Re: Tools for social scientists (was: NoteMap -- Greg, it's time for Ver. 3)

< Next Message | Back to archived message list | Previous Message >

Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 4269

Posted by graham.smith
2005-10-05 18:41:44

I have tried ADM, but only briefly. The problem I fnd with most of the alternatives is the need to use key words as an integral part of the database management. With Zoot you can just throw everything into it, and with rules and actions or setting up specific folders, pull all the data together at a later date.

In spite of the often stated steep learning curve of Zoot, I actually find all the alternatives complicated compared to Zoot. After an initial period with Zoot of sorting out that all the folders are virtual folders simply giving you different views of the same database, then Zoot is actually fairly simple but with a lot of subtle power when you need it.

Th old fashioned comment about Zoot is because it is 16 bit, there is no RTF and each item is limited to 32K. Both of which should be fixed in the 32 bit version.

This put me off Zoot for a long time, but in practice this isn’t the problem I once thought it was. Indeed a text based program has some adavantages in terms of speed and database size. Zoot does not deal with PDFs very well.

I would suggest a good indexing tool in addition to Zoot. My choice is DTsearch, but there are lots of good free alternatives.

All the different options have good and bad points, and the only way to sort out what will suit you, is to try them all.

Graham

Back to archived message list