myBase on Bits next week

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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 5, 2009 at 01:04 PM

Hi, all,

myBase, which has been discussed here often, will be on sale at Bits du Jour next week:

http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/mybase-desktop-5x-addons-pack/

Just FYI.

Steve Z.

Posted by TonyJ
Jun 7, 2009 at 04:53 PM

Thanks for the notice.

I tried MyBase about a year and a half ago and passed on it when I had trouble saving a web page. My guess is that this was an issue with unicode in html as that’s one of the more recent fixes in the changelog. I decided to give it another look and downloaded the trial a couple of days ago. So far, I’ve been very pleased. It’s very quick (this is with several hundred MB of pdf files), good web capture and easy to work with. There’s a few improvements I would like to see as well of course, a setting to automatically open pdfs in the embedded browser, the ability to capture linked pages and files when doing a web capture like WebResearch, designating at the info item level whether a symbolic link jumped or not, and opening links from the text note frame in the embedded browser - but those are all minor quibbles. Some kind of user community though would be a welcome addition, especially if the developer would like third parties to create add-ons.

I’m glad the developer decided to put this up Bits du Jour and that notice was given on this forum. Without it I probably would have waited until 6.0 was released before giving it another look.

Posted by Glen Coulthard
Jun 12, 2009 at 05:24 PM

I just downloaded and tested myBase and I must say that I was surprised at how well it performed. First, I imported a directory of 100+ PDF articles as shortcuts to a single note, which it did brilliantly. Then, I imported 30+ different PDF articles as file attachments to another note. After copying and pasting some text from my other PIMs (MyInfo and MyNotesKeeper), I updated the index.

My surprise came when I attempted to search for a few terms within my PDF articles. Not only did it find the terms and present them in a comprehensible order, I was able to refine my search progressively with new terms until a manageable result was reached. Now the real kicker is that it was able to index both the internally stored and externally linked files similarly. And, it seemed to provide similar, if not better, results than my Copernic Desktop Search engine. Very nice feature.

While the program is in dire need of a facelift (ala MyInfo or UR), it seems quite impressive. As for exporting features, there are many options, but the Web and exe builders need some work. The Viewer application is also lacking in terms of branding and look & feel. On the positive side, I like how the developer provides access into the database backend through Javascript, CGI, and a published SDK. With the BDJ 50% discount that’s on today, I will purchase the product in hopes that version 6 will be a “more pleasing” product to work with. The underlying power seems to be there, it just has to be friendlier.

Are your experiences the same? Or, are there downsides that I haven’t noticed yet?—Thx, Glen

Posted by TonyJ
Jun 12, 2009 at 06:50 PM

I’ve only been playing with MyBase for about a week but it made a good impression; I’m buying it. It’s funny that unicode is not some killer feature, but without it, it didn’t get much of a trial; I’m glad he was able to get that resolved. While I capture a good bit of information from the web, most of the text I’m trying to stay on top of comes in pdf files. So, the indexing and search of pdfs is a pretty big deal, and while MyBase is hardly alone in doing this, its performance is strong.

While there’s a few features I would like to see improved, I don’t have a problem with the interface. Where do you find it lacking?

I did have a problem yesterday with an Office file that was not updated after a save. There was a power outage and when the computer came back on the MyBase database was fine, and I resumed working on an Excel file stored in MyBase. Excel was able to restore the file despite the crash exit, but when I saved, the file was not saved within MyBase. Perhaps MyBase is not at fault here, maybe Excel used a different location when it restored the file. Still, it’s a quirk I’m glad I discovered early, and one I can easily adjust to.

I’ve got a few more improvements I would like to see, but nothing real major. The rtf editor could be stronger. Jarte (http://www.jarte.com) is a good point of comparison. I’d like to be able to change the spacing between paragraphs. It’s also difficult to remove some formatting that I’ve copied and pasted from a different document, but I’m not sure why. Maybe the authors used features that aren’t supported in the editor and so there’s no easy way to take them out? I haven’t found a better html editor than Scrapbook, and MyBase is no exception. Putting files in and taking them out is dead simple, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to export just one webpage, or to show the content pulled by WebCollect in a different browser. At some point I would like to use one of the visual management programs as a front end to MyBase. Perhaps the capability is already there and I haven’t yet found it, but if not, being able to link to an Info Item, or even better, to link within an Info Item i.e. a specific attachment or a specific point in the rtf page or web page, from another program, would be a welcome improvement. The file tree would also be improved by there being some mark identifying which files had item links and which did not.

As mentioned on Bits Du Jour, there is a user’s group, which is small, but not dead: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MybaseForum/

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