FYI, James Fallows, the national correspondent of The Atlantic Monthly, has a column in the current issue on independent info programs. Fallows has long had an interest in information management, and perhaps more than anyone else brought Zoot to the world's attention through various articles he's written over the years.

When you look at the kind of articles Fallows writes -- lengthy, well documented analysis of politics and public policy -- you can see why he's naturally interested in programs that help him to track sources, quotes, and notes. His article organizer template on the Zoot Yahoo group shows one way to do just that.

In the current The Atlantic article Fallows looks at EverNote, NetSnippets, Surfulator and, in less detail, ADM and, for the Mac, Devon and Tinderbox.

I noted with interest that he has visited the ADM team in China, and that he plans to write more about ADM in the future. He doesn't note some of the recent concerns about ADM and, in fact, seems positive about the program.

Fallows is a regular contributing member of the Zoot Yahoo group.

As an aside: While I was originally interested in various third party programs for capturing web page material, my current thought is that nothing performs as well as Scrapbook for Firefox -- or simply using the browsers "save as" command, and then making a link between the saved page and the info program of your choice. The second approach takes more time, but it is reliable. I use Scrapbook, as well as linking saved web pages to either MDE InfoHandler or Zoot. I have found most of the web clipping programs have some kind of blind spot -- including ADM and UltraRecall. One program, an old timer in the field of info management, InfoSelect, still does perhaps the worst job of any program in terms of saving web page material.

Daly

Discuss and learn about David Allen's Getting Things Done:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Getting_Things_Done/

I have been reminded by a friend that I should always give the ADM url because the program does not come up well on the search engines. The url is I have been reminded by a friend that I should always give the url for ADM because it doesn't show up well on the search engines. The url is adm21.net.

Daly

Daly de Gagne wrote:

I noted with interest that he has visited the
ADM team in China, and that he plans to write more about ADM in the future. He doesn't
note some of the recent concerns about ADM and, in fact, seems positive about the
program.

Fallows is more capable than I would have previously believed in talking complete nonsense about software. Perhaps it comes with being a journalist, but he is far from immune to hype. I was looking at some older articles he wrote, where he said that OmniOutliner for OS X combined the best features of BrainStorm, NoteMap, Echo, and GrandView. Yeah, right. Omin isn't _that_ feature rich; and no one, including James, mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not terribly stable, traits which considerably diminishing any application it runs.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Fallows is more capable than I would have previously believed in talking complete
nonsense about software. Perhaps it comes with being a journalist, but he is far from
immune to hype. I was looking at some older articles he wrote, where he said that
OmniOutliner for OS X combined the best features of BrainStorm, NoteMap, Echo, and
GrandView. Yeah, right. Omin isn't _that_ feature rich; and no one, including James,
mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not terribly stable, traits which
considerably diminishing any application it runs.

I know I'm risking this being escalated into another "flaming" war, but I couldn't stand any longer.

I would appreciate if you could post something that would be helpful to people on this board, and avoid making any snide remark about folks who might not have the opportunity to defend themselves in this forum.

Also, if I didn't know better, I would think you would be on MS's payroll. Your repeated attacks on Mac is getting tiresome. Mac is an excellent platform on its own right, and it offers certain outlining programs that have features that are currently not available in the Windows platform, Omni being one. I don't think I have found any Windows equivalent of Omni, DEVONthink, Tinderbox, or even Notetaker. Although Eastgate (maker of Tinderbox) has been working on the windows version of Tinderbox for a long time.

Thanks.

Ken

Stephen, I am curious about your comment re OSX -- I hadn't realized it had a problem with speed. Tha concerns me since I am thinking of getting back into the Mac world. Am I better staying with PCs only?

Daly



Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:

>I noted with interest that he has visited the
>ADM team in
China, and that he plans to write more about ADM in the future. He doesn't
>note some of
the recent concerns about ADM and, in fact, seems positive about the
>program.


