JBfrom wrote:

Not a bad system at all Alex, those choices make a great deal of sense. I could see myself
using some of those as extensions in the roles you mentioned. Specifically Evernote
for collection, Treesheets for project mapping and UR for contacts. What's Sense
for?

Sense is for long texts, which I am currently not writing very often, but should resume to in the near future.

Sense is taking over from Brainstorm for such texts mainly for two reasons: (a) better overview; its navigator pane is collapsible and editable, contrary to Brainstorm's balloon view and (b) much better support of different locales.

Interesting. I agree that BrainStormWFO is not suited for long texts. I currently use org-mode and wikis for that. Does sense have a link? It's seemingly impossible to Google it.

JBfrom wrote:

Interesting. I agree that BrainStormWFO is not suited for long texts. I currently use
org-mode and wikis for that. Does sense have a link? It's seemingly impossible to
Google it.

i think this is it -

http://www.silvaelm.com/news.shtml

I unbelievably forgot to add the latest entrant to my system: The Livescribe Echo and Livescribe Desktop, using Myscript (currently demo only).

It works very, very well for recording notes in lectures, seminars, conferences, classes, etc. I highly recommend it and will make a post highlighting its strengths and weaknesses since this is a tool that many might benefit from.

Best, /Pavi

My rollcall:
Ultra Recall - GTD, web clippings, notes, email
archive, work files, home data, research
Outlook 2010 - locked into due to work,
email and @work GTD
Mendeley - Organize PDFs and share with colleagues (Important
ones to save are copied to UR). Also for bibliography system in Word.
Notepad++ - text
editing and coding
Storybook 3.0.0: story creation, this update makes the program
really useful so I will post separately about this
Thoughtoffice:
brainstorming

I plan to add Flying Logic 2 when (if) I can justify the license
cost.

Best, /Pavi

Pavi wrote:

I unbelievably forgot to add the latest entrant to my system: The Livescribe Echo and
Livescribe Desktop, using Myscript (currently demo only).

It works very, very
well for recording notes in lectures, seminars, conferences, classes, etc. I highly
recommend it and will make a post highlighting its strengths and weaknesses since
this is a tool that many might benefit from.

Best, /Pavi

Great, Pavi, I look forward to reading your thoughts about the Livescribe.

I have to update and extend my list a bit to give a complete picture:

Already mentioned:
PersonalBrain - Todos, Notes (writing, drafting, scribbling), Favorites, Files
MindManager - Mind mapping, Writing short instructions (usage of software), Outlining for presentations and documents
Word - Writing (really!)

Additions:
PhraseExpress - Text expander for repeating text snippets and for accessing folders quickly (I don't like it to navigate through folder trees in WindowsExplorer again and again...)

DirectFolders - Accessing folders quickly while you have the folder dialogue open or when you are in the so much "beloved" WindowsExplorer (I am still on WinXP in the office)

FSCapture - Screenshot tool which allows to add annotations (text, frames,darts) and resizing

KNIME/Excel - KNIME for ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and Excel for data presentation and Reporting

Vizubi - A highly recommended Business Intelligence and Reporting add-in for Excel

Quantrix - For financial modelling, Simulations, What-if scenarios, Reporting (more used as a hobby as the company I am working for is Excel addicted, an illness most companies are suffering these days. When I am imagine that Excel is used for all the risk management and pricing stuff in the financial markets industry I do not wonder why we have these economic problems today )


All the best,
Dominik

Please apologise for the poor formatting of my previous post. The last paragraph should be like this:

Quantrix - For financial modelling, Simulations, What-if scenarios, Reporting (more used as a hobby as the company I am working for is [start of little rant] Excel addicted, an illness most companies are suffering these days. When I am imagine that Excel is used for all the risk management and pricing stuff in the financial markets I do not wonder why we have these economic diffdifficulties today [/end of little rant]


Dominik

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

DirectFolders - Accessing folders quickly
FSCapture - Screenshot tool
which allows to add annotations (text, frames,darts) and resizing

=====================
I use keyboard shortcuts to access my most-used folders. [Shift-Alt-(letter) to access a folder. Shift-CTRL-(letter) to access a program. CTRL-Alt-(letter) to access a Windows application, such as "Restore."]

