This is the basic system you find on the computer:
Important: This system is based on *your* choice!
- Operating system
- Browser
- Internet connection
- E-Mail program
- Plain text editor
- Any office suite (MS, OpenOfffice etc.)
- Picture viewer
- PDF viewer

Optional (if you need/want it):
- Database creation tool (Acces, Alpha Five ....)
- Compiler or IDE (Integrated Development Environment: Visual Studio, Eclipse, ...)


So now the question:
You can add *three* applications/tools. Which ones?

My list:
- Ultra Recall Professional v. 3
- Idea Mason v. 3.1
- WhizFolders Professional Deluxe 6

Dominik

Hmmm. Difficult! For me probably:

- Whizfolders 6
- UltraRecall 3 (this is provisional - I'm finding it a struggle to use)
- Namo Webeditor (to build my website!), QuickBooks (for my accounts) and PaperPort (OK, so I cheated ...)

Graham

My 3 choices are

Ultra Recall Pro 3
IdeaMason 3.1
SPSS 15

Ken

My choices:

Whizfolders 6
Aibase
Citavi (The german equivalent to IdeaMason)

Andreas

I find the choice of one app easier than three, as three probably isn't enough for me to cover a total project management environment.

My current three:
OneNote 2007
ProjectKickstart 4.0
MindManager Pro 6

Other stuff I would want now as well:
NoteMap 2
X1 indexer

Ready to jump up the hit list depending on future development:
Brainstorm
Idea!

Very indecisive!

Jack

Here you are:

KeyNote
Mindjet MindManager
Archivarius 3000

(UR Pro and IdeaMason would take the 4th and 5th place.)

W.

ECCO- to manage my activities and for my research data.

MyInfo- for all the other random information.

NoteMap- for writing everything from letters to books.

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

This is the basic system you find on the computer:
Important: This system is based on
*your* choice!
- Operating system
- Browser
- Internet connection
- E-Mail
program
- Plain text editor
- Any office suite (MS, OpenOfffice etc.)
- Picture
viewer
- PDF viewer

Optional (if you need/want it):
- Database creation tool
(Acces, Alpha Five ....)
- Compiler or IDE (Integrated Development Environment:
Visual Studio, Eclipse, ...)


So now the question:
You can add *three*
applications/tools. Which ones?

Solitaire
Hearts
Free Cell

Tom S.

Tom S.
:)

Dominik:
Scrivener
DevonThink or TinderBox
OmniOutliner (for task management)

Or to play by the implicit rules:
IdeaMason
Zoot or UR3 (probably Zoot)
MyLife Organized

H

My choices:

- OneNote 2007 - web capture, task management, note taking etc
- Mindmanager (may be replaced by PersonalBrain 4 when released and features/cost finalised) - thinking
- CityDesk - to keep my web site updated

Nigel

OneNote 207
Zoot
The Journal

- ADM
- Taskline
- ewallet

I keep meaning to post here about Taskline. Y'all should check it out. I've tried all the flavors of automatic task scheduling software, and I didn't really want something that runs in Outlook, but ended up with Taskline because it really works the best. I am addicted to it.

Ewallet I just use just as an encrypted password keeper. I'm sure there are better ones, but I've used it for probably 8-9 years now.

My list for Windows:

* Ideamason
* Mind Genius Business
* Infoselect (or Zoot 32bit)

My list for Mac OS X:

* Scrivener (definitely)
* maybe Tinderbox (but only if the Mac is my main machine because investing the time to learn TB for my "fiction machine" wouldn´t pay off for me)
* Mind Manager

Franz

MyLife Organized
Supermemo or FullRecall (both flashcard/learning software)
KeyNote for notetaking etc. (though at the moment I'm moving away and evaluating MyInfo, and IdeaMason for writing part, but if I was forced for three right now, it would still have to be KeyNote)

Assuming that printer drivers are covered by the OS - pdf.
And Assuming the the Pic Viewer offers image edting.

- Ultra Recall
- IMatch - Image Cataloger and more...
- a Presentation Layer - website generator or CMS or DeskTop Publishing

UR - web capture, file management and organization, data exchange (good range of data import and export), database is distributable

IMatch (http://www.photools.com is an interesting program. Although it is geared to photographers, it is reasonably priced ($59) and offers many features that go beyond cataloging just images. This program is worth a look on many levels.

A Presentation Layer

A case can made for any of these "outliner" programs that the presentation layer is the distributable data file (usually read-only, or shared writable by licesened users). Many of these also have good website generation, and if you consider distributing as pdf - there's a lot of presentation power already in many of these programs.

But sometimes you just need a more specialized tool. A dedicated website generator or content management system (CMS). Web Idea Tree (http://www.webideatree.com packs a lot of punch for the price ($30).

I'm a long time PageMaker (Win) user and it covers a lot of bases; Serif Software has some good offerings (http://www.serif.com/pageplus/pageplusx2/

I guess what I'm trying to say is that presenting or sharing your work (and play) is as important as what you use to collect and catalog. Seems to be the thrid leg of the stool.

Later,
KenA

Two things.

First, my votes for software that I would install are OneNote 2007, Omea Pro, and Jabref. Onenote 2007 is much better than the 2003 version and I use it every day. Omea Pro shows lots of promise, even if it does have the kitchen sink approach. I am hoping that the JetBrains guys can get it moved over to Open Source and that it has a life ahead of it. Finally, I am a scientist who needs to maintain organized databases of published papers and JabRef is my current favorite.

I realize that UltraRecall has a big following on this site, but I have yet to be able to figure it out. Zoot will probably take over from some of the others as soon as it has moved into the 32 bit era.

A question-Does anyone know when Citavi is going to be available in English? It looks pretty interesting.

