InfoRecall - $5.99?!?!

[J-Mac]

I have never used this software and I only see one mention of it here on DC in the old Note-Taking review back in 2006! But I was looking around at PIMs and outliners, mainly because Kinook recently released a new version with nothing to speak of in it and is charging $50.00 for an upgrade.

So as I said I was looking around at other such programs and saw that InfoRecall - which once sold for $99.99 and more recently cost $59.99 is now only $5.99. Definitely sounds like it is heading for the "abandonware" heap to me, but who knows? Maybe the developer is trying to lure folks away from Ultra Recall and similar apps? I'm tempted to just go ahead and purchase it anyway, even though I am already overloaded with similar programs.

Anyone ever use this program?

Thank you.

Jim

[rgdot]

Very interesting, I don't remember when and which version but I did try it years ago.

[Curt]

http://www.phantech.com/Download.html



[attachimg=#]

The Power of a WYSIWYG Editor

• A full Word Processor
• Document size limited only by your RAM
• Full text formatting
• Support for graphics
• Tables & Columns
• Bullets & Numbering
• Paragraph formatting
• Borders & Shading
• Manual & Automatic spell checking


These are just some of the features there are many more.

Multiple Document View
• Open multiple documents
• Easily switch between documents
• Tabbed windows
• Work on multiple horizontal or vertical tiled documents

Network Ready
• Share your information
• All users can open the same folder
• Documents are locked to restrict modification to one user
• Documents are read-only if in use by someone else
• TDocuments can be made read-only to prevent modification

Backup Utility
• Backup your valuable data with the included Backup Utility
• Backup single or multiple InfoRecall Data folders
• Restore single or multiple InfoRecall Data folders

Lightening Fast Searches
• Normal
• Exact
• Fuzzy
• Boolean searches (AND, OR, IF NOT) using two search words
• Date searches (=, <, >) using one or two dates
• Numeric Searches (=. <, >, >=, <=) using one or two numbers
• Match Whole Word
• Index searches.
• Narrowing of search results for more exact results

Hypertext & Hyperlinks
• Text to text in a document
• Pop-Up Text. Text that’s part of a document but hidden until clicked on
• Another document in the same file
• A document in another file
• Any file and open the file in the appropriate program
• Another program
• Your Browser to open a Web Site
• Index searches.

Synchronize Data
• Synchronize files from one computer to another
• Synchronize any file not only InfoRecall files
• San source and target files to see if synchronization is needed
• Compares date and time and suggests synchronization

Publish Document as
• Web Page retaining fiull formatting including graphics
• RTF (Rich Text Format) file to open with Winword and many other applications
• TXT (Normal Text) file

Quick Type(tm)
• Facilitates text entry by keyboard
• Type an abbreviation, press the Space Bar and Quick Type does the rest
• Types single words, phrases, sentences or multiple lines of text
• Quick Type does the typing for you

Boilerplate Utility
• Use a library of reusable text
• Assemble standard clauses for contracts, agreements, leases etc..
• Paste assembled paragraphs into document

New Document from Clipboard
• Creates a new document from text in the Clipboard on the fly
• Works even when InfoRecall is in System Tray
• Automatically names Document
• For users who copy lots of text from variable sources and store it

Time Tracker
• For Lawyers, Consultants, Accountants or other professionals
• Keeps track of client time and client charges
• Progam Cost per hour and Currency
• Paste Date, Start, Finish time, Total Time, Cost per Hour and total Cost

Reminders
• Note or Document based reminders
• Schedule calendar events
• Keeps track of events and calls them to your attention
• Check Past, Current, Future and All events

Templates
• Enter information in a more structured way
• Design templates specifically for your use
• Use text fields and graphics and captions
• Templates are shown in the Templates menu

Security Features
• Logon Passwored
• Password InfoRecall Folders
• Password Documents
• Make Documents Read-Only

Automatic Document Save
• Saves your document or changes to your document automatically.
• Saves Document when opening another Document or Folder ot when Exiting
• Program it to save Documents every so many minutes

Exit to System Tray
• Exit to System Tray foe quick restore
• If a Folder or document was open it will remain open
• Still calls features programmed for startup

Extract E-mails
• Find and extract e-mails from single or multiple files
• Files can be InfoRecall data files
• Or text based file like: txt, rtf, doc, html, csv and other text files

[Jibz]

I think all these PIM type applications that are not handling syncing with mobile devices well, are probably dying a slow death.

