If you still haven’t tried Sliderocket, now is the time to give it a go, this is definetly one of the new web tools worth trying.

• Dimdim

Dimdim is a very interesting option, for one single, simple reason: it is free to use as a hosted service, but even better, it is an open source project so you can download the server application and host it yourself. There is a totally free Community Edition, and also an Enterprise Edition, which is priced quite reasonably compared to competitors with similar features, and allow for private branding (logos, URLs, etc). For an individual consultant or freelancer, though, this is overkill – either host it yourself if you have the skills or use the free hosted version. You definitely want to check this out if you are looking into web conferencing.

• Adobe Acrobat Connect

Adobe’s offering in this field is very competitive. Reasonably priced at U$39.95 per month for unlimited conferences with up to 15 users (more than enough for most people, I imagine), it has a very slick user interface – as we have come to expect from Adobe products. The major drawback is that there is no audio and you cannot record meetings in this version, only in the professional edition which costs a lot more.

• WebEx MeetMeNow

WebEx is the most popular of the online tools, and there is a reason for that. The service is simple, while offering all the common features, and the pricing is very reasonable at US$49 per month for the basic plan. If you are the kind of person who likes to stick with the market standard, or are too busy (or lazy ) to research too much, WebEx is a good solution for you.

• Spreed

Spreed is a newcomer to this field (as far as I can tell), based in Germany. It is a very good option if your meetings are usually just you and one or two others, since their meetings are always free for up to three people.  Beyond that it gets more expensive than the competitors (around €69 per month for the basic package) – but for my needs three participants would generally be enough.  You also have the “pay-as-you-go” option which you could use for the exceptional occasions where you need more than three participants.

• Yugma

Yugma is also a relative newcomer, and it offers free conferencing for up to 10 participants, which is awesome.  Problem is, it didn’t work on my machine   I found reports from a bunch of other people who couldn’t get it to work either.  They have a Skype edition which would be great if you already use Skype, but again, at least for me it didn’t work.  Yugma shows a lot of promise, but it needs to be more reliable to be considered a contender in this field.

As we can see, there are a lot of options for individuals and small businesses to use web conferencing for a very reasonable price.  There might be other options which I did not find in my research.  Of course, there  are also the big guys, such as Microsoft and IBM, who have their own conferencing solutions, but these are usually far too expensive for the little guy.

• New Features at Comapping Reviewed
• ConceptDraw MindMap 5 Professional: Another Mind Mapping Tool Reviewed
• Mind Mapping Revisited: Two More Reviews
• Mind Mapping Software Review: Organize Your Ideas

Go through them again, and maybe bookmark this post to read them one at a time, prolonging your pleasure (ooooh). Or just ignore and move on

Comapping is one of the better online mind mapping tools, and I first heard of it while researching for the first series of mind mapping tool reviews here at Daily Iteration. The newly added features were really important things that were missing, turning Comapping into (on my opinion) the best online mind mapping tool out there.

Now you can import and export files in Freemind format, meaning you can now work on your maps in a full-fledged desktop application and upload them to Comapping to have them available online and edit them together with your remote friends and colleagues. This alone makes this a noteworthy upgrade. You can also exchange files between Comapping and MindManager, a popular commercial mind mapping tool.

Another nice feature, specially for you blogger types, is the ability to embed maps in web pages, just like you currently do with videos. Below you can see a simple map I’ve put together to showcase this option. It is still a little fidgety, as I had to copy and paste the code twice to get it working – but it looks beatuiful once you get it right! and in fact the map I had embedded here no longer works, so I removed it – this might be because I only have a test account, so my maps are not saved permanently, and my embedded map could be pointing to an inexisting file. but after being contacted by Michael (Comapping’s R&D Director) who explained to me the correct procedure, things worked out.

I’m not sure if this is a new feature, or if I missed it when I first looked at Comapping, but there is a “Presentation” feature that allows you to create slideshows from your maps. Leave the map at the state you want it to appear, click on “Add snapshot as slide”. Expand or contract a few nodes, then take another snapshot. Arrange the slides in the ordr you want, and presto, a very nice presentation, with the map changing from one state to the other at the click of your mouse – very nifty! The video below shows this feature at work.

A word about video on this blog: I am still testing things, and for this post I thought I’d try Revver’s Quicktime embedding, as it gives better video quality. If you have problems viewing this, or if you prefer me to post Flash video + the original avi, please let me know in the comments.

