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askSam dead?
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 11, 2013 at 12:08 PM
As for AskSam, I wouldn’t go near it with a ten-foot pole. I am suspicious of a company that keeps using a “server crash” as an excuse for not coming out with a long-promised update. I suspect they just want to keep people buying the app for as long as possible, then they’ll announce they couldn’t keep going. This, of course, is supposition on my part, but I see no reason to trust the company. Besides, AskSam has been full of bugs for years. It’s basic premise is very alluring, but in actuality, I’ve always found it difficult to get it to do what I want.
Steve Z.
Posted by 22111
Sep 11, 2013 at 07:41 PM
“Sorry, this all seems pretty inaccurate. I think you’re saying that high-dollar niche software is always better than low-cost general purpose software. But I don’t think I can pay $1000 for a program that is just like UR but has formatting in the tree or $1000 for a program that is just like CT except with WYSIWYG; those programs just don’t exist. And I don’t call either of those features mandatory, I call them extraneous. But something else I find mandatory would surely be extraneous to the next person.”
I probably didn’t made my point clear enough. I did not want to say that if you pay 10 times the price, you get a similar program, but with that functionality not missing anymore. (Scrivener is a very outstanding thing not bending to general rules; if they sold it 5 times its price, some people would call it expensive, but many people would consider that price justified and “normal” - 250 dollars, btw, is the old price scheme of The Brain.) (And AS is worth its 99 dollars at bits where it reappears regularly, no one is trying, today, to “sell” its asking price of 400 dollars.)
I wanted to express this: Many people use programs like UR or AS as CRM and for similar functions, and of course, dedicated CRM tools, costing between 800 and 1300 euro plus VAT, and coming with annual maintenance schemes, fulfill such tasks in a much smoother way, whilst 99 dollar AS, 89 dollar UR or (was it 69 dollar?) Chaos Intellect (and without annual fees) both make CRM available to you for next to nothing, comparatively speaking… but then you have to live with many limitations which will intrude in your everyday workflow, and then for some limitations, you can create some macros, and with other limitations, you will have to live forever.
And as for information management, it’s the same thing, there are such 100 dollar programs, or even 30 dollar programs, and you live with them, because there simply is not something really better at 300 dollars, but you would have to buy something at 2,500 dollars, with annual fees, and so you live, for many years, without bolding in the tree, without clones, without (important features of your choice here).
The real problem lies in the fact that development of traditional, non-web/cloud software of such “cheap” kind has been more or less stalled for some years now. Under normal circumstances, tools like UR would be in active development, and thus would get a decent editor after some years of users complaining; as it stands now, such programs will never get those missing features added.
So I think what I say is not wrong, inaccurate perhaps. Problem is, no real development in “cheap” software; then, a gap of many hundreds of dollars; and then, real professional, very expensive software not justifying its price for most people.
And yes, there are some notable exceptions to this rule.
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Sep 11, 2013 at 08:17 PM
I think of AskSam the same way I thing of InfoSelect.
When I moved into the Windows world in 2002 I soon became familiar with both programs.
I bought IS at one point, discovering it didn’t behave very well, and that support was lacking.
Multiple posts on the support forums saved me from Ask Sam, as did its price, which was even more exorbitant than IS.
Ask Sam at least had trials, which IS didn’t have until the last few years. So I tried AS on 30 day trials a couple of times, and realized I’d probably be disappointed if I actually bought it.
Both programs may have been promising, good even, at early points in their history. But unrealistic pricing, poor customer support, a myriad of problems transferred from update to update, version to version, have all brought IS and AS to the point where their future is in doubt.
AS still intrigues me - but it needs development in capable hands, and with an eye to the cloud - that’s a must these days.
IS limps along and, sadly, some of the people who’ve used it since its earliest day, still praise it, unaware of modern alternatives.
I don’t use MyInfo or Surfulater as much as I once did. But I have both housed in the cloud, and they still function. Both are good programs with developers who are responsive to their customers.
