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Noah
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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Jan 17, 2008 at 02:21 PM
Alex, you say Noah reminds you of Omea Pro.
I just glanced very quickly at the site, haven’t yet looked at the video, and a funny thought crossed my mind..
Something about the approach resonates with what I have more recently seen on the Chandler site, and in the current version of Chandler.
So the cynic in me says, “I wonder if this is what Mitch Kapor has really been doing while his development team anguished over how many angels could dance on the head of a virtual pin?”
I do not like the reference to it being the first program that does all the things it says it does, because that is a bit of a stretch.
I have tried to use Gmail exclusively for my email during the last two years—even the work I do for the agency that hires me I use Gmail for, rather than the internal system—and amazingly, no one has called me on it yet.
But it would be nice to have my Gmail incorporated with other stuff on my computer, or somewhere. Now that I use USB sticks more, it helps. But there is a fragmentation that concerns me.
If I had the Gmail downloaded—the Gmail that I want, that is—when Mozy does its hourly off-site backup of my system, that mail would be backed up a also, as well as linked to specific files.
Daly
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 17, 2008 at 03:25 PM
This looks like an interesting piece of software, but it hardly replaces a good information manager. First of all, it doesn’t appear to have any serious note taking capability. Second, you have to capture full web pages and not just pieces of text from those pages. Third, you can only associate your information with “contacts,” and not with specific topics. I gather that “contacts” don’t necessarily have to be people… they can be things as well. Nevertheless, it seems less than intuitive. Fourth, the timeline view is handy, but it would be nice to be able to view data in other aspects.
Noah looks like it could be a very useful e-mail manager, but its limitations make it an inadequate replacement for OneNote, Zoot or any of the other powerful information managers we discuss.
In some ways it reminds me of a now defunct program called Correlate (http://www.correate.com) in which you drag in documents and e-mail and other information from diverse sources to build a knowledge map. But with Correlate, you built your knowledge map as a hierarchy of topics, rather than on a timeline basis.
Anyway, while it isn’t as visually appealing, you should be able to achieve the same timeline perspective using EverNote… but EverNote is a far more powerful information manager… but one without the e-mail capabilities of Noah.
It does make one wonder how a company can build a product that it gives away… there must be an income stream from somewhere. Maybe they rely on “volume.” ; )
Steve Z.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 18, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Third, you can only associate your information with “contacts,” and not
>with specific topics. I gather that “contacts” don’t necessarily have to be
>people… they can be things as well. Nevertheless, it seems less than intuitive.
The theme hierarchy in Noah includes “stations” (such as home or work), “channels” (i.e. groups, such as friends) and “topics” (they use contacts as an example, but it could be the name of a project or whatever). Stations can have several channels, and the same channels may belong to several stations; e.g. you can have personal finances accessible as a topic without switching stations.
That’s it (unless I’ve missed something); so at best one can have three thematic hierarchical levels which is not much. Indeed I recall none of the information managers we have here to be so limiting. One might be able to bypass the limitation in some cases by creating folders and subfolders but this only seems possible at the mail Inbox etc.
>Fourth, the timeline view is handy, but it would be nice to be able to view data in other
>aspects.
The timeline view is so ‘common sense’ that I wonder why nobody has thought of it before. The fact that it is zoomable (Evernote is not, as far as I know) provides a “from bird’s eye view to detail” outlook to information in the time dimension which for me is like a dream come true. Being able to drag and drop “stuff” in it and create events is great.
I think that Noah can indeed be useful in conjunction with an info manager such as UltraRecall or Evernote that can create permament external shortcuts to their internal data, i.e. as a “time map” of existing information. It could be very useful for documenting project implementation (that’s what Correlate was marketed for by the way).
alx
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 18, 2008 at 12:25 PM
Daly de Gagne wrote:
>Something
>about the approach resonates with what I have more recently seen on the Chandler site,
>and in the current version of Chandler.
The company information is very limited (Gen-9, Inc., a Delaware Corporation, is privately held) to the extent that I wonder whether it implies something—which for me here in Europe is far from obvious. I.e. if it said “a Redmond Corporation”, I would have guessed who’s behind it. Do you know any famous software developer with their office in Mountain View, California?
alx
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jan 18, 2008 at 02:11 PM
Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>The company information is very limited (Gen-9, Inc., a Delaware Corporation, is
>privately held) to the extent that I wonder whether it implies something—which for
>me here in Europe is far from obvious. I.e. if it said “a Redmond Corporation”, I would
>have guessed who’s behind it. Do you know any famous software developer with their
>office in Mountain View, California?
>
>alx
>
I don’t know how common knowledge this is outside the USA, so just in case you and others are not aware of this: It is common for US companies to incorporate in Delaware even though they do not reside in that state. It’s something to do with the laws of incorporation, I suppose. Anyway, that fact isn’t really relevant to the discuss, but I thought it would be of interest.
Steve Z.