A couple of smaller updates were also introduced. Now you can add notes to nodes – not breathtaking, but it can be useful. Also, the “Share” menu was improved, and you can send the invitations to look at your map by e-mail. You don’t have to be a registered user to look at the map, but if you want to edit it you have to pay

And here we get to Comapping’s biggest problem: it is the best online mind mapping tool, but there is no free account available. If you want to edit maps beyond a 30-day trial, you have to pay. On the other hand, they charge a very reasonable US$11.99 for six months, for a full account – no limits on usage.

Overall, if you use mind maps often, need to edit them colaboratively, and are willing to cough up a small amount for the finest online tool there is, it’s worth it.

Those who have been following my series of reviews will be aware that I specified some criteria for eligibility: there had to be at least one free usable license and/or account for the software or service, and I had to be able to use it from my two main desktops, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. Concept Draw Mindmap is neither available for free, nor does it run on Linux (though you can get it for Mac). So why am I reviewing it? First, because it would be a nice comparison test to my previously selected champion, Freemind. Testing Mind Map will allow us to see how well Freemind stands up to a commercial competitor. And secondly, because Igor from Concept Draw asked me very nicely, so what’s the point in not returning the kindness?

So on with the review…

Concept Draw offers many products related to diagramming and technical drawing, and the first impression that you get is thatMind Map has kept true to its roots – there are more drawing tools thanwith other mind mapping tools, and the diagrams you can generate are really good looking. This guy has plenty of features, and even though it takes a little while to navigate through the interface (there’s a lot of buttons there), nothing is too hard to reach.

One of the most interesting features offered is a brainstorm mode. This is a different screen, with a little timer at the top right, which you can set up to count down as many minutes as you think are necessary to your particular session. Set a title for you brainstorm, click go, and the timer starts counting down as you enter all the ideas that come up in a very simple manner. Below you can see a video of this feature at work.

This is the first attempt at embedding video in the blog, and the video quality isn’t what I’d like – even though Jumpcut has the best quality Flash video I could find. You cen get the original .avi from the link below, while I try to find a better solution to stream high quality screencasts in the blog.

Another very nice feature of Mind Map is the large amount of formats you can export your maps to. All sorts of image formats (PNG, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, etc…), PDF, MS Word outline files, Powerpoint slide, and, best of all for all the project-heads out there (like me!), you can export your maps to MS Project XML format, so you can start transforming all those bright ideas you had during your brainstoming session into an actual project schedule right away. One that left me intrigued was the ability to export to Concept Draw’s own Project tool – this on I would very much like to take a look at (Igor, are you reading this )

Another point where Mind Map shows its heritage as a drawing tool is in the excellent quality clip art provided, which is actually usable without completely ruining the quality of your presentation. The only sugestion I would make here is to have it all as SVG files, so they would be scalable.

The screenshot to the right shows another interesting feature. You can open a topic structure to the left of the screen, while keeping the rest of the window areas visible to the right. While it does get cramped, it is a very useful way to get around larger maps, editing each topic without loosing all visual reference to the actual diagram.

Overall, Concept Draw Mind Map has proved to be a really nice tool, with some very nice features such as exporting to MS Project files, timed brainstorming sessions, nice display of topic structure, among others. A very positive aspect that I have not mentioned yet is that it generates beautiful diagrams – and lets you create personalized styles which you can save as templates and apply across all your diagrams. So if you need to create great looking maps for presentations, or could benefit from the timed brainstorming sessions and MS Project export, Mind Map would be a good choice for you. Bear in minf though, that at US$ 199 for the Professional version (the website does not make it very clear what the difference is between this and the Personal license, at US$119), this product is more suited to those of us who use this kind of diagram professionally (ar at least intensively). If you do, however, Concept Draw Mind Map is a fantastic tool for you.

• Comapping

Comapping was recommended at Web Worker Daily (they had a link to me, I’ve been linked to by one of my favourite blogs, yay!), and I must say it is impressive. Lots and lots of features: importing and exporting map files, collapsing lists, the ability to create a slideshow from your maps, interface based on ribbons like Office 2007… Unfortunately, you can only edit maps for free during a 30 day trial. After this period you have to pay US$ 11.99 for six months, which is not bad, but fails to meet the requirements I have set for my reviews – the solutions have to be completely usable for free.

