Outliner/PIM roll call: Fall 2011

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Posted by Steve
Oct 1, 2011 at 12:51 PM

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

Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 9, 2011 at 06:59 PM

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.

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 10, 2011 at 09:55 PM

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.

Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 10, 2011 at 10:41 PM

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 :)

Posted by Dr Andus
Jul 12, 2012 at 01:51 PM

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/

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