I have just come into about 3000 pages of journal articles that I need to quickly get set up in the best ways possible.

Some are PDF. Most are in word processing files.

I have to make some serious choices.

I can see GKB, Ask Sam, or Idea being possible solutions. Splitting articles up in Zoot is a pain.

Plus I am having difficulty getting all my databases to open as part of one project in Zoot, and until I can figure out how to clean up that mess I want to lay off Zoot for a while.

I also figure I could use Ultra Recall, which is set up on a USB stick.

Or I could put it all in Surfulater.

I like the idea of Idea, being able to group articles into projects.

Frankly, I am feeling overwhelmed. And I don't have time with so much stuff to get into the system to spend figuring out what kind of database to use.

Re UR, I like being able to make notes on a document. But I am never quite sure how to differentiate between bringing a Word doc into UR, or simply linking to it.

Hope this all makes some sense.

And to make matters even more challenging, the mentor who has given me the 3,000 pages, says there's about another 5,000.

Please help -- suggestions, or criteria to use so I can make a good decision. I thought I knew this stuff. But now I am aware of how little I know.

I kind of like AskSam and its entry forms, but I have heard so many horrow stories about AskSam's Jim Lewis approach to customer relations that I am afraid. As well, the AskSam group is down to aboout 40 members, not a good sign.

Thanks to any and all for your help.

BTW, time is of the essence, because I need to start doing some writing based on parts of this material within the next week or so.

Daly

Daly,

I would use UR.

Reasons:
- You can define the attributes and enter the metadata to each article on a form.
- I suggest to run a test and import all Word files. Then these files are indexed and accessible through the UR search
- UR is very stable even with huge databases. My main database has 2000 items and is 15 MB. No crashes, no access violations on two completely different computers
- USB option: Very nice, you can carry your databasse and UR on a USB stick with you and work on *any* computer
- Logical linking: you can link together similar articles or articles which belongs together
- Adding texts to each item, whether in the editor or on the notes panes. Further, you can export the texts and notes to word
- Tight integration with Word. If the editor is not sufficient you can do the editing in Word (to add tables, for example) and load the text back to UR


I don't know Surfulater, askSam or GKB well enough to say these are better or worse tools for your project.
I just recommend UR because I am usin it every day and because I don't have any issues with it (keep wood touched).

Dominik

The optimal solution depends on the collection's purpose. But since you are under pressure, if I were you, in choosing a database I would emphasize : 1) my familiarity with the software and 2) its freedom from reliability problems and other issues.

Hi Daly,

I would second UltraRecall for reliability and ease of use. As far as I know, you should be able to do in UR anything you might have done with the other programs, though I am not very familiar with AskSam or GKB.

For your needs I would rule out Surfulater, which is very capable with HTML content but, as far as I know, can't search within attachments. Similarly, IDEA! uses Windows Search to the search inside attached files; in addition, the program hasn't been updated for a couple of years.

I am never quite sure how to differentiate between bringing a Word
doc into UR, or simply linking to it.

You should import the documents into UR if you want them indexed for quick searches, which I definitely suggest considering the sheer size of material. This will happen automatically upon importing as long as .doc and .pdf are included in Options / Import / Keywording (they are by default). You can keep the original files in place if you want as well, as the links will be maintained.

Both the Word and PDF files can be opened in the UR window itself if you so wish; see Options / Documents. Note however that anotating PDFs is not as easy as editing Word documents. Special PDF editing software is required. However, you can keep notes for each file in its Item Notes pane.

You'll be able to organise files within folders in UR's tree; cloning is supported so the same document can exist in several folders.

And to make matters even more challenging, the mentor who has given me the 3,000 pages, says
there's about another 5,000.

UR uses a compressed SQL database so you will see little differences in speed regardless of size (mine is about 50 Mb) after they have been imported.

alx

Dominik, thanks.

Point of clarification: An imported Word file, as I understand it, lives in the UR database as opposed to being linked to it, though it may *also* be linked to the actual Word file.

If I make a change to the imported Word file, is my understanding correct that the change is not made to the linked copy.

I am already running UR successfull on a stick, and have more than 1.5 gig free on the stick, which also has on it Open Office, Skype, and a few other programs.