[daddydave]

I think all these PIM type applications that are not handling syncing with mobile devices well, are probably dying a slow death.

I agree. If you have a mobile device, then electronic notes are a replacement for paper notes. No point in not being able to take them with you.

[J-Mac]

Well, then which PIM/Outliner is compatible with Windows and iOS/Android (or maybe Windows Phone if that's your flavor?) I have OneNote 2010 - had to put it in SkyDrive in order to sync with the Android OneNote app, which is OK but doesn’t sync all the time as it should; I have to manually sync it most of the time. And OneNote on the iPad/iPhone is terrible. I have an iPad and gave up on it for now. And I also have Evernote on all devices. But both OneNote and Evernote are great for notes, not so great as PIMs or outliners. Not like Ultra Recall was or InfoSelect. I don’t know of any serious PIMs that work across all those devices.

Thank you.

Jim

[IainB]

Not sure whether you have seen it, but there is some interesting discussion re this InfoRecall special offer (and other PIM-related software) at outlinersoftware.com - http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/tlist

[J-Mac]

Yep! Been there - actually over there still.    Sounds like they've seen a few bugs already. I don’t know, it just feels like the dev is about to walk away. How else can you read a price cut like that?

Thanks Iain.

Jim

[Bionic71]

I were not to happy about Kinooks major upgrade either, I did however upgrade and yes I felt bit like a loser.

Previous releases wont work with Microsofts Windows 8, it's a repeated scenario hence v3 did not work with Windows 7.
And everyone were forced upgrading to v4 if they wanted Windows 7.

Again, very timely Kinook sets of a major release just before launch of Windows 8, quite annoying hence no decent features added.

By upgrading I got Windows 8 support, I dont expect any major new features at this point.. It's a shame

I assume Kinook built up a dane userbase past years from those discounted deals, now.. those efforts are probably lost.
I think it's a slightly greedy move just before the launch of Windows 8.. nothing more.. assuming everyone will upgrade.

Take a look at GPsoft with their Directory Opus, they fixed v9 for Windows 7 before they went on with v10 of Opus, that's the spirit.
Kinook should have done the same, fix v4.. They could have waited a few months with v5.. add more features from the so called roadmap.

Still, Ultra Recall is an unbeatable PIM, I have lots of these, I translate some PIM's, I found most others PIM's less developed/stable.

I don't think I'm willing to make a transition to this $5.99 deal. 

Btw, url from bdj's offer are still active & accepted: http://www.kinook.com/order_bdj.html
That's $39.00 instead of $50.00, instead of upgrading, purchase a new license.

[J-Mac]

Nah - I'm pretty much done with UR. Kinook is one of the least responsive developers I've encountered. And while UR is certainly advanced and has plenty of features, it hasn’t really been developed in any way except to make it compatible with Windows 8 since back when he announced he was stopping all development of UR. Guess we should have believed him! The "roadmap" still has the exact same list of featured that was on it three years ago. And now $50.00 for a "no-new-feature" so-called upgrade? Just Windows 8 compatibility?

I don’t need it anymore. And InfoRecall isn't what I am replacing itwith - I just find the sudden low price interesting. I am now using both RightNote Pro and MyInfo, running them in parallel to see which does what better. Both are pretty impressive and they both handle most of what I need.

Jim

[Bionic71]

MyInfo is alright, also pretty fast working with, it's Scraper works nicely for me as well.
Unfortunately since launch of v6 I've encountered dozens of bugs, some whereas MyInfo crashed suddenly.
I have one current bug I shall report to petko, It's MyInfo's portable version which cant retain usersettings properly.

Save/File locations..
I use different locations than default & MyInfo creates new folders "My Topics/Configuration" at my desktop every time I scrape from browser

Other than that, quite nice PIM.
I'm just weary of those occasional bugs where a crash were involved, potentially destroying my database, it has not happened yet but I'm worried it might.

[Curt]

After downloading and installing InfoRecall please submit the Product Key and Build Number as seen on the fist screen that comes up when you start InfoRecall to  sales@phantech.com and, Phantech Software will e-mail you a Registration Key.

Not one of the 3 confirmation emails included a link to the file or even to the site.

---
http://www.phantech.com/Download.html

[IainB]

Not one of the 3 confirmation emails included a link to the file or even to the site.

