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

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

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

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

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.

Dominik, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I concur with your concerns re ADM, and its communication history. Eric is either very communicative, or you hear nothing at all. The last straw for me was when he announced the development list would be moderated so as to prevent spam and inappropriate posts, this being an idea he got one night following a tv show called, ironically, Dialogue, that convinced him moderating the list was a good idea. Keep in mind that the developers list had had only about three or four posts in the last month or so. It was dying.

I responded to the list wiith a critique, that never appeared on the list, but which Eric replied to privately. I replied, as a friend, but telling him honestly how this move to moderating appeared given the the list had had none of the problems he was trying to protect it from. He took offence and kicked me off the list -- for something that had never appeared on the list. I sent Eric a reply, to which he has not replied. I moerate a list with 5,000 members, hundreds of posts a month, spirited discussion -- and I see absoluely no reason for moderating posts. The only posts I moderate are a member's first post so I can screen out spammers. If the first post is not spam I change the person to unmoderated status.

Eric's decision re moderation reminds me of the moderator czars on the so-called Opera "Community" boards -- one reason that many people have stopped using Opera.

Bottom line, after having spent hours and hours working with ADM, trying to provide worthwhile feedback (feedback that often was used and resulted in improvements), I no longer have any confidence in ADM in Eric. As for Arne -- I don't even know if he's involved anymore. And whether it was Eric's or Arne's fault ADM never seemed able to respond consistently to emails sent to the ADM support address.

Like you Dominik I have a concern about the future of the English version of ADM. I think the Chinese market has displaced the English market. I even wonder whether a lot of the Skype hype of a few years ago may have been motivated by a desire to provide Chinese computer users with an alternative to that country's long distance phone system. Maybe yes, maybe no. It could have been simply a time consuming tangent that is one reason ADM 4 is still under development.

One thing I think we can infer is that ADM had some significant weaknesses because in recent months Eric has talked about recoding and using a more powerful data base engine.

I very much hope that Eric can do a 180 and get back on track, at least in terms of communicating. Given the lack of traffic on the development list in the last year it appears as though much of the English-speaking market has dried up. I want to see ADM succeed. ADM had a significant lead in features and capability, but that gap is closing quickly.

Dominik, you mentioned you preferred UR's approach to metadata -- can you please.explain why, and how you use UR's metadata. I prefer ADM's because of the column display -- maybe I am misunderstanding something with re to UR, or just have different metadata needs. Thanks.

Take care,

Daly

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

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

Jan and Daly,

From what you've said about Eric at ADM (and what Stephen Diamond said a while back), I wouldn't touch ADM with a ten foot pole. What kind of idiot alienates two of his product's staunchest advocates?! That is no way to do business, and is such a contrast with the terrific software developers we often discuss here (Connected Text, MyInfo, UR, IdeaMason, BrainStorm, etc...).

Steve Z.

Steve, make that three -- Dominik, in addition to Jan and I, was a staunch advocate.

I am not thinking that Eric is an idiot -- but I do get the sense that he's under a tremendous degree of stress.

The fact remains that he has a great product that ought to have been refined before heading off Marco Polo like to China, or before playing around with Skype. If ADM 4 English gets recoded, properly debugged, and released in good shape within a few months I still think that it can make up for lost ground. At least that is my hope.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Jan and Daly,

From what you've said about Eric at ADM (and what Stephen Diamond said a
while back), I wouldn't touch ADM with a ten foot pole. What kind of idiot alienates two
of his product's staunchest advocates?! That is no way to do business, and is such a
contrast with the terrific software developers we often discuss here (Connected
Text, MyInfo, UR, IdeaMason, BrainStorm, etc...).

Steve Z.

Unlike Daly, I personally never liked ADM much - I can see the potential, but the interface is clunky and it's full of bugs - even to the extent that data gets lost, and that's just not acceptable. The coders, whoever they are/were, seemed heart-hearted, being charitable, in any efforts to remove the bugs, preferring to make a further mush of the program by always adding new (buggy) features.

I was a member of the user group which, one day, without any notice that I saw, just wasn't there any more (or not that I could find). The treatment of their customers is tantamount to fraud. They took money from us for version 4, promised within a few months, a couple of years ago, and just never delivered.

I should have known, really, when I first tested the program and looked at the help file. Each help topic was an arrogant preamble of how wonderful ADM was and how it would resolve all your problems, and actually very little help. The response to any suggestion for improvement that Eric didn't like was not only dismissive, it was often downright rude.

I have learnt to buy software only from companies which react (correctly) to their customers and don't treat them as irritances. I'm now using Whizfolders and have no regrets, even though it doesn't do all that ADM could. I prefer to work around the weaknesses, the developer is very responsive, and I've never lost a letter of my data.