Fallows is more capable than I would have previously believed in talking complete
nonsense about software. Perhaps it comes with being a journalist, but he is far from
immune to hype. I was looking at some older articles he wrote, where he said that
OmniOutliner for OS X combined the best features of BrainStorm, NoteMap, Echo, and
GrandView. Yeah, right. Omin isn't _that_ feature rich; and no one, including James,
mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not terribly stable, traits which
considerably diminishing any application it runs.

I have occasion to use both Mac OS X and Windows on a regular basis, and I wouldn't characterize either one as faster. *I* am faster on a Mac, partly due to familiarity and partly due to design issues like having a single menu bar (far faster to reach than the small target in Windows).

I do feel OS X is more stable, though XP has made improvements (although my officemate just had a machine fail due to the Registry being corrupted). Currently I have a Mac machine that's been up for 46 days -- it would have been longer except for a security update. (I think I restarted my Windows system yesterday because of a security update -- this is another obvious difference between the platforms.)

I can also say that my Opal outliner is probably never going to be available for Windows. I consider that reason enough to use a Mac :-)

Stephen

and no one, including James,
mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not terribly stable, traits which
considerably diminishing any application it runs.

Beg your pardon. That's nonsense.

Over the last 2 years, we had 3 Macintosh machines (OS X 10.3 and 10.4) and 6 Windows XP machines here. Some of the machines were new when we bought them, some notebooks were second-hand. We use them mainly for writing, translating, email, web (browsing and design), info storage, desktop publishing, image editing and graphics (diagrams, flowcharts, sometimes illustration). All the tasks are done both on Windows and Macs (except for illustration as we only have Corel Draw).

And our Macs are more reliable than the Windows machines. We had only 2 crashes on the Macs - both on a Powerbook that was - I think - 4 years old. 2 of your Windows machines crash regularly, one at least once a week. The other PCs are fairly stable (but they restarted every morning, the Macs usually are not turned off at night).

In our experience OS X is only slow on machines it was not designed for or that are faulty.

We ran OS X 10.4 on the used Powerbook (800 MHz, 512 MByte RAM) and could not complain about speed. Ulysses, Tinderbox, Devonthink and Scrivener are about as fast or slow as Microsoft Office or OpenOffice.org on a 800 MHz Thinkpad running Windows XP.

And that's not only my personal experience. That's the experience of a couple of Mac and Windows users I know.

Franz

Ken -

I don't use a Mac (yet), but I am impressed with the range of outlining programs available for it. Ted Goranson's regular column in "About This Particular Outliner (ATPO) contains interesting discussions and evaluations of what's on offer for the Mac. The archive is at http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml and it is equally interesting for Windows users to read. Indeed the whole magazine, of which the column is just one part, provides a good introduction to the Mac world.

Derek

Derek Cornish wrote:

Ken -

I don't use a Mac (yet), but I am impressed with the range of outlining programs
available for it. Ted Goranson's regular column in "About This Particular Outliner
(ATPO) contains interesting discussions and evaluations of what's on offer for the
Mac. The archive is at http://www.atpm.com/Back/atpo.shtml and it is equally
interesting for Windows users to read. Indeed the whole magazine, of which the column
is just one part, provides a good introduction to the Mac world.

Derek

I personally do not use a Mac on a regular basis, although there are times I wish that I do. I have a graduate student who bought a new Mac based on my recommendation, and I pointed him to a couple of programs (Notetaker, Notebok, Omini Outliner, etc.). He couldn't be happier with the choice of outlining software in the Mac platform. In my experience, Windows outlining programs cannot touch some of these programs in terms of overall combination of the ease of use, functionality, visual attractiveness, and integration.

Just my 2 cents.

Ken

There's some forthright discussion of speed and reliability issues in Mac OS X at http://www.atpm.com/12.08/paradigm.shtml There seems to be general agreement that OS X through 10.3 was plagued by stability and speed problems. I pointed out that this had generally not been previously admitted in the Mac literature, as it isn't recognized in your response here. There seems to have been improvement in 2005 and some regression in 2006. If the consensus represented in that unusually forthright discussion was that OS X just became usable recently, it is unlikely to have become a speed demon or to rival Windows XP in stability in the time since.

