Dominick wrote: "So it is much easier for me to just type down a category each time than to dig through a picklist. I never have to think of updating a category or keyword list with this approach.

"Another advantage with this approach is that I am nearly independent of the system or application I am using. This approach works in ADM, IS, Ultra Recall and even with a search engine like Coveo, X1 or Yahoo Desktop search."

The only problems that I can think of with system, Dominik, are the possibilites of forgetting which keywords you have used, or using them consistently. That's why I prefer a list.

In ADM, I used a combination of keywords and columns, usually hoisting on the keywords, and then referring to the metadata in columns.

For detailed academic work, I find the up-front effort I put into assigning keywords with MDE InfoHandler well worth the time.

BTW, I see you are still waiting for a definition of CRIMP. It is an acronym, and I forget what word each of the letters stands for. However, CRIMP was a term invented by one of our members -- I forget which one -- to refer to the compulsion some of us have to try and buy new pieces our information-related software. It has been used as a verb and a noun.

Daly

Daly

Daly,

There was a new thread devoted to CRIMP and its definition :-)

Graham

Daly de Gagne wrote:

BTW, I see you are
still waiting for a definition of CRIMP. It is an acronym, and I forget what word each of
the letters stands for. However, CRIMP was a term invented by one of our members -- I
forget which one -- to refer to the compulsion some of us have to try and buy new pieces
our information-related software. It has been used as a verb and a noun.

Graham, right you are. I didn't realize that until after I had posted. Oops!

BTW, I'll be interested in hearing more on how you progress with IS9. It does sound like Micrologic has tried to add some new functionality.

Daly

Graham Smith wrote:

Daly,

There was a new thread devoted to CRIMP and its definition :-)

Graham

Daly,

I will post my initial impressions in a couple of days, some good and some bad at the moment.

Graham

Daly de Gagne wrote:

BTW,
I'll be interested in hearing more on how you progress with IS9. It does sound like
Micrologic has tried to add some new functionality.

I'll be interested in seeing your thoughts, Graham. I have been one of the harshest critics of IS over the last couple of years because of their pricing policies, their haphazard treatment of users, and quirkish approach to software. However, reading some of the posts in the IS Yahoo group I get the sense that perhaps for version 9 Micrologic recognized the need to be somewhat innovative with the software.

I had heard some time ago that version 9 was to have been a revolutionary redesign of IS, bringing its code into more of a contemporary form, but that does not appear to have happened. Perhaps version 10?

Daly

Graham Smith wrote:

Daly,

I will post my initial impressions in a couple of days, some good and some bad at
the moment.

Daly,

IS 9 is definitely not a revolutionary redesign.
Some users in the IS 9 Yahoo Groups are very disappointed with the new features added.
My experience so far is between very good and some mixed feelings.

The good:
-Context Tab and Smart Folders. Not really new or innovative features but very helpful for organizing information.
-IS 9 is very stable (no crashes so far) and has very good backup system
-Interface: I was one of the hardest critics of the interface so far but I have to change my opinion: it works and is useful
-Word processing: Much improved compared to IS 7 (I don't know IS 8)
-Printing: no issues so far (except when printing forms...)
-Task/Tickler/calendar system
-Search Engine -> it is so well and offers that many features that a metadata and categrization system is not really necessary (this is just my opinion)
-Outlining: you can add numberings and bullets in the selector where you outline your content. Further, if you just add a note without a title in the topic then this note is not counted in the outliner when you are using numberings. Very interesting to draft and write concepts, texts etc.

the less good:
-OLE is not working (at least on my laptop)
-Some issues with the Swiss Keyboard layout (minor ones but they have to be addressed)
-No Metadata / Keyword / categorization system (but the approach of IS is different the the ones of ADM and UR)
-The build in browser (IE) does not allow to show several websites intabs
-Not easy to learn. Using IS 9 is not a quick hit - it is more a long term journey (you can work with IS 9 after one hour. But for the whole benefit you need to invest time)

I agree with you Daly that for academic work IS 9 might not be the perfect application. ndx Cards, ADM or UR are better for these purposes.

