Sycon Idea

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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 7, 2010 at 01:55 PM

Is Sycon Idea still being actively developed?

I just checked the site, and it appears the last upgrade was in 2006. I emailed the developer a couple of years ago, asking this question, and got no response. Does anyone here use the product, or have knowledge of the developer.

I note that the prices mentioned on the site reflect those a product that is in continual development.

Thanks.

Daly

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 11, 2010 at 06:36 PM

Hi Daly,

I use Sycon IDEA at one of my company’s long-term projects for a client. Overall, I find it satisfactory; what it does, it does well. A benefit is that some years ago we contributed the translation of the interface in Greek which is important for our client.

The commercial versions of IDEA have not advanced much in recent years, but work has been going on behind the scenes. My company is currently testing a very impressive web client which can provide direct (live) access to any IDEA database through Internet Explorer.

Christian from Sycon informed me that regarding the commercial editions, current work has to do with ensuring full compatibility with Windows 7 / Vista.

That said, I would have difficulty recommending IDEA as a personal knowledge base or information management system. Other commercial products have obviously advanced much faster in terms of features in recent years. Where IDEA maintains its raison d’etre is as an affordable multi-user system, thanks to its client-server architecture (Team Edition). There’s not much software at this budget level, as far as I know; I have personally identified only InnoKB (from MyBase’s developer) and X2Net OneStore.

Note that Sycon is not just an IT company, but as I understand software is linked to its business services, so it is not strange that their focus is on companies.

Hope this helps
Alexander

Posted by Daly de Gagne
Mar 12, 2010 at 04:17 PM

Alexander, thanks for the post. I had recalled someone here had experience with IDEA, but couldn’t remember who - now I realize it was you!

What I’m looking for is a way of having one screen which allows me to select apps, folders, files, etc. with ease. An aspect of this is being able to arrange files according to projects.

I think I should be able to do this with the free version of IDEA - would you agree this is possible.

I thought of using Ultra Recall but I can’t seem to make links directly from the tree in a one-click move. Later I will try, and realize it means going into their help files, which as I’ve written here before are bewildering to me.

I am also looking at Tagged Frog, which someone mentioned here at the beginning of the week.

Take care,

Daly

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Hi Daly,
> >I use Sycon IDEA at one of my company’s long-term projects for a client.
>Overall, I find it satisfactory; what it does, it does well. A benefit is that some
>years ago we contributed the translation of the interface in Greek which is important
>for our client.
> >The commercial versions of IDEA have not advanced much in recent
>years, but work has been going on behind the scenes. My company is currently testing a
>very impressive web client which can provide direct (live) access to any IDEA
>database through Internet Explorer.
> >Christian from Sycon informed me that
>regarding the commercial editions, current work has to do with ensuring full
>compatibility with Windows 7 / Vista.
> >That said, I would have difficulty
>recommending IDEA as a personal knowledge base or information management system.
>Other commercial products have obviously advanced much faster in terms of features
>in recent years. Where IDEA maintains its raison d’etre is as an affordable
>multi-user system, thanks to its client-server architecture (Team Edition).
>There’s not much software at this budget level, as far as I know; I have personally
>identified only InnoKB (from MyBase’s developer) and X2Net OneStore.
> >Note that
>Sycon is not just an IT company, but as I understand software is linked to its business
>services, so it is not strange that their focus is on companies.
> >Hope this
>helps
>Alexander

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 13, 2010 at 06:23 PM

Daly de Gagne wrote:
>What I’m looking for is a way of
>having one screen which allows me to select apps, folders, files, etc. with ease. An
>aspect of this is being able to arrange files according to projects.

I suggest you take a look at tabbles.net

>I think I should
>be able to do this with the free version of IDEA - would you agree this is possible.

Yes it should; however, the free version lacks certain features that could be useful in your case. See here for a comparison table http://sycon.de/eng/res/versionen_idea.html
and here for an explanation of those features
http://sycon.de/eng/res/overview_idea_features_full_version.html
The two most useful in my view are the ‘flexible alternate path’ and the ability to create stand alone archives.

>I thought of using Ultra Recall but I can’t seem to make links directly from the tree
>in a one-click move. Later I will try, and realize it means going into their help files,
>which as I’ve written here before are bewildering to me.

UltraRecall should be able to do what you want quite easily: create a folder in UR and then drag and drop files and folders to it to create linked items. Hold the Ctrl key while dragging to import a copy of the file within the database (rather than just linking to it).

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