When I played with Omni Outliner on a Mac 6 months to a year ago in the Apple Store in LA, it was painfully slow. I don't think Mac users on the whole are objective observers and commentators on their computers' performance.

Let
Franz Grieser wrote:

Stephen

>and no one, including James,
>mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not
terribly stable, traits which
>considerably diminishing any application it runs.


Beg your pardon. That's nonsense.

Over the last 2 years, we had 3 Macintosh
machines (OS X 10.3 and 10.4) and 6 Windows XP machines here. Some of the machines were
new when we bought them, some notebooks were second-hand. We use them mainly for
writing, translating, email, web (browsing and design), info storage, desktop
publishing, image editing and graphics (diagrams, flowcharts, sometimes
illustration). All the tasks are done both on Windows and Macs (except for
illustration as we only have Corel Draw).

And our Macs are more reliable than the
Windows machines. We had only 2 crashes on the Macs - both on a Powerbook that was - I
think - 4 years old. 2 of your Windows machines crash regularly, one at least once a
week. The other PCs are fairly stable (but they restarted every morning, the Macs
usually are not turned off at night).

In our experience OS X is only slow on machines
it was not designed for or that are faulty.

We ran OS X 10.4 on the used Powerbook (800
MHz, 512 MByte RAM) and could not complain about speed. Ulysses, Tinderbox,
Devonthink and Scrivener are about as fast or slow as Microsoft Office or
OpenOffice.org on a 800 MHz Thinkpad running Windows XP.

And that's not only my
personal experience. That's the experience of a couple of Mac and Windows users I
know.

Franz

Daly,

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Stephen, I am curious about your comment re OSX -- I hadn't realized it had a problem
with speed. Tha concerns me since I am thinking of getting back into the Mac world. Am I
better staying with PCs only?

When I was looking at buying a Mac recently, I spoke to several people (who use Macs and PCs) and asked on a couple of conferences where I again knew people used Macs and PCs.

The concensus was that the Macs were more stable than the WINXP boxes, and that spec for spec the Macs were faster than WinXP.

In the end I bought another WinXP box, but that was because I have several programs that are PC only, and there would have been some considerable addirtonal expense to replace the PC versions of programs with Mac versions, where this was an option.

Graham

Stephen

I don't think Mac users on the whole are objective observers and commentators on
their computers' performance.

This may be true of Mac users who never ever looked at other systems.

I do not consider myself a Mac user - I do most of my work on various Windows machines. I would say I am a dissatisfied Windows user who sticks to Windows because he earns a large part of his money writing about Windows computers and apps and training people how to use Windows.

Franz

p.s. I do not think here is the place for ranting and grumbling about operating systems. Let's get back to discussing outlining tools.

Stephen, a couple of points.

First of all, you are admitting that your first post with the comment about Mac's speed was based on old data.

Second, you question whether "Mac users on the whole are objective observers and commentators on their computers' performance."

May one draw the inference that PC users are objective?

Or are you saying that Mac users are as lacking in objectivity as PC users?

Is there a lick of evidence anywhere to suggest that one group or the other is lacking in objectivity?

Rather, it sounds to me like a way of simply discrediting Mac users as a group, having been soundly called on the issue of Mac performance?

Just curious.

Daly

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

There's some forthright discussion of speed and reliability issues in Mac OS X at
http://www.atpm.com/12.08/paradigm.shtml There seems to be general agreement
that OS X through 10.3 was plagued by stability and speed problems. I pointed out that
this had generally not been previously admitted in the Mac literature, as it isn't
recognized in your response here. There seems to have been improvement in 2005 and
some regression in 2006. If the consensus represented in that unusually forthright
discussion was that OS X just became usable recently, it is unlikely to have become a
speed demon or to rival Windows XP in stability in the time since.

When I played with
Omni Outliner on a Mac 6 months to a year ago in the Apple Store in LA, it was painfully
slow. I don't think Mac users on the whole are objective observers and commentators on
their computers' performance.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

When I played with
Omni Outliner on a Mac 6 months to a year ago in the Apple Store in LA, it was painfully
slow.

