reference detail (e.g., contains source URLinformation of images clipped from the web) and useful added notes relevant to the clip text/image.
    By the way, I think these are both very useful and easy-to-use features.  :Thmbsup:

    Is there some way I can select several clip records in the grid and edit the Keywords field for them all at one go, with the same keyword string (overwriting what may already be in that field)?
    If not, then this would be a new requirement from me, I think.    :)

    (To hid or show columns, click on the tiny icon that looks like = on the far left of the column header; note also you can save and load different layouts of panels and this includes the selection of which columns are visible).
    Thanks, yes, I have been experimenting with the column selector and am learning how to use "Save as Preset" to make the columns that I thus select "stick" for when I next open the grid display.
    By the way, I think the column selector and presets make a very useful and easy-to-use feature.  :Thmbsup:
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