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UltraRecall vs Web Research... my findings
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Posted by JJ
Jul 11, 2007 at 06:46 PM
INTRODUCTION
I have used many software products including:
Used Extensively:
OmeaPro, UltraRecall, Web Research, Net Snippets, Onfolio, Commence
Used but not extensively:
OneNote, ADM, MyInfo, Zoot16, MyBase, Surfulator
Currently I’m using both UltraRecall and Web Research. After using the other products, I find these are closest at meeting my needs (listed below) and are still being developed.
REQUIREMENTS
I’m looking for a single product solution to collect, index and recall information.
Information sources include:
Web pages (40%)
Documents (word, excel, powerpoint & pdf) (30%)
Text Notes (Note I type in… “Yellow Sticky Notes” (15%)
Email (From Outlook) (15%)
TEST RESULTS
I have conducted a few informal, yet “real world” tests with both UR & WR.
Saving a document:
Time to Save into product:
1 MB Word doc UR~6 secs WR~3 secs
15MB PowerPoint UR~12 secs WR~45 secs
35 MB AVI file UR~20 secs WR~240 secs
Comments:
It seems WR is slightly faster on saving small docs.
UR is much faster at saving larger doc/files.
WR is unacceptable for larger files.
NOTE-WR suggests not stored files/docs larger than 15MB
Time to save & quality of capture web pages using FireFox:
Orbitz.com (a schedule of flights & times NY-LA) UR~60 secs (Quality – Unacceptable: did not capture tables with flight info) WR~35 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
Drudgereport.com (front page) UR~40 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly) WR~6 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
Taunton.com (front page) UR~32 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly) WR~5 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
GPSlodge.com (product review) UR~40 secs (Quality – Poor: missed several pictures and formatting was off) WR~15 secs (Quality – Good: missed one banner ad)
Hertz.com (front page) UR~40 secs (Quality – Unacceptable: did not capture page. It only captured a JavaScript Warning) WR~8 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
Comments:
UR was consistently much slower at capturing web pages. More importantly, too often, UR did not capture the web page information correctly. WR was much faster & did capture all the pages.
MY IMPRESSIONS/OPINIONS:
Referring back to information sources:
Web Page Captures:
WR is clearly the winner here. Much faster & more reliable. (No surprise here since the product was designed to capture web pages.)
What is surprising is the performance of UR. When I use UR to capture a page, I must always go back into UR to confirm the capture… I just don’t have confidence in the capture with UR. Plus it is sooo slow & I like to capture lots of pages.
On the UI side, WR is much better. It allows you to “save as” before capturing a web page. UR only allows you to save into the “imported items” folder in the active database.
Storing documents:
UR is clearly the winner here. Much faster & can handle large files.
WR is fine if your files are less than 15MB, but many of my excel, pdf and powerpoint files are larger. WR is unacceptable for larger files.
NOTE: You need the Network Add-in in WR to index the docs.
“Sticky Notes”
There a few minor differences…
One thing I like about WR is when you add a new note, you can add a horizontal line in the text. I know this is small, but I like it to separate different thoughts in the same note with a line. BUT… if you edit an existing note, the button to add a line is not available… go figure???
UR is easier to edit an existing note… just click in the note and start typing. With WR you need to select the note & click on the edit button to enter the edit mode.
Emails
UR & WR both do a good job.
One difference is WR will save any attachments that are attached to the email into WR, UR does not.
OTHER FEATURES
Clearly UR has more power & flexibility with their use of meta data. For me this is nice, but I use it only occasionally.
One nice feature of WR is the ability to assign multiple categories to the same item. (Plus the categories are arranged in a tree format) In UR you can only assign 1 category to an item. You can use linking to “assign” multiple categories, but WR has a far cleaner approach.
WR also has a simple scanner interface that allows you to scan docs directly into WR. One limitation is that it only allows you to save the scan as a .jpg file not pdf. Nice feature, but not too important to me.
CONCLUSIONS
I wish there was a clear winner, so I could use just one product. For web clipping WR is better… for saving docs/files UR is better…
In my particular case, since more of my info is coming from the web, I think I will go with WR for now and deal with the limitations of adding smaller files to my database… (at least until UR is updated OR a new product comes along…Zoot 32???)
In a perfect world… I wish UR was better at web captures….