FastStone Capture is well worth the price. (Note, older versions may not work with the latest browser updates.)

-cassius

I'm trying to simplify a little, so my main programs are:

Omni Outliner - Notes that get updated often
Evernote - Long-term storage
Taskpaper - Needed for iPhone since Omni Outliner has no iPhone app

Thinking of getting iThoughts for iPhone and iPad to brainstorm with mind maps and then import into Omni Outliner.

Other various apps:
Instapaper
Reeder
Mail
iCal
Rapidweaver
Wunderlist - experimenting with this

Hopefully I won't be crimping too much in the future. But I am desperately waiting for a good sync in Omni Outliner, as well as an iPhone version.

Vince

@Dominik: DirectFolders is a great find!

Pavi wrote:

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

>Though, I kinda wish stuff wasn't so scattered.


Hi, my workflow changed dramatically to de-scatter data. For me, having a central
data store is invaluable for archival and cross-referenced search, thus the switch
to Ultra Recall. Previously, I used EssentialPim Pro, Mybase 5.5.1, Onenote and Web
Research 3 - all of these are replaced by UR. No, I don't work for Kinook! Other
potential all-in-one apps I considered were InfoCube, Zoot and recently
ConnectedText.

My rollcall:
Ultra Recall - GTD, web clippings, notes, email
archive, work files, home data, research
Outlook 2010 - locked into due to work,
email and @work GTD
Mendeley - Organize PDFs and share with colleagues (Important
ones to save are copied to UR). Also for bibliography system in Word.
Notepad++ - text
editing and coding
Storybook 3.0.0: story creation, this update makes the program
really useful so I will post separately about this
Thoughtoffice:
brainstorming

I plan to add Flying Logic 2 when (if) I can justify the license
cost.

Best, /Pavi

See, the problem with something like UltraRecall for me is that, and I realize this self-imposed, my devices are somewhat scattered, too: desktop, laptop, iPad and Blackberry.

Evernote and Toodledo kinda win by default for me since they seem to be the rare apps the run on anything.

Of course, they also lead to the secondary issue that I'm pretty weary of using "cloud" apps in general...needing to trust that those servers will still be online in 10 years...

Todolist : labyrinthine-filesystem-iterface for onsite vfx work.
Brilliant database (BDB): appointments, contact db, text archive, rate calculator, quotes and invoices, html/pdf authoring, etc, etc..
Altap commander : file manager.
Popcorn : pop3 email.
Opera : internet/feeds.

Looking for:
A portable, cross-platform alternative to brilliant database that has all its capabilities (including stability) and preferably a nicer UI.

Hi,

Yes, I also wanted to have access to all my data with several devices for a while. I realized that this is impossible, at least in a convenient way, and I spend 80% of my time at my mail laptop (ie. docked at the office) anyway. Using Outlook/Exchange keeps my android phone synchronized to important appointments.

With cloud apps, allowing your data to be on other companies servers is also an issue for some people. A possible solution could be to have everything on your home computer, and then VPN/remote desktop to it from tablet, laptop, etc.

For me, having the centralized data store non-accessible at times is perfectly fine. If I write a note in another format, copying to windows and dragging to Ultra Recall is a snap.

Best, /Pavi

See, the problem with something like UltraRecall for me
is that, and I realize this self-imposed, my devices are somewhat scattered, too:
desktop, laptop, iPad and Blackberry.

Evernote and Toodledo kinda win by default
for me since they seem to be the rare apps the run on anything.

Of course, they also
lead to the secondary issue that I'm pretty weary of using "cloud" apps in
general...needing to trust that those servers will still be online in 10 years...

I've seen the pen used at one of the meetings by one guy this week, was wondering what it is. I'm not sure how people would react if they know it can record sound, in business setting, many people would not be comfortable.

How does it work with UR, are you able to leverage any of its capabilities?

I might give this pen a try, care to give a short review? Thank you

Pavi wrote:

I unbelievably forgot to add the latest entrant to my system: The Livescribe Echo and
Livescribe Desktop, using Myscript (currently demo only).

It works very, very
well for recording notes in lectures, seminars, conferences, classes, etc. I highly
recommend it and will make a post highlighting its strengths and weaknesses since
this is a tool that many might benefit from.

