Well, after digesting all the great info on this site, loading every PIM known to mankind on my poor little hard drive and testing these apps for a couple of weeks... I think I have a winner.

The envelope please.................... And the winner is ..............

OmeaPro!

Why???

Pros:

#1. The best tool for consolidating all the bits of info on your hard drive.... Files, emails, contacts, news, web links, tasks.... I haven't found anything better.... Plus it indexes all these resources, allows you to categorize it and organize it.

#2. Power & Flexibility. OP allows you to create powerful rules that can automate lots of "house keeping" for you.

#3. Nice interface. It is joy to use & look at (some PIM are just plain "butt ugly". Not OP) OP has a nice "WorkSpace" concept.... which I use on my laptop. I have a work space set-up for the office and one for home. Nice feature ;-)

#4. Built-in file viewers for word, excel, jpeg and pdf files. You can view your emails and attached files without launching the native apps to view the attachments.

#5. Jet Brains, the developers of OmeaPro, are not a "one trick pony" and have developed several highly acclaimed products. This should give the product some longevity.

#6. The developers are very active with the product and appear to have lots of plans for OP. It is reassuring to know that OP has both resources and lots of ideas for the product.... A sign of a bright future for the product.

#7. OP has an open API which allows users and 3rd party developers to create add-ins for OP.

Cons:

#1. Would be nice to add a PowerPoint viewer.

#2. OP should add an outliner resource.

#3. OP should add a notes resource.

#4. Can be a little slow on a slow machine.... Probably a result of building it on .NET framework.
#5. To-Dos are not currently hierarchical ... The developers have said this will be added in the next rev of the product.

Overall, I think OmeaPro is the best tool for consolidating all the bits of info on your hard drive. Files, emails, contacts, news, web links, tasks.... It is the ultimate tool for "computer" information.

Where OP falls a little short is on the "personal" information side. Although you can add annotations to each resource (emails, web links, news....) it would be nice if OmeaPro had an Outline resource and a Notes resource for capturing all those little bits of info. The developers are considering adding outlines as a future resource.

With these 2 additions (hopefully in the next release) OmeaPro would go from a great product to the ULTIMATE product.....IMHO

Hope you find this useful.

-jj

Note.... They just released 2.0 today. You can download a 30 day trial.

I have looked at OmeaPro before. The last time I had trouble running it on my main machine -- a Dell Inspiron 6000 with XP Pro. I think the problem may have been a conflict with X1, so next time I would shut it down, or with my firewall/antivirus system (Norton), so I would shut it down also.

OmeaPro reminds me of Haystack in terms of what it is trying to achieve, but way, way better than Haystack (to mangle a few metaphors, I think at MIT where Haystack is developed, they're all trying to figure out how a haystack can through the eye of a needle).

As a resul of comments here I downloaded Idea last week. I believe it will do some of the same things as OmeaPro.

Daly

Daly,

Just a quick question...

I looked at X1, but decided instead on Copernic DeskTop Search.

Have you looked at Copernic?

If yes, what made you choose X1?

Also.... I played around with Idea, and maybe I missed something, but it does not have a file viewer in it & does't link to OutLook, and I could't figure out how to make rules.... Plus the interface didn't seem as clean....

I know everyone whats their PIM to do different things, but I'm wondering what advantages did you find in Idea over OmeaPro for your needs???

Also, Also..... Have you looked at NEO???? (Nelson email Organizer)
http://www.caelo.com/
Nice product, but only focused on email.... I have set-up OmeaPro to do about 90% of what NEO can do...

-jj

FYI.... I was very impressed with UltraRecall, bought it, used it for a couple of weeks ... only to discover OmeaPro a week later :-( and bought it 2 days later.... I can't afford to discover another new product :-)

Daly,

Copernic indexes & searches email, word, powerpoint, excel, pdf, history... AND it has its own file viewer & highlights the searched word. Plus it is FREE! It too is very fast!

NEO..... I can make OP do almost everything NEO can except for a few small things: #1. NEO has a nice built-in "Search for Conversation", I can do it in OP, but it is not automated like NEO... #2. You can force a synch with OutLook in NEO-not in OP (you set intervals...like every 5 minutes)
The big difference is that NEO is good for organizing your email...but that's it. While in OmeaPro, I can organize my email & then have all my email there to link it to other data (resources) on my computer. With NEO, you can't.

UltraRecall - I love the product, but it lacks the ability of OP to bring all your data "under 1 roof".... This I think is the BIG IDEA with OP. I love the ability to have all my data in one place & the ability to organize it, link it, index it, search & view it all within OP! PLUS, OP has the ability to create rules. With this, I can really customize OP and automate lots of things.

I think UltraRecall is superior to OP (right now) if you want to enter new data into your system.(Like Outlines & Notes)

Here is my thinking.... When a software product is developed, it is locked into a certain paradigm. At that point, future versions usually "go down the road" set in the original version....improving on the orginal idea.

In the case of UR, the paradigm is heavily focused on user entered data. OP on the other hand went down the road of "all data under 1 roof".

I believe that it will be much easier for OP to add UR features THEN for UR to add OP features. So, while OP is a little weak in user added data, I think the future versions will address this. In fact, the developers have already committed to adding "tree" structures to the task lists.... And they are seriously considering adding Outlines as a unique resource to the product. Maybe if enough people lobby them for outlines, it will come sooner rather than later..... and then we will have the ULTIMATE tool!

As you probaly guessed I'm into downsizing ..... I hate having all these dedicated products (NEO to organize email, Bonsia for outlines...)
I want just 1 product than can "do it all".

Sorry for being so long!


-jj

alx,

I think the big differnce is that OP reads the Outlook database.... not drag & drop.... its all automatic.

And then from OP I can organize my emails in the Outlook folders.... assign categories, reply....Its pretty cool! If you used NEO will will understand what I'm talking about.

IDEA!'s trees are like Zoot's virtual folders, i.e. the same record can be classified under various categories.

Same with OP .... it reads everything on your hard drive and indexes it..... plus outlook contact, outlook emails, outlook tasks, web links, news groups, files (doc, xls pdf...) and then you can assign categories (including multiple categories) to each "resource". Then you can set-up views....

You can also set rules to automatically assign categories...

I would be interested in your opinion of OP after you have had a look.....

-jj