In their FAQ they mention that a desktop version is in the works, which supposedly would allow you to edit your maps offline and upload them to their servers when you need to collaborate on them. And, just thinking out loud here, how would this work with Firefox 3’s offline storage mode? In fact, how would any of these apps work, would we be able to “save” the apps to our browser, work on them offline inside Firefox, and then upload only when we connect? That would be fantastic, eh?

Overall, Comapping is very impressive indeed, packed with nice features. The only drawback is that the app is a little heavy, I experienced temporary “freezes” when editing my maps while things updated themselves – but nothing that seriously harms a fantastic web app. If you are willing to pay a fair price for your mind-mapping tool, Comapping is a nice choice.

• Mindomo

Nick recommended this tool in a comment to my previous post on mind-mapping tools, and I thought I’d check it out as well.  The first thing that surprised me is the amazing similarity between Mindomo and Comapping – roughly the same feature set, very similar interface based on ribbons… Take a look at both the screenshots and you will see what I mean.

The main difference really is in the business models – Mindomo lets you edit seven maps on a free account without a time limit, whereas in Comapping you can edit as many maps as you like, but only within a 30 day limit.

There is really not much else to say about Mindomo – just read the paragraph about Comapping, it’s all the same.  I wonder what is the relationship between these two companies?  The only real difference on the interface is that Mindomo has an advertising banner on the right side of the screen.  It is quite a large banner, and may be a little intrusive, but if that’s needed to give us a usable free account, then so be it.

The free account is limited to seven maps, and there are also premium, business and education accounts.  The premium version  removes this restriction, gives you access to a dedicated server with secure connections, and is quite reasonable at 4.99 € / month.  However, the plan is billed anually, requiring you to make a fairly long-term commitment to the service.  Business and education plans allow you to host the application locally, but no pricing information is given on the website.

Based on these new tools, I have changed my previous setup.  Whereas before I worked on my local maps using Freemind and uploaded them to Mindmeister to work collaboratively, now I plan to replace Mindmeister with Mindomo.  More features, nice interface, all in all a fantastic app.

• The tools have to be free (at least as in beer), and
• The tools have to be cross-platform, either web-based or run in Windows and Linux.

I’d love to be able to test also on a Mac, but unless some kind soul decides to give me one, I’m limited to these two platforms for the moment. After some quite extensive searches, I arrived at the following list of tools to test:

• Web-based:
  • Mindmeister
  • bubbl.us
• Desktop
  • Freemind
  • Labyrinth
  • Compendium

One very interesting tool which was left out was Web of Web. This allows you to run a collaboration/mind-mapping application on your own web server, as a J2EE web application. I can see beautiful applications for this in corporate intranet environments, but that is outside of our scope for now…

Mind mapping, or conceptual mapping, for those not yet familiar with it, is a kind of diagram created to help people visualize ideas, tasks, or any other kind of linked information. Contrary to what people might think, the existence of mind maps is a very old thing – Wikipedia says the concept has been around since the 3rd century. A mind map consists, basically, of a diagram of linked elements, or nodes, depicting ideas, tasks or words. Different tools add different capabilities, such as collapsing elements, adding images, or creating sophisticated libraries of elements.

So with our introductions out of the way, on with the tests:

• Freemind

Freemind is an open-source software (i.e., free software as in freedom), so it immediately gets bonus points in my review. It is written in Java, therefore fully cross-platform. It is a lightweight, yet flexible tool, which allows you to create nice looking, practical maps with minimal effort. There is also the option of exporting files to images. Where it lacks is in the collaboration features – it is designed to be a stand-alone application sitting on a single machine. Whether this is a limitation or not will depend on your intended use. The only problem I had with Freemind is something that seems to be a general problem with Java apps running together with Linux’s Compiz window-manager: this time, I could not maximize the window, or rather, I could maximize the window, but the size of the editing area remained the same, so all I got was a lot of blank space on my screen. A similar situation happened with Thinking Rock in my previous review, so this really seems to be a problem in Compiz. However, turning it off gets everything working again.

• Labyrinth

Labyrinth is also free software as in freedom. It is developed originally as a Gnome application (for Linux). However, there is a Windows installer available at the website, even though I haven’t tested it. This one is very, very light – too light I would say. It only has the most basic tools: draw boxes, lines, and insert images. I did not find an option to created grouped items, or to create collapsible lists, both of which I would consider very basic. One very good point about it is that it integrates very nicely with your Gnome desktop, so if you are using that Labyrinth becomes a better option. Overall, it is a nice app, which is certainly going in the right direction, but it still has some way to go. Adding collapsible lists, icons and better linking of elements would be the next steps, I would say.

