I have been a little intrigued by the Gooooogle ads that have popped up on the heading of this site. If they help Dave keep the site up and running, then great. But it is interesting to see which software makers are targeting us and how they are doing it. I noticed that TheBrain advertises itself as an EccoPro Replacement... yeah, sure! Whatever else TheBrain is, it can't replace EccoPro.

These ads on our site are like a beer commercial during an AA meeting!

Steve Z.

I find the tendency for some software programs to try and hop on Ecco's coat tails misleading. As I mentioned a few posts back, InfoSelect heralded itself as a replacement forr Ecco. That's like saying an old fashioned human powered lawn mower is a replacement for a self propelled lawn mower.

I had picked up some scuttlebut a few months ago that version 9 of InfoSelect was to be a major remake designed to take into account some of the chronic complainsts of many of the program's users. For MicroLogic's sake I hope that's true because I fear that IS will get lost in the dust created by newer, better designed software from companies that excel at customer support.

Daly

Whatever else TheBrain is, it can't replace EccoPro.

By the way, one of the interesting features of TheBrain is the ability to link to virtually anything externally as long as it [properly] supports drag-n-drop. You can drag files, URL's, documents to it and it will ask you whether to link to them (create a shortcut) or import them (save them as embedded files).

As mentioned elsewhere, embedding external files is a surefire way to database file bloating, so there's a good reason for having a versatile linking feature available. This includes e-mail messages that when saved as .eml files they will carry within them all attached files.

IDEA! (the version currrently under development) will provide a wide range of choices when importing e-mail from Outlook, i.e. ignore / save selected / save all.

As far as I know, Outlook is the only mail program that has a database infrastructure, allowing one to actually link externally to specific messages, as opposed to copying them. In fact, this function is not limited to messages but also includes tasks, appointments, contacts etc.

Now you can use this functionality in your own favourite PIM as long as they support clickable URLs; actually, I don't know any that doesn't.

As mentioned recently in the Brainstorm Beta list, there is a free program called "Outlook Linker" which copies a link to Outlook items in the form of a URL to the clipboard. Paste this link to the relevant entry in your PIM and, when clicked, it will open the relevant message / contact / task in Outlook. The program can be found here:
http://www.teamscope.com/otherpro/utilities.asp#linker

alx

InfoSelect has it's issues.. but if I were to think replacing it with some another PIM, what would be my options? To my knowledge, there aren't any other packages that would allow storing straight text in structurable notes with global incremental search capability. I have used InfoSelect since the days of Tornado (ca. 1988) and it has become an indispensable part of my software toolkit. While I still store all of my contact information in it, I have become to accept that Outlook may be a better place for such (for the sake of sharing it, linking it to meetings, and moreover because everyone else uses Outlook). But that is not my primary use of InfoSelect; I use it to store server/software configuration information, software development information, etc. that cannot be forced into "fields" like every other PIM tries to force you to do. Yet I have full instant incremental search capability for all of that information.

I hope that version 9 will fix some of the long standing issues, and possibly give it a bit of a face-lift as it's interface is starting to look somewhat aged as compared to many newer packages. But idea-wise I think it's an excellent software for it's use ÔøΩ for which I have yet to find a better choice.

Ville