These tree-based information managers seem to be getting the best comments. Does anyone care to summarize their relative strengths and weaknesses?

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

These tree-based information managers seem to be getting the best comments. Does
anyone care to summarize their relative strengths and weaknesses?

I don't know if I can sumarize them all but I can tell you what bothers me the most about them. Tree-based PIMS tend to categorize information by making them subitems of another item which would be, say, the name of a real category. Other possibilities might be contact names, places, dates, pretty much anything you would use to separate and group data.

This brings you to the first issue: in far too many cases, you can only put the item in one spot. So which one will use choose as the "root" category where you information is filed and where you will look for it? This is only a minor issue because many of the better designed PIMS actually allow the data to reside in multiple places in the tree.

That brings you to the second and IMO the more niggling problem. If you've got the data in all of these places in the tree, the tree gets really big. In the end, at least in my case, the whole thing gets very bulky and very unwieldy as you find yourself filing away items in many different places, most often manually, in this huge structure which becomes more and more difficult to manipulate. It's a vicious cycle: Adding more data in more places leads to making everything more difficult and clumsy. Inother words, you're basically making the system harder and harder to deal with as you add more and more data, filing it in more and more ways.

I don't know what the answer to how to organize data is. I've been reading a book called, "Dreaming in Code" by Scott Rosenberg. I think pretty much everyone who subscribes to this forum would probably enjoy it. It basically outlines the history of the "Chandler" project which was an effort by a group of veteran software developers to make PIM software that would do it all better. As many of you probably know, this is a project which has foundered for all kinds of reasons. But even if it hadn't, I really wonder how far it would have gone toward solving the problems that have probably brought most of us to this forum in the first place.

Tom S.

Stephen,

I don't use UltraRecall, though I did purchase a license (CRIMP at work). I do use MyInfo regularly and like it a lot. Here are the features of MI that appeal to me:

1. You can keep multiple databases open and tab accessible -- this facilitates breaking your information into smaller chunks, thus keeping the tree-structures from getting too unwieldy.

2. The cross-database search capability means you are not penalized for breaking your information into different databases.

3. MyInfo holds almost anything you want to put there. Drag a PDF file (or Word file) in and it stores a copy right in the program. No need to find a folder to store it in. This is helpful to me because I receive many printing quotes via e-mail, and it is so convenient to just plunk the file down into MyInfo and know it is going to be available.

4. You can assign keywords to each MyInfo item.

5. You can clone items and have them under different headings.

6. Data is indexed for fast searches.

7. You can create most any type of customized columns to hold additional data.

8. I like its clean interface (which is why I use it instead of UR), although this does come with a bit of a price, as the display is somewhat inflexible.

This all said, I am switching to OneNote, because of its greater flexibility and power.

Steve Z.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

These tree-based information managers seem to be getting the best comments. Does
anyone care to summarize their relative strengths and weaknesses?

I'm little busy today, but here is a quick summary of two.

MyInfo is a good application that offers metadata capability and tabbed interface. However, it's somewhat rigid in its application and somewhat limited in features.

UR on the other hand, offers similar features with MyInfo and a lot more. More flexibility in both visual interface and features. MyInfo seems to offer a cleaner interface up front, but UR's interface can be changed to suit one's need. UR takes a longer to discover all its features since there are so many, but it's worth the efforts.

I'll add more to this when I have more time later.

Ken

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I don't use UltraRecall, though I did purchase a license (CRIMP at work). I
do use MyInfo regularly and like it a lot. Here are the features of MI that appeal to
me:

--- snip --

This all said, I am switching
to OneNote, because of its greater flexibility and power.

Wow! You've just listed most of the features that I like best about MyInfo.

Would it be too much to ask for you to provide a similarly thorough explanation of what has caused you to decide Onenote is more useful? I'd be very appreciative... on my first few experiments, I found Onenote to be a bit mystifying.

(One more example of how it's "chacun a son gout" when it comes to PIMs, I guess.)

Bob Mackreth wrote:

Would it be too much to ask for you to provide a
similarly thorough explanation of what has caused you to decide Onenote is more
useful? I'd be very appreciative... on my first few experiments, I found Onenote to be
a bit mystifying.

Bob,

I'll be glad to, though I suspect there are folks on this forum who have a greater understanding of OneNote 2007 than I do at this point, and may be able to add some thoughts, but here are my reasons for switching:

1. OneNote does pretty much all that MyInfo does, with the exception of the metadata functions that MyInfo has, so I'm not losing much functionality in switching, but gaining more.

2. I like the notebook metaphore that OneNote uses. It feels intuitive to me. I like how I can combine various bits of data on one page: a table, photo, text snippet.

3. OneNote has a rudimentary, but useful outlining capability within each note, which is helpful.

4. OneNote allows you to affix a "flag" to any paragraph. Flags can include check boxes (useful for creating todo lists), or questions to follow up, or projects... virtually anything. And flags can be searched for across all pages and notebooks. That can be pretty handy.

5. OneNote 2007 includes a print driver, which allows you to save to ON virtually any document that you can print. So there is almost nothing that can't be saved to OneNote.

6. ON includes opitical character recognition, so that any image with text in it can still be searched for. Also, you can extract the text in one quick operation.

7. I like how handy OneNote is, sitting in the system tray. You can pop up a "side note" at any time to jot or capture information quickly.

8. I find the screen capture utility to be very handy... especially combined with the OCR capability.

This all said, OneNote still has some glaring weaknesses. The two most obvjous to me are: It still does not seem to handle OLE objects, which is almost inconceivable. Second, its web capture feature works fine, but you don't get a nice clean web page in ON, but it kind of just runs out straight. This last is compensated some by the handy screen-capture function.

So that's why I'm jumping to OneNote. I admire and like MyInfo very much, but I can do more with ON and I'm really trying to reduce the CRIMP effect on my workload.

Steve Z.

Thanks! Much to mull over.

And yes, "reducing the CRIMP factor" may be a good idea... though the "all work and no play" adage also comes to mind. :)

Thanks again,

Bob

Stephen,

A very short reply:

Pro MyInfo:
- GUI (look and feel)
- Search across databases
- Editor
- Speed

Against MyInfo:
- No reminder system (please correct me if I am wrong)
- Flexiblity of GUI
- Stability issues when importing files (during a test phase with v3.5)


Pro Ultra Recall
- Metadata (Attribute) system
- Forms
- Flexiblility in general. A plus for a freak like me
- Search system
- Stability
- Linking system
- Minimum approach in the editor -> stability

Against Ultra Recall
- It takes time to get the most out of UR
- Flexiblity if you need to get your job done and shouldn't loose time in adjusting and playing with the application
- No searches across different databases


MyInfo and UltraRecall are both on the same high level of quality. I like both but have decided to go with UR to reduce the CRIMP factor.
If I had to go to an island tomorrow and can take only one application with me then it would be UR.
But if my boss comes into the office tomorrow and tells me that we are now using MyInfo then I wouldn't have a problem.
MyInfo is still on my radar.

Dominik