CollectedThought is a desktop, Windows based PIM, information management software. Allows to organize one's desktop, such as bookmarks, files & documents, web clippings and note snippits of information, all on an infinitely zoomable CAD based desktop interface... desktops can be hyperlinked to one another. Can be used to create a sort of presentation of information with links from page to page using the above - bookmarks, clippings, snippits of written information, photos, and documents and files which can be embedded I believe, or linked to on the desktop from within the application. using a 'CAD' - 'Computer Aided Design' foundation / metaphor, on which the program is built from and based on in principle, with regard to the interface.

I don't want to go into details describing it any more as it has been some time since I have tried it, the trial, that is. I just want to include it here for others to look at and possibly talk and elaborate a bit more with their reviews, views and opinion.

http://collectedthought.com/

It is built by Evolution Computing, the makers of CAD software. The have been developing CAD software for some 20 or more so years.



Please Note, I am not in any way endorsing or afiliated with them, these are my own views... Jariell A. Perlman

Looks interesting, but at $195 per copy, I don't know that the Windows market will take kindly to that type of pricing. The Mac world seems to be a bit different, as Tinderbox 6 costs $249 and has a notable following. But I would place Tinderbox in a league of it's own. Perhaps it can leverage it's integration with AutoCAD as a price-worthy feature.....

The download page has a Mac version too:

https://fastcad.com/fastnote/ctdownload.html

I just installed it.

Lucas wrote:

The download page has a Mac version too:

https://fastcad.com/fastnote/ctdownload.html
I just installed it.
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@Lucas: Could you post your experiences of the software, in this thread please? I would be very interested to read of them, and I suspect other readers on this forum would as well..
I was about to download CT (Collected Thought) as it looked very good, but then, looking through the features listed, I saw that it apparently seems to do no more (and quite a lot less) than MS OneNote - which I already have, having purchased it together with MS Office for US$10.00 all up.
Still, I always saw MS OneNote as a staging-post on a longer journey to PIM Nirvana, so CT might still be of some use.

Slartibartfarst wrote:

it apparently
seems to do no more (and quite a lot less) than MS OneNote

I was also reminded of OneNote, with SmartDraw thrown in. As well as of another CT... It looks like a visual version of a desktop wiki, except you drop things into containers, rather than linked wiki pages (ConnectedText even has such a calendar feature--as featured in the video--where the dates are linked to a page you can use as a container). TheBrain also comes to mind.

The big question is how an app like this one scales up (i.e. how easy it is to use once you have hundreds or thousands of containers etc.). Another one is how to find what you're looking for easily and quickly and how to discover connections between data serendipitously. And how to export your data if you decide to switch to something else down the line...

Also, as it seems to be a composite of various tools (whiteboard, screen capture, flow chart mapping etc.), will there be a benefit to using these internal tools, rather than external specialist tools that probably have more features and are updated more frequently? E.g. there was Mindsystems Amode V2 once, which also combined a calendar, a Gantt chart, and a concept mapper, among other things, but the concept mapper never really matched other free but specialist apps like VUE.

Anyway, it's certainly does look like an interesting piece of software. It would be good to pinpoint though what exactly justifies that price tag.

Recommended for "writers, detectives, real estate agents..."

That's an interesting market.

The container feature reminds me of Tinderbox and Vue -- and the graphical bits, Curio.

My guess is that this is software that may not be market-ready, or if it is, the marketing plan may not be ready.

In software the medium becomes the message. That means the website has to reflect the quality of the product and the product itself.

What we have is another one of these website which looks designed to be a one size fits all for everything from desktops to mobile. And on a desktop or laptop computer it is not inviting.

The product descriptions leave me scratching my head, as does the price. And I'm not clear whether there is a trial period or not. Anyone wanting to introduct their product needs to make that kind of info so clear that a guy like me who may miss the fine print isn't left scratching this head.

So I wonder if this is an over-hyped piece of software claiming to be all things to all users, much as InfoSelect was/is, though it seems things are pretty quiet at MicroLogic these days.

Daly

Daly de Gagne wrote:

My guess is that this is software that may not be market-ready, or if it is, the marketing plan may not be ready.

Slartibartfarst: You could well be right. This might be a software product that is (say) still arguably in Beta. That's rather what it looks like to ma, at any rate. Maybe it is market-ready (the market being probably partially represented - at least - by interested people like us in this forum), but it is just the pricing that is wrong for cautious and critical potential buyers/CRIMPers. I'd like to trial it, but I wouldn't like to put the effort and cognitive surplus into trialling it as the hefty purchase price just doesn't warrant it with me. I find it off-putting. I also find it off-putting where the stated features and the demos show a product that seems to mimic or parallel aspects of OneNote, but appear to fall short and seem to have been implemented in a kludgy or proprietary manner - even down to the Calendar thing.
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Daly de Gagne wrote:

In software the medium becomes the message. That means the website has to reflect the quality of the product and the product itself.

What we have is another one of these website which looks designed to be a one size fits all for everything from desktops to mobile. And on a desktop or laptop computer it is not inviting.
Slartibartfarst: I don't know what to say about that. It looks like a POV. Those statements/generalisations might not be supportable. I suppose it could simply be a rip-off.
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Daly de Gagne wrote:

The product descriptions leave me scratching my head, as does the price.

And I'm not clear whether there is a trial period or not. Anyone wanting to introduct their product needs to make that kind of info so clear that a guy like me who may miss the fine print isn't left scratching this head.
So I wonder if this is an over-hyped piece of software claiming to be all things to all users, much as InfoSelect was/is, though it seems things are pretty quiet at MicroLogic these days.

Slartibartfarst: Yes, well, for what it's worth, I have to say that I find it all somewhat confuzzling too, though as a long-time user of InfoSelect (one who started with IS5 and stuck with IS8 after trialling IS9 and an IS10 Beta), I would be inclined to say that IS seemed to go off-target until sometime after IS8. IS9 wasn't too bad, but IS10 though...well, I guess I just don't understand what was going on there.

Correction to above:
"...I would be inclined to say that IS seemed to go off-target until sometime after IS8."
This should read:
"...I would be inclined to say that IS only seemed to go off-target sometime after IS8."

i used IS6, I think it was, for a while. It seem to me it was off-target then, at least in the sense that some of its features didn't work that well.

For example, the email. It was the clunkiest thing I ever saw.

Or messing around with grids in the selector - good idea, but...

Or the fact that web capture was second rate at best.

Or if you had a site in the Selector, and went to that site, and then clicked on other links, the original url was lost from the selector.

Daly

Slartibartfarst wrote:

Correction to above:
"...I would be inclined to say that IS seemed to go off-target until
sometime after IS8."
This should read:
"...I would be inclined to say that IS only seemed to go off-target
sometime after IS8."