Yes, the software seems to be in a dubious state, if you read the thread I mentioned:

Not sure whether you have seen it, but there is some interesting discussion re this InfoRecall special offer (and other PIM-related software) at outlinersoftware.com - http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/tlist

[jeme]

Not sure whether it's an alternative, but "myBase 6 + Add-ons package" is available 50% off (=>39.50 USD) on Bitsdujour today (http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/mybase-desktop-addons-pack/).

I feel the same as some others before that a PIM/general data base software has to also have a mobile client nowadays, so that I can maintain the data on my PC(s), but can also at least retrieve, if not maintain the data on my mobile device (and this without having to place my data somewhere out in the cloud). The myBase webpage, e.g. on http://www.wjjsoft.com/products.html, mentions a "lite version" for Windows mobile, but nothing for Android or other mobile platforms, and I'm not sure how to read that part in terms of how commited they are to serving the mobiles.

Does anyone here use myBase? For example, I also wonder, how easy it would be to import data from other applications (e.g. Video and MP3 collections) to really have one retrieval application for all my stuff (particularly on the mobile end ;-).

[Bionic71]

After downloading and installing InfoRecall please submit the Product Key and Build Number as seen on the fist screen that comes up when you start InfoRecall to  sales@phantech.com and, Phantech Software will e-mail you a Registration Key.

Not one of the 3 confirmation emails included a link to the file or even to the site.

---
http://www.phantech.com/Download.html

Tested in a vm now this InfoRecall $5.99
Each installation gives you a unique ID key, you need to email support each time you install/reinstall.

You bought this curt?

If you bought the software you would want to backup/export a snippet from registry once registered.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Info\Info\2.1

[daddydave]

I think all these PIM type applications that are not handling syncing with mobile devices well, are probably dying a slow death.

I agree. If you have a mobile device, then electronic notes are a replacement for paper notes. No point in not being able to take them with you.

When I agreed with Jibz's comment, I was about to say something to the effect that the demise of those applications can't happen soon enough, but I was afraid that sounded too harsh to the developers who have worked hard on these things. So this is more of a wish that more developers would consider this.

Well, then which PIM/Outliner is compatible with Windows and iOS/Android (or maybe Windows Phone if that's your flavor?) I have OneNote 2010 - had to put it in SkyDrive in order to sync with the Android OneNote app, which is OK but doesn’t sync all the time as it should; I have to manually sync it most of the time. And OneNote on the iPad/iPhone is terrible. I have an iPad and gave up on it for now. And I also have Evernote on all devices. But both OneNote and Evernote are great for notes, not so great as PIMs or outliners. Not like Ultra Recall was or InfoSelect. I don’t know of any serious PIMs that work across all those devices.

Thank you.

Jim

Nothing all that satisfactory.

For note-takers, I just know of the ones you mentioned: OneNote and EverNote.

A note-taker to me is one-fourth of a PIM. The 4 Pillars of PIM are notes, tasks, contacts, and calendar. I was trying to get all four in one program and sync to mobile. But then all you have is Outlook, and that was probably an unrealistic expectation anyway. And I need multiple types of notes. My next device will be an Android, but I don't expect things to be any better than it was on my iPod Touch.

[Curt]

In the (portable) InfoRecall folder there is an auto-created shortcut that is all wrong / mysterious:

"H:\EXTENSION_E\VMware\VMware ThinApp\Captures\InfoRecall\bin\InfoRecall 15.exe"

The link is "blind"; no such address.

When I closed InfoRecall the first time, having merely copied the Product Key and Build Number (in order to email them), I received this OLE-related error message:

[attachimg=#]

-how the heck should the user check this?!!

-------

I have InfoRecall installed on a (slow) USB 2 stick, so it should launch quite slow.
However, it launches extremely slow.

Tested in a vm now this InfoRecall $5.99
Each installation gives you a unique ID key, you need to email support each time you install/reinstall.
You bought this curt?
If you bought the software you would want to backup/export a snippet from registry once registered.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Info\Info\2.1

Thanks   , but at the moment I think I might just have wasted $6.
I am pleased VAT was included ;-)

[Bionic71]

huh.. You know curt after I looked at your post, i downloaded portable version as well

What you have there is the build structure directory from VMware ThinApp, it's not the way to distribute files like they did.