• Compendium

Compendium is a very powerful tool created by the UK’s Open University. It is used by them in something called the OpenLearn program, which I did not really dig into to see what it’s about. The software itself is written in Java, therefore cross-platform. I had no problems at all getting it to run in Ubuntu. It is fully featured, has options to use a central database for sharing projects and resources (you can create a node, for instance, and share that with someone else). The software creates its own users, all of which have in-boxes, so you can send your resources to other people through this. It has different types of node, such as list, question, answer, note, reference, decision… All in all, a fully-featured, extremely powerful piece of software, keeping a nice enough level of user-friendliness.

• Mindmeister

Mindmeister is a very, very cool online app for creating and sharing mind maps. It has all the basic tools for creating the maps, and then allows you to share these maps with other people and edit them together. Even better, you can export them to images, to Rich Text Files for embedding in word processors, and in the format of two of the most popular desktop tools, Freemind (open-source) and MindManager (proprietary). Mindmeister also allows you to publish your maps, so they can be accessed directly by a URL, or you can give them limited access only to people you invite by e-mail. The major downside, for my purposes, is that the free account has a number of limitations, including limiting you to a maximum of 6 maps.

• bubbl.us

Bubbl.us is another web offering, similar to Mindmeister. The first major difference I should mention is that bubbl.us is entirely free – there are no limitations on the standard account. There is an ad showing in the bottom left corner of the screen, but it is not very intrusive, and didn’t bother me at all. The maps generated by the application are very pretty, and the interface is very well thought out. However, the way the nodes (apparently they’re called bubbles here) are drawn makes them a little worse for list-style nodes, and, like in Mindmeister, there is no way to customize individual nodes beyond changing their size and color. Export options are image (png or jpeg), html or xml files – there is no option to export to other mind-mapping software. Collaboration is there, and is easy to use, but there is no way to publish online via a URL like in Mindmeister. All in all, a very good offering, specially considering it is 100% free of charge.

Just one final note: I did not test extensively the collaboration options in any of these offerings, as that is not a priority for me right now.

My choice? In the end, I have decided to go for a combination of Freemind and Mindmeister. I use Freemind on the desktop to get things going, and when I need to share a map I upload it into Mindmeister, which has import and export options for Freemind’s file format. This allows me to avoid having to sign up for a paid account, as I can keep only the files I am currently collaborating on on the web, with the remaining files safely stored in my local machine. Compendium would be a good choice too, but it has some complexity which I don’t need, and would not work together with Mindmeister in this manner.

• Nozbe

Nozbe is an online service specifically designed to work along the gtd methodology. As such, all familiar terms are there: contexts, projects, next action item…. It is very simple to set up and use, and, being a hosted service, you can reach it from any place that has an internet connection. However, it has serious limitations: it will be officially launched on May 14th, and from that date you will be limited to creating five projects and pre-configured contexts on the free accounts. To have unlimited projects and configurable contexts, you have to pay. Even though the basic account, with 30 projects and 10 custom contexts for USD 4.95/month, would serve my needs well enough, that is exactly USD 4.95/month more than I want to pay for my chosen tool…

• Tracks

Tracks is an open-source project written in the infamous Ruby on Rails framework, making it instantly buzzword-compliant. It is a full-fledged web app, meaning that you have the options of installing to your own machine (where you would run one of RoR’s own web servers to access it), installing it in your own server if you have one, or get an account at a hosted service. I have not tried the hosting services, and installing it on my own machine would be a bad idea because I am constantly switching between Windows and Linux which would mean my tool would not be available to me whenever I switch OS. Since I have an account on a web host (yes, where this blog is hosted!), I tried to install Tracks over there. It wasn’t exactly simple, because Rails apps have to run as cgi scripts in shared hosts, but after going through this tutorial, it finally worked. Once I got it going though, it works beautifully – very simple, and, since it is your own installation, completely customizable and with no limitations. One particularly nice feature is that you can access different aspects of your account (completed items, to-do items due in the next seven days, etc) in both RSS and iCal formats, perfect if you already use some kind of desktop calendaring solution or if, like me, you are constantly checking your feeds reader.