Graham

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Dominik, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I concur with your concerns re ADM, and
its communication history. Eric is either very communicative, or you hear nothing at
all. The last straw for me was when he announced the development list would be
moderated so as to prevent spam and inappropriate posts, this being an idea he got one
night following a tv show called, ironically, Dialogue, that convinced him
moderating the list was a good idea. Keep in mind that the developers list had had only
about three or four posts in the last month or so. It was dying.

I responded to the list
wiith a critique, that never appeared on the list, but which Eric replied to
privately. I replied, as a friend, but telling him honestly how this move to
moderating appeared given the the list had had none of the problems he was trying to
protect it from. He took offence and kicked me off the list -- for something that had
never appeared on the list. I sent Eric a reply, to which he has not replied. I moerate a
list with 5,000 members, hundreds of posts a month, spirited discussion -- and I see
absoluely no reason for moderating posts. The only posts I moderate are a member's
first post so I can screen out spammers. If the first post is not spam I change the person
to unmoderated status.

Eric's decision re moderation reminds me of the moderator
czars on the so-called Opera "Community" boards -- one reason that many people have
stopped using Opera.

Bottom line, after having spent hours and hours working with
ADM, trying to provide worthwhile feedback (feedback that often was used and
resulted in improvements), I no longer have any confidence in ADM in Eric. As for Arne
-- I don't even know if he's involved anymore. And whether it was Eric's or Arne's fault
ADM never seemed able to respond consistently to emails sent to the ADM support
address.

Like you Dominik I have a concern about the future of the English version of
ADM. I think the Chinese market has displaced the English market. I even wonder
whether a lot of the Skype hype of a few years ago may have been motivated by a desire to
provide Chinese computer users with an alternative to that country's long distance
phone system. Maybe yes, maybe no. It could have been simply a time consuming tangent
that is one reason ADM 4 is still under development.

One thing I think we can infer is
that ADM had some significant weaknesses because in recent months Eric has talked
about recoding and using a more powerful data base engine.

I very much hope that Eric
can do a 180 and get back on track, at least in terms of communicating. Given the lack of
traffic on the development list in the last year it appears as though much of the
English-speaking market has dried up. I want to see ADM succeed. ADM had a significant
lead in features and capability, but that gap is closing quickly.

Dominik, you
mentioned you preferred UR's approach to metadata -- can you please.explain why, and
how you use UR's metadata. I prefer ADM's because of the column display -- maybe I am
misunderstanding something with re to UR, or just have different metadata needs.
Thanks.

Take care,

Daly

Graham, in retrospect I have no choice but to agree with your assessment of Eric's behaviour, the promises, and the arrogance.

Initially, I found him more open. To his credit, some features resulted more or less directly from suggestions some of us made, for example, the ruler, multiple open windows, table view, etc.

But increasingly he seemed to become closed -- perhaps the result of getting pressure from both English and Chinese markets.

Given his move to place the developer's list under moderation, even though it had had only a few posts in recent months, suggests he was learning about control from the Chinese political establishment. The fact that I was kicked off that list for criticizing him privately, with something that never appeared on the list, reminds me of Stalinism. My original post stating my view of moderating the list was sent to the list, but it was his choice to deal with the issue by private correspondence. At that point my confidence in Eric and the whole ADM project was shaken.

I wrote back to him saying that putting a moribund list under moderation didn't look good, that it reflected a defensive, circling the wagons approach. My fear is that it would be seen in a poor light and put off any of the testers who still kept their eye on the list. I made it clear I was writing as a friend. The reply was that my language was unacceptable, and that he had taken me off the list.

Daly

Graham Rhind wrote:

Unlike Daly, I personally never liked ADM much - I can see the potential, but the
interface is clunky and it's full of bugs - even to the extent that data gets lost, and
that's just not acceptable. The coders, whoever they are/were, seemed
heart-hearted, being charitable, in any efforts to remove the bugs, preferring to
make a further mush of the program by always adding new (buggy) features.

I was a
member of the user group which, one day, without any notice that I saw, just wasn't
there any more (or not that I could find). The treatment of their customers is
tantamount to fraud. They took money from us for version 4, promised within a few
months, a couple of years ago, and just never delivered.

I should have known,
really, when I first tested the program and looked at the help file. Each help topic was
an arrogant preamble of how wonderful ADM was and how it would resolve all your
problems, and actually very little help. The response to any suggestion for
improvement that Eric didn't like was not only dismissive, it was often downright
rude.

I have learnt to buy software only from companies which react (correctly) to
their customers and don't treat them as irritances. I'm now using Whizfolders and
have no regrets, even though it doesn't do all that ADM could. I prefer to work around
the weaknesses, the developer is very responsive, and I've never lost a letter of my
data.

Graham

Pardon my suggestion on this, but it seems like the discussion thread has shifted into folks' lamenting or criticizing about ADM. I thought this is a thread of IM 3, which I think is a wonderful program coming from a VERY responsive company. If anyone of you want to continue to discuss ADM, I would suggest that you might create another thread. . .

Ken

Ken, you're right about the thread morphing. It should have been a new thread. Sorry about that.

Daly