I take heart that Surfulater is developing a new, cloud oriented product. Like many I use Evernote a great deal, but maintain that it still lags as an information manager. Only in the recent issue of version 5 did EN include a highlighting capability, for which I am grateful. I think Neville has a much better handle on what information management entails than Evernote’s developer has.
MyInfo and WhizFolders are both great programs, but I fear for their future if they’re unable to adapt to a cloud oriented world.
Another sign of change: while we might see software costing more than $100 as pricey, many of the newer apps for desktop and mobile are bought on a subscription basis. That may be more fair for developers, but it means we may easily end up paying more than we would have previously been willing for a single program.
The change which surprises me most is my own shifting to the cloud as much as I have. I had begun, of course, with Evernote. And then when I had two computers going at a time, it was a way of being able to work on the same documents regardless of what machine I was on. And I realized that while I had never backed my Windows computers up b/c of the bother, that now I had a bother-free way of doing.
The final shift to the cloud came in March when I bought my Nexus7 - everything (almost) everywhere. I capture to and read from EN primarily on the Nexus, Often I do writing in EN on the laptop. I can tweet from anywhere (almost). Shaw, my Internet provider has dozens of free hot spots throughout the city, so I am not beholden to a cell phone company.
Technology and software driving each other, and us, seemingly at an ever-increasing speed. What it means is we could well see much better programs than AskSam or InfoSelect bite the dust. Very interesting. And we have not yet seen what will be.
I apologize for my ramble.
Daly
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Price and features are not always correlated. AskSam Pro costs $395,
>much more than most of the programs we discuss here, yet it is one of
>the least-well supported—and they can’t even keep their servers
>running. It is also poorly developed. While Scrivener costs $45, and is
>one of the most feature-rich applications I’ve ever seen. It is also
>continually and smartly developed.
>
>Which is not to say that you should avoid higher-priced applications. I
>love Tinderbox and TheBrain (sounds like a cartoon show), both of which
>cost more than the average app, and feel I’ve more than gotten my
>money’s worth.
>
>Steve Z.
Posted by WSP
Sep 12, 2013 at 01:16 AM
Daly, my recent experiences closely parallel yours. I have used MyInfo for a number of years and have great affection for it. My last book was built entirely upon notes, outlines, and drafts created in MyInfo.
I used Dropbox to transfer files back and forth between my desktop machine and the laptop that I take to libraries, but of course MyInfo lives only in the Windows world, and that means I cannot view or edit files on my iPhone or iPad. I rarely type on my other devices, but I find that it’s extremely convenient to glance at my files on the phone and tablet. When I’m walking around in a library, it’s helpful to have on my phone a list of the books and periodicals that I need to consult.
So, with some misgivings, I have decided to research and write my next book (in collaboration with my wife) in Evernote. Evernote (about which I’ve had some misgivings for a long time) offers a number of advantages besides being available on so many platforms. It makes collaboration relatively painless. It is a very robust database; I have nearly 20,000 notes, many of them a legacy from earlier projects (I know, compulsive note-taking is a sickness), yet even on my slow laptop, editing and searching are quite speedy. It is easy to embed PDF and other kinds of files, and general searches in that notebook will then find words or phrases in those files.
Most importantly—to me—Evernote does a quick, competent OCR of any text in images. As a result, I do far less typing that I used to at the note-taking stage. When I am reading a printed book or periodical (I’m not talking about digital versions here) and I come upon a passage that interests me, I photograph the page with my iPhone and pop it into Evernote. Within a few minutes the text in that image becomes fully searchable. Much nicer than typing!
It’s possible, incidentally, to take the picture with the “Page” camera option in Evernote (iOS versions), but I prefer to use an iPhone app called CamScanner, because its excellent “Magic Color” enhances the image so nicely. CamScanner then allows me to send the photo (or photos) directly to Evernote if I wish. Earlier this evening, just as an experiment, I photographed a page of a book I was reading—in the living room, under not especially good light—that was published in 1722. I sent it to Evernote via CamScanner, all quite effortlessly, and the image was then easily searchable in EN. If I wished, I could crop the image further in Skitch (from within EN), highlight certain sentences, and put various marks in the margin.
