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SQLNotes aka InfoQube or IQ forum
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Posted by Franz Grieser
May 16, 2009 at 08:02 PM
Jan.
You got mail.
Franz
Posted by Fredy
May 21, 2009 at 07:58 PM
1 )
Pierre Paul Landry wrote:
Please use the backup forum as to not turn this wonderful discussion place, which
outlinersoftware is, into something dedicated to a single piece of software…
Well, this is tremendous as I, seeing that a two-year-old footnote problem hadn’t been resolved,
had permitted myself to give some hints that could even be considered mildly helpful when you accept that footnotes are important in the writing process but that their graphic representation in this writing process would not be necessarily a deciding factor,
only to see that PPL jumped immediately onto this 2-year-old bandwagon in order to state, IQ has it ! - not even awaiting the publication of my posting upon this long-buried subject,
and reading other threads, JPP seems to state invariably, IQ does it, whatever the problem might be.
2 )
This being said, I come from Asksam, of which its total unreliability I had been so fed up that I went to ActionOutline - who do a lot of advertising here, and which does not much but does it in an elegant way at least. This notwithstanding, I’m fed up with AO, too - perhaps I’ll discuss the details in a thread for that, later on. Thus I’m searching for better stuff.
3 )
UltraRecall is a very fine software, we all know this. It’s GUI is awkward, to say the least, but it has the right philosophy, it’s a front-end to a real database ; IQ seems to follow that same valuable way. They - UR - made a foolish mistake, announcing the halt of development in the winter of 2008 ; they added foolishness in blocking Jan Rifkinson if I remember well, even deleting his previous posts there. Well, they are - excellent - programmers, not warmhearted people nor communication experts.
4 )
So I was willing to help them with their GUI, free of charge of course : having a good information manager for my own use would be so rewarding for me that I’m willing to invest effort and time, be it for third parties’ financial benefit. Then I discovered something I think is scandalous : In the summer of 2008, some months before their announcement to halt development - they do also a valuable programming environment which seems to be their main source of revenue -, they had announced a sort of competition in which they had asked for a better GUI. Thus I had been a little bit late with my willingness to “help” them, but I didn’t mind… unless I discovered the fact that the first prize of that competition had been 50 dollars in cash or a licence in the value of about 99 dollars - not even a lifelong licence, not speaking of some 2.000 dollars which would have been an adequate very low offering.
5 )
Perhaps I’m alone with my opinion, but offering 50 dollars for a week’s work ( i.e. including explaining to them how to do, how different improvements could interact, aso ) is a shame, is disgusting, is revolting, and this way, some 6 months later, nothing was done with regards to GUI improvements : nobody seemed to have mailed them serious work, to be encoded by them ; I tried to download IQ instead.
6 )
I did not even get to install it ; this was six months ago. Some days ago, some minutes before my angry commentary upon JPP’s pirating of every possible subject here, I had again tried to install it, to no avail : some language package was admonished to be absent, and installation was halted. I must admit that my Windows
- oh yes, considering my outliner problems, I am angry with myself to have bought DOS machines for the last 25 years, instead of Macs, but then, I’ve done too much of programming in this Gates World to shift to those queer beauties just for my PIM -
is a German version, whereas I use it mainly in French, with the Swiss-French keyboard in order to not going crazy by this, and so, IQ’s installation problems perhaps go with the fact that it’s not American.
7 )
Some minutes ago, I tried again to have PPL’s website displayed : I intended to download IQ again, and to try again to install it in my ( ALL German Windows ) machines, in order to succeed at it at last, or to give you at least the precise error messages when installation aborted. I KNOW that IQ might be the “answer” to our problems -
and so, I would VERY much like to have it running on at least one of my machines - besides, I’m too stupid to install ECCO, too, of all programs : 200 others do not give me these headaches -, but is it only for Americans ?
8 )
Jan Rifkinson tried, here, to enter a discussion upon the accessability of IQ’s site ; he found himself reprimanded by Franz Grieser, a German. Well, I tried to download IQ again - in order to install it for the first time if I had been lucky -, and the site - sqlnotes.net - told me I wasn’t allowed access ( I’ve been trying this now for more than an hour ).
9 )
Cynics among you will rejoice about this, when in fact I’m not against PPL and IQ, I’m just against hier attitude to always telling us, IQ does it, in numerous threads here, when in fact people have the RIGHT to stay with their software and discuss problems they have with THAT software.
10 )
I’m looking for a really good software, and PPL is RIGHT to state IQ could be it, but it would be a better style to do a thread “IQ” where he could state, and twice a week would be okay for me, the news of IQ : I would read his thread with very much interest. First, he should give me a hint there how to install IQ on a non-American system, and it would be a good thing to open up again his site to non-Americans, even if for that he’d got to change his provider.
11 )
PPL impressed me with a statement some weeks / months ago : He said there that he didn’t hesitate to buy third-party elements to insert into IQ, in order to be it the best possible software, and fast. Not too many developers are ready to do so, which is one of the elements that make me rather believe in his “child” that he is promoting relentlessly.
12 )
Even for licensing questions, there has been lately a discussion here where PPL states his opinions. Well, there had been a discussion here where people were afraid of entrusting InfoSelect their notes : a program that goes ( if you prefer so ) for 50 ( or 49 or whatever ) dollars a year ( paying upfront about 300 dollars, or was it 250, is also possible ) ; a lot of people joined in. PPL goes for 100 dollars a year ( or for 99 or whatever ) which is two times that amount ; nobody cries out loud upon this as I see ? Let’s face it, IQ is 150 dollars ( or 149 perhaps, my memory is not that good ), and it isn’t that but by stating that your revenue is under 200.000 dollars a year ( or it is 300, or 299 ) ; with the “personal” licence you can only do the thing you know what, shove it up your ...
