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Outliner/PIM roll call: Fall 2011
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Posted by DaXiong
Sep 25, 2011 at 01:43 AM
I have several part-time jobs that all involve speaking, writing, and presenting; so the software I use is for the communicating process, not as an organizer or to-do list manager.
Rough Draft - Probably one of the tools I use the most. It’s a freeware txt/rtf editor. For basic writing, including simple formatting like bold/italics, nothing is simpler or easier.
Inspiration - Probably the only outliner I use as an outliner. I don’t use its mind-mapping features, but as an outliner for writing, it works the way I do. (Note: I don’t use mind mappers, their process doesn’t seem to work with me.)
ConnectedText - I love this program, can’t speak highly enough about it. I use it to collect things, and develop relationships between ideas and concepts. I also appreciate the fact it has two modes: an editing mode and a display mode (you can’t make changes in display mode).
Sense - Recently purchased this, not the most intuitive, but powerful in seeing the structure of my writing.
Finally, an honorable mention. Often, when I start the creative process I have no clue where I’‘m going, or what the relationships are between various ideas I have. I find PowerPoint indispensable here. I fire it up, switch to outline view, and start blasting ideas, one per slide, until I’ve got them all down. Then, I can drag them around until an outline pops out that I can go with. A quick export to Word, and I can either work there, or go on and pull it into one of the other programs.
What’s the perfect tool? I can’t imagine there is one. But a lot of programs I’d love to use are not intuitive to me. I’d put here noteliner, sqlnotes and several others. I see their power, but they don’t work the way my mind does. What I want is something that saves my work in an open format, so I can use whichever tool is best for the task. Since most of what I do is writing, I’d love to see an editor that saves as HTML with formatting in a css file. (yeah, I won’t hold my breath).
Posted by GeorgeB
Sep 25, 2011 at 02:46 AM
Dad-Gum you guys. Because of you and these magnificent lists I found two apps I had just to have and purchased them. The two are Instaviz and Instapaper, both for my iPad2.
My workhorse is NoteMap (PC) and CarbonFin Outliner (iPad).
I use Word and Excel because they’re installed on our school district’s computers.
For simple music composition and printing my arrangements, Noteworthy (PC)
InformantHD synced with Google Calendar & Toodledo.
TextFreeHD because we don’t get cell phone service where we live.
My workhorse daily apps.
Posted by JBfrom
Sep 25, 2011 at 10:13 AM
You need one of those natural keyboards that has offset keys and big fat alt and ctrl keys to use emacs. I have on and hitting the modifier keys is effortless. on a normal keyboard yes it would be a nightmare.
Posted by Graham Rhind
Sep 25, 2011 at 10:49 AM
I’m currently working on a data/information management system overhaul, but this is what I’m on at present:
OneNote 2010 - project information, prospect information, library and archive.
Authoring and manuals - Writing Outliner Word plug in
Website creation - Personal Brain, Namo WebEditor 2006
Family Tree - Personal Brain
Data processing - Visual Foxpro
Book keeping - Quickbooks
E-Mail - Outlook 2007, Eudora 7
Task Management - Outlook 2007, Sciral Consistency
PowerPoint Slide Library - Zoom
Future planning and graphics, brainstorming - Goalscape, Flying Logic, VUE
Browser/Internet bookmarks - Opera
Desktop search - Google
Appointments - Filofax
Trying to find a place in my workflow for: GS-Base, LiveScribe
Moving away from: Whizfolders, Quickbooks, Excel, Ariadne
Considering moving towards: Alpha 5 (instead of Foxpro), ConnectedText (though I have some gripes, which I’ll broach in its own thread)
Some programs I have tried and don’t come up to scratch or fit my work methodology - TreeSheets, IdeaMason, The Journal, Evernote, EverDesk, Watership Planner, ToDo Paper, HanDBase, Archivarius 3000, Tasktop, HelpMaker, Great Family, ListPro, InfoQube, Ultra Recall, Zoot ...
Graham
Posted by WSP
Sep 25, 2011 at 02:42 PM
MyInfo—My workhorse. I use it for note-taking and organizing information for nearly all my writing. It’s powerful enough for my purposes (and is gradually improving), and I might add that it looks exceptionally attractive on the screen.
Evernote—For any miscellaneous information that doesn’t have to be terribly well organized. Occasionally I do experiments with other kinds of notes (such as family history), because I like its syncing and sharing capabilities, but the lack of a hierarchical tree stops me in my tracks every time.
NoteTab (Standard)—It’s nearly always on my taskbar. I use it for extremely quick-and-dirty notes, for simple lists (addresses, passwords, etc.), and often for writing first drafts.
UltraEdit—I feel I ought to use it more. It has great capabilities (its tiling of multiple files is breathtaking from a writer’s point of view) but a very geeky interface.
Family Historian—A British genealogical program. It’s not as flashy as some of its competitors, but its interactive charts are amazing. The charts create an intuitive and visual way of maneuvering around within some complex data.
ProCite—A nice but thoroughly dead bibliographical program. I haven’t added any information in years, but I still keep the icon on my screen because I occasionally need to liberate some old data from it.
Dropbox—I couldn’t live without it nowadays.
On the iPad I have a lot of note-taking apps that I almost never use. In theory Evernote ought to be the most helpful, since it syncs with my two computers, but in reality it’s klunky and slightly unreliable on the iPad. Some of the plain-text apps strike me as potentially more useful. I’ve come to realize, however, that note-taking on an iPad is just not all that comfortable, even with a bluetooth keyboard: that’s what God made laptops for.
On the other hand, I like having a calendar app on both my iPad and iPhone: I use Informant (which syncs with Google Calendar), and it meets my simple needs brilliantly.