Best, /Pavi

quant wrote:

I've seen the pen used at one of the meetings by one guy this week, was wondering what it
is. I'm not sure how people would react if they know it can record sound, in business
setting, many people would not be comfortable.

I think it has the same implications for academia as well. Surely profs would choose their words much more carefully, if they knew they are being recorded constantly by hundreds of students. But, we have opened Pandora's box and it can't be closed again... Students are already using their smartphones and tablets to do this... So maybe we'll just have to live with this idea of a totally transparent world and censor ourselves continuously at a mental level, even at business meetings. Alternatively, a jamming device would be nice...

Here are my tools currently being used to capture, manipulate, and report information:

Hardware:
Toshiba laptop (big, business style) running Windoze Vista. Mostly it stays anchored to the side of my desk like a desktop computer. I've got a wireless mouse and keyboard plus a 20" monitor attached.
New item; HP 500 Slate http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/321957-321957-64295-3841267-3955550-4332585.html Windoze 7 on it so no need to get different software. It works very well reading and writing while mobile.

A side note; I believe PIM's are just that ? personal. No PIM software handles everyone's personal needs well. It helps to understand why someone likes or dislikes a PIM if it is known what they do. In my case, I'm a travel agent by vocation plus very active in my church and college fraternity. Add to that other community organizations and you get a sense most of my data revolves around people.

I love to read and research religious and travel related "stuff" also so most of my data I capture is text based.

Primary software for data:
Intellect from http://www.chaossoftware.com/ . It really does a wonderful job for me managing almost 2500 contacts, thousands of e-mails, and all the meetings with tasks I have.
chaoshost.com. This is the "cloud" version of Intellect. Primarily I have it to provide secure, immediate off-site storage of my data and to synchronize this data with my phone.
AskSam. I know it has its problems. I know there is doubt about its future. It handles and reports everything I need in a way that works best for me. AskSam finds things for me lightening fast, but the biggest thing is how It captures web data. Highlight the section of a web page you want then right-click to send to Asksam The dialog box allows me a couple of basic options with three fields: Title, Keyword, and Note. I enter the client's name in the keyword field and more descriptive name in the Title. The database is setup to sort by that keyword field so all the research I do for clients during the course of my busy day is right there. I don't have to rearrange the data after capture like I did with UR.
FinePrint with PDF Factory. Fineprint.com . Fineprint creates anything I want to print into a document with my letterhead already integrated - ready to go. PDF Factory does just that - creates the pdf to e-mail and save.
Brainstorm for capturing text, creating outlines with text, brainstorming, creating those cool Javascript html files to share with others.
Bonsai outliner used in conjunction with Brainstorm.
LinkStash (weblinks)

Besides Fineprint, the primary programs all have an essential feature to me; exporting to universal formats such as .csv, .txt, .rtf.

For manipulation of data:
Brainstorm
Notetab Pro text editor.
Atlantis Word Processor
Lotus WordPro - it still works and works real well with my marketing templates.

Steve

I finally got around to trying Bayden Slickrun, Winsplit Revolution and DirectFolders. And now I'm kicking myself that I waited this long. These little wonders could have saved me hours of aggravation (and carpal tunnel syndrome) in the last few months. Thanks guys! If you use any similar time (and movement) savers, I'd be glad to hear about them.

Dr Andus wrote:

Thanks guys! If you use any similar time (and movement) savers, I'd be
glad to hear about them.

I'm glad you mentioned this. Indeed I find that even as my information management applications change, some 'minor' gems remain faithful servants. They deserve an honorable mention:

- Slickrun, already mentioned by several; I launch all my programs with a maximum of two letters. It has become so much second nature that when I work in somebody else's computer I will keep hitting Alt+Q (the shortcut to evoke SlickRun)

- PopPeeper; a tray mail checker and the fastest way to review new mail. Apart for POP it handles IMAP, webmail, and even RSS (the non-free version)

- Rainlendar; a calendar waiting in the system tray, displaying all events from Outlook, which in turn is synced with Google Calendar via Google Sync.

