Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Mindmapping Software Shootout

Over the next few posts, I will be comparing and contrasting mindmapping software on the web, and on the Mac. The web sites will be separated into free and commercial, as will the Mac software. I plan to list all of the software under consideration today, then I will look at web mindmappers, followed by free Mac packages, and, finally, commercial Mac mappers. My apologies to Windows users, but I do not currently have access to a Windows machine, so I cannot do a proper evaluation. However, I will list a number of Windows options at the end of my overall list below, in case any of you would like to check into them yourselves.

Online Mindmappers:

Free Macintosh Software:
Commercial Macintosh Software:

Free Windows Software (Will not be evaluated): Freemind, Mindomo, PersonalBrain, XMind Basic

Commercial Windows Software (Will not be evaluated): Decision Explorer, iMindmap, I-Navigation, Mind2Chart, MindChart, MindGenius, Mindmanager, MindMapper 2008, Mind Visualizer, MYmap XG, NovaMind (Express, Pro, Platinum), SmartDraw, Solution Language Tool, Thought-o-Graph, Visual Mind, Visual Thinking, XMind Pro

Now that I've laid out the mindmapping tools that we will consider over my next three posts, I'll leave you with the list. Each of the tools listed is hyperlinked to its respective webpage, so that you may take a look yourselves, or even try them out, if you feel particularly motivated. Until next time, when I'll take a look at online mindmapping tools.


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Friday, February 20, 2009

Welcome!

Welcome to Tech Landscape:Musings of a Scientist on Current and Emerging Technologies. The title is rather grandiose, and could lead you to believe that I have delusions of grandeur (or perhaps that they are actually not delusions after all.) However, the title is simply intended to indicate how broad the topics are that I am hoping to cover. So, in keeping with ritual, I will let you know what the blog will actually cover, and then tell you a bit about myself. In case some day in the future you have an overwhelming urge to refresh your memory about what I am discussing in this post, you will not need to dig though the archives to find this one. Most of the information in this posting is duplicated on the About page of this site.

This blog is intended to cover a wide variety of technology topics, with a bit of bias toward three general areas of interest. These areas are Social Media, including web sites, software, and developments in the industry, the Macintosh and other Apple products, and personal productivity tools, such as the popular Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, and the Mind Mapping methodology. The technology landscape is both broad and complex, but I hope to stay on top of it by investigating both new areas of technology as they emerge, and existing areas as they evolve. I would also like to hear what you are interested in reading about. If you have a topic that you would like me to look into, please leave a comment on this page, and I will consider it for a future posting.

My name is Seth Greenblatt and I have been involved in research in a wide variety of areas, including Mathematics, Statistics, Social Network Analysis, Computer Science, Physics, and Artificial Intelligence, for over 30 years. I have taught and done research at a university, performed contract research for the Government, and worked as a consultant to commercial companies and international organizations. I have even developed software. During less serious times, I have worked as a standup comedian, a model, and a disk jockey for several radio stations. This is not going to be a comedy blog, but I do hope to keep you informed, make you think, and perhaps even entertain you a bit.

I have a few procedural things to go over. First of all, this is just a one-man staff, so I won't be publishing 10-15 postings per day. The frequency of my postings is quite variable. In some cases, I will have a few short pieces of information to get out to you, so I'll post more than once in a day. However, I have been a research scientist for many years, so I will delve deeply into a complex topic and it could take several days to complete, perhaps as long as a week. Since there will be a variable amount of time between postings, I would recommend that you subscribe, so you will know when the next posting is up, without having to check the web site.

The last thing I want to cover is comments. I reserve the right to take down any comments that I feel are unacceptable. Comments are unacceptable if they use foul language, or if they do not