• Thinking Rock

Thinking Rock is a desktop software written in Java (and as such available for Windows, Linux and Mac) also designed to work along the lines of gtd. A gamma release of 2.0 is available, and that was the one I tried out, without any significant stability glitches or bugs for a very early release. There was one major hiccup: apparently due to some bug in Java, or at least some inconsistency between Java and Compiz, which is Ubuntu’s default composite window manager (of wobbly-windows fame), I get a blank screen when I start the application. To get it going, I have to turn off all the desktop effects, launch Thinking Rock, then I can switch the effects back on. Annoying… Once that is done though, Thinking Rock is an excellent piece of software, enabling you to quickly get going in gtd. As you can see from the screenshot (click on it if you can’t see that much), it leads the new user through the steps required to get going, simplifying enormously the adoption of gtd. Its major flaw, in my evaluation, is that it is a desktop app, and as such is only available when I’m on my own computer and even then, when I’m using the OS I installed it on. I suppose I could install the xml file the application uses to store your data on my external drive so it would always be available, but that would mean extra, unnecessary synchronization issues whenever I use the notebook out of home, for instance. But if you use only one OS, and carry your computer with you, meaning you don’t need to use your chosen tool from other machines via the net, Thinking Rock would be the way to go, in my opinion.

• Stikkit

Stikkit is not, strictly speaking, a GTD app. IT lacks many of the elements of David Allen’s methodology, such as contexts, and while people have suggested many different ways to use it as a fully fledged GTD app, it is not there yet – neither, I believe, is that the creator’s intention. So why is it in this list, meant for GTD apps, and a Top 5 list at that? Because it is such a fantastic, clever little app that it just deserves to be talked about. Stikkiti is based on the concept of stikkits (doh!), which are simple notes that you enter either at the app’s web page or through a little javascript bookmarklet. Very ordinary so far, you might think, but here’s where it gets interesting: Stikkit has the ability to pick out certain “magic words” in your notes, and categorize them accordingly for you, automatically. Say you write a note such as “- get spaghetti for dinner tomorrow night”. Stikkit will recognize this as a to-do item (it starts with a dash, which is fairly common for lists) and will add it to your calendar at the correct date! After you get used to it, things get even better. You would write the previous note as, for instance, “-get spaghetti for dinner tomorrow nigh, remind me, @errands”. Stikkit will recognize “remind me” and send you an e-mail at the right time so you don’t forget to buy the spaghetti and ruin your evening, plus it will tag it (the “@” sign) as an errand. So perhaps when you go walk the dog tomorrow evening, you can check your “errands” tag (or context, in gtd lingo) and you will know that you have to buy pasta. It really is fantastic. The only problem, in my case where I really wanted the full GTD thing, was that it’s hard to get something that structured here. However, if you want to get organized, and are not so keen on any pre-determined methodology, be sure to check out Stikkit.

• Remember the Milk + IMified

The last entry in my list is not really one tool, but rather a combination of two different tools which, taken together, can be a real killer. Remember the Milk is one of the best “simple to-do list” apps out there, and in fact, it is not all that simple, really. It has a lot of features, such as tagging and saved searches, which make it a perfectly fine tool for GTD usage. It is quite easy to set up a number of tags which, together with saved searches, work as GTD contexts.
IMified is a very nice tool which allows you to interact with a variety of services via IM. You add IMified’s bot as a contact, and voilá, after registering which services you want to use with it, you can simply send it messages to create new entries in a variety of different ways. With Remember the Milk, for instance, you can create new lists, or new to-do items, simply by sending them as messages via your IM client. You can also view all your items via IM. This nice little tool can be used with a number of services (you can even post to your blog from it), so it is definitely worth checking out if you spend a lot of your time in IM sessions.

Remember the Milk together with IMIfied can work fine as a GTD system, but it does require a little thinking as to how you structure things. As such, I wouldn’t really recommend this to someone who, like me, is only getting started on the methodology. On ce you get the hang of it though, I guess this would be the fastest, most lightweight manner to manage your lists.

The final winner, in my case, was Tracks. This is because I have enough Linux skills and patience to install it by myself, plus I have a web-host which allows me to run Rails apps. If this was not the case, I would have gone with Thinking Rock. And, if you really need to access your stuff from the net, you might consider chucking away the whole GTD thing and use Stikkit, just because it’s so cool!

This post is my entry in Darren Rowse’s Top 5 Group Writing Project. Check it out, it is a nice way to discover new, interesting blogs. Plus, if I get picked in the draw I get 1k cash!