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Posted by jerryk
Oct 31, 2008 at 04:16 PM
Given that ultrarecall (UR) is no longer being developed, it seems timely to ask the perennial question of which program best allows us to manage the surfeit of information associated with our projects, reference materials, and research (what I call knowledge). At a minimum, that program must be able to assimilate: web page, emails, files, snippets of text. Some meta-data is useful, but for most folks, a highly structured database seems not to be necessary, and that is the case with me as long as I have full text-search.
I have tried to implement a single repository notion in the past with Zoot, Content Saver (now Web Resesarch), Ultra Recall, OneNote. I have substantial experience with each of these programs. Over the summer I had decided to leave Ultra Recall and go into One Note, but just recently decided to test out Web Research again, and am thinking that might be a workable solution. I want to share some of my thoughts, so that others can point out where they differ and point me to better software or processes.
*** Web ****
Zoot: does not yet capture rich text. There is an archive to mht function, but the last time I checked it was buggy. In any event, no editing (highlighting) of the web page permitted, which is a substantial negative.
UR: I know development has stopped on this, but the program still functions. Also the comparison may be illuminating. UR was always terribly slow in capturing long web pages. Editing was added, but the UI was always a bit cumbersome. Also search hits were not highlighted.
OneNote: Saving clips of a web page was fine, but sending entire pages produced bad copies. One way around this was to grab screens using SnagIt, but that often created bloated image files (which were OCR’d by OneNote).
Web Research: For me, the fastest web capture, and easiest filing (besides potentially Zoot’s auto-filing folder rules). Sometimes forms, etc., don’t get captured correctly—but for those sometimes only a screengrab will do.
I think WR wins this one.
*** Emails ***
Given full text indexing of emails, I do not file and instead pile. I used to use NEO b/c of its convenient correspondent folders, but I’m trying to cut down the # of apps I’m using. So I’m experimenting with just using outlook and Vista’s Windows Desktop Search (WDS).
Zoot: Great at sucking in emails. At one time, I used to use smart folders to automatically file emails, etc. But again, with good enough searching, I’ve decided that I generally don’t have to file emails. The most important ones, I can “file” or save in some project folder separtely.
UR: Fine at storing emails (although I never liked the fact that attachments were never shown separately from the *.msg file).
OneNote: printing out emails took too many pages, and did not allow for quick and easy navigation. Emedding the email was another possibility, but OneNote has problems with embedded items. First, WDS doesn’t search embedded files. Second, the icon is large and doesn’t show the entire name.
Web Research: With the add-in, saves emails fine. It would be nice if somehow attachments appeared as subdocuments of the email—the way that UR allowed anything to be a parent/child of anything else. But it seems to work fine enough.
*** Files ***
Zoot: allows file links, not storage of files. This allows annotation with keywords, but if you want full text indexing, you have to run a WDS (or comparable) search as well. This seems like 2 repositories—not a great thing. That said, there’s a file folder sync that allows any new files stored in an OS folder to create a new zoot item, which can be tagged.
UR: storage of long files was slow. Make a minor change, and it would reindex. Some problems with data loss if the file you were working on didn’t close down right or if UR closed down first.
OneNote: Easy to work with embedded files. Changes are saved within the onenote page. But as explained, no WDS search of the embedded files. Also the UI of moving around embedded file icons was clumsy. This is an example where the metaphor of a network page ends up breaking down.
Webresearch: Can “store” files into its DB. But large files (say 100mb) seems to choke it. Also, in order to edit the file, you have to export it to a OS folder, save the file, then reimport. The exporting is clumsy (can’t click and drag). That said, the files are indexed by WDS.
If files could be edited like OneNote but appeared in UI like WR, I’d be happy.
*** clips of text (e.g., passwords, #s) ***
Zoot: phenomenally good at this
UR: fine
OneNote: fine
WR: can create a new “note” to type this stuff in
——————————————————-
With all this, here’s how and why I ended up with Web Research tentatively.
UR is out because it’s no longer developed (also Web storage was slow, and frankly the UI was always more difficult than necessary).
Zoot, which I admire greatly, still can’t deal with rich text. Using various linking technologies adds complexities, changes that links can get broken with moving computers and files, and the like. (I’m using Zoot for a more narrow set of tasks only.)
OneNote. I thought this could work. Even if embedded files could not be searched, I presumed that the next version would add that functionality. And by embedding files as subitems in an outline, I could collapse the outline and manange complexity that way. But the paper notebook analogy fails once you are managing 20+ files for a project. Printout out entire pdfs, etc., into OneNote could be hundreds of MBs, so it must be the embedded file strategy (I use Pdf annotator to mark up files.)
Web research. Best at web. Competent with emails. Competent with text snippets. Weak with files (can’t edit stored files without exporting/reimporting). That said, WDS will find everything on your hard drive and within a WR database. One can create hyperlinks to a single WR item (which I can use with Mindmanager, to track support material for projects.) And the UI is the best of the lot.
My return to WR has only been about a week, and I’m groaning at the transition costs of moving data over. But OneNote isn’t working for me. What are your thoughts and reactions?