- PureText; a tiny resident utility to convert clipboard contents to plaintext at a keystroke

- TextTally; a similar utility to count words in the clipboard

- Diacrit, to easily insert the occasional accented characters not covered by my keyboard setup

- Simidude, to share the keyboard among various computers, even cross-OS

- Brainstorm with Magic Paste on, to rapidly collect texts from various sources for further processing

- PDFill Tools, to split, merge and rotate PDFs

- EasyTether, to connect my laptop to the internet via my Android phone when Wi-Fi is not available; no dongle or separate plan required

- AnVir Task Manager, to control extraneous startup items and warn me if my PC's resources are used up too much

- With Skype having become my preferred method of oral communication as well as instant messaging, a very useful tool is Grecorder, which will backup Skype chat conversations to Gmail, labeling them as such.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

I'm glad you mentioned this. Indeed I find that even as
my information management applications change, some 'minor' gems remain faithful
servants. They deserve an honorable mention:

Thank you Alexander. This should keep me occupied for a while :)

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
>Thanks guys! If you use any similar time (and movement) savers, I'd
be
>glad to hear about them.

I'm glad you mentioned this. Indeed I find that even as
my information management applications change, some 'minor' gems remain faithful
servants. They deserve an honorable mention:

- Slickrun, already mentioned by
several; I launch all my programs with a maximum of two letters. It has become so much
second nature that when I work in somebody else's computer I will keep hitting Alt+Q
(the shortcut to evoke SlickRun)

- PopPeeper; a tray mail checker and the fastest
way to review new mail. Apart for POP it handles IMAP, webmail, and even RSS (the
non-free version)

- Rainlendar; a calendar waiting in the system tray, displaying
all events from Outlook, which in turn is synced with Google Calendar via Google
Sync.

- PureText; a tiny resident utility to convert clipboard contents to
plaintext at a keystroke

- TextTally; a similar utility to count words in the
clipboard

- Diacrit, to easily insert the occasional accented characters not
covered by my keyboard setup

- Simidude, to share the keyboard among various
computers, even cross-OS

- Brainstorm with Magic Paste on, to rapidly collect
texts from various sources for further processing

- PDFill Tools, to split, merge
and rotate PDFs

- EasyTether, to connect my laptop to the internet via my Android
phone when Wi-Fi is not available; no dongle or separate plan required

- AnVir Task
Manager, to control extraneous startup items and warn me if my PC's resources are used
up too much

- With Skype having become my preferred method of oral communication as
well as instant messaging, a very useful tool is Grecorder, which will backup Skype
chat conversations to Gmail, labeling them as such.

This is probably old news for most of you but I finally discovered Fences for organising desktop icons, which is proving to be a neat (and free) utility:
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Dr Andus wrote:

This is probably old news for most of you but I finally discovered
Fences for organising desktop icons, which is proving to be a neat (and
free) utility:
http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

Well, Fences is no longer free... The upside of CRIMPing is that as an early adopter you do end up with a lot of free stuff, which later becomes paid-for...

Not having bothered reading the documentation for it I have only just discovered a fab writing-related feature of Fences: if you double-click anywhere on the screen (assuming that function is not used by another app such as DOpus or Direct Folders), it hides all desktop icons, creating a distraction-free writing environment (assuming your writing tool is not too loud).

Dr Andus or any of your fine folk:

Will Fences keep icons in one place? When I change the resolution on my 11" laptop screen and then change back many of the icons on the right side of the screen get rearranged. In DOS days, I had a program that froze desktop icons in place, but that was eons ago.

Cassius wrote:

Will Fences keep icons in one place? When I change the resolution on my
11" laptop screen and then change back many of the icons on the right
side of the screen get rearranged. In DOS days, I had a program that
froze desktop icons in place, but that was eons ago.

The answer is yes (at least on my Win7 system). At the lower resolution the "fences" might look a bit crowded, but when you switch back, everything goes back into its place.

BTW, with the double-click trick you can also exclude individual icons from the "quick-hide" feature, so you can have two versions of your desktop and alternate between them by double-clicking.

Cassius wrote:

Dr Andus or any of your fine folk:
Will Fences keep icons in one place? When I change the resolution on my
11" laptop screen and then change back many of the icons on the right
side of the screen get rearranged.

I have just swapped my monitors around (using extended desktop in Win7), and interestingly my Fences stayed in the same formation and in the same monitor, even though it's now Display 2 instead of Display 1. I like this behaviour because obviously the whole point of Fences is to fix the icons in place (in groups), so their place can be remembered.