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Ideamason 3.0 released
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Posted by Franz Grieser
Jan 17, 2007 at 05:24 PM
Hi.
Ideamason 3 has just been released.
I have been involved in beta testing over the last 2 weeks, and I must say - once again - that the developers have been extraordinarily responsive to suggestions. They released four beta versions in these 2 weeks. And they had been very helpful and quickly reacted to questions.
Enjoy the new features!
Greetings from Germany, Franz
Posted by Dominik Holenstein
Jan 18, 2007 at 09:18 PM
CRIMPERs,
These are the tools I am using today for my information management:
- UltraRecall 2.0
- IdeaMason 3.0
That’s it. Really.
ADM? On hold until v4. But it will never be my key tool anymore.
IdeaMason covers one of my dreams: managing text snippets linked to a correct citation and re-using them in a text (the composition feature).
What the developers of UR and IM have in common: strong user focus, listening to the requests and ideas. And they answer the emails they get. Last but not least: They are real professionals with strong programming skills. Chapeau!
Dominik
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 18, 2007 at 11:35 PM
Dominik, I recall your enthusiasm for ADM and the effort, like Jan, you put into providing constructive feedback on the ADM Development list. What has caused you to move away from ADM?
Re UR: When I tried UR I found its metadata capability was much less than ADM’s, and I missed the straight forward columns of ADM. I think that’s why, like Jan, I have moved over to MyInfo. No doubt, though, UR is a good program.
I downloaded IdeaMason 3 last night and am looking forward to playing with it.
It’s good to hear from you—I had wondered how you are doing.
Daly
Dominik Holenstein wrote:
>CRIMPERs,
>
>These are the tools I am using today for my information management:
>-
>UltraRecall 2.0
>- IdeaMason 3.0
>
>That’s it. Really.
>
>ADM? On hold until v4. But it
>will never be my key tool anymore.
>
>IdeaMason covers one of my dreams: managing text
>snippets linked to a correct citation and re-using them in a text (the composition
>feature).
>
>What the developers of UR and IM have in common: strong user focus,
>listening to the requests and ideas. And they answer the emails they get. Last but not
>least: They are real professionals with strong programming skills.
>Chapeau!
>
>Dominik
>
>
>
>
>
Posted by Dominik Holenstein
Jan 19, 2007 at 07:55 AM
Daly,
Here are some reasons why I have stopped using ADM:
Stability:
I got annoyed of the repeating ‘List out of bound ...’ errors in ADM.
Search capabilities:
Ultra Recall allows to save a search query and not just the result like the Views in ADM.
Further, UR allowsyou to create quite complex search queries. The same applies to IdeaMason 3.
Metadata:
I prefer the metadata system of UR. It is easier for me.
Further development secured:
I have invested quite a lot of money in software which is not available or not further developed anymore (net-snippets for example).
Even ADM has constantly been developing I have a bad feeling in the stomach regarding the future of the english version.
And I can understand Eric’s foucs on the chinese market (imagine a potential of around 1 billion users).
He is living there, he has chinese developers and there are so many you people at universities etc.
Printing:
Much better (stable) in UR and IdeaMason.
UR does scale saved websites to the correct A4 format (used in Europe).
Export to Word:
A strong feature of ADM.
But IdeaMason provides a much better solution by letting you define the template and adding the citations.
Perhaps a bit unfair against ADM because ADM is not developed for writing scientific papers.
Bugs:
UR and IdeaMason 3.0 (and 2.2) are very stable. No crashes, not strange error messages etc.
And reported bugs are fixed. ADM still has bugs which have been known for years (this is a reminder for Bill Gates -> Word!).
Development cycles and communication:
The time between ADM 3 and ADM 4 is too long. Further, the communication to the users is poor.
IdeaMason does the best job here. Letting you know what’s coming in the next release, constantly updating where they are and *not* communicating a final release date. Because *all* software projects are delayed.
UR does less communication but you know that they constantly release a new version every year. It is just good to know that.
Yes, I have invested a lot of time and energy in providing ideas and tips for ADM. I think it was worth the effort because I had a very good time with ADM and Eric. And I have to be fair: ADM has many features I am missing in UR/IM.
But I have a day job to be done. And here I need reliable software and the knowledge that the developers are still alive (ADM?, Zoot?, Ariadne?, Net Snippets?, InfoSelect?).
I agree with you that MyInfo is a strong application and an option to UR. And it has a very fair price.
All the best,
Dominik
Posted by Kenneth Rhee
Jan 19, 2007 at 08:13 AM
I would recommend IdeaMason 3 wholeheartedly. I have been using it for several weeks, and the program is rock solid, and even if you encounter an error, the company repairs it expeditiously. Also, IdeaMason is one of the most responsive software companies (of hundreds) that I dealt with, and with the new version (and with the upcoming Endnote import feature), it is a perfect tool for my research.