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Oct 31, 2008 at 05:39 PM
My own opinion is that you are destined to be disappointed with any single application, because they all lack something significant. I’ve settled into a fairly comfortable two-application system (for my PC work at the office). I use Zoot to collect all the snippets of textual information that I crop up on a random, ad hoc basis (things such as addresses, registrations, body text from letters, boilerplate) and I use OneNote for compiling project-related information.
Additionally, Zoot is my database for tracking purchases and maintaining my organization’s product catalog. At least 80 percent of the information I need is just fine in plain text… in fact, plain text is an advantage for speed and database size, as well as for exporting into other applications.
I agree that OneNote’s notebook metaphore can be overwhelming when dealing with tons of information, but it works well for projects. On the same page I can keep relevant PDFs, e-mails and notes. I can add a simple outline and tabular data, when necessary.
Is this the ideal solution? No. I have a MacBook for my personal use, and I can see that it would be possible in the OS environment to have a single-application approach to data… everything is more integrated in the Mac world… including the ability to print from almost any application to a PDF which is automatically stored in your database. Still, I haven’t settled on a single application yet. Perhaps when DevonThink 2.0 is released….
Steve Z.
Posted by JohnK
Oct 31, 2008 at 06:56 PM
I’ve worked my way along much the same path, using much the same group of programs, so I’ll be fascinated to hear the responses and suggestions, although I’m not sure I can add much to the mix. I agree with Steve Z.—no program has it all.
UR and OneNote are programs I admire rather than like. By which I mean, I acknowledge their power and the clever approach they both adopt to information management (indeed I think OneNote is just about the best thing Microsoft has produced), but neither has the simplicity, elegance and speed of use to make it a single repository for my information. OneNote came close though.
Likewise Zoot and InfoQube—frequent recommendations here and elsewhere by posters whose opinions I trust lead me to try out these two programs on a regular basis, hoping I will “get it”. But I never do. I find both awkward and frustrating to use. Maybe I’m just impatient.
Which lead me, eventually, to Web Research. Its UI is utterly intuitive. You never need to look at the help file. But…
The WR team made the big decision to outsource two key functions (web page gathering and database indexing) to external programs, namely the Firefox add-in Scrapbook and Microsoft’s Windows Search.
This is both a strength and a weakness. Scrapbook is, in my view, the best web page grabber out there. Some other programs can match its ability to grab whole pages, but I’ve yet to find a competitor that can grab partial pages (snippets) with the same fidelity. And sometimes, that is important.
However, when I trialled WR, I found that just occasionally, WR would lose its link to Scrapbook. Very rarely, but just enough that it meant I had to check that every capture had worked.
And I had the same experience with Windows Search—it would index most, but not all, clippings in the WR database. Different versions of Windows Search had differing levels of success. That’s the risk with using external programs for critical functions (I did discuss my problem with WR tech support, but never solved it completely).
Having said all that, WR is still the closest I have come to a single program “data dump”. But I still hesitate. My other reason for being slow to commit to WR is that, leaving aside highly specialised forums such as this one, you rarely see the program mentioned or reviewed. It seems to be well under the radar, which makes me nervous.
All this time, while trialling all these programs, I have being using a “temporary” solution to hold data: Local Website Archive (http://aignes.com/lwa.htm). By no means the all-purpose data dump, but a reliable (whole) web page grabber, with the facility to add separate notes and it keeps each item as separate html pages, so all indexers will find the content. It’s also “scriptable” (I use the word loosely) in that you can add key sequences to grab content from other programs (I use it to grab emails from Thunderbird if I am collating information for a project). Difficult to explain, but the program forum will help (the program help file is not the best). For someone with light and occasional need for an information grabber, worth a look.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Oct 31, 2008 at 08:31 PM
Steve, if you haven’t tried it already, take a look at the current version of Together. I think it’s the strongest single repository program available at present. It allows you to pull in web pages as *either* webarchives or PDFs, which is a nice choice, and webarchives are fully editable. More important to me, it stores all the underlying files in the filesystem, so you’re not locked into the program and everything’s transparently accessible via Spotlight. Though Devonthink is still the only program with machine learning algorithms built in.
I gave OneNote another look earlier this year, but it still just seems so crude. e.g. “Print to OneNote” generates bitmaps and it’s tedious to edit long outlines. I do much prefer ON 2007’s page navigation over the previous version though. Circus Ponies Notebook 3 is finally out and I think now that it offers both structured and nonstructured page elements (even things extending outside of the notebook!) most people would prefer Notebook.
—Chris
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Is this the ideal solution? No. I have a MacBook for my personal use, and I can see that it
>would be possible in the OS environment to have a single-application approach to
>data… everything is more integrated in the Mac world… including the ability to
>print from almost any application to a PDF which is automatically stored in your
>database. Still, I haven’t settled on a single application yet. Perhaps when
>DevonThink 2.0 is released….
>
>Steve Z.
Posted by Cassius
Oct 31, 2008 at 10:02 PM
Chris, I tried Googling “Together” without luck. Where can I find it?
Thanks.
-c