Scholar's Aid
Posted by pma
on 10/7/2005
pma
10/7/2005 9:05 am
[Amendment: Discovered the recent conversation between Daly and Graham here, which pretty much cover my enquiry - sorry].
Just tried out Scholar's Aid. It's notes module seems quite interesting, having many of the features for note taking, that I'm trying to accomplish by tweaking Zoot. Like virutal folders, keywords (you just select one word from a note and make it a keyword, and, voila, you get a virtual folder with that name under the keywords folder). And it is integrated with a bibliographic package, which, however, doesn't seem to be able to fetch references from Web of Science (which is crucial for me).
However, it seems to by quite buggy, I ran into a number of unexpected behaviors. Is that the general impression?
Furthermore, import from Reference Manager doesn't seem straight forward.
Anybody agree or disagree?
Peter.
Just tried out Scholar's Aid. It's notes module seems quite interesting, having many of the features for note taking, that I'm trying to accomplish by tweaking Zoot. Like virutal folders, keywords (you just select one word from a note and make it a keyword, and, voila, you get a virtual folder with that name under the keywords folder). And it is integrated with a bibliographic package, which, however, doesn't seem to be able to fetch references from Web of Science (which is crucial for me).
However, it seems to by quite buggy, I ran into a number of unexpected behaviors. Is that the general impression?
Furthermore, import from Reference Manager doesn't seem straight forward.
Anybody agree or disagree?
Peter.
graham.smith
10/7/2005 9:30 am
I found it buggy as well.
Graham
Graham
daly_de_gagne
10/7/2005 10:56 am
Scholar's Aid is a nice concept, but generally is found, I believe, to have bugs in it. Check it out well before providing a cheque, if you get my drift.
There is Biblioscape, which I have, but I think its strengths will be move evident in the version that Paul Chen is now woorking on.
I think for tons of material it is worthwhile to learn Zoot. Remember that Zoot, in addition to virtual folders, has categories. Now I'm not sure how to use categories, but someone such as Graham, who is here and at Zoot Yahoo can probably suggest how categories could become part of your information solution.
ADM 4 now in public beta is also a possibility -- it now has an easy to use clone feature (the previous clone feature was kind of clunky but it is now changed), metadata columns, keywords, etc.
Also, there is MDE InfoHandler, with its system of assigned keyworods or categories, as well as full search features.
Both ADM and InfoHandler also have a good writing environment with a ruler, margins, tabs, etc. ADM allows you to have more than one topic page window at a time, which is good for referring to other information when writing (such as the exact notes from a source, for example, or a previous draft side by side with the current draft).
Daly
There is Biblioscape, which I have, but I think its strengths will be move evident in the version that Paul Chen is now woorking on.
I think for tons of material it is worthwhile to learn Zoot. Remember that Zoot, in addition to virtual folders, has categories. Now I'm not sure how to use categories, but someone such as Graham, who is here and at Zoot Yahoo can probably suggest how categories could become part of your information solution.
ADM 4 now in public beta is also a possibility -- it now has an easy to use clone feature (the previous clone feature was kind of clunky but it is now changed), metadata columns, keywords, etc.
Also, there is MDE InfoHandler, with its system of assigned keyworods or categories, as well as full search features.
Both ADM and InfoHandler also have a good writing environment with a ruler, margins, tabs, etc. ADM allows you to have more than one topic page window at a time, which is good for referring to other information when writing (such as the exact notes from a source, for example, or a previous draft side by side with the current draft).
Daly