CardDesk Is Dangerous

Started by Daly de Gagne on 2/24/2015
Daly de Gagne 2/24/2015 3:17 am
I just tried CardDesk which I had signed up for earlier today.

The sign-in screen puts my email address for user name, which it is not.

Naturally, I couldn't log in until I put my user name in the user name space.

I set up a desk space, and dragged about seven Evernote docs over to it. About the time I did that I got a repetitive error message and CardDesk would not find any more items in Evernote, which met my search word, and provided the source list from which I had dragged the aforementioned items to the desk space to become cards.

After repeated tried, CardDesk helpfully suggested I log out and log back in.

I did that. And learned that my work, and the desk space itself, had not been saved.

To make it especially helpful, I could not find a help or contact link for CardDesk.

Perhaps we now know why it is still in beta.

Too bad, it is a smart looking program, and it adds a useful way of working with material in Evernote.

At least I could get CardDesk to work - for at least a little while, which is more than I've been able to do with TuskTools. Bad enough that we have to use work-around software because Evernote misses all but the most basic of tools. But it's worse when the work-around software.

Daly
WSP 2/24/2015 4:22 am
Daly, in my experiments with CardDesk I didn't experience the problems you describe, but I do worry about the lack of progress in bringing it out of beta status. The developer at one time was a frequent contributor to the Evernote forum but more recently has been silent there for many months.

If a piece of software is abandoned by the developer, it's often possible to keep it going for quite a few years, whereas a Web app like CardDesk could disappear overnight.

Bill

Daly de Gagne 2/24/2015 2:30 pm
WSP, I'm glad you didn't experience the problems I did. I was - and am - quite prepared to like CardDesk.

FYI, I again experienced the problem, with CardDesk being unable to list all items matching my search. It again showed the error message - message 500 - and the message kept appearing until I logged out.

Logging in this time, I did not lose the desk top I had set up. That was saved. Unfortunately, the items I had dragged on to the desktop were not saved.

Again I looked, in vain, for a help or contact link.

I'd be interested in a program with similar capabilities to CardDesk.

From CardDesk I could open the web version of Evernote. I attempted to work with it, but its's very frustrating. From my perspective it's probably one of the worst designed of web apps, with lots of waste space, especially in the note listings. That waste space translates into wasted time because it takes longer to scroll through the listings. The design whiz kids at Evernote seem to find it neat to use a lot of low contrast type on the web site, and that makes it harder to read. Ironically, I found yesterday a blog post Phil Libin, EN CEO, wrote a year ago January on the process for improving EN quality - he wrote design was to be part of that process. I haven't seen much sign of that.

Also, I checked over at Tusk Tools Treeliner for Everntote. It appears this software is still in beta, with no recent updates on its site. I have apparently deleted the information I was given some months back for reinstalling it, and seeing if I could successfully link to Evernote. Last summer when I originally downloaded Treeline I was never able to get it to link to Evernote. I contacted the developer again last night.

Daly

WSP wrote:
Daly, in my experiments with CardDesk I didn't experience the problems
you describe, but I do worry about the lack of progress in bringing it
out of beta status. The developer at one time was a frequent contributor
to the Evernote forum but more recently has been silent there for many
months.

If a piece of software is abandoned by the developer, it's often
possible to keep it going for quite a few years, whereas a Web app like
CardDesk could disappear overnight.

Bill

Daly de Gagne 2/24/2015 2:38 pm
Just made my morning email check. I got an automated reply from TuskTools, with a link for me to confirm my interest in the product. I clicked, and now I wait for a human response.

Daly

Daly de Gagne wrote:
WSP, I'm glad you didn't experience the problems I did. I was - and am -
quite prepared to like CardDesk.

FYI, I again experienced the problem, with CardDesk being unable to list
all items matching my search. It again showed the error message -
message 500 - and the message kept appearing until I logged out.

Logging in this time, I did not lose the desk top I had set up. That was
saved. Unfortunately, the items I had dragged on to the desktop were not
saved.

Again I looked, in vain, for a help or contact link.

I'd be interested in a program with similar capabilities to CardDesk.

From CardDesk I could open the web version of Evernote. I attempted to
work with it, but its's very frustrating. From my perspective it's
probably one of the worst designed of web apps, with lots of waste
space, especially in the note listings. That waste space translates into
wasted time because it takes longer to scroll through the listings. The
design whiz kids at Evernote seem to find it neat to use a lot of low
contrast type on the web site, and that makes it harder to read.
Ironically, I found yesterday a blog post Phil Libin, EN CEO, wrote a
year ago January on the process for improving EN quality - he wrote
design was to be part of that process. I haven't seen much sign of that.

Also, I checked over at Tusk Tools Treeliner for Everntote. It appears
this software is still in beta, with no recent updates on its site. I
have apparently deleted the information I was given some months back for
reinstalling it, and seeing if I could successfully link to Evernote.
Last summer when I originally downloaded Treeline I was never able to
get it to link to Evernote. I contacted the developer again last night.

Daly

WSP wrote:
Daly, in my experiments with CardDesk I didn't experience the problems
>you describe, but I do worry about the lack of progress in bringing it
>out of beta status. The developer at one time was a frequent
contributor
>to the Evernote forum but more recently has been silent there for many
>months.
>
>If a piece of software is abandoned by the developer, it's often
>possible to keep it going for quite a few years, whereas a Web app like
>CardDesk could disappear overnight.
>
>Bill
>
WSP 2/25/2015 4:49 am
The other possibility is to set up a separate note in Evernote for use as an outline. I create a new note, double-click on its title in the list view, then drag and drop the titles of other notes into it. If you want, you can then arrange those various note titles into a reasonably plausible outline.

A few years ago I wrote a book in MyInfo using a system like this, but it worked slightly better there than in Evernote, because MyInfo allows you to link to individual paragraphs within a note (as does OneNote, incidentally), whereas EN forces you to merely link to a note as a whole. Still, the procedure I've described above, though a little clunky, does allow you to create a hierarchical structure in Evernote, which is what I suppose we all long for.
Ashley 2/25/2015 9:25 am
Hi Daly,

I'm the author of CardDesk and I'm very sorry to here you are having problems.

I haven't heard of anyone experiencing the issues that you've describe before - so I am at a bit of a loss to explain what is happening.

Would you be able to tell me what Browser you are using and what the version number is?

CardDesk has been written for "modern" browsers, so the first thing I would suggest is an upgrade to the latest version of your browser. Chrome has been the most heavily tested.

Hopefully we can get this resolved,

Kind regards.

Ashley

P.S. I've noticed other members expressing concerns that the application may suddenly "disappear". Please be assured that I have every intention of keeping the site running and have every intention of revisiting this project when my current workload subsides.

Anyone else experiencing issues can use the support email address at admin@carddesk.net. It's on the home page of CardDesk at www.carddesk.net. I will usually be able to respond within 24 hours.