What happens when you want UR on more than one stick? Do you pay for another copy? Or can you install UR on as many sticks as you want?

Thanks again for your help.

It looks like once you made the shift to UR from ADM you never turned back. Any regrets -- if ADM was again to be developed, but in a way with integrity, would you consider going back?

Daly

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Daly,

I would use UR.

Reasons:
- You can define the attributes and enter the
metadata to each article on a form.
- I suggest to run a test and import all Word files.
Then these files are indexed and accessible through the UR search
- UR is very stable
even with huge databases. My main database has 2000 items and is 15 MB. No crashes, no
access violations on two completely different computers
- USB option: Very nice,
you can carry your databasse and UR on a USB stick with you and work on *any* computer
-
Logical linking: you can link together similar articles or articles which belongs
together
- Adding texts to each item, whether in the editor or on the notes panes.
Further, you can export the texts and notes to word
- Tight integration with Word. If
the editor is not sufficient you can do the editing in Word (to add tables, for example)
and load the text back to UR


I don't know Surfulater, askSam or GKB well enough to say
these are better or worse tools for your project.
I just recommend UR because I am usin
it every day and because I don't have any issues with it (keep wood
touched).

Dominik

Stephen, two good points. Thanks.

That pretty well narrows it down to UR.

Portability on a stick is also important. So again it looks like UR.

Do you have any other thoughts?

Daly

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

The optimal solution depends on the collection's purpose. But since you are under
pressure, if I were you, in choosing a database I would emphasize : 1) my familiarity
with the software and 2) its freedom from reliability problems and other issues.

Alex, you make a good case also for UR.

I have never found UR helpful with imported PDFs, and would keep them separate in the UR file, but linked.

Will UR search a linked PDF doc?

Surfulater if good with clones, but if there's a limitation to searches it could be a problem (are you following this Neville, if so, what think you?).

Anyone have a sense on the practical upper limit size of a UR data base? 10,000 docs reasonable?

I'm, surprised there's no one out there who has experience with AskSam, except that I know AskSam was seemingly going the way of programs affiliated with the Sommer/Lewis brand of support and customer relations. Would you believe that AskSam has had a user concern with fixed right hand marging, ie. fixed doc width for several versions, and in spite of dozens of user complaints about, it is still being talked about in the forum for the beta version?

Thanks

Daly



Thanks.

Daly


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Hi Daly,

I would second UltraRecall for reliability and ease of use. As far as I know,
you should be able to do in UR anything you might have done with the other programs,
though I am not very familiar with AskSam or GKB.

For your needs I would rule out
Surfulater, which is very capable with HTML content but, as far as I know, can't search
within attachments. Similarly, IDEA! uses Windows Search to the search inside
attached files; in addition, the program hasn't been updated for a couple of
years.

>I am never quite sure how to differentiate between bringing a Word
>doc
into UR, or simply linking to it.

You should import the documents into UR if you want
them indexed for quick searches, which I definitely suggest considering the sheer
size of material. This will happen automatically upon importing as long as .doc and
.pdf are included in Options / Import / Keywording (they are by default). You can keep
the original files in place if you want as well, as the links will be maintained.

Both
the Word and PDF files can be opened in the UR window itself if you so wish; see Options /
Documents. Note however that anotating PDFs is not as easy as editing Word documents.
Special PDF editing software is required. However, you can keep notes for each file in
its Item Notes pane.

You'll be able to organise files within folders in UR's tree;
cloning is supported so the same document can exist in several folders.

>And to make
matters even more challenging, the mentor who has given me the 3,000 pages, says

>there's about another 5,000.

UR uses a compressed SQL database so you will see
little differences in speed regardless of size (mine is about 50 Mb) after they have
been imported.

alx

I ask about General Knowledge Base b/c it seems to me that some serious attempts to develop it well have been made. Also, some quasi official organizations, according to their own scuttlebutt, plus word on the web, seem to have adopted it.

I had ruled Zoot out in my first post. I wonder if that was a mistake?

