Export=>Import=>Export=>... from PIM to PIM to ...

Posted by Franz Grieser
Feb 15, 2007 at 11:59 AM

Cassius

>So, it seems that one has, perhaps, four choices:

>1. Stay with software
>that has a long-term future, that is, it can be expected to have future updates to keep
>it current with new versions of the OS and printers.

Who can tell what companies really have a long-term future?
Microsoft, IBM, and a few others come to mind. But as we all have seen: Even these companies are quick to drop products they do not see a business value in.

As far as outliners, PIMs, info collectors are concerned: Who do you trust to stay in business for the next 5 years?
And, after all, most “companies” in this field are one- or two-person companies. What happens when the developer of product A has a serious accident? Loses interest? Cannot afford to work on the product?

>2. Stay with software that may
>not ever be upgraded and run it as long as possible—like some people are doing with
>GV.

This is the strategy I pursue: I’ll stick with Infoselect although Zoot, UR, MI, et.al. may be “better” or at least look more modern. The trouble of getting my data out of IS and into a different product is not worth the trouble in my eyes.

Just recently, I considered using Zoot or UR for a new project that will probably run for more than a year. I decided against it, because it would have meant having IS, Ideamason and the third product always opened to be able to drop new notes and snippets into the database for the corresponding project (I am sure you can imaging the conflicts resulting when various clipboard tools such as IS shooter are run concurrently).

>3. Same as 2, but stay with the OS that the software runs well on and hope you can
>find printer drivers compatible with the software, your printer, and your
>hardware.

Wouldn’t help in my case: I usually deliver digital data. Printer drivers are not important for me.

>4. Give up and stick with the “standards” such as MS Office, Open Office,
>etc. Macros may be able to enhance the “standards” to add needed capabilities.

Ahem. “Standards” and MS Office in one sentence?

What Microsoft “standard” do you mean: Word 6.0 (DOS), Winword 2.0, Word 95, Word 97/2000/XP, Word 2003 XML or “OpenXML”?

OpenDOC may become an option in the next years. But they would have to add a few things for making it suitable for the kind of data storage we talk about here (not to speak of the rudimentary outliner implementation).

So: Standard text formats are Ascii TXT and RTF. TXT is fine for pure text, RTF is not really satisfying as far as consistent formatting is concerned.

Franz