Speaking of Mr. Fallows, he has posted an article about The Personal Brain on his Atlantic Monthly blog:

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/08/my_new_favorite_software_perso.php#more

Steve Z.

Thanks for pointing to this. It's certainly more interesting than the penis measuring contest going on over UltraRecall.

I may have to give The Brain another shot. Downloaded about a year ago and didn't really see the point...

I think I downloaded version 3 of this program and actually bought a license. It really is quite flexible and the interface is unique. Probably the only mind-mapping-like program I'd ever use. I eventually abandoned it because it was actually too flexible. Because it picked up almost no metadata, everything had to be defined and characterized by hand (i.e. "contact", "task"," Word file", etc...). It was a lot of work and I was spending too much time organizing and not enough time doing.

Still, I really liked it and it is now cross-platform. Is it any better in these aspects now? Does it still store all of the data, including linked files, in a single directory?

Tom S.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

Thanks for pointing to this. It's certainly more interesting than the penis
measuring contest going on over UltraRecall.

I agree w your assessment altho it does assume that everyone has a penis. ;-)

--
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield CT USA

It is hard for me to come up with a piece of software for which I have more ambivalence than I do for The Personal Brain. After reading James Fallows story about the Brain, I have begun to take another look at it. I watched some of the tutorials on the Brain web site and have gotten a better appreciation of the Plex area and how that is set up -- where parent items appear, where sibling items appear, where child items appear, etc. The Plex truly is a unique and highly useful organization tool and because if it, The Personal Brain seems like one of the very few applications that could adequately handle ALL of my data in ONE database.

However, the Plex is also a facade. Because underneath it -- the place where you write your notes, create tags, add attachments, etc... -- is very pedestrian, to say the least. This is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the fact that the Brain is a Java application. The worst aspect is the actual note editor, which is clunky at best. I've said this too many times before and those of you (if anyone is still reading) who recall what I'm about to write can just skip ahead, but first and foremost a note manager HAS to be a good writing environment. That means it should behave to the standards used by Microsoft Word and most other major word processors when it comes to editing text and using extended selection of text. For instance, in Word when you double click on a single word, the word is selected. If triple click inside a paragraph, the whole paragraph is selected. If after double- or triple-clicking you keep the mouse button depressed upon the final click, you can scoop up whole words are paragraphs either side of the word or paragraph you clicked on. This saves the very tedious operation of clicking carefully at the start of a group of words you want to move and dragging the cursor to the exact end of the group. Any note-taker that does not have this functionality is just not going to work for me, because the act of carefully selecting the words with non-extended selection techniques requires me to shift my focus and attention to the task and away from my thoughts.

Anyway, try writing in the Brain's editor and see what happens when you try to use extended selection. It just doesn't behave as I hope and expect.

Additionally, the layout of the non-Plex areas of the Brain feel too constrained. You can't open a note in a separate window and expend it to the size that best works... or, if you can, I missed it.

So, I'm afraid that I personally can't get behind the Brain, which is too bad because that Plex tool is pretty cool.

Steve Z.

Steve,

I agree that PB Notes editor is not a good writing environment. PB has been my primary repository for "nuggets" of information since 1998, however. Version 3 used an rtf editor and it was adequate for writing (I used it in conjunction with Macro Toolworks) but since then I have primarily used Atlantis (http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/ for annotating and writing with the storage, organization & linking remaining in PB. Atlantis is ideally suited as a complement to PB since it has a toolbar option to copy to clipboard as HTML. So my longer notes are composed in Atlantis and pasted into the PB notes pane in HTML format; shorter notes are written in PB. Atlantis has many ease of use features and is highly configurable. Some of the key features: projects, control board, tabs, clipboard management, configurability, etc. (a downside is no tables). I believe Manfred uses Atlantis also - but in conjunction with ConnectedText.

I am thankful for PB; it enables organization based on the network, hierarchy, and sequence paradigms. In the past 15 years my activities have primarily involved research, analysis, and organization. PB's thought and link typing features make it easy to find pertinent information. As I begin to share my findings more widely I will use another tool; but having my PB database is essential. I haven't decided what writing tool to use for large writing projects. I'm considering Whizfolders, OneNote, ConnectedText and others.

Al Cantley

Steve,

I fully agree that the note editor in PersonalBrain is not first class. The tricky thing is that it is a HTML editor. One strange issue I have is that the font in the editor is shown in the size of 10 but when I print it of view it in the browser it is 12 a size I don't like. I have posted this issue in the brain forum but I haven't recieved an answer yet.