Jim.

I also tried UR several times and then dismissed them as not suitable until one day I bit the bullet and tried it for an extended time (e.g., sevaral days), and now I'm hooked.

Citavi looks promising, and they are working on translating the program into English. I don't know exactly when, but it shouldn't be that difficult.

Jim wrote:

Two things.

First, my votes for software that I would install are OneNote 2007, Omea
Pro, and Jabref. Onenote 2007 is much better than the 2003 version and I use it every
day. Omea Pro shows lots of promise, even if it does have the kitchen sink approach. I am
hoping that the JetBrains guys can get it moved over to Open Source and that it has a life
ahead of it. Finally, I am a scientist who needs to maintain organized databases of
published papers and JabRef is my current favorite.

I realize that UltraRecall has
a big following on this site, but I have yet to be able to figure it out. Zoot will
probably take over from some of the others as soon as it has moved into the 32 bit era.

A
question-Does anyone know when Citavi is going to be available in English? It looks
pretty interesting.

Jim.

My own choices are the three programs I currently use most of the time (apart for the office suite applications):
- UltraRecall as my main project database
- Brainstorm as my main text development environment
- Either FreeMind or MindManager for visualising structures created in Brainstorm

By the way, a question for Andreas; could you share with us your experience with Aibase? I tried it and registered it but have never really managed to use it productively.

I have the impression that there are various small (one to two men) dedicated software development teams out there that have taken very different, but equally fascinating routes to information management: Tom Davis (Zoot), David & Marck (Brainstorm), Neville Franks (the Surfulater platform rather than Surfulater itself), Torsten Walter (Aibase), to mention but a few.

alx


Harlander wrote:

Whizfolders 6
Aibase
Citavi (The german equivalent to IdeaMason)

Andreas

If I really had to, I could probably get much of my work done using just firefox - as long as I had the right addons. I'm completely dependent on scrapbook to save complete webpages and pdf files, highlighter to mark webpages, scribefire to publish to my blog. And I could manage the rest, ie gtd, via web 2.0 services, possibly, or tiddlywiki.

Playing by the rules here:

- DT Search for searching through my files
- Evernote for collecting short snippets of information
- Rationale (my new rather excellent mindmanager replacement: http://www.austhink.com/ for building an argument, putting together articles

btw & off topic: thanks Chris for getting me my forum details back so quickly: perhaps I should add a good password keeper to my list - just downloaded this, looks good: http://keepass.info/

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

By the way, a
question for Andreas; could you share with us your experience with Aibase? I tried it
and registered it but have never really managed to use it productively.

Aibase is a strange thing. It lacks so many features that it seems to be impossible to use it productively - but then again the lack of features is the reason, why I use it every day.

First of all, I have to deal with a lot of text. I use Zoot for all those unstructured bits and pieces I encounter on the web, but I have found out that long paragraphs of text are useless when I have to find something quickly, especially if a broader context is needed to really understand everything. So I use Aibase to create outlines or trees of the relevant information. When a branch grows too large to handle it easily, I just copy a part of itand create a new page. It works like a wiki without the cumbersome markup.

What I like is the ease of use when it comes to rearranging branches, cutting, pasting them, having multiple trees side by side (a bit like in Onenote) etc. I can connect different branches with lines, use colours to mark them etc. It really helps me seeing what a subject is all about.

While other programs may look better, give you the warm feeling of "I know that the right information has to be there somewhere, I just have to search for it", Aibase won't let you pretend to know anything, it forces you to work with your data instead and, thus, understand it thoroughly.

I hope you can see my point.

Andreas

Harlander wrote:

While other programs may look better, give you the warm feeling of "I know
that the right information has to be there somewhere, I just have to search for it",
Aibase won't let you pretend to know anything, it forces you to work with your data
instead and, thus, understand it thoroughly.

I hope you can see my
point.

Yes I do; actually, it's the same way that I work with Brainstorm :-)

Thanks
alx

For me it's:

Copernic (full indexing of all files)
UR (just starting again) (Managing project & info)
WebResearch (formerly known as ContentSaver) (Web clipping & pages...maybe UR will handle this task???)

-jj

OneNote - collecting and organizing research

VisiMap - analysis and conceptualization

BrainStorm - collecting and organizing ideas

An office suite was posited as given. Without this allowance, it would be:

OneNote - research

VisiMap - analysis

MS Word - writing

I've been lurking on this forum for quite awhile, and the usefulness of this topic brought me on board.

I was struck by how many members were using both UltraRecall and Whizfolders Pro 6, so I figured WhizFolders had to offer some extra benefits. The WhizFolder site talks about using it for writing, and within a day's use I realized that it was just what I needed for developing, writing, and revising opera librettos (which is similar to working on a screenplay). I already own and use Final Draft, but I needed a program that made it extremely convenient to work on small scale bits of material. (I tried IdeaMason, but I didn't need the reference components, and WhizFolders seemed lighter and faster.)

Regarding PIMs I am still on the fence about whether UltraRecall or MyInfo is going to be work out best for me. I have worked with both, and I am waiting until MyInfo 4 arrives to reconsider this choice. So far the clean interface and multi-database search with previews has kept me mostly in MyInfo, but I don't find either program completely satisfying as far as getting information into them. (I would probably favor UltraRecall if I used either for task management, but I don't.)

I'm also waiting for the possibility that the long-awaited 32bit version of Zoot will materialize. It's exciting that there are several strong PIM programs moving into maturity at this time, and it speaks volumes about the usefulness of small companies producing shareware. Like many of you I was stunned when Ecco Pro was dumped by NetManage, and I hope to avoid going through that again.

Randall Shinn