More experiences with follow.

Regards,
Dominik

PS:
Pricing: $249 are not in my budget but I have a nice company paying the one year subscription for me (for one year at least and then we have to discuss it again).

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

I agree
with you Daly that for academic work IS 9 might not be the perfect application. ndx
Cards, ADM or UR are better for these purposes.

I beg to differ on this issue. I think IS9 is superior to ADM, Ndx cards, or UR when it comes to managing information given its superior search capability, outlining, and database function, etc. The only thing it's lacking is bibliographic tool, but you can create the database within IS to keep track of that if you want. I tried to use ADM, ndx cards, and UR for my academic work, but after a few days, I give up on those programs given their limitations on one thing or another. Ndx Cards showed the most promise, but its limitations on searching, bibliographic tool, and outlining left much to be desired in my experience. The combination of Endnote and IS9 is a great combination for doing academic research if you want a separate bibliographic software.

However, for me the best still remains Notabene when it comes to my academic research. If I weren't using Notabene, I would be using IS 9 and Endnote for my research. As it is now, I use IS 9 to supplement Notabene. I keep all my research meeting notes, ideas, and miscellaneous stuff in IS 9. In fact, I also keep my interview transcripts in IS 9 as well (I do use Nvivo or Maxqda for my final analysis) . Oh, I forgot to mention that I still use Inspiration 8 for mind maping or concept mapping when it comes to brainstorming or generating new ideas for my research. I discovered that there is not one software that does everything I need to do my research, but with a few well-designed software programs right now, I can accomplish my goal.

Of course, others may have different experiences and YMMV.

Hi Dominik.

The good:
-Context Tab and Smart Folders.

This and the improved Transporter are the reasons why I started using IS again more extensively. In fact, the context tabs alone are worth the upgrade for me. I have such a huge number of folders (or Topics in Micrologic speak) that inserting new data always meant first digging through the folders to open the right one. Now, I defined a number of context tabs (e.g. one for my novel, one for the new business I am just starting, several for current customers, etc.) opening the corresponding folders/topics. This means just 2 or 3 mouseclicks to get to the place where I want to start typing or pasting info I just copied elsewhere.

-Some issues with the Swiss
Keyboard layout (minor ones but they have to be addressed)

What exactly is wrong? I have no problems with German umlaute and the "ß" (but you don´t use that ;-) in Switzerland).

Servus, Franz

Franz

The problems I have are with the signs ] and {.
I need them to write Java code.
I have a good workaround with Quick Text in Info Select.

Regards,
Dominik

Hi Dominik

The problems I have are with the signs ] and {.
I need them to write Java code.

That´s strange: Here pressing AltGr plus 7, 8, 9 or 0 works.

Bye, Franz

One question I have about the new IS9: How is the browser? Is it now possible to click on a url in the selector, have a site appear in the browser, then click on a link, and not have the url in the selector change?

I found whenever I clicked on a link the url in the selector would change, making the selector pretty useless as a place to list urls.

Daly

Kenneth, what did you find as the handicaps with ADM for bibliographic work?

I realize it doesn't have any automactic biblio features, but I don't think IS does either.

Have you tried the latest version of Ndx Cards? It seems to have a better outlining capability than the previous version.

Daly

Kenneth Rhee wrote:

I beg to differ on this issue. I think IS9 is superior to ADM, Ndx cards,
or UR when it comes to managing information given its superior search capability,
outlining, and database function, etc. The only thing it's lacking is bibliographic
tool, but you can create the database within IS to keep track of that if you want. I tried
to use ADM, ndx cards, and UR for my academic work, but after a few days, I give up on those
programs given their limitations on one thing or another. Ndx Cards showed the most
promise, but its limitations on searching, bibliographic tool, and outlining left
much to be desired in my experience. The combination of Endnote and IS9 is a great
combination for doing academic research if you want a separate bibliographic
software.

Daly

One question I have about the new IS9: How is the browser? Is it now possible to click on a
url in the selector, have a site appear in the browser, then click on a link, and not have
the url in the selector change?

