A New Tool

Posted by Graham Rhind
Nov 14, 2007 at 10:57 AM

>Graham Rhind wrote:
>if anybody has an overwhelming desire to know which eleven
>>packages I’m using, let
>me know :-)
>
>I do, I do (and wonder how many will overlap with mine :-)

I was a little afraid of that! Let me try to represent the flow diagram through text - let me know if there is anything you’d like to know more about. The pros and cons are, naturally, related to the way I use the programs and the information I maintain. For example, I am documenting my family history, which others will not be doing:

- Scan management->PaperPort, then imported into OneNote

- Archive/library; unstructured information; graphics; time sheets; completed project data into OneNote.
- Pros: Can see the whole document; inbuilt screen capture; supports templates; can read anything into it and anything can be annotated; portable to a small extent (Windows Mobile 6); universal link support; data sharing across a network
- Cons: Not easy/fast to search; poor navigation

- Current projects; reference data; prospect information and family tree information into The Brain. The Brain also used as a navigation tool to link to resources in OneNote, Ultra Recall, Outlook and Whizfolders. Data from The Brain is later archived to OneNote.
- Pros: Can store more genealogy information; supports templates; html editting; good as a navigational tool
- Cons: Expensive; cannot output a traditional family tree; have to open documents to see their contents

- Family tree (genealogy) data also into Great Family 2.2
- Pros: Good reporting output
- Cons: Not actively developed; no bug resolutions; buggy output

- Structured information; customer data; data processing results into Ultra Recall Professional
- Pros: data entry form development possible; inbuilt browser; event triggers possible using logical links/saved searches; inbuilt viewers for many file types; html editting; univeral link support
- Cons: Unstable - particularly sensitive to memory issues; poor help system/steep learning curve; poor support for recurring tasks

- E-mail, timed tasks into Outlook 2007
- Pros: integrated e-mail
- Cons: poor task management

- Timed tasks; ad hoc tasks; recurring tasks; real world trigger/event system into Zoot 32
- Pros: Event triggers possible
- Cons: Plain text only, can’t give an impression of length of time a task will take.

- Recurring tasks without strict timing into Sciral Consistency
- Pros: Allows flexibility of start/end time; cheap; good support
- Cons: Not actively developed

- Authoring; product manuals; product release history; any wiki system into Whizfolders Deluxe.
- Pros: Good printed output; templates supported; universal link support; data sharing across a network
- Neutral: RTF support
- Cons: have to open documents to view contents; poor graphics/tables management

- Passwords; registration data into Keeppass
- Pros: free; portable

- Lists/Checklists into Listpro
- Pros: portable (on Palm)

Dark horses: Surfulator, SQLNotes

I sure that I’ve missed a few information sources and programs along the way ......

Graham