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myBase Desktop v6 released
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 15, 2011 at 08:54 PM
Glen,
A question only partly linked to MyBase: I’m surprised that as an academic you have not turned to more specialised software which would support footnotes and the like. Have you tried them and been turned off in terms of complexity, or lacking in useful features?
Glen Coulthard wrote:
>So, currently, I am using
>ConnectedText as my personal wiki, WebResearch for my web clipping and link storage,
>PersonalBrain for processing and organizing local and web content, and
>MyNotesKeeper (MNK) for drafting and laying out articles (because of its image and
>file attachment capabilities.) Currently, I am evaluating both myBase and Amode as
>alternatives to MNK - both seem quite powerful and extensible.
Posted by Jack Crawford
Sep 15, 2011 at 10:34 PM
Cassius wrote:
> ..........
>>While still working, I found a very worthwhile use for Personal Brain, which could have been
>improved with a simple addition. The developer wasn’t interested, although I think
>that it may have since added my suggestion. The idea was to use Personal Brain to map a
>large organization with all the connections between the organization’s parts. Each
>part could then place itself at the “center” of the organization’s universe and see
>how it linked to other parts. (This would also be useful for management, which usually
>has little, if any accurate knowledge of what is really going on.)
Yes, it would appear that your idea has been implemented. See http://www.thebrain.com/products/personalbrain/apps/operations
Jack
Posted by Glen Coulthard
Sep 15, 2011 at 10:56 PM
Hi Alexander,
To be honest, I also use academic software for writing formal papers and for collecting articles relevant to my current/ongoing research. However, I don’t typically use this software when trolling for web content or for storing/managing personal information. Specifically, I use:
- Atlas.ti for qualitative coding of Word documents and OCRed PDFs; I prefer Atlas.ti over NVivo (even though NVivo has a sexier interface)
- Biblioscape for reference management and quotation gathering; although some of my work is still in EndNote
- PDF Annotator for marking up PDFs (but really I use this program for grading student papers more than making my own annotations.)
As selecting a biblography and reference manager, EndNote has always lacked PDF annotation and note-taking capabilities (beyond rudimentary mark-up). IdeaMason was a great concept, but it seemed like simple tasks always took 3 or 4 steps (or screens) to complete. Currently, I am evaluating Citavi, which is a Dutch?/German? software that seems to be a better/cleaner implementation of IdeaMason functionality. And, lastly, I have tried using the free version of Mendeley, but prefer Biblioscape’s richer handling of PDF, RTF, and note-generation capabilities.
Once my “collecting/gathering/annotating/processing” phase is complete, I then move to MyNotesKeeper to layout my article or ConnectedText to organize the information snippets.
Have you used any academic software that you prefer?
—Glen
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>Glen,
>
>A question only partly linked to MyBase: I’m surprised that as an academic you
>have not turned to more specialised software which would support footnotes and the
>like. Have you tried them and been turned off in terms of complexity, or lacking in
>useful features?
>
Posted by Glen Coulthard
Sep 15, 2011 at 11:06 PM
>> I also looked at MyInfo, but found its import of Web pages inferior to myBase, Surfulater and WebResearch.
Hi Cassius,
Personally, I have found no better product for saving, organizing, searching, and retrieving web pages/snippets than WebResearch. Surfulater probably does a better job of organizing content, but I feel that WebResearch is the better all-around product (i.e., better capture fidelity and nicer printing/exporting capabilities.)
MyInfo’s web page capture isn’t even in the running; MyNotesKeeper doesn’t have capture (other than screencaps); UR is okay, but not great; myBase is quite nice as it attempts to reproduce the actual web page by downloading the individual elements (or scraping the html.) Still, these products don’t match WebResearch’s capabilities, so I won’t be giving it up anytime soon.
—Glen
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Sep 17, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Glen Coulthard wrote:
>Have you used any academic software that you prefer?
Not much, but then my writing is mainly non-academic. However, I use a lot of references in my work, often needing to faithfully summarise complex concepts from a variety of sources. I have thus tried some academic software in the hope that it could support my workflow—the verdict was actually disappointing, but then I am not known for my patience and perseverence.
I did my whole MBA with two programs: Surfulater for organising my background material, and Brainstorm for organising my writing; I only turned to Word when I had a final draft. Early on, I tried several other tools and purchased licenses to Endnote and IdeaMason; soon enough I dropped them though, which was a good thing; thereon I focused on the actual job.
I am now also trying out Citavi—which is Swiss, incidentally, and I’ve always had some kind of attraction to Swiss products…