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Web Research -->> WOW!
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Posted by JJ
Jul 3, 2007 at 02:56 PM
Web Research vs. UltraRecall Review
First, a little background…
I have tried most of the products discussed on this forum… and have focused on 2 main software products.
OmeaPro… showed great promise but was dropped by the developer
UltraRecall… Not bad, but could be better
But now I’m really liking Web Research from Macropool for the following reasons:
#1. I’m using the “network” add-in on my stand alone machine. By doing this, it adds a key piece of functionality missing in the “stand-alone” version… indexing of word, excel, powerpoint and PDF documents. With this add-in, all docs added to WR are indexed. I wonder why the developer doesn’t add this feature to stand-alone product???
NOTE… web pages are automatically indexed as you add them to WR.
#2. WR seems to capture web pages better and faster than UR. Plus, unlike UR, you can select where to store the web page, add comments & categories, before you save the web page… a very nice feature.
#3. You can add notes to any item stored in WR.
#4. You can add notes as individual items into WR.
#5. You can add categories to any item in WR. Unlike UR, you can assign multiple categories to an item.
#6. The only “big thing” UR has that WR doesn’t have is the ability to create custom meta forms. This is not a deal breaker for me, but would be nice.
#7. WR seems quicker and more stable than the current version of UR.
#8. The latest version of WR adds a nice feature which allows you to add items directly from your scanner. (fyi… WR adds scanned documents as a jpg… not pdf)
#9. WR has an add-on which allows you to send outlook items to WR.
Overall, I’m very pleased with WR! I would say that UR is a little more powerful (in terms of customization) but WR is cleaner, faster and easier to use.
I would highly recommend others to download the free version…WITH the network add-on to add the ability to index documents.
NOTE-I do not work for Macropool :-)
-jj
Posted by Cassius
Jul 4, 2007 at 08:29 AM
I have also been looking at WebResearch, although I’ve been quite happy with MyBase. I haven’t actually tried WR yet, but it appears to
1. Possibly have limited rtf editing capabilities
2. The ability to save a Web page AND those pages that have links in the original page.
-c
Posted by Derek Cornish
Jul 4, 2007 at 01:01 PM
Cassius/JJ,
I’ve been using Web Research for some years. It used to be called ContentSaver, and there are numerous posts here and on the Zoot forum abut it. It also has the ability to generate hyperlinks to its content. These can be inserted in other programs - very useful for working with Zoot. See
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/1860. Unfortunately its name makes it hard to search for efficiently, here or with google.
The network extension is a pretty hefty $45 or so on top of the base price of $45 for WR itself. I was tempted to buy the add-on but was deterred by the price and technical requirements:
- some form of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or 2005 (there is a free version):
- Operating system: Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, or NT 4.0 Server (but small groups and singletons can use XP, apparently).
It looked like a bit of a resource hog,so I haven’t tried it yet. How does it work out, JJ?
Although the indexing function JJ mentions is very useful, as he comments it ought to be on the base product. Also there is the usual vexed question - which still applies AFAIK to Surfulater - that external engines currently cannot index the contents of most software of this type (Firefox’s Scrapbook and NetSnippets are two exceptions). This is essential where data is being held over a range of software plus on the windows filing system itself. Of course there are workarounds; one can export the contents of WR in a form that can be indexed by a desktop search engine. And dtSearch, for example, can actually index and search WR’s html documents because these have clear delimiters that can be picked up by DTS. Not so for other file-types, however.
That all said, I like WR a lot, although I am watching Surfulater closely. I don’t use WR for composing stuff, but it has an html editor. It also has a useful “categories” feature, as JJ pointed out. My main interest is in using it in tandem with Zoot as a repository for material Zoot can’t (yet!) handle. WR’s hyperlinking feature is essential for this.
Derek
Posted by quant
Jul 4, 2007 at 07:03 PM
>#5. You can add categories to any item in WR. Unlike UR, you can assign multiple
>categories to an item.
what do you mean by this?
>
>#6. The only “big thing” UR has that WR doesn’t have is the
>ability to create custom meta forms. This is not a deal breaker for me, but would be
>nice.
I dont know WR, and there is no list of features so here it comes.
Does it have templates?
Does it have metadata?
Does it have items that act as searches?
Does it have reminders?
...
>
>#7. WR seems quicker and more stable than the current version of UR.
>
>#8. The
>latest version of WR adds a nice feature which allows you to add items directly from
>your scanner. (fyi… WR adds scanned documents as a jpg… not pdf)
>
>#9. WR has an add-on
>which allows you to send outlook items to WR.
>
>Overall, I’m very pleased with WR! I
>would say that UR is a little more powerful (in terms of customization) but WR is
>cleaner, faster and easier to use.
>
>I would highly recommend others to download the
>free version…WITH the network add-on to add the ability to index documents.
>
>NOTE-I
>do not work for Macropool :-)
>
>-jj
Reading this biased review, I’m not that sure. You start by saying “Web Research vs. UltraRecall Review” and then list basic features of WR that almost any PIM has.
Posted by quant
Jul 4, 2007 at 07:04 PM
JJ wrote:
>do not work for Macropool :-)
forgot to say, I dont work for Kinook ...