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New Version of WebResearch --> Good Alt to UR?
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Posted by JJ
May 8, 2008 at 10:03 PM
WebResearch just released v3… with lots of goodies :-)
http://www.macropool.com/en/download/webresearch/wr3_features.html
I use both UR & WR. (I use UR for most stuff except for web clippings… I let WR handle this… it is far superior to UR for this function… see below for details)
Both apps are very solid applications & are actively developed.
Here’s my take on both products:
1. WR is THE best web clipper I have used. Fast, captures 99.9% of the pages. UR is slow and often does a poor job of capturing (missing content, poor formatting…)
1A. WR is really nice at clipping… it presents you with a great dialog so you can add comments, assign categories, assign location, set importance, change title… ALL before you save it. UR only allows you to assign location
2. The biggest weakness for me with WR was it didn’t index other docs (just web pages). Now it uses Windows Desktop Search as the search engine and can handle all Office docs plus PDFs. Plus you can view/edit them in WR.
3. The search is better in WB… It highlights your searched words in the doc… UR does not. PLUS it will search across multiple databases.
4. WR is faster & quicker.
5. Both UR & WR have interfaces to send data from Outlook to the application.
6. WR has a nice built-in editor to edit/create html docs. Plus you can buy an add-on that works with your scanner to add content into WR.
7. You can add notes to data items (like UR)
6. UR still has some advantages over WR…. Linking, hoisting, more/custom metadata… more power.
For me, I don’t use all the power of UR & I think (hope) WR will provide me with enough power.
I’ll report back after I have had more time with the new version.
I highly encourage you to try the 30 day trial (NO I don’t know or work for the developer :-) I just like their product)
-jj
Posted by Michal
May 9, 2008 at 06:34 AM
I own a copy of Macropool’s Web Research. Yup, it’s a solid, accurate organizer of captured web info, I totally love it. In the past I used Firefox’s Scrapbook for web capture (great add-on, btw!) but I’m in the process of transferring all my gathered web info to WR.
A minor quibble: I wish WR allowed user-customized icons… But really this is a minor issue considering this app’s great assets.
I own MyInfo, not UltraRecall, so I can’t comment on UR. But I hear UR beta (I think it’s 3.5?) has improved web capture/editing. MyInfo isn’t too great handling web capture—capture is cumbersome and not always accurate, and the app might freeze on you when you try opening a saved web clip (on a mighty fast Vista Dell XPS laptop.) ...So currently I wouldn’t recommend MyInfo as a web clipper and anxiously await its version 5.
I wonder how Web Research compares to Surfulater? Surfulater’s upcoming release is supposed to have a great tagging system (see S. Zeoli’s post *grin*).
Posted by Cassius
May 9, 2008 at 02:21 PM
The new version of Web Research looks interesting, Perhaps it is better than its main rival, myBase, but perhaps not. See my descriptions of myBase at http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/712/0/new-windows-laptop-new-information-management-software
-c
Posted by JJ
May 9, 2008 at 02:32 PM
UPDATE:
I got a chance to play with the new version of WebResearch some more last night & I’m lovin it. Some more thoughts:
1. Integration with Windows Desktop Search is great. EVERYTHING in WR is now indexed in DTS. When I do a search in with DTS, it shows the items in WR with a WR icon.
2. From the file manager, you can select a file, right mouse click the file and send it to WR. Before saving it into WR, a nice dialog box opens where you can select the folder, category… very nice :-)
3. Before saving a Web page in WR, you can quickly determine if you already have saved the page in WR (avoid duplicate savings)
4.Seems very fast & quick!
-jj
Posted by JJ
May 21, 2008 at 10:12 PM
Just an update after using WebResearch for over a week:
#1. The integration with Windows Desktop search is fantastic. When I search in DTS, it will list any item stored in WR. The only downside is I was using Copernic DTS & I think it is better than Windows DTS. But I will gladly trade Copernic for Windows DTS because it finally allows me to use just one search tool!
#2. If you copy a web page into WR, it allows you to refresh the contents. If you do a refresh, WR will open a window which shows you both the stored doc and the refreshed doc. WR allows you the option to keep the old or save the new. Very nice. One thing WR could add to this feature would be to synch the scrolling between the old & refreshed doc. Not a big deal, but could be enhanced in the next version.
#3. I had been using UltraRecall & WR for the past 2 years (UR would get everything but web pages… WR would get the web pages). But I’m going 100% to WR. I was hoping that I could just dragNdrop items from UR to WR…. No such luck :-(. So I will be spending some time moving my stuff from UR to WR.
#4. Set reminder feature. This has been in WR for sometime, but I never used it until now. It is pretty neat. It creates a task in Outlook for you. Kind of cool as it plays nicely with Outlook.
#5. This version of WR seems very fast & stable! It has not crashed or locked-up on me.
#6. When you save a web page or doc to WR it opens a dialog box where you select the folder to store it. What is really cool is you can start typing a folder name and it will search for the folder. New nice & fast if, like me, you have lots of folders. (This would be nice for UR to add)
Overall, I give WR 3.0 2 thumbs up!
-jj