As we all know, the great weakness of Evernote is organization. I’m gradually learning how to overcome that with a combination of internal file links and carefully selected file names. I’ve also begun to replace—in many of my notes—the creation date with an historic date, so that I can later arrange the notes in a chronological sequence.
(Sorry, I seem to have strayed rather far from the subject of askSam—which I also used in the very distant past. But, like you, I have slowly come around to the view that traditional note-taking programs not living in the cloud are a threatened species.)
Bill
Posted by 22111
Sep 13, 2013 at 03:15 PM
This is not a ramble, everything is so true:
“that support was lacking.” - well, at that time there was support, but very standardized: “Send us your whole file, we try to save the most of it and don’t look at its contents”; that’s not good, but it worked, in a way. But then, people using AS for professional tasks used and use to back up their data up to 5 times a day… which is a contradictio in adiecto, meaning to do this for general purposes is ok, but having to do this for combatting the unreliability of your tool, well, it’s sort of crazy.
“Multiple posts on the support forums saved me from Ask Sam, as did its price, which was even more exorbitant than IS.” - You made my day! Explanation: I was responsible for some harsh comments there, but I was a neglected customer then, when today, they are moribund, and have never been replaced by something better, so today I defend them; I know there is some ridicule in this, though.
“and realized I’d probably be disappointed if I actually bought it” - I know perfectly well all the details for your saying this, and I convene on every one of them.
“Both programs may have been promising, good even, at early points in their history.” - Well, in fact, in their time, they were both not “good even”, but sensational; that’s why even today they have their followers, cf. my link to “late abandoners” or what we were called there: You never forget WHY you once were truly in love, and you cannot help but feel fond about.
“But unrealistic pricing, poor customer support, a myriad of problems transferred from update to update, version to version, have all brought IS and AS to the point where their future is in doubt.” - No one could have said it any better, you are on spot.
“AS still intrigues me - but it needs development in capable hands, and with an eye to the cloud - that’s a must these days.” Both points are totally correct, and, as myself explained here, AS’ development does NOT seem to be in capable hands… by which all discussion on AS, from a matter-of-fact point of view, should to be aborted (but see above, loyalty being a sentiment not to be gotten rid of so easily).
“IS limps along and, sadly, some of the people who’ve used it since its earliest day, still praise it, unaware of modern alternatives.” - Again, it’s all about sentiment; there is no technical reason whatsoever to cling to this program (on DC, one can find many details about it).
“I think Neville [Surfulater] has a much better handle on what information management entails than Evernote’s developer has.” - Right, but then, I simply don’t remember the possible search terms, very often, I need “context”; Evernote (considering its success) team seem to have grasped that most people don’t need this outlined context, but function very well with “thin files”, and get to them by searching. I don’t understand this paradigm, but it seems most people function by that. This also could be the “secret” behind the phenomenon that most people out there never even touch an outliner during their whole pc life.
“MyInfo and WhizFolders are both great programs, but I fear for their future if they’re unable to adapt to a cloud oriented world.” - 4 times true; both for their quality, and both for the risks they’re running.
“Another sign of change: while we might see software costing more than $100 as pricey, many of the newer apps for desktop and mobile are bought on a subscription basis. That may be more fair for developers, but it means we may easily end up paying more than we would have previously been willing for a single program.” - totally correct, and there is even an additional problem: Users will accept this with “big” programs (MindJet (as they call MindManager now), all the Adobe stuff, even MS…), when on the other hand, “little” developers will lose their customer base by it (it’s “image”: from those, we accept to be treated this way, from these, we don’t; and it’s “transaction costs” - for the “bigger” things, you accept to do that additional work, for the lesser important things, you want to be left alone); this being said, I would gladly accept the InfoSelect 50 dollars a year fee, were it under continuous and sensible development, which it is not.
“we could well see much better programs than AskSam or InfoSelect bite the dust.” - very true, but then, it’s a two-faced coin; all these programs we are thinking about here do not do what it takes to stay afloat. To put it bluntly, that’s also due to the fact that this web integration side is hard to program, and even hard to conceive to begin with. And also, as has been said with respect to Ultra Recall, some developers even shrink back from buying, for 500, 800 dollars, a decent editor to integrate into their program, preferring something free from MS but which, over the years, makes them lose a 4-digit figure of customers.
