Hello,

Does anybody use it? What do you think about it?

http://www.pmm.nl/

From the website:
'PMM? Personal Memory Manager v7.0 is a powerful, organizational and mind-mapping style of software which allows you to organize and effectively visualize complicated thoughts, projects, ideas and concepts. Through the use of PMM, you may use the ability to organize your complex data and information through a combination of spreadsheets, databases, text notes, photos, documents and important links. PMM, in essence, replaces your need to rely upon multiple software applications, such as word and data processing programs, spreadsheet programs and even bookmarked links to important URL's.'

Wojciech

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9203/0002cj.jpg

Yep, I very quickly got the same Access Violation as did quant. Program seems overbuilt and fragile. Too bad, because it has features frequently requested and rarely implemented:

1) A direct and immediate tie between map and outline pane
2) Link types, searchable
3) Multiple floating note windows

For all that, already deleted. Fighting with it too much, and it doesn't sport a spell czecher.

Jerome

Very quickly: I played around with PMM a good bit last year and enjoyed it. It's certainly unique, and the implementation of multiple saved views of data is useful. I also found it stable (version 6) and the developer responsive, so I expect the access violation error would get sorted out if you contact the developer.

That said, PMM hasn't so far ended up fitting into my workflow, perhaps because of the amount of time it seemed to take to get data into and out of it (although I think there are new v7 features in this regard).

(Incidentally, in other news: After getting briefly into Tinderbox recently while I had access to a Mac, I'm now finding, to my delight, that InfoQube is becoming a strong Tinderbox alternative. More later.)

I did run into Acces Violation messages myself but I thought I had taken care of them. So I am sorry that there is still one out there or even two. I am shocked that you ran into them so quickly for naturally I will never allow that to happen if I can help it. Please let me know how I can reproduce the error and fix it asap. I am happy to learn that you like the features that were added to version 7.0 recently and I am open to any suggestions since I know how using outliner software was what I used before I started developing PMM, which was Framework.

For reference: PMM is now called CRPA, ?Constructive Recollection Philosophy Application?. Users who have downloaded the application in the past will probably have received information on this change.

I find interesting the linking of the tool to a philosophy (or vice versa, the application of the philosophy to a software tool). I can think of at least two other examples of such an approach -- though the way and depth in which the philosophy itself has been explicitly developed may vary- namely MaxThink and CMap Tools.

That said, I expect that there is some kind of philosophy implied by most or all of the tools that we discuss here.

Another application (not developed for several years, I believe) which had a philosophy behind its development was The Literary Machine, an application that appealed to me in theory, but didn't work real well in execution. Here's the link:

http://sommestad.com/lm.htm

Steve Z.

JJSlote wrote:

Yep, I very quickly got the same Access Violation as did quant. Program seems
overbuilt and fragile. Too bad, because it has features frequently requested and
rarely implemented:

1) A direct and immediate tie between map and outline pane
2)
Link types, searchable
3) Multiple floating note windows
Jerome

----------------------------------------------------
Inspiration has some of this, certainly #1.

JJSlote wrote:

Yep, I very quickly got the same Access Violation as did quant. Program seems
overbuilt and fragile. Too bad, because it has features frequently requested and
rarely implemented:

1) A direct and immediate tie between map and outline pane
2)
Link types, searchable
3) Multiple floating note windows
Jerome

----------------------------------------------------
Inspiration has some of this, certainly #1.

JJSlote wrote:

Yep, I very quickly got the same Access Violation as did quant. Program seems
overbuilt and fragile. Too bad, because it has features frequently requested and
rarely implemented:

1) A direct and immediate tie between map and outline pane
2)
Link types, searchable
3) Multiple floating note windows
Jerome

----------------------------------------------------
Inspiration has some of this, certainly #1.

The thoughts, concepts and the philosophy behind such tools may isgreat but they require a lot of efforts from the user. Perhaps these developers forget that maybe nobody else on this planet thinks and acts they way they do. Therefore I prefere tools like UltraRecall, Zoot, PersonalBrain or MindManager where I can develop a structure which suits best to my brain. Another experience is that the way I think and work changes constantly over time so a fixed paradigm or system does not really work.

Dominik

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

For reference: PMM is now called CRPA, ?Constructive Recollection Philosophy
Application?.

I forgot to add the new website http://www.crpa.co/

It looks like but is not identical to http://www.pmm.nl

Alexander,

I have just found this on the http://www.pmm.nl/philo.htm#ObjectOrientation site:

"This page has moved to a new website for PMM's successor,

CRPA Constructive Recollection Philosophy Application."

So CRPA is the successor of PMM.

Dominik

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

The thoughts, concepts and the philosophy behind such tools may isgreat but they
require a lot of efforts from the user. Perhaps these developers forget that maybe
nobody else on this planet thinks and acts they way they do. Therefore I prefere tools
like UltraRecall, Zoot, PersonalBrain or MindManager where I can develop a
structure which suits best to my brain. Another experience is that the way I think and
work changes constantly over time so a fixed paradigm or system does not really
work.

I agree in principle, but after watching this tutorial http://www.crpa.co/Consultants.htm (just the first 3' are enough for the essence) I believe that the software is actually quite straightforward and does not impose itself on the user. In fact, I'd say that it imposes itself much less than, say MindManager, which allows for only one kind of structure.

At its core, CRPA/PMM is like a combination of two tools: (a) a very simple note collector and (b) a concept mapping surface where one can arrange those notes.

Like with other tools such as UltraRecall and Surfulater, notes can be re-used (e.g. as clones) which means that they can be combined in various alternatives perspectives. However, unlike an outliner, one has the full two dimensional surface to combine the notes in relationships.

Each combination can be maintained as a separate sheet. There are various tools to help identify interesting points, like highlighting which notes are common among two sheets.

I see some issues with the present incarnation of CRPA (some mentioned by others here already), but I like its approach --even though I have not read all the underlying philosophy yet...