MyInfo Is My Choice

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 24, 2025 at 07:28 PM

Hi Graham, good to hear from you.

I remember you were a great fan of Connected Text. I appreciate your comments.

>A great many of the new shiny online apps seem to be trying to do the
>same thing but in a slightly different, unnecessarily complicated, way.
>They also try to be different by making up a whole new set of
>vocabulary, but many seemed to have been design, and the d from a technical
>viewpoint with little thought being given to (mainly non-technical)
>end-users.

I agree. It’s good to do things better than before, but it seems to me too many developers are trying to do the same thing. With that, as you note, there’s new vocabulary and the challenge of trying to figure out the new, seemingly more visually oriented approach based on “objects”.

>They’re clean and modern but leave the user facing a blank
>screen with little help or hope about where to go next - learning curves
>seem to be getting longer rather than shorter.

Part of what strikes me about the “blank screen” is that the ability is undermined or lost to do a quick scan of information or to appreciate the structure of one’s PKM and/or the actual content of one’s information collection. Using the basic outline structure I was amazed when I started looking sertiously at MyInfo again at how much was quickly communicated to me in terms of what I had in the program years ago.

Especially reviewing my reading history and related data set up in columns the genius of outline combining easy to use columns was clearer than ever.

I wonder at times whether the recent trends in developing personal information programs (sometimes called second brains) are dictated by a desire to decrease the number of words, not because it is appropriate per se, but because younger people may be more challenged when it comes to reading content. Of course good layout/design are important because we tend to be very visual in our approach to information, but at what point are layout and design becoming ends in themelves rather than a means to an end related to effectively handling information?

>I don’t use MyInfo much mainly because its “Perspectives” are limited
>and badly laid out - a little tweaking could allow these to be the
>equivalent of Zoot’s SmartFolders or UltraRecall’s saved searches.

Can you say a little more about MyInfo’s “Perspectives”? Thanks.

Cheers,
Daly