Daly

Daly,

Here are my quick answers:

Word files:
Importing a Word file means that you have always the most current version within UR and on your drive and that its content is indexed by UR.
Using just link to a Word file somewhere means that you are using the file without indexing.

UR on USB sticks:
I don't know whether running UR on two different sticks is allowed or not. I think that's not necessary. Just put UR onto one stick and fill the other stick with UR files. You can access these other UR files like you can access UR files in differnt folders on your PC. But be careful with this setup: When you plug the sticks into another PC or laptop the sticks can get different names than on your computer. Then all links will not work properly. What about using an external hard drive: Much more space and not much bigger than two USB sticks? I will buy one as soon as I can can and move all my stuff from two 2GB sticks onto one 80GB (or even bigger) external hard drive.

UR and ADM
If ADM would be developed further on a more professional level like UR then I will not hesitate and migrate back to ADM even I am very satisfied with UR (but it took me around two years to get really familiar with UR on a productive level...). But before doing this I need to be 100% sure that ADM is stable and further development secured with regular bug fixes and updates. And last but not least: The Skype integration has to be removed.

Dominik

Dominik, why would the Skype integration have to be removed?

That was Eric's flavour of the month for a about a year. He figured every Skype user was a potential ADM user.


(My conspiracy theory of the moment is not necessarily that Arne and Eric took ADM belly-up, but that they might have sold the rest of us out by taking some kind of a mega contract with the Chinese government. I have no evidence of that. Or perhaps Eric got arrested, and is in a Chinese prison making lead impregnated Barbie dolls.)

I haven't got around to signing up for Skype, but I notice it comes preinstalled on some of my sticks.

My assumption is that it makes more sense to deal with Skype directly rather than part of another piece of software.

Daly

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Daly,

Here are my quick answers:

Word files:
Importing a Word file means that you
have always the most current version within UR and on your drive and that its content is
indexed by UR.
Using just link to a Word file somewhere means that you are using the
file without indexing.

UR on USB sticks:
I don't know whether running UR on two
different sticks is allowed or not. I think that's not necessary. Just put UR onto one
stick and fill the other stick with UR files. You can access these other UR files like
you can access UR files in differnt folders on your PC. But be careful with this setup:
When you plug the sticks into another PC or laptop the sticks can get different names
than on your computer. Then all links will not work properly. What about using an
external hard drive: Much more space and not much bigger than two USB sticks? I will buy
one as soon as I can can and move all my stuff from two 2GB sticks onto one 80GB (or even
bigger) external hard drive.

UR and ADM
If ADM would be developed further on a more
professional level like UR then I will not hesitate and migrate back to ADM even I am
very satisfied with UR (but it took me around two years to get really familiar with UR on
a productive level...). But before doing this I need to be 100% sure that ADM is stable
and further development secured with regular bug fixes and updates. And last but not
least: The Skype integration has to be removed.

Dominik

Daly de Gagne wrote:

I'm, surprised there's no one out there who has experience with
AskSam, except that I know AskSam was seemingly going the way of programs affiliated
with the Sommer/Lewis brand of support and customer relations. Would you believe
that AskSam has had a user concern with fixed right hand marging, ie. fixed doc width
for several versions, and in spite of dozens of user complaints about, it is still
being talked about in the forum for the beta
version?

Daly,

I have some experience with AskSam. I've owned a license from version 3.0 through the current version. I love the concept of AskSam: Free form data -- just dump it in and find it later. But, of course, to get the most from AskSam you have to set up entry forms -- and that isn't free form any longer. I've found these entry forms to be very touchy -- that is, they don't always behave the way I expect. Frankly, a regular database such as Alpha Five is easier to work with once you add this requirement to build entry forms.

Still, you do not really NEED entry forms in AskSam. You can dump a bunch of stuff in it and find it fast. But you can't run reports on this stuff. (And that's another problem I've had with AS -- the report layout builder never seemed to behave quite right, either.)

Even so, I'd probably use AskSam if the editor was more like a word processor. It looks like a word processor, but it is the least user friendly editor I've seen. There is no extended selection at all. So, composing material in AskSam is not very fun.

All in all, I would say that I would not recommend using AskSam... which makes me sad, since I do think the concept is exactly what I've always looked for.

