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Looks like a new version of Surfulater is about to be released.
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Posted by Graham Rhind
Nov 3, 2008 at 06:05 PM
Ken wrote:
>Graham,
>
>Is Zoot now able to fully run from a USB stick on a
>computer w/o administrative rights? I was not able to find out any current
>information at the Zoot website, and they have been talking about this for many
>months.
>
>—Ken
I can’t answer that, I’m afraid, as I never use computers without full rights. Perhaps somebody else knows?
Graham
Posted by Ken
Nov 4, 2008 at 04:09 PM
For give my ignorance with this program, but does anybody know the terms of their trial software? I looked at their web site, but could not find any information. Also, I am assuming that this is not a “portable” application.
—Ken
Posted by Graham Rhind
Nov 4, 2008 at 05:04 PM
Ken,
From memory it’s a 21-day trial period (though the developer has always been amenable to extending that if further testing is required, on a case-by-case basis).
I’m not sure whether Surfulater can run from a USB stick (its data can be on one and shared between computers which have Surfulater installed). I’ve checked the forum but I’m not much wiser….
Graham
Ken wrote:
>For give my ignorance with this program, but does anybody know the terms of their trial
>software? I looked at their web site, but could not find any information. Also, I am
>assuming that this is not a “portable” application.
>
>—Ken
Posted by Ken
Nov 4, 2008 at 09:36 PM
Thanks for the information (on both of the above posts), Graham. Before I embark on trying time-limited software, are there any shareware programs that are useful for web clipping and organizing that I should look at first?
—Ken
Posted by Michal
Nov 5, 2008 at 12:27 AM
Surfulater vs WebResearch - my experience
I own a license to WR pro.
I downloaded the trial version of Surfulater 3 (trial limitations: When Surfulater is running in Free Trial mode the Data Folder is only used for Send To|HTML File(s) and Send To|MHT file. In Free Trial mode My Documents\My Surfulater\MyKnowledge.Surfulater is the only Knowledge Base that can you can add to and edit. Other Knowledge Base files can be opened in read-only mode).
I’m no programmer, so the following comparison is that of a basic home user. I probably have omissions/ possible mistakes, and you’re welcome to correct me. But here goes…
1. Web capture accuracy:
- Surfulater does a decent job capturing web content, but I find WR to be more accurate. For instance, compare a page captured from Wikipedia in WR vs. Surfulater. Mostly, WR captures the page exactly as it is. (NOTE: the most accurate results, btw, are achieved with FireFox’s scrapbook extension. And interestingly, WR uses scrapbook extension to capture webpages in FireFox).
- When saving right-justified text in Surfulater (for instance, Hebrew text), the result is left-justified.
- Both apps can capture metadata. Surfulater does so automatically and displays the data under “reference” just beneath the URL. In WR, you go to options->save->and check “use decription meta tags as document comments”
- Annoying WR bug: sometimes instead of saving the article’s URL, WR saves a scrapbook address instead. It’s extremely annoying if you discover the blunder only after already saving about a trillion webpages ;)
2. Browser integration:
- Both apps work with IE and Firefox (FF). Surfulater relies on a right-click menu alone, while WR has both a toolbar and right-click menu options. I find the WR toolbar more comfortable than scrolling down along the rt-click menu options.
- In WR, while saving a webpage, in a pop-up window you can choose a folder, add tags (=“categories”) and add comments to the document. In Surfulater, you don’t have an option to choose folder/tag while saving; the webpage would automatically be added to the folder you happen to browse at the time, though you do have a “New Articles” folder and according to the help section you can pre-define a folder for new articles to be added.
- WR toolbar options: Add article to new documents folder; “Save as” (a handy option where a pop-up window opens allowing you to choose folder, assign a category to the article and add comments); Save address as (=bookmark a page); Save screen clipping as; save linked web pages.
- WR toolbar has an “already saved?” option, allowing you to check if you’ve already saved a specific webpage. It’s a wonderful option but at least on my machine it’s buggy, sometimes I get false negatives—i.e. WR claims I’ve never saved a specific page while I actually have. Also, WR toolbar has “Examine last saved document” (clicking the option will present the last page saved).
- WR rt-click menu options: Save frame; Save frame as. If you select text you have “Save selection” (goes straight to new articles folder) or “Save selection as” (you choose where the selection is saved in a pop-up window, tag it, add comments)
- Surfulater rt-click menu options: Add new article (you have to select text first); Add article plus page (if you don’t select text you get an empty article with the webpage attached); Add page to article (the page is added as an attachment to the article you’re currently browsing); Bookmark this page.