So the fact that one program was slow means all Macs are slow?

I'd also point out that there are a very large number of other outliners available for Mac OS X. Most aren't sold at retail, so you wouldn't easily find them at an Apple Store.

P.S. Just made a speed optimization last night in my Opal outliner. So don't use it for comparison until 1.0.3 comes out :-)

As being a criticism of Fallows' Mac commentary, Omni is very relevant, because on it, Fallows bestowed the highest praise. Omni, moreover, is a rather core OS X product. If someone got an Apple because of the outlining programs on it, it would very likely be for Omni.

Opal is constructed as a small tight program, and as such is expected to run fast, if anything does. It is more of a challenge to a platform to get a feature-laden behemoth to run reasonably fast. This can be done on Windows XP, but it does not look to me that Mac OS X allows it. I could be wrong, but I am more concerned about the quality of information emanating from the Apple camp, the way that faults seem to be concealed, so that one would not even know that at least the early versions of OS X were unstable and slow. Since Apple is largely responsible for this false impression (what with the Jobs psychopathic reality shield), personally I think consumers should not assume current versions are better without strong proof. Apple's misinformation in the past creates a reasonable presumption of continued misrepresentation of its products, both by the company and its fans.

I'm not emotionally attached to a platform. If I were convinced that OS X was the superior platform for outlining type activities, I would switch in a minute. If I sound negative about Apple, which I am, it's because I think it an unethical company, not because its products are inferior, which I could certainly be wrong about but not wilfully.


David Dunham wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

>When I played with
>Omni Outliner on a Mac 6 months to a
year ago in the Apple Store in LA, it was painfully
>slow.

So the fact that one
program was slow means all Macs are slow?

Your telling me what to post is presumptuous and like your other opinions, loathsome. If you don't like my posts, don't read them.

Kenneth Rhee wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>
>Fallows is more capable than I would have previously
believed in talking complete
>nonsense about software. Perhaps it comes with being
a journalist, but he is far from
>immune to hype. I was looking at some older articles
he wrote, where he said that
>OmniOutliner for OS X combined the best features of
BrainStorm, NoteMap, Echo, and
>GrandView. Yeah, right. Omin isn't _that_ feature
rich; and no one, including James,
>mentions that OS X is painfully slow and not
terribly stable, traits which
>considerably diminishing any application it runs.


I know I'm risking this being escalated into another "flaming" war, but I couldn't
stand any longer.

I would appreciate if you could post something that would be
helpful to people on this board, and avoid making any snide remark about folks who
might not have the opportunity to defend themselves in this forum.

Also, if I didn't
know better, I would think you would be on MS's payroll. Your repeated attacks on Mac is
getting tiresome. Mac is an excellent platform on its own right, and it offers certain
outlining programs that have features that are currently not available in the
Windows platform, Omni being one. I don't think I have found any Windows equivalent of
Omni, DEVONthink, Tinderbox, or even Notetaker. Although Eastgate (maker of
Tinderbox) has been working on the windows version of Tinderbox for a long
time.

Thanks.

Ken

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Stephen, a couple of points.

First of all, you are admitting that your first post
with the comment about Mac's speed was based on old data.

In much the same way that my criticism of ADM is based on "old data." I do not grant license to software and hardware companies to present users with a moving target, to be immediately forgiven for their past failures. The best way, imo, to evaluate Apple is looking at at least a 10-year history. It is NOT reasonable to suppose that because a product gets better one year, it will remain that way the next. The whole track record is relevant to the evaluation. Thus I hold the miseries of System 8 & 9 and even the sub-professionnal System 7 firmly against Apple.

Second, you question
whether "Mac users on the whole are objective observers and commentators on their
computers' performance."

May one draw the inference that PC users are
objective?

Or are you saying that Mac users are as lacking in objectivity as PC
users?

Is there a lick of evidence anywhere to suggest that one group or the other is
lacking in objectivity?