I know this hence I have a personal license of VMware+ThinApp and used ThinApp heavily, I know ThinApp inside & out.
Using ThinApp this way means they would have a commercial license.. now.. they would need to sell alot of $5.99 InfoRecall's making up for ThinApp's licensee.

ThinApp commercial license = 7641,75 € incl. VAT
http://store.vmware.com/store?Action=DisplayPage&Locale=en_IE&SiteID=vmwde&id=ProductDetailsPage&productID=108093800

If you now bought this and using portable version,
From "dir" bin of InfoRecall, if you ever delete this folder "InfoRecall" you would also need to contact support for a new product ID.
This is the ThinApp sandbox and contains all user settings.

If any updates of InfoRecall which I strongly doubt, you would also need to contact their support for a new ID of the portable version.
You dont just copy these sandboxes from one version to another.

Also this portable version was used using an older version of ThinApp.

[J-Mac]

I haven't purchased it - and I probably won't! Like I said above, I already have a few too many in this category!!

Oh! I should have also mentioned Pierre Paul Landry's ambitious undertaking, InfoQube (formerly SQLNotes). That is a PIM in the true sense of the word, though like most I don’t believe it has - or will have in the foreseeable future - mobile versions available. Still it definitely deserves a good, hard look.

daddydave, I must add to your definition of a PIM as far as many users are concerned: A PIM should also have the ability to store any and all data that you consider important, and to make it easily retrieved when needed. Several of the users over on outlinersoftware.com use PIMs to manage their Windows files and folders; to collect and store all their research including web pages, entire web sites, bookmarks, papers, essays, articles, etc. Forexample, if Ultra Recall, InfoSelect, and the rest only handled tasks, calendar, contacts, and notes, they wouldn’t be in business very long! The term (acronym) PIM, for Personal Information Manager, at one time did pretty much cover only those four points you mentioned. In the last several years however PIM has been expanded to also cover a heck of a lot of other information that is important to the user.

Here's a decent thread that tries to distinguish between what many of the folks over at outlinersoftware.com consider to be outliners vs. "personal knowledge systems". (Many attempts at delineating between the specific terms of "outliner" and PIM):     http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/1522

Thanks!

Jim

[Bionic71]

myBase 6 + Add-ons package
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/mybase-desktop-addons-pack/

It's ok to, awesome webscraper, where many fail myBase often works without a hitch.
New users will find myBase bit confusing working with and what all settings actually do, evaluate before buying.

Nice price for myBase but I'd still go with Ultra Recall or MyInfo, they're simply much better organized, there's no room for confusion.

[cyberdiva]

I think all these PIM type applications that are not handling syncing with mobile devices well, are probably dying a slow death.

I'm not sure whether I'd call Surfulater a PIM--I don't use it for contacts, calendar, etc., just to save information from the web, from documents, from whatever.  But FWIW, I thought I'd mention that Surfulater's developer has been actively working on a version that will work/sync with mobile devices as well as desktops, etc.  He has recently been talking about this in two blog postings: http://blog.surfulater.com/2012/06/29/surfulater-next-generation-part-1/ and http://blog.surfulater.com/2012/07/03/surfulater-next-generation-part-2/.  I know nothing more, but I've used Surfulater on my desktop and netbook for several years, and I love it.

[y2kusuma]

Btw, url from bdj's offer are still active & accepted: http://www.kinook.com/order_bdj.html
That's $39.00 instead of $50.00, instead of upgrading, purchase a new license.

Deal coming soon.
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/ultra-recall-2/

[Bionic71]

There's no need to wait, link posted is active, it's $19.00 or $39.00 for professional

[cthorpe]

RightNote now allows Evernote sync of notes that you set to the "Evernote" type.

I haven't tested it yet to see how well it works, but it is there.

You can see it in the last two entries on their revision history http://www.bauerapps.com/RightNoteHistory.html

C

[Curt]

InfoRecall is working well ♥

But I can understand how several issues are making people (including myself) assuming something is seriously wrong. One of the (many?) small issues is the path in the titlebar: "C:\Program Files x86\InfoRecall\Data".  Why on earth does it say so, when the real path is "F:\InfoRecall\InfoRecall 15.3 Portable\Data"? I guess Bionic71 was right, saying that InfoRecall isn't properly build to be portable! If 'you' take the deal, I think it might be "safest" to grab the traditional installer...

But as I started out, it also is a fine program!