More InfoQube answers needed

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 28, 2008 at 10:50 AM

Just a note of support to Pierre; I think that he’s done an admirable development job and I am also impressed by his providing a forum integrating several interaction tools for users to give feedback—my own questions and suggestions on this regard will be reserved for the IQ user webspace which I feel is more than enough for a developer to have to keep an eye on!—as well as to contribute to the the program’s knowledge base and new user documentation.

Regarding the latter, it has been stated here repeatedly that InfoQube’s ‘weakness’ is its non-intuitiveness and lack of ‘how to’ documentation. I’m sure that some of it can be improved, but overall I would note that many of the programs praised here are far from intuitive. In fact I would risk the hypothesis that the most powerful programs—those that can become our information management companions- are the least intuitive and easy to grasp.

Was GrandView intuitive? I doubt it. Zoot has been notorious for its learning curve but its regular users swear by it. Many here have commented that they “don’t get” Brainstorm—but I personally never write a text longer than a paragraph without it. Others have praised MaxThink on a similar front but I haven’t as yet grasped many of its concepts, let alone integrate it in a workflow.

So I am now investing in learning InfoQube (questions and suggestions on this regard will be reserved for the IQ user webspace which I feel is more than enough for a developer to have to keep an eye on!) because in terms of features and specifications I think that it is currently unequalled. Moreover, I think that it responds to a known market need—‘integration’- in a novel and most effective way.

Many programs that try to integrate information management, try to ‘take over’ our regular activities, such as e-mail, web browsing, RSS—i.e. everything but the kitchen sink. I’m thinking of Omea Pro, Info Select, Do Organizer etc. I think this is a lost cause, as all-in-one solutions will never be as powerful as dedicated applications. (Apparently the Mac environment solves this dilemma by facilitating interoperability).

Others—the more successful ones- stick to information management and provide many ways to import or link to external information wherever it may be. I’m thinking UltraRecall, Zoot, Personal Brain and many more. (Zoot6 apparently will have integrated e-mail and I can’t say that I am as enthused as other users.)

In addition to these information managers, other programs focus on providing ‘writing environments’, i.e. what to do with the information once you have it: structure it, organise it, change it, combine it in novel ways. Such are the ventures of Brainstorm, Maxthink, Notemap etc. (i.e. mostly one-pane outliners).

In my opinion, InfoQube is a powerful information manager that doesn’t try to take over dedicated applications, but also offers a powerful writing environment, providing quite brilliant ways to manipulate the gathered information—whether it is words or numbers. Interestingly, the SQL power has already been there in the infrastructure of many information managers—but none really provided the user with access to its full power. This IQ does, and does admirably.