3. Editing captured page
- WR has more versatile editing options such as choosing font color, and align the text rt/left/center
- In both apps you can of course add text or images, and format the text as bold or italic. Adding images is cumbersome in WR, you have to browse for the image file in order to add it, you can’t just paste (Annoying!). In both apps you can highlight text, add bullets and numbering.
- In WR you can edit the webpage before capturing - both in IE and FF
4. Unicode - I have a problem with Hebrew text in both apps… In WR, the pop-up window displays the title of a Hebrew page as “????????????” ... In Surfulater, you have an option to convert the the folder tree to unicode (which I haven’t tried yet) ... Right now I have problems with Hebrew URLs displayed as gibberish in the “See Also” field ...
5. Tagging -
- I LOVE Surfulator’s tag system. Much more intuitive. Nested tags are created automatically, which is great. It makes cross-reference a breeze.
Also, tags are easily displayed in the Tags field beneath the article - it’s NOT so with WR.
- WR has “Categories”. You can assign each web page as many categories and sub-categories as you want. Trouble is, the categories feel just like a second folder system to me, instead of like “real” tags. It’s as though I have a double folder system. So I absolutely prefer Surfulater’s tagging!
Neville Franks, the creator of Surfulator, defined in his blog the difference between tags and a folder tree, and I just loved his description: “Tags provide an alternate view into your knowledge base to the hierarchical folder tree. Taking an analogy with a Book, you can think of Folders as the Table of Contents and Tags as the Index.”
6. Both apps can be minimized to system tray. In WR, when minimized you can use the right click menu to choose options from the system tray - new document, new note, new internet address, save screen clipping. In Surfulater you have only restore an exit.
7. Note taking - you can use both apps to take notes. In WR you choose “new note”. No templates. In Surfulater you add new article, and btw, you have article templates, which is great (“note”, “quick note”, quotations”...).
8. Databases - in both apps you can create multiple databases. In WR, you have to create separate categories for each database. I have no idea if you can use tags across databases in Surfulater since the trial version doesn’t allow you the creation of new databases.
I wish WR and Surfulater had the option to open more than one database at a time in a tabbed interface (like MyInfo) but that’s wishful thinking ;)
9. Search -
- Windows search accessability: WR items are indexed and searchable using Microsoft desktop search. It’s a great advantage. As far as I gathered—Surfulater articles aren’t accessible via Windows search—please correct me if I’m wrong.
- WR has of course an integrated search option, it uses windows search, it’s fast, and has an option to highlight search terms or turn highlight off. You can’t search across databases, but of course you can use Windows search to access all WR content (Windows Key+F or type into the start menu search bar)
-Surfulater’s search feature is extremely fast as previously mentioned here, I think it’s faster than WR’s internal search. Search terms are highlighted. I don’t know if you can search across databases since I don’t have the option to create new databases.
10. Outlook - WR has an outlook add-on, it’s pretty neat—you can send emails from Outlook to WR. Too bad Macropool sell this add-on separately, if you want this add-on you have to pay extra ;)
11. Interface:
I find Surfulater’s interface much friendlier.
I love the way articles are presented in Surfulater—you have the following fields:
~Title and date
~Text (=the article itself)
~Comments
~Attachments (=you can attach files or link to files on your computer)
~See Also (=cross reference. GREAT feature. You can point from a certain article to another one, thus creating mutual reference—it’s extremely helpful)
~Tags
BTW, in Surfulater you can also attach files to a folder, not just to articles.
In WR, all you have is Comments. No cross-ref, no file attachments. Also, no easy display of tags—you can click on “categories” and see which are marked, but that’s cumbersome. In Surfulater tags are simply displayed in the “Tags” field and it’s SO much easier to catch everything in one glimpse.
12. Cloning articles: a great feature of Surfulater. You can copy an article from one folder to another and every change you make in the original article including tagging and cross-ref will be displayed in the copy.
13. Adding files to the database as separate items: WR allows you to add whatever files you want as items—PDFs, Word, FLV etc. In Surfulater you can only add such files as attachments
There are so much other features to compare (WR has the ability to change the location of the reading pane, to enlarge the reading pane atc… In Surfulater you can dock the knowledge treebar wherever you want…) ...but it’s 2 a.m. here and I’m about to collapse on the keyboard. Once more I stress that all criticism is just my subjective opinion.
Verdict: I’m about to purchase Surfulater.
G’night!
Michal