Look, Daley, every time you cannot form an opinion or want to avoid looking at an argument, it really doesn't do to say "where's the evidence." Do you think that because no one has formally studied a topic and published results, opinions are impossible. If your perception is that all the various platforms' users are the same, either a difference does not exist or you are too obtuse to notice it. Both are possibilities, but the arguments for positions like these do not consist of evidence of the kind you seek, because it simply doesn't exist. It consists of impressions tested for coherence. You may not be up to this sort of intellectual labor, but calls for "evidence" just lower the level of the discussion, presenting a facade of crude scientism that you cannot actually believe.

Rather, it sounds to me like a way of simply discrediting
Mac users as a group, having been soundly called on the issue of Mac
performance?

No, I don't think so. My investment in the lousiness of Mac products is minimal. Certainly, I would rather know the truth than discredit someone conveying possible truths. Rather, my impressions of the dishonesty of Apple as a company and less wittingly of vocal Mac users as a group precedes and is far more firm than any beliefs I have about the current condition of Mac products, which could easily be wrong for the moment. (But see previous post on temporal standards for assessment.)

Come on, doesn't everyone know this. When someone criticizes Apple to a mass audience, they get mail bombed. Windows users, though far more numerous, do not generate such problems. The press generally knows that Jobs psychopathically generates a "reality distortion field," yet he is oddly forgiven for it and never truly taken to task. If someone criticized Windows here, no one would take it personally. But the response of Franz smelled to me of personal offense. Why would someone get upset about criticisms of a *product*? You see this among Apple fans; you see it among ADM fans. It is not a general characteristic of people to become highly emotionally invested in the perfect accuracy of their choice of tools. Have I EVER become irritated--in the manner of an Apple fan or in my manner when the flaws of Macs are brushed aside--when a tool I have chosen was criticized. Not to my knowledge; it would certainly be an ego-alien experience.

I am not troubled by competing products. And I could see myself bying a Mac. What I am troubled by is the practices of companies like Apple and ADM, and the readines of bystanders to forgive psychopaths.

Just curious.

Daly

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>There's some
forthright discussion of speed and reliability issues in Mac OS X at

>http://www.atpm.com/12.08/paradigm.shtml There seems to be general
agreement
>that OS X through 10.3 was plagued by stability and speed problems. I
pointed out that
>this had generally not been previously admitted in the Mac
literature, as it isn't
>recognized in your response here. There seems to have been
improvement in 2005 and
>some regression in 2006. If the consensus represented in
that unusually forthright
>discussion was that OS X just became usable recently, it
is unlikely to have become a
>speed demon or to rival Windows XP in stability in the
time since.
>
>When I played with
>Omni Outliner on a Mac 6 months to a year ago in the
Apple Store in LA, it was painfully
>slow. I don't think Mac users on the whole are
objective observers and commentators on
>their computers' performance.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Your telling me what to post is presumptuous and like your other opinions, loathsome.
If you don't like my posts, don't read them.

Here we go again!

I refuse to engage in a debate where I don't think there will be any benefit to you, me, or any other members of the community.

So, I am doing this with great reluctance. It's great that you have your opinions, and I am in no way trying to infringe your right to speak, but I do think I would like to keep things civilized and cordial on this board.

As far as your comment about Apple being an unethical company made me laugh since your inference was that MS is not (since you are running Windows OS instead of Mac OS).

A bit of self-control will do everyone on this board some good--including myself and with that thought, I'm signing off on this topic.

What you apparently mean by "discussing outlining tools" is uncritically trading impressions. You cannot evaluate an outlining tool that runs on a certain platform without evaluating the claims of the platform itself. In fact, the attempt to do this was part of my criticism of a Fallows article on outliners. You think you are providing a map for civil discussion; you are actually providing a rationalization for superficiality.

An opinion expressed forcefully does not thereby become a rant. Frankly, I would match the intellectual content of my contributions against yours any day.
Franz Grieser wrote:

Stephen

>
p.s. I do not
think here is the place for ranting and grumbling about operating systems. Let's get
back to discussing outlining tools.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Stephen, a couple of points.
>
>First of all, you are
admitting that your first post
>with the comment about Mac's speed was based on old
data.

