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Some Interesting New Software - Programmers Devise New Ways to Make the Pieces Work Together
By Sanjay Sharma, Section News
Posted on Sun Aug 08, 2004 at 01:32:42 PM EST
- Scopeware, which was based on the work of the renowned computer scientist David Gelernter at Yale, had that kind of spare effectiveness. But in May its backers closed its doors, despairing of staying in the race when Microsoft had so clearly indicated that it would include disk-search functions in Longhorn, its next version of Windows, scheduled for release in 2006.
- Early this year, Eric Hahn after forming a partnership with another programmer, Mike Belshe, he released a free utility called Lookout. It created a new toolbar inside Outlook and allowed lightning-fast searches of e-mail messages, addresses and attached files. By word of mouth - and blogs - it became an underground sensation. Last month, Microsoft bought the two-person Lookout company, with the obvious intention of incorporating its search system into future versions of Outlook and Windows.
- Last week Microsoft also released an update to its well-designed OneNote program.
- For those who don't use Outlook or would like another option, a good new one exists. It is the latest release of X1, priced at $74.95. X1 is extremely fast. Unlike other search systems, it immediately shows what you are looking for in its original format. A PowerPoint slide has the right formatting, a stored Web page has its original look - even on a machine without PowerPoint or a browser installed.
- For nearly a decade, I've entrusted all my research and reference data to such a program, called Zoot, which costs $99 and is produced by Tom Davis, a lone programmer in Delray Beach, Fla. Zoot is purely text-based, so the connections it reveals are all verbal.
- Another program, called TimeMap, displays chronological connections by making it easy to create a timeline. You plug in events with their respective times and dates; it sorts them into a graphical array. This sounds trivial but is surprisingly useful when reconstructing complex events or narratives. The program, from CaseSoft, the company that produces the superb outliner NoteMap, was designed for lawyers and investigators, and it costs $199.
- MORE visual still is the new MindManager X5, also $199, which is essentially a computerized version of brainstorming on a blackboard or easel. You enter ideas, facts, chores and names, and draw lines indicating the connections (or separations) among them. The difference from doing this at a blackboard is that on the computer you can easily run "what if?" exercises about different sets of connections, combine many worksheets and look at the relations in new ways.
- I have tried a new add-on to MindManager X5, called Results Manager ($150, and released last week by the British company Gyronix). It offers a very effective way of keeping track of mapped-out projects and plans through a "dashboard" of daily tasks.
- Then we have the latest release of PersonalBrain, for $79.95 from TheBrain Technology Corporation of Santa Monica, Calif. PersonalBrain occupies the far extreme of representing ideas and tasks in visual form. Rather than try to explain its look and effect, I'll just say that the company offers a 30-day free trial.
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