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Opinions On TheBrain?
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 25, 2008 at 07:38 PM
Hugh,
Thank you for the summary of your observations comparing the Mac and PC versions of ThePersonalBrain. It sounds like a tempting piece of software, but—you’re right—at $249 it’s pretty expensive. I’d probably go for Tinderbox before PB if I were going to spend that kind of money at this point.
Thanks, again.
Steve Z.
Posted by GeorgeB
Jun 25, 2008 at 11:37 PM
We can only hope to see ThePersonalBrain at giveawayoftheday.com. ;-b
Posted by Manfred
Jun 26, 2008 at 01:10 AM
I have looked at The Brain in the past, and partly as a result of the activity here, I downloaded a new trial and put it through the paces.
The result of this is not so much an opinion as a question:
What is it that you have left of The Brain when you strip away the - admittedly pretty - face ... eh ... surface? Isn’t it just links? And aren’t there easier (or less cumbersome) ways to create links?
Tell me what I am missing, please.
Manfred
Posted by Hugh
Jun 26, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Manfred wrote:
>I have looked at The Brain in the past, and partly as a result of the activity here, I
>downloaded a new trial and put it through the paces.
>
>The result of this is not so much
>an opinion as a question:
>
>What is it that you have left of The Brain when you strip away
>the - admittedly pretty - face ... eh ... surface? Isn’t it just links? And aren’t there
>easier (or less cumbersome) ways to create links?
Manfred
Isn’t it just links? Yes, but aren’t outliners all just links, of one sort or another? ;)
To be less facetious - four points:
- PB is graphical - for many people seeing links/relationships in a graphic is more understandable than reading of them in a textual PIM such as UltraRecall
- PB handles criss-crossing multiple connections, which unlike those in tree-form mindmappers, better represent the real world
- PB’s USP could be regarded as a sort of of permanent three-level hoist/focus - that may make relationships, especially in a complex network, more understandable still
- PB offers the possibility of highlighting unexpected relationships in a large database as Al and others have stated - there aren’t many PIMS that can accomplish that (DevonThink and what else?)
But I guess the question has to be whether those benefits are worth $150 more than the price of a non-graphical PIM such as UR Pro (or $50 more than the price of the partially graphical and very different Tinderbox).
H
Posted by Manfred
Jun 26, 2008 at 01:31 PM
Hugh,
actually, I was not so much thinking of traditional outliners as an alternative, but of other hypertext applications that implement links more easily, like personal wikis: Voodoopad, Zulupad, ConnectedText, for instance.
They are not hierarchical either, and they also
* “handle criss-crossing multiple connections, which unlike those in tree-form mindmappers, better represent the real world”
* “may make relationships, especially in a complex network, more understandable”
* offer “the possibility of highlighting unexpected relationships in a large database”
Linking gets done by simply enclosing a word or a phrase with “[” and “]” or “[[” and “]]” (or camelcase). And these applications do so at the FRACTION of the cost. (And ConnectedText even has a graphical interface that allows you to look at the relationships, if you so desire.)
All they lack is the fancy graphical interface, which, in my experience, only gets in the way. Let me therefore rephrase the question: “What beyond the graphical interface (and perhaps Wysywig in the notes) does The Brain add that would go beyond such applications?”
I have written about the advantages of link-based systems, their advantages, and their relation to traditional outliners in this forum before. So, I won’t flog a dead horse.
Manfred