In much the same way that my criticism of ADM is based on "old data." I do not
grant license to software and hardware companies to present users with a moving
target, to be immediately forgiven for their past failures. The best way, imo, to
evaluate Apple is looking at at least a 10-year history. It is NOT reasonable to
suppose that because a product gets better one year, it will remain that way the next.
The whole track record is relevant to the evaluation. Thus I hold the miseries of
System 8 & 9 and even the sub-professionnal System 7 firmly against
Apple.

Comparing ADM and Apple is like comparing -- well, apples and oranges. The only similarity without stretching a whole lot is that they both start with A.

Your criteria for evaluating a product based on a 10 year history bears little relevance to operating systems. Take Windows (please take it, I can hear some people -- Mac sycophants all -- saying under their breath), for example. It has improved steadily, a fact you could not readily acknowledge based on your 10-year criterion.

>
>Second, you question
>whether "Mac users on the whole are objective
observers and commentators on their
>computers' performance."


>
>May one draw
the inference that PC users are
>objective?
>
>Or are you saying that Mac users are
as lacking in objectivity as PC
>users?
>
>Is there a lick of evidence anywhere to
suggest that one group or the other is
>lacking in objectivity?

Look, Daley, every
time you cannot form an opinion or want to avoid looking at an argument, it really
doesn't do to say "where's the evidence." Do you think that because no one has formally
studied a topic and published results, opinions are impossible. If your perception
is that all the various platforms' users are the same, either a difference does not
exist or you are too obtuse to notice it. Both are possibilities, but the arguments for
positions like these do not consist of evidence of the kind you seek, because it simply
doesn't exist. It consists of impressions tested for coherence. You may not be up to
this sort of intellectual labor, but calls for "evidence" just lower the level of the
discussion, presenting a facade of crude scientism that you cannot actually
believe.

You're right. It is a waste of mine time to ask about evidence. Instead, I should just shoot from the lip. Opinions are often vulnerable to evidence, so the less evidence, the better for the opinions.

No doubt I am naive, thinking that when one makes a sweeping generalization about a whole group of people there ought to be some evidence. You suggest that to ask for evidence is to lower the level of the discussion -- I'll take your word for that, no point clouding the discussion further by seeking substantiating input.

I was not really suggesting the users of the different platforms are the same -- they can be very different to each other, and still share the same level of objectivity, or lack thereof.

>
>Rather, it sounds to me like a way of simply discrediting
>Mac users as a
group, having been soundly called on the issue of Mac
>performance?

No, I don't
think so. My investment in the lousiness of Mac products is minimal. Certainly, I
would rather know the truth than discredit someone conveying possible truths.
Rather, my impressions of the dishonesty of Apple as a company and less wittingly of
vocal Mac users as a group precedes and is far more firm than any beliefs I have about the
current condition of Mac products, which could easily be wrong for the moment. (But
see previous post on temporal standards for assessment.)

Indeed, firm beliefs become more possible -- and plausible when one is not encumbered by evidence. I think I understand. And certainly, this approach has worked for politicians, so it has lots of real world testing behind it. How could I have been so naive?

Come on, doesn't
everyone know this. When someone criticizes Apple to a mass audience, they get mail
bombed. Windows users, though far more numerous, do not generate such problems. The
press generally knows that Jobs psychopathically generates a "reality distortion
field," yet he is oddly forgiven for it and never truly taken to task. If someone
criticized Windows here, no one would take it personally. But the response of Franz
smelled to me of personal offense. Why would someone get upset about criticisms of a
*product*? You see this among Apple fans; you see it among ADM fans. It is not a general
characteristic of people to become highly emotionally invested in the perfect
accuracy of their choice of tools. Have I EVER become irritated--in the manner of an
Apple fan or in my manner when the flaws of Macs are brushed aside--when a tool I have
chosen was criticized. Not to my knowledge; it would certainly be an ego-alien
experience.

I am not troubled by competing products. And I could see myself bying a
Mac. What I am troubled by is the practices of companies like Apple and ADM, and the
readines of bystanders to forgive psychopaths.

When have you known me ever to forgive a psychopath?

Cheers,

Daly