What you can to is to add a word file (or any other file type) to a topic. Just right click on the topic and choose the appropriate file type. The file is then in the same folder where your brain file is.

I do quick note taking, log writing, drafting etc. in the notes editor directly . But when I have to write a short manual or a extended meeting summary I attach a word file.

The notes editor definitely needs improvements.

Dominik

It almost seems like you guys are disappointed that it isn't an all-in-one solution. To me, it seems to be a really nice addition to other tools but in no way a replacement for anything.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

It almost seems like you guys are disappointed that it isn't an all-in-one solution.
To me, it seems to be a really nice addition to other tools but in no way a replacement for
anything.

Well, that is true. The last thing I need is one MORE nice addition to my list of PIM-like applications. With the Brain's organizational structure/tools, it seems as if it could handle all my PIM needs in one database, and that's how I was discussing it. The fact that it has a bad editor is relevant, but I see from what Al and Dominick have written that there are ways around this issue.

Nevertheless, if it doesn't become my dominant PIM application, I don't want to invest $250 in it. The free, non-commercial version might be a nice supplement and worth keeping.

I'm encouraged to keep testing it.

Steve Z.

For those who are curious about this I've been using it and I have contacted the company with a number of questions. I had to email them twice before I got an answer but got a very prompt response the second time.

You need the Pro version to get a license which is cross platform. The license is extremely restrictive. Two registered computers with the company and in order to switch computers, you need to uninstall the program and send them a screenshot before they will clear the old computer from your license and allow a new installation.

You can use the free version on any computer but only the free features will work. I have yet to determine exactly what this means or how far this will take me when using a brain that was created and edited with the Pro version. In addition the program *does* work over an ssh connection between Mac/Linux computers. Meaning that you don't need it on the computer if your network is fast enough to support this comfortably.

In terms of usability, the program has been pretty stable and responsive for me, a significant issue given that the program is written in Java.

The Mac version does what they say it will and the editor is better than I thought it would be. For the record, Stephen, as in Word when you double click on a single word, the word is selected. If triple click inside a paragraph, the whole paragraph is selected. So that at least works.

However, all of this is true of the *Mac* version. The Linux version is behind and I've no idea if and when they plan to fix its limitations. Don't get me wrong - its usable. But there's no drag and drop from the desktop or from Firefox, the editor doesn't have the triple click example above and occasionally it will randomly change fonts in the middle of a sentence. There are some odd things about the copy and paste operations, too. For instance, when pasting from the web browser, you need to be in HTML view. In order to add a file to the brain internally, you need to add it as a link, write click on it and choose the option to transer it in. Again, all of this is drag and drop in the Mac version.

The brain can be exported from the Pro version and uploaded to a company website. From here the brain can be viewed in any web browser, including on an iPhone. I have tried this and it works reasonably well but it is limited. Certain features like tagging aren't implemented in the web view yet. And, of course, its read only.

Printing is an issue. Because the assumption is that you are going to be printing the whole brain or a significant portion of it, the font is small. I had a tough time working around this but it may be that with more finagling, I can get a better result. There are options I haven't tried.

There are no indications that the Linux versions are limited in their manual. The instructions for exporting and uploading the exported brain weren't clear enough and I had to get instructions from tech support before I could do it. But the manual is otherwise pretty good and reasonably complete, an indication that these guys are serious, that they're in it to make money and that they have some idea how to do it.

I haven't decided whether I will buy it.

Tom S.

Tom S. wrote:

The Mac version does what they say it will and the editor is better
than I thought it would be. For the record, Stephen, as in Word when you double click on a
single word, the word is selected. If triple click inside a paragraph, the whole
paragraph is selected. So that at least works.

Tom,

On my MacBook triple clicking on a word selects the whole line, but not the whole paragraph. It is interesting that we get different results. I wonder if it has something to do with the version of Java we're running.

One other quibble: I tried dragging and dropping a contact from the Mac OS Address application and could not get it into the Brain that way.

Steve Z.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

On my MacBook triple
clicking on a word selects the whole line, but not the whole paragraph. It is
interesting that we get different results. I wonder if it has something to do with the
version of Java we're running.

Actually, I stand corrected on this. I think when I tested it, I saw it highlight the line. SInce that line was the paragraph, I assumed incorrectly that it was exhibiting the expected behavior. Sorry.

Tom S.