UltraRecall (Standard and Pro edition) is available at a 61% discount today (27th June 2011):
http://www.bitsdujour.com/

Dominik

As I recall, when it first appeared, UltraRecall was VERY slow in saving Web pages. How fast (or slow) is it now, say compared with Surfulater, or MyBase, or other programs?

I had a CRIMP attack and took the deal. I had UR 3.5, but it doesn't work with Windows 7. Odd, that! Don't know if UR 4.2 is much better but it does work with Win 7. The $39 price on BDJ was cheaper than the normal $50 price to upgrade to UR4. A bit of buyer's remorse later in the day, but the deed is done. Beware the CRIMP !!

Damn you! Damn you, Moriaty! Yes, I CRIMPed out, too! The shame!

I haven't used UltraRecall for years (I was a very early adopter, but found I never really used it properly). It's certainly made strides forward, although I was sad to find that one of its strongest features (the MDI interface) has been deprecated in favour of a tabbed interface (fine if you like that sort of thing, but not as powerful as MyInfo's multi-arrangeable tabs-cum-windows). Nevertheless - I've experienced some instability in its handling of interface elements (always one of UR's weak spots). If you customise toolbars, customise window positions (yes, it's eminently customisable), fiddle about with this and that, it has a nasty tendency to seize up. It recovers fairly gracefully, but it's disconcerting. Not as stable in this respect as either MyInfo or Smereka TreeProjects. It remains relatively stable if you don't fiddle about with settings, however (although for sad CRIMPers, that means having to sit heavily on both hands!). For info, I'm running it on Windows 7 Home Premium.

Having said that, the search engine is impressively powerful (it's a bit like an internalised version of Copernic Desktop, with the ability to skip from one "hit" to the next). So far, I've only imported HTML files from my bitext databases, and it whipped those in at very high speed (multiple files at a time, which is gratifying). I haven't experimented with any actual web pages yet, but I'll let you know what happens when I do. Some very nice features, mingled with some distinctly counter-intuitive ones, but as a repository for wads of searchable data, it's certainly an interesting solution. Much better than askSam, for instance (and much cheaper, too).

The portable option is quite cool, too. I experimented with that yesterday evening, installing UltraRecall in DropBox and syncing with my netbook (running WinXP). I was able to open UltraRecall on the latter without issues (zero installation) and do a bit of editing work this morning while I waited for the nice man to service my car. Very convenient, and stopped my CRIMPer's soul from ogling Skoda Yetis and wondering if I could afford one (no, I can't, is the short and curly of it). Definitely worth the reduced price, although I'm not convinced I'm going to make enough use of it to warrant paying the full whack.

So there's a challenge for you, Yaroslav - jumping from search hit to search hit! Smereka is such a fast, stable product that it remains my favourite high-speed solution. Having said which, UR Pro does support networking (better than MyInfo, which locks the whole file, whereas UR only locks individual items). I'm looking forward to a networkable Smereka!

Cassius wrote:

As I recall, when it first appeared, UltraRecall was VERY slow in saving Web pages.

I believe that was dependent on automatic keyword indexing - it was slow only when indexing was on.
It's quite possible there were some changes in that area, but I don't use it thus can't say for sure.

I have acquired UltraRecall a couple of years ago but so far it turned out to be a CRIMP mistake of mine, in the sense that I have not been able to find it a place within my workflow. Originally I bought it because I thought I'm going to use it to organise hundreds of PDFs that I had in hundreds of different folders but in the meantime I found that NVivo would be better suited for that task (I'm talking about analysing the contents of the PDFs and then coding them, i.e. classifying them according to the categories derived from the content).

So I would be curious to hear how others use UR in their day-to-day work. For collecting websites I use Surfulater, for gathering and organising data from PDFs into outlines I use Whizfolders. I imagine UR could do both, but at the moment I don't have a convincing enough reason to switch.

I have used UR Pro for over 6 years. It is THE single app that keeps me able to control all the information that I need to handle every day. That includes email, PDFs, all Office file-types, web pages, reminders... It has a rather steep learning curve but there isn't really anything it can't do (that you'd want to do with a PIM). One of my databases is around 800M in size and searching is fast! I have the option to import a file as a link or import a complete copy. There is one way or two way synchronization for linked files. You can create your own tags and you can import your own icons. You can create your own forms and templates. I think that it is it's almost unlimited flexibility that turns some people off. It comes with about 7 sample databases which give a glimpse of what is possible.

I would rather see a different UI as someone else mentioned but I'll overlook that for the power. I usually have 4 databases open at once everyday. I can't remember the last time it crashed (I have version 4.2b) but I don't do alot with customizing the look and feel. I have a layout I like and each database pops up in it. I probably should try some UI customization, though...

It took me about a year of using it before something "clicked" and I suddenly went from novice to almost poweruser! I have used other SW (TreeDBNotes, Zoot, Personal Brain, several personal wikis, etc) but UR Pro remains my go to app. I also have occasional CRIMP desires, but if I pause long enough to read through the capabilities, I usually come to the conclusion that what I have is better than what I want. That doesn't stop me from looking, however!

I know I sound like I own the company but I don't. I'm just a long-time satisfied user. I have found the app that prevents me from having to use several apps that are all focused on different, specialized, tasks. I'm happy, your mileage may vary.

Marty

Marty, your post encourages me. I am particularly interested in URs ability to integrate with external files. I'm frustrated with having to look for the same thing in several different information stores - and maybe UR can help me with that.

jim