Steve Z.

Daly,

I thought that by this morning I would remember the name of the program, but it still eludes me. In principle it sounds to me like what you are doing is a perfect task for that German multi-dimensional outliner that you used to like.

One thing to consider is whether you will build an organization _out of_ the documents, or you will impose an organization _on_ them. If you can pretty much figure out what the categories should be beforehand, it will probably be most efficient first to create the structure. You might want to use an outline processor or mind mapper to determine the structure. I think that Idea! is more convenient than UltraRecall, when you have an a priori structure. Again, that German multi-dimensional product _sounds_ ideal, although I haven't used it.

Considering the pressure, probably Ultra Recall is the way to go. I think the New Year's poll in this forum supports it as an excellent general purpose organizer. Note that I haven't used it for some time.

I used AskSam 3.0 for something like this about 10 years ago.

I had just taken over a job, and a computer, from a very prolific, and also very disorganized, predecessor.

His hard drive had hundreds of files-- primarily DOS Wordperfect, as I recall-- stored without any real organizational scheme. The situation was that I would be needing the information in those files, but I had no intention of editing them. In other words, I needed them in a readily searchable archive.

All I did was create one, big, unstructured AskSam file, and imported all these documents into it. I then used AskSam's search function whenever I needed to retrieve information from my predecessor's files. The Boolean search capability made it fairly easy to narrow down the results.

Not a particularly elegant system, but adequate to my needs at the time.

By the way, I purchased a license for AskSam 4.0 within the first hour of commerical release (I'd been beta-testing it) and subsequently upgraded that to AS 5. However, I found that version 5 would not properly import HTML files for me, and my support requests to AskSam went unanswered.

So, I uninstalled my paid-for copy of AskSam 5, reinstalled 4.1, and have never bothered upgrading since. I still have AskSam installed for access to my legacy databases, but have not added to them in years. Instead, I have been manually migrating their contents into MyInfo as I've felt the whim.

Steve, actually it is the entry forms that intrigue me with Ask Sam -- but they gotta work.

And so does the report generating aspect or else you have just shot yourself in the foot(note) so to speak.

I am thinking UR -- but keep wanting to use Zoot -- although some of my data is web-based. But Zoot can link to a web file, and I have Firefox portable on my stick.

For some reason I like GKB -- which is totally irrational because I don't enough about how to use it.

Is there any way that Idea would be helpful -- again I don't know enough about, but with the amount of data I have coming in I want to be sure. I also need to be able to know more or less what is in that data within about five weeks of getting it. Ouph!

Thank for the input.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:
>I'm, surprised there's no one out there who has experience with

>AskSam, except that I know AskSam was seemingly going the way of programs
affiliated
>with the Sommer/Lewis brand of support and customer relations. Would
you believe
>that AskSam has had a user concern with fixed right hand marging, ie.
fixed doc width
>for several versions, and in spite of dozens of user complaints
about, it is still
>being talked about in the forum for the beta

>version?

Daly,

I have some experience with AskSam. I've owned a license from
version 3.0 through the current version. I love the concept of AskSam: Free form data
-- just dump it in and find it later. But, of course, to get the most from AskSam you have
to set up entry forms -- and that isn't free form any longer. I've found these entry
forms to be very touchy -- that is, they don't always behave the way I expect. Frankly, a
regular database such as Alpha Five is easier to work with once you add this
requirement to build entry forms.

Still, you do not really NEED entry forms in
AskSam. You can dump a bunch of stuff in it and find it fast. But you can't run reports on
this stuff. (And that's another problem I've had with AS -- the report layout builder
never seemed to behave quite right, either.)

Even so, I'd probably use AskSam if the
editor was more like a word processor. It looks like a word processor, but it is the
least user friendly editor I've seen. There is no extended selection at all. So,
composing material in AskSam is not very fun.

All in all, I would say that I would not
recommend using AskSam... which makes me sad, since I do think the concept is exactly
what I've always looked for.

Steve Z.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

I had ruled
Zoot out in my first post. I wonder if that was a mistake?