“it’s extremely convenient to glance at my files on the phone and tablet. When I’m walking around in a library, it’s helpful to have on my phone a list of the books and periodicals that I need to consult” - I very much hope Windows tablets will get better (more battery power / less battery consumption; less weight…): at the end of the day, it would be much simpler to just get your original files with you, everywhere (and especially into the library, to the customer…), than to have (even good) interaction between your main hardware, and some “hardware for the road”. My vision of this follows that age-old concept of notebooks and their “docking stations” connecting them to the rest of your hardware, but not entirely:
Why not have powerful hardware (including the “desktop”) in your office, but leave your data within your slate? So your desktop equipment would just access the harddisk in your slate… and perhaps even use it as an additional keyboard for special keys, for readily-available macros of all sorts here in the office?
“It is a very robust database” - it’s the same database as in Ultra Recall and in many others, free, robust, good search capabilities, and so on, but as in Ultra Recall, some people admire the program when in fact they are just fond of the qualities of the database brings to the product; UR is a fine example of “sophisticated” software where almost all of the relevant power comes from the database itself. (This also means that the developer of UR did much less in programming work than most people admiring his end product would assume, and this also explains why further development is so slow: Even at the beginning, he did not that much but just translated the power of its gratis database into some gui access for the layman.)
“I know, compulsive note-taking is a sickness” - no, it gets sick when you don’t find them speedy, later on, that’s why I so much need “context”, and that’s why for most people searching is so important, or then, tagging, the concept relying both.
“and general searches in that notebook will then find words or phrases in those files” - I envy you, I don’t have the memory any more for knowing what I could want to search (800 hits for your main search term… then you add some other, but not all of them, so you leave out important things, and even more so if you exclude some search terms… and in the end, you have got 400 hits, but in which some 10 or 12 important ones are missing: this is a nightmare; unfortunately, just google and so on perfected their search technology, when in applications we can buy, almost nothing has been done here within the last 15 (or even 20) years (where “semantic search” was put into some applications that later died: almost incredible; and yes, this would have been one thing that would have made AS roar to the limelight, but the opposite is true, AS “killing” some competitors that had semantic search, in its prime time).
“When I am reading a printed book or periodical (I’m not talking about digital versions here) and I come upon a passage that interests me, I photograph the page with my iPhone and pop it into Evernote.” - This is fantastic; no comparison with my scanning with a flat-bed scanning machine (which is so much trouble that most of the time, I type those passages by hand).
“I photographed a page of a book I was reading—in the living room, under not especially good light—that was published in 1722. I sent it to Evernote via CamScanner, all quite effortlessly, and the image was then easily searchable in EN” - the casual reader might be reminded here that both paper and type are both to be assumed to be far from today’s standards: fantastic!
“Sorry, I seem to have strayed rather far from the subject of askSam” - that’s not even true, since AS and EN have a very important thing in common, their lacking of a (native) outline structure, and for that reason their need for very good searching; but there is not the slightest doubt that for importing things, a paramount need today, EN does very well, when AS is one of the poorest contenders in this respect.
I explained why AS is really good for some tasks, in another thread here: You can search for number ranges (!!!) within the text, if you do it by (simili) “fields”, and this for 100 dollar if you buy the prof. version on bits. This is unrivalled to my knowledge. This being said, except for this special task, its numerous faults make AS use almost unacceptable.
The only problem here is, in so many workflows, having this unique capability, number ranges within text, comes extremely handy. And this is a fact totally independent of my fondness for AS for their spectacular quality in their very early years.
(And here we are again at our original problem: Why such spectacular, unique capabilities of just some, otherwise rather bad programs don’t make their way into better programs? Just remember, to replicate this capability, you either must buy dtSearch, or you must export your data into something like KEdit, when in AS, and in AS alone, you are able to select “records” from numeric ranges in specific “fields”; and remember we are always within a “text processor” here, not in a dedicated database, so this is really unique.)