Hope you found this helpful…
-jj
Posted by quant
Jul 11, 2007 at 10:03 PM
much better review :)
Thanks for sharing your experiences ...
Posted by Jan Rifkinson
Jul 12, 2007 at 12:32 AM
I found this ‘review’ apples to apples, etc. so it was helpful to those unfamiliar w both products.
I tried to install WB but was informed on startup that I had used the product for 963 days so I needed to register. To the best of my knowledge (altho certainly faulty @ Xs) I’ve never used the product before. I reported this to support but haven’t heard back from them.
Meantime, I’m wondering if there is not an easy way to link your WB pages to a UR item. User shouldn’t have to go to a lot of trouble to do this. Since SB stores page & provides a local URL, it’s a simple matter to link the two but I don’t know about WB. And by doing so, I’ve got the best of both worlds in one place.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jul 12, 2007 at 12:36 AM
JJ, I really appreciate your work. Thank you.
I have never trusted UR completely for web captures.
I use Surfulater.
If I knew I would always, forever, use Firefox I would use Scrapbook because it seems to be the most accurate handsdown, although it can’t do some of the tricks the others can.
But I wonder if we haven’t been taken for a bit of a con.
Windows allows us to save anything.
Why not just save the web page, and then link to it from a program like Infohandler or Idea or even MyInfo or UR.
It is that we seem to be trying to save a few seconds, or maximize the supposed potential, and so we end up foregoing what is most simple and straight forward.
A lot of my best satisfaction in web clipping, apart from Surfulater which I do like, is having IH topics and linking to the saved web page. An extra step but it always works, and I always get the web page right.
It may be a different matter if all you want is a small clip, but often I want the page or most of it.
Daly
JJ wrote:
>INTRODUCTION
>I have used many software products including:
>
>Used
>Extensively:
>OmeaPro, UltraRecall, Web Research, Net Snippets, Onfolio,
>Commence
>
>Used but not extensively:
>OneNote, ADM, MyInfo, Zoot16, MyBase,
>Surfulator
>
>Currently I’m using both UltraRecall and Web Research. After using the
>other products, I find these are closest at meeting my needs (listed below) and are
>still being developed.
>
>REQUIREMENTS
>I’m looking for a single product solution to
>collect, index and recall information.
>Information sources include:
>Web pages
>(40%)
>Documents (word, excel, powerpoint & pdf) (30%)
>Text Notes (Note I type in…
>“Yellow Sticky Notes” (15%)
>Email (From Outlook) (15%)
>
>TEST RESULTS
>I have
>conducted a few informal, yet “real world” tests with both UR & WR.
>
>Saving a
>document:
>
>Time to Save into product:
>
>1 MB Word doc UR~6 secs WR~3 secs
>15MB
>PowerPoint UR~12 secs WR~45 secs
>35 MB AVI file UR~20 secs WR~240 secs
>
>Comments:
>
>It seems WR is slightly faster on saving small docs.
>UR is much faster at saving
>larger doc/files.
>WR is unacceptable for larger files.
>NOTE-WR suggests not
>stored files/docs larger than 15MB
>
>Time to save & quality of capture web pages using
>FireFox:
>
>Orbitz.com (a schedule of flights & times NY-LA) UR~60 secs (Quality –
>Unacceptable: did not capture tables with flight info) WR~35 secs (Quality –
>Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
>
>Drudgereport.com (front page)
>UR~40 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly) WR~6 secs
>(Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
>
>Taunton.com (front
>page) UR~32 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly) WR~5 secs
>(Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
>
>GPSlodge.com (product
>review) UR~40 secs (Quality – Poor: missed several pictures and formatting was off)
>WR~15 secs (Quality – Good: missed one banner ad)
>
>Hertz.com (front page) UR~40 secs
>(Quality – Unacceptable: did not capture page. It only captured a JavaScript
>Warning) WR~8 secs (Quality – Excellent: captured the entire page correctly)
>
>
>Comments:
>UR was consistently much slower at capturing web pages. More
>importantly, too often, UR did not capture the web page information correctly. WR was
>much faster & did capture all the pages.
>
>
>MY IMPRESSIONS/OPINIONS:
>
>Referring
>back to information sources:
>
>Web Page Captures:
>WR is clearly the winner here.