Daly

No, I don't think so at this point. As you said, currently long articles get split up in Zoot, and this is a nuisance for reading purposes - although I am sure this is going to change now that Zoot32 is a release candidate. Nor does Zoot32 have a rich-text editor, but this is also on its way.

Plus I am having difficulty getting all my databases to open as part of one project in Zoot, and until I can figure out how to clean up that mess I want to lay off Zoot for a while.

I think you can assign your zot databases to particular projects by working outside Zoot. Just close Zoot down and then use a file manager to move your databases to the right project. At least, this is what I have done in the past.

On a general note, I am not sure what direction Zoot is going to take in the future. At the moment it is a great plain-text-only user-generated notes organizer (leaving aside its other PIM aspects for the present discussion). Lots of people are pushing for Zoot to be able to import htm, pdf, Word, etc. files right into Zoot itself (at the moment the only way of working with these files is to extract the text from them into Zoot and make a link to the actual files).

I have very mixed feelings about making Zoot more like UR or askSam, which are primarily repositories. I'm not convinced that note-taking and file-storing are best put together in one piece of software. In my experience it gets to be rather a mess. OTOH, providing Zoot with better writing features would seem to me to be a great idea. So I'd like to see better tree features, cascading windows, a choice between plain-text and rtf, outlining within the notes editor, etc. The great thing about Zoot is its contribution to active thinking and drafting, and I'd hate this to be diluted.

Derek

Stephen, I am fortunate b/c the material is in my field so I can quickly set the structure, all the more so when cloning allows for multiple appearances of the same thing -- the structure need not be perfect, and I do not have to obsess. I do not have to obsess. I do not have to obsess. I do not.... Anyhow, you get my point.

I have tried a number of mind map programs -- recently got MindGenius as I noted her a few months ago.

On a slightly different front, am trying to determine whether a mind map or a concept map is the best way for me to set up a knowledge base on brain structure and function. Any thoughts. I do know that visual is key to remembering and getting the over-view of an ever-dynamic process with more feedback loops and detours than an interstate highway construction process in the midst of an urban freeway system.

There is a program called Recall Plus that is, I think, a more refined attempt to do what SuperMemo attempts.

Also, in the analogue world, immediate and spontaneous use of index cards for anything -- with no prior sense of classifying anything -- is a very powerful modality in this whole process.

What are you using these days for idea processing and management -- because it always seems you're into fairly complex, conceptually oriented material of a legal and/or philosophical bent.

Daly


Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Daly,

I thought that by this morning I would remember the name of the program, but it
still eludes me. In principle it sounds to me like what you are doing is a perfect task
for that German multi-dimensional outliner that you used to like.

One thing to
consider is whether you will build an organization _out of_ the documents, or you will
impose an organization _on_ them. If you can pretty much figure out what the
categories should be beforehand, it will probably be most efficient first to create
the structure. You might want to use an outline processor or mind mapper to determine
the structure. I think that Idea! is more convenient than UltraRecall, when you have
an a priori structure. Again, that German multi-dimensional product _sounds_
ideal, although I haven't used it.

Considering the pressure, probably Ultra
Recall is the way to go. I think the New Year's poll in this forum supports it as an
excellent general purpose organizer. Note that I haven't used it for some time.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I have some experience with AskSam. I've owned a license from
version 3.0 through the current version. I love the concept of AskSam: Free form data
-- just dump it in and find it later.

Bob Mackreth wrote:

I uninstalled my paid-for copy of AskSam 5, reinstalled 4.1, and have never bothered upgrading since. I still have AskSam >installed for access to my legacy databases, but have not added to them in years.

Couldn't agree more with Steve and Bob. I've been playing with askSam since its DOS days, but stopped at v5. Each year I'm tempted by the concept to upgrade further (the always seem to have a Christmas/New Year sale) but I just don't trust askSam's developers and support enough. Is v7 beta looking any better?

Derek

Derek, I don't know the product well enough to say for sure whether the bet looks better than what has gone before.

It seems to me a little more user friendly.

But don't take my word for it.

Beta comes in 30-day free installments, the rationale being that within each 30-day block there's be a new beta version to download.

Daly

Derek Cornish wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

>I have some experience with AskSam. I've owned a license
from
>version 3.0 through the current version. I love the concept of AskSam: Free
form data
>-- just dump it in and find it later.