13 )
Thus, IQ had better be good. For six month now, I would very much like to give it a try.
14 )
And then, UR is always there. Had they not been THAT miserly, I’d LOVED to start it giving a rehaul by which even people with my moderate intellectual capacities would be happy with. ( quant - or was it quant ? -, once a most impressive poster in their forum, stated it bluntly, “intelligence helps with using UR indeed” ( I cite from memory ) - well, in terms of marketing, it helps to make it if not fool-proof, but… ACCESSIBLE at least : “utile”... ) - JPP profits from UR’s marketing desaster. Well then, if he gives us some fine tool of work, I could live with that. I just have to try it out and don’t know how.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
May 22, 2009 at 08:21 AM
Fredy,
Having programs not working properly because they assume that “the US = the PC-aware world” is something that I have encountered many times, ironically even with software from Europe (UK in particular). Note that my second working language is Greek, which makes things even more complicated than a latin-based language would.
However, I had no such trouble with InfoQube. I think that the installation problems you note should have some other cause. I suggest you try the portable version if you haven’t; this should probably show what the issue is.
As for downloading, the new ‘official’ site at http://www.infoqube.biz/download and the older at http://sites.google.com/site/infoqube/download seem to work fine now, though I had also encountered some issues some time ago, namely the file not being fully downloaded.
I won’t comment on your whole argumentation on PPL’s attitude, pricing etc other than to say that I can understand that Pierre is in a rather awkward position; he’s obviously been an outliner (ECCO Pro notably) user and fan for many years and now he’s moved over to the ‘other side’, becoming a developer in an immature market. I note this immaturity as it explains many of the marketing (including customer service and pricing) ‘experiments’ that many companies we’ve discussed here implement.
As far as I’m concerned, I’d like the product to sell itself; this, however, is not always possible given the complexity of real-world information management. (As one developer / service provider puts it “the solution is almost entirely counter-intuitive” http://teblog.typepad.com/david_tebbutt/2008/11/collaboration-t.html ). So developers need to be marketers, provide community infrastructures, explain their programs in many different ways to all sorts of people. Some may do it better than others; hopefully (but not necessarily), the ones with the best products. I, for one, am willing to listen.
Alexander
Posted by Jan Rifkinson
May 27, 2009 at 06:06 PM
Fredy,
For many years I have searched for & used many PIM type programs starting with Lotus Agenda (a program way ahead of it’s time) +/- 30 yrs ago. Each time I thought I had found *it*—the program that would do everything I wanted. I suppose I could say that EccoPro came the closest & that ADM was the most interesting & capable approach IMO. Unfortunately, both went down in flames.
UltraRecall Pro is a good program but you know the history there so I won’t repeat it.
I cannot comment on your installation problems as I am on an American PC. However, I can tell you that the SQLNotes forum was having problems & seems to be fixed now. The past months have been made much more complicated because the product name changed, the forum & community sites changed & transferred to new servers. And as a lone developer, I think Pierre has had his hands full handling all that, making a living, being a husband, father & programming InfoQube as well. I say all this even tho I exhibited some impatience.
I will also say that I sometimes get annoyed @ Pierre’s constantly saying InfoQube handles this & that or will handle this or that or he has plans for IQ to handle this or that. While I admire his plans & I pray they all come true, I am interested in a working program where I can organize my stuff now. IQ does that for me at this time.
I find Pierre to be extremely responsive to user concerns for the most part, very attentive to bugs & problems—again—for the most part while there are some things which I’m frustrated are taking so long to implement while I see effort expended on things that I see as less important. Of course, if you were to talk to the next user, they would probably say the same thing—but referring to different things. But for the most part, I believe (from years of playing around w these programs) InfoQube is progressing in a rational manner.
It is quirky but, in all honesty, I can say that it is extremely useful, malleable for many uses but does take some learning. Perhaps too much but that’s an individual judgment. However, it is a solid program, stable. I am no longer afraid to commit all my stuff to it & I do so every day. It handles all that I do even better than UR did. Again, I recognize different strokes for different folks & what works so well for one doesn’t for another. All I can say is that IQ is so flexible you can make it do almost anything you want it to do both in text, html, MHT. Getting data into the program from other sources couldn’t be easier.
The latest version, which can be downloaded from URL http://www.infoqube.biz/download has some really good changes in it. And within a relatively few days, IQ will offer import from a number of other dBs including UltraRecall. For me personally, this is wonderful news as I can hardly wait to rid myself of that program, get if off my machine & say goodbye to Kinook.
Take a look @ the InfoQube roadmap @ URL http://mantis.sqlnotes.net/roadmap_page.php I would say that Pierre has been pretty true to that.
If you still encounter problems, I can’t imagine Pierre ignoring you or your problems.
Also if I can be of help, I am happy to do so as I really believe in this software (& no, I have absolutely no financial interest in Pierre’s company or the product itself)
Sincerely,
—
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield CT USA
janrif@gmail.com
Posted by pereh
May 27, 2009 at 06:18 PM
Hello Fredy,
just a note: I too have an ‘all german’ XP Home SP2’ installation. On May 26. I downloaded IQ from their site, installed it together with a sample database and ran it without any problems.
Greetings,
Peter.