>Much faster & more reliable. (No surprise here since the product was designed to
>capture web pages.)
>
>What is surprising is the performance of UR. When I use UR to
>capture a page, I must always go back into UR to confirm the capture… I just don’t have
>confidence in the capture with UR. Plus it is sooo slow & I like to capture lots of
>pages.
>
>On the UI side, WR is much better. It allows you to “save as” before capturing a
>web page. UR only allows you to save into the “imported items” folder in the active
>database.
>
>
>Storing documents:
>UR is clearly the winner here. Much faster & can
>handle large files.
>WR is fine if your files are less than 15MB, but many of my excel,
>pdf and powerpoint files are larger. WR is unacceptable for larger files.
>
>NOTE: You
>need the Network Add-in in WR to index the docs.
>
>“Sticky Notes”
>There a few minor
>differences…
>One thing I like about WR is when you add a new note, you can add a
>horizontal line in the text. I know this is small, but I like it to separate different
>thoughts in the same note with a line. BUT… if you edit an existing note, the button to
>add a line is not available… go figure???
>
>UR is easier to edit an existing note… just
>click in the note and start typing. With WR you need to select the note & click on the edit
>button to enter the edit mode.
>
>Emails
>UR & WR both do a good job.
>
>One difference is
>WR will save any attachments that are attached to the email into WR, UR does
>not.
>
>OTHER FEATURES
>Clearly UR has more power & flexibility with their use of meta
>data. For me this is nice, but I use it only occasionally.
>
>One nice feature of WR is the
>ability to assign multiple categories to the same item. (Plus the categories are
>arranged in a tree format) In UR you can only assign 1 category to an item. You can use
>linking to “assign” multiple categories, but WR has a far cleaner approach.
>
>WR also
>has a simple scanner interface that allows you to scan docs directly into WR. One
>limitation is that it only allows you to save the scan as a .jpg file not pdf. Nice
>feature, but not too important to me.
>
>CONCLUSIONS
>I wish there was a clear winner,
>so I could use just one product. For web clipping WR is better… for saving docs/files UR
>is better…
>
>In my particular case, since more of my info is coming from the web, I think
>I will go with WR for now and deal with the limitations of adding smaller files to my
>database… (at least until UR is updated OR a new product comes along…Zoot
>32???)
>
>In a perfect world… I wish UR was better at web captures….
>
>Hope you
>found this helpful…
>
>-jj
>
Posted by Ken Ashworth
Jul 12, 2007 at 04:45 AM
Yes, another example of why I like this message board.
Thank you for your efforts.
A minor quibble:
JJ wrote:
>Emails
>UR & WR both do a good job.
>One difference is WR will save any attachments that are attached
>to the email into WR, UR does not.
Email attachments do carry through as attachments to the email when Storing in UR.
What UR does not do is represent email attachments as child-items in the Tree View, you need to set focus on the email item in the tree to render the email in the detail pane (broswer), then you can see that the email has attachments. Also saw in the help file that it indexes attachments (of a certian type).
Working from Outlook, I use the UR Outlook menu bar botton to Copy/Store selected email(s) into UR, then delete the original email in Outlook. I use UR as the permenent repository for certian types of communication (customer/client), and take the time to build email threads when sending to UR.
When sending something to UR (Copy/Store or Link) one of two methods are used to determine the location of the sent item. The default location is the Imported Items folder, if this is de-selected under Options|Import, then the user must pre-select the location of sent items.
If you send to the Imported Items folder (default), you can then sort via the Alt-L Copy/Move/Link popup (works with multiple selections). It would be nice if this “shooter window” were available as part of the send function.
If you send via a right-click drag-drop, then Copy/Store, Move, or Link becomes available.
Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Windows allows us to save anything.
>Why not just save the web page, and then link to it
>from a program like Infohandler or Idea or even MyInfo or UR.
>
>It is that we seem to be trying to save a few seconds,
>or maximize the supposed potential, and so we end up foregoing
>what is most simple and straight forward.
Yes, saving as .mht (web archive) does a darn good job.
This also overcomes the short comings of controling where sent stuff resides in UR: by utilizing the File Managment functions of Windows, you can “pre-build” your storage folder structure (for a web capture/download session), then Store/Move or Link the material (*.mht, *.*) to UR - or your program of choice.