Bob Mackreth wrote:

>I
uninstalled my paid-for copy of AskSam 5, reinstalled 4.1, and have never bothered
upgrading since. I still have AskSam >installed for access to my legacy databases,
but have not added to them in years.

Couldn't agree more with Steve and Bob. I've been
playing with askSam since its DOS days, but stopped at v5. Each year I'm tempted by the
concept to upgrade further (the always seem to have a Christmas/New Year sale) but I
just don't trust askSam's developers and support enough. Is v7 beta looking any
better?

Derek

I just realize I did not mention my Info. Am not sure why that is.

I know that lack of hoist is one part of it.

And MyInfo doesn't play as nicely on the usb stick.

Also not crazy about its web capture capability.

But...should I be considering it as a possible program for what I am doing?

BTW, thanks to everyone who's let me pick their brain this morning. I sure appreciate it.

Daly

Daly,

I was going to ask if you had considered MyInfo. I confess to not using it myself, even though I like a lot about it. I recently upgraded to the new, portable version with the intention of making it my portable data manager -- then I found I couldn't import CSV data into it. That is, I wanted to import records with some of the fields filling in column values in MyInfo... seems like a reasonable thing to want to do, but I couldn't do it. Nevertheless, in the past, when I did use MI more frequently, I found it handled imbedded PDF and Word documents pretty well.

Steve Z.

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:

Daly,

I thought that by this morning I would remember the name of the program, but it
still eludes me. In principle it sounds to me like what you are doing is a perfect task
for that German multi-dimensional outliner that you used to like.

I suspect you're thinking of InfoHandler from MDE software. (www.mdesoft.com)

Steve Z.

I think you're right.

I did not consider IS because I do not have confidence in the future direction it is taking, and have not had the time to learn how to use the new version as I had pledged to Manfred I would.

The older version might be ok but I don't know if it work on a stick.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Stephen R. Diamond wrote:
>Daly,
>
>I thought that by this morning I would
remember the name of the program, but it
>still eludes me. In principle it sounds to me
like what you are doing is a perfect task
>for that German multi-dimensional
outliner that you used to like.
>

I suspect you're thinking of InfoHandler from MDE
software. (www.mdesoft.com)

Steve Z.

From those that I at least tried, or used, I'd go with Ultrarecall, if my needs included the search capability.
With exception of PDF, in the past I have found that UR had problems with indexing PDF, it would only index a part of many PDF files I had, and I'm not sure they fixed this (most probably not).

If I was more afer categorization, and had a powerful search program like Archivarius, I'd seriusly consider MyInfo, and I'd only store links to those documents in MI, and use MI for writing and categorization, and Archivarius for searching. I tend to like the tags functionality in MI much more than tags in UR, and generally Mi is better in visual terms than UR (eg. it allows you to use text formatting on article titles, a biggie for me.) MI probably has a slightly better editor.

UR has better web clipping than MI, but you can't edit those webclips in UR directly.

To speak of future Zoot capabilities is like speaking of the forthcoming Ice Age.

-c

Thomas, thanks.

Of course, one can link web files to MI, and it gets around that problem.

I like MI's tagging better.

I do not like its lack of hoisting.

And re Archivarius, which I heard of for the first time several days ago, why is it better than, say X1, who soon want me to pay for my demo program?

Thanks.

Daly

Thomas wrote:

From those that I at least tried, or used, I'd go with Ultrarecall, if my needs included
the search capability.
With exception of PDF, in the past I have found that UR had
problems with indexing PDF, it would only index a part of many PDF files I had, and I'm
not sure they fixed this (most probably not).

If I was more afer categorization, and
had a powerful search program like Archivarius, I'd seriusly consider MyInfo, and
I'd only store links to those documents in MI, and use MI for writing and
categorization, and Archivarius for searching. I tend to like the tags
functionality in MI much more than tags in UR, and generally Mi is better in visual
terms than UR (eg. it allows you to use text formatting on article titles, a biggie for
me.) MI probably has a slightly better editor.

UR has better web clipping than MI,
but you can't edit those webclips in UR directly.