I found whenever I clicked on a link the url in the
selector would change, making the selector pretty useless as a place to list
urls.

How did you manage to make a selector item a link?

I keep URLs inside notes. When I click one of the URLs, the corresponding page opens in my browser (Firefox). When I click a link on the site inside Firefox, the URL in Infoselect does not change.

Bye, Franz

Daly

Franz Grieser wrote:

Daly

>One question I have about the new IS9: How is the browser? Is it now possible to
click on a
>url in the selector, have a site appear in the browser, then click on a link,
and not have
>the url in the selector change?
>
>I found whenever I clicked on a link
the url in the
>selector would change, making the selector pretty useless as a place
to list
>urls.

How did you manage to make a selector item a link?

I keep URLs inside
notes. When I click one of the URLs, the corresponding page opens in my browser
(Firefox). When I click a link on the site inside Firefox, the URL in Infoselect does
not change.

You can insert a web page in the selector pane easily (go to insert and select web page).

If you click the link, the internal web browser will show the page.

Ken

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Kenneth, what did you find as the handicaps with ADM for bibliographic work?

I
realize it doesn't have any automactic biblio features, but I don't think IS does
either.

Have you tried the latest version of Ndx Cards? It seems to have a better
outlining capability than the previous version.

IS doesn't have the bibliographic tool, but you can create the database for the bibliographic record. I used ADM quite a bit, but there were a few things that always seem to be getting in the way in terms of usage (including GUI) and bugs.

I tested the latest version of Ndx Cards, but I have always found their search capability limiting for my use. Also, when I imported a bunch of references from Endnote, it just created a lot of duplicate entries and I had difficult time manipulating my sources. Also even with improvement, I don't find their outlining feature that much more powerful. They promised that these will be worked on in their next version, so we will have to wait and see.

As I said, there is no one perfect program for me, but for the time being, I found IS9 to be "best" all-around info manager for me, but as I said, each of us needs to decide that for oneself.

Kenneth and Daly.

You can insert a web page in the selector pane easily (go to insert and select web page).
If you click the link, the internal web browser will show the page.

Ah, the problem was: I had set my firewall to block IS quite a while ago (I do not use the e-mail module).

Daly: In version 9, the link in the selector stays the same, when you click a link in the right-hand "browser" window.

Franz

Franz
These signs are on another place on the Swiss - German keyboard. I have to use
AltGr + ü for [
AltGr + ¨ for ]
AltGr + ä for {
AltGr + $ for }

I have reported my issues to Miclog and I am hoping to get a reply soon.
But as I have mentioned it already I found a workaround in IS 9 using the great Quick Text feature.

Regards,
Dominik

Franz, thanks for your notes.

This last post of yours answers my question.

The last straw for me with IS until now has been the inability to have the url in the selector stay the same when a subsequent link was selected in the browser window.

I had written Micrologic about it, but alas, never got a response.

Ironically, IS was the first program in which I discovered there was such a thing as an embedded browser. Unfortunately, execution of the concept was flawed.

Daly

Franz Grieser wrote:

Kenneth and Daly.

>You can insert a web page in the selector pane easily (go to insert
and select web page).
>If you click the link, the internal web browser will show the
page.

Ah, the problem was: I had set my firewall to block IS quite a while ago (I do not
use the e-mail module).

Daly: In version 9, the link in the selector stays the same,
when you click a link in the right-hand "browser" window.

Franz

Hi Daly and all

I wrote to IS 9 support about this today, and they replied to me in a matter of hours. In fact, if you navigate away from the original URL contained in and as the Topic, you can right click on the topic and choose "return to original URL - and you are promptly returned to where you started! Voila! Cool hey?

Regards, Ian

Ian and others,
I can confirm the experience of Ian: I have sent a short report of bugs, glitches and questions and received a reply within 24 hours with the confirmation that the developers are investigating the listed issues. And they asked me to continue giving feedback.
It seems that the responsiveness of Miclog is much better today.

Regards,
Dominik

Further:

A neat additional goodie I've found, is dragging and dropping the local URL for Google Desktop Search into the selector as a Topic. Then any GDS result found can be dragged and dropped into the Selector as a Topic (or into a Note as a hyperlink). Then you can return the GDS Start Page Topic to its Initial URL with a right click as mentioned. This now means I've got really fast access to any data or file, inside or outside IS, using IS Search or GDS within IS. I'm quite thrilled with this!

Ian Goldsmid wrote:

Hi Daly and all

I wrote to IS 9 support about this today, and they replied to me in a
matter of hours. In fact, if you navigate away from the original URL contained in and as
the Topic, you can right click on the topic and choose "return to original URL - and you
are promptly returned to where you started! Voila! Cool hey?

Regards, Ian

As a user of IS 2 through 6 I feel a CRIMP attack coming.

A couple of questions if I may ...

- Has Micro Logic done anything about the god-awful GUI?
- What exactly is a "Preliminary version"? Some sort of beta?

TIA

Jack

Jack

The GUI is still basically the same. Funny thing is though, even though there are programs that excel at having a beautiful and ergonomic GUI - and I've bought, or tried them all, it still seems to me that I can work with all my stuff, more intuitively, and faster with IS9 (even email - and I've been using Outlook for years!). I am though still keeping parrallel running of some of my stuff, especially email, with Outlook, and Omea Pro. The Omea Pro bunch seem to have woken up again, and things are looking pretty interesting there actually. For saved web pages, I have a choice NetSnippets, Firefox Scrapbook, or the Omea Pro Firefox web clipper (and then then I have the option of easily and quickly exporting all of that to html on my hard drive - and that way I can also find and access it with any desktop search program of choice .... The reason for this is I have found that searching for (non saved) web pages in IS to be strangely slow - and it doesn't save all the content of web pages anywhere like as accurately as the aforementioned - so I am avoiding putting too much of that type of content into it for now. However, once html files are on disk, I can drag and drop them as IS Topics, and that works really well.

If you download the product without paying for it, and when it asks for a password you just click cancel, the application opens in read only mode with a sample file that has a selection of everything you can do in IS9 - so in other words, you can in fact take a read only look without paying to see whether you like it or not.

They state on their IS 9 'home' page that development for this version is going to be complete by mid July or so. Perhaps they are all out working on some new stuff at them moment I don't know. There don't yet seem to be a lot of bugs to fix - or at least nothing that appears major, and they've stated they will announce new releases each two weeks, so we'll have to wait and see I guess. The next release should be later this week or thereabouts.

IJG

Well, I succumbed to my CRIMP nature and upgraded to Version 9. Jack, if you stopped using IS after versions 6, you'll likely find this latest version much more powerful. The GUI is still much the same, but there have been many useful features added in versions 7-9. The editor is more powerful, and provides many new formatting options, including a crude outlining (introduced in V8). It still lacks extended selection, which is annoying to me.

I have actually always liked the IS selector, what other programs refer to as the tree pane. My problem, just as it has been with most tree-based PIMs, is that the tree gets crowded and overwhelming awfully fast. I am hoping that the new context tabs will help to mitigate this problem in IS.

I assume that a preliminary release is just a fancy term for a release candidate beta. But who knows?

Steve Z.

Jack Crawford wrote:

As a user of IS 2 through 6 I feel a CRIMP attack coming.

A couple of questions if I may
...

- Has Micro Logic done anything about the god-awful GUI?
- What exactly is a
"Preliminary version"? Some sort of beta?

TIA

Jack

I like the ideas that Dominik and Kenneth wrote about using a template that has Category, Date, Author, Keywords, etc. already in them. I have found that I type keywords into the selector or note itself on most occasions, without it being as formalized as this. I think I am going to try this approach instead.

The new version seems to be pretty good, although I would have liked a bit more. Maybe a feature or two will be added before July! The main one I am looking for is tables inside of notes, and possibly enhanced outlining capabilities in the note itself. This would really enhance the program IMHO.

Vince

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

First, I create a template for notes where the
following items are listed (on top or at the bottom of the note - this is up to you). I am
using small letters only to simplify the typing:
category:
date:
author: