It's definitely been fun discovering this group and reading the discussions about all the sophisticated information managers that are available these days: UltraRecall, Zoot, MyInfo, SQL Notes, etc, etc, etc. Being afflicted with a moderate to severe case of CRIMP, I've purchased licenses for many of the programs discussed here, and spent what's probably way too much time trialling programs, trying to achieve the perfect system.

It's ironic, then, that the one glaring gap I find in my tool kit is not related to sophisticated information management needs, but the much more basic world of day-to-day life and work management; the sort of thing that the term "PIM" has meant to most people since the days of Sidekick.

What I'm searching for is one basic program to manage my routine, everyday life, that includes -- and here's what's making the search difficult-- an email client. In other words, a program to do what Outlook claims it does. Since so much of my work is directly tied in to email, it makes no sense to separate the functions.

I'm looking for a program that has the following functions:

1. A robust email client with the usual organizing and filtering functions, and (this is vital) a good search utility.

2. A flexible to-do manager with the ability categorize and filter. It should be tightly integrated to the email client, making it easy to create tasks from emails. I don't need a full-blown project manager, but I would like the ability to arrange tasks in a hierarchy and to create custom views.

3. A decent notes function, a la Essential PIM. The yellow-sticky metaphor is not acceptable.

4. Your usual calendar and contact list functions.

I had some hopes for Barca, from the Pocomail folks, but while the email component is fine, the PIM side is pretty weak. The task manager in particular, is pathetic, with minimal filtering and organizing ability, and no way to edit the predefined categories. Notes are sticky-style; fine for trivial reminders in my view, but nothing more.

I gave Time & Chaos !ntellect (that's not a typo) a brief try, but it did not impress me for reasons I no longer remember. WordPerfect Mail is lacking any sort of task manager.

I downloaded a trial copy of Do-Organizer but besides the fact that the interface looks like an explosion in a LEGO factory, I've heard a lot of worrisome talk about the state of the company.

So right now, I'm using ECCO for long-term planning and keeping track of the big picture, Essential PIM for routine calendar and daily to-dos, and Barca for email and little else. I'd love to be able to cut the three down to two; to one would be ideal.

Some times I'm even tempted to give Outlook a shot, despite all its well-known baggage: on paper, it does almost everything I need. (The sticky note business is close to a deal killer, though.)

Is there a great email + PIM program out there that I've missed? Do you Mac people have something along this line? Would definitely appreciate hearing what others think.

Bob,

The only option I can think of is InfoSelect. It has all the components you are looking for, but I am not recommending it, as I found it kind of a mess... some of the features are well implemented and others not so. You might want to take a look at it... I believe they now offer a trial version.

www.miclog.com

If you're willing to live with separate e-mail client an PIM, the PIM part isn't too hard to find. Some good ones are

Priorganizer (www.priorganizer.com)
Debrief Notes (www.debriefnotes.com)

Of course, if you're already using ECCO, you are probably using the best program available.

It will be interesting to see what other suggestions others on this site come up with!

Steve Z.

Yes, there's nothing like ECCO, is there?

Sometimes I dream of an alternate universe where Arabesque hung on to ECCO and continued to develop it. I'm sure today it would suit all my needs and then some. As it is, the main hangup is the email integration. I've tinkered with the Shooter trying to come up with an easy way to transfer information back and forth from email, but ECCO and Barca don't seem to play well together.

I've heard of InfoSelect, of course, and I'm interested to learn they may finally be offering a trial version. Their rent-for-a-year option, or whatever it was, turned me off last time I looked it over.

I'll check out the other two that you mentioned; even if they're not for me, it's always fun to find out.

Thanks!

What's wrong with Outlook + Zoot? In addition to its Notes, Outlook also has its Journal entries, which provide longer Zoot-like items.

Derek

Bob,

I most definitely suggest that you give Outlook a try, and this comes from someone who only uses Outlook as a calendar (The Bat! is my e-mail client of choice since development of my beloved Calypso/Courier stopped, leaving them unable to handle Unicode). The main reason is its virtually unlimited expandability.

The thing is, that no matter what features Outlook lacks they can be complemented by the multitude of add-ons on the market. This goes for most of Microsoft's applications, i.e. their object-oriented nature makes them excellent platforms for third parties' programs and for interconnection. It's amazing what one can put on top or aside of a program like Outlook. Take UltraRecall's excellent two-way integration.

There are many competent task managers that work with Outlook, such as Franklin-Covey's Planner (that admittedly doesn't come cheap) which should do what you want. Others have been mentioned in this forum in the past. I'm sure there are similar add-ons for notes.

Cheers
alx

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Bob,

I most definitely suggest that you give Outlook a try, and this comes from
someone who only uses Outlook as a calendar (The Bat! is my e-mail client of choice
since development of my beloved Calypso/Courier stopped, leaving them unable to
handle Unicode). The main reason is its virtually unlimited expandability.

Thanks Alex. I have to admit I'm biased against Outlook after so many years of hearing how bloated and vulnerable it is. I actually did use Outlook 97 for a few months, way back when, then switched back to Eudora. I recently purchased a copy of Outlook 2003 for a few buck on eBay, and have toyed with a little.

There are many competent task managers that work with Outlook, such
as Franklin-Covey's Planner (that admittedly doesn't come cheap) which should do
what you want. Others have been mentioned in this forum in the past. I'm sure there are
similar add-ons for notes.

The idea of looking for add-ons to expand Outlook's usefulness sounds promising. The Franklin-Covey Planner looks very useful at first glimpse, and the price is not all that bad, considering how much use one gets out of this type of program.

However, the Amazon consumer reviews on the F-C Planner for Outlook are about as negative as I've ever seen- one horror story after another about bugs, crashes, and lousy tech support. they do offer a trial, and I'd be willing to give it a fair shot, but it's been about 6 hours since I e-mailed in my request, and they still have not replied with the download link as promised.

Hmmmm....

Thanks again!

I agree with the suggestion to use Outlook as a basis. Big and bloated though it is, Outlook successfully conceals a lot of function in the bloat. I also agree it's biggest lack is a task outliner. (Did I read here that only two or three per cent of users actually use its task function, according to MS itself? Perhaps that's because it remains so poor.) I've never used F-C, having noted the weak testimonials, but MyLife Organized (for a working-day filled with lots of short tasks), and Achieve Planner (for longer tasks) both integrate integrate with Outlook 2003 (don't know about 2007) reasonably harmoniously.

And for notes, you could always use PocketThinker Desktop (which again uses Outlook as a hub, but allows outlining of notes): http://www.pocketthinker.com/products.html

Or of course, with much more function but also more expense, MS OneNote.

Thanks, Hugh- good information!

My beef with Outlook is that it forces you to classify data into a set of predefined schema (is it a note? is it a contact? is it an appointment?) and though recent versions make it easier to link data, there's no way to add fields to predefined schema, even with add-ons. Ecco's data model has always been substantially better.

One thing you might consider is using the unified data store in OS X Leopard. You can create notepads, insert todos in those notepads, attach todos or notes directly to emails (physically attaching them to emails, not just linking... a little bit from a torn-off legal pad gets added just above the email), etc. But what's far cooler is that the underlying data store is shared between applications. So for instance, a todo I attach to an email in Mail shows up automatically in iCal (a different application) *and* my billable hours application (TimeLog 4) without having to "sync." Even better, the underlying schema are extensible, so for instance you can use a personal database application like Bento to add fields to todos, appointments, or contacts. All this is shared across applications and can be stored on any CalDAV-compliant server. In many ways it's like a systemwide implementation of Ecco.

-- Chris

That's the best reason I've heard for switching to Macs. How far does this cross-application integration extend? It's always annoyed me that I seem to have a half-dozen address books, 15 spell check dictionaries, and so on, one for every separate application.

By the way, the Pocket Thinker web site says that the company will be ceasing operation next month. That's discouraging, but I think for 15 bucks, I'll buy a copy anyway. (I apparently tried it out some time in the past in a forgotten CRIMPing moment, so it won't let me install the trial version.)

The unified PIM data store is a new Leopard feature, so it's not supported directly yet by all applications, but because OS X has had a unified synchronization architecture for a very long time, any older app that supports iSync still gets data into/out of the unified store (there's just an extra sync step). For instance, the very Ecco-inspired OmniFocus still retains Tiger compatibility, so it uses the older synchronization architecture. Also, every data store item has a unique URL (e.g. "mailitem://") so you can embed links to items in apps that just can store URLs.

As for your other annoyances, OS X has had a unified address book and dictionaries for a very long time. Add an image to a contact in the address book and it automatically appears in both Mail and whatever chat program you use. Add a word to your dictionary for a language in one app and it gets automatically recognized by all other apps. Leopard adds a shared grammar checker as well. Any app that uses text services gets the grammar checker automatically; you don't have to wait for developers to push out new versions of their apps.

-- Chris

Bob Mackreth wrote:

That's the best reason I've heard for switching to Macs. How far does this
cross-application integration extend? It's always annoyed me that I seem to have a
half-dozen address books, 15 spell check dictionaries, and so on, one for every
separate application.

That's VERY interesting, Chris.

Just took a look at OmniFocus and find that intriguing, too.

Plus, there's Scrivener, and DevonThink, and Tinderbox...

I wonder if I could convince the Minister of Finance we need a couple of Macs in the house.

Just FYI, most of the U.S. gov't uses PCs, but NASA uses MACs.

-c

Chris Thompson wrote:

One thing you might consider is using the unified data store in OS X Leopard.

Chris,

The OS X "unified PIM data store" sounds like the stuff that dreams are made of; I can't argue with that. In fact, sometime ago I had posted some ideas on interconnectivity of applications in the now defunct outliners.com and, as far as I remember, the examples I had given were very similar to the ones provided by Chris for OS X Leopard. As one can imagine, the needs I had in mind were obviously similar to many other people's needs.

So does this mean that I am a potential candidate for switching over to the Mac? Not really, for a multitude of reasons such as my need for replicating my working environment over several machines, which multiplies the required investment.

But I do think that the aforementioned functionality is the way to go, and I do believe that Windows will be getting similar capabilities in the future, as will Linux. (In fact, if I am tempted to gradually switch over to another operating system that would be Linux, even if it would mean significant investment in time). As far as I have seen, the operating systems significantly and continuously influence each other in terms of features.

alx

I'm a little skeptical that such an architecture will be added to Windows 7 in 2010, just because Microsoft has too much incentive to defend the Outlook/Exchange part of their business. (I certainly don't blame them either, it's a very lucrative franchise.) The reason why Outlook has never extended its data schema since it first came out is partly because that would require server support. Behind the scenes, versions of Exchange post-2001 are remarkably powerful, but none of that is exposed to the user.

Even for basic things, Microsoft has not shown an interest in a abstract, shared stores. For instance, when you mark something as a todo in OneNote, it has to go through a synchronization step to get to Outlook. It works, but synchronization is never elegant. They control both pieces of the pie, so why not go the extra mile? If they won't do it there, arguing they'll implement more fundamental changes that would benefit multiple applications sometime in the next five years seems unlikely to me.

In the OS X context, what I find really exciting is the potential for outliners to support the shared store. Mail already supports inserting todos in textual/graphical notes using a legal pad metaphor, but when OmniOutliner or NoteBook or another outliner supports marking a row as a todo, or marking a boolean column as identifying todos, we'll have the equivalent of Ecco operating at an OS level.

(Circus Ponies NoteBook already does this through iSync, like OneNote, but eliminating synchronization with a shared store improves both speed and reliability. Documents are *views* on your underlying PIM database, not copies.)

Even now, it's great to be able to see time logged in by billable hours application superimposed on my weekly calendar (if I so choose), with no synchronization and changes in either app reflected immediately in the other. Todos of course are the same way.

-- Chris


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

But I do think that the aforementioned
functionality is the way to go, and I do believe that Windows will be getting similar
capabilities in the future, as will Linux. (In fact, if I am tempted to gradually
switch over to another operating system that would be Linux, even if it would mean
significant investment in time). As far as I have seen, the operating systems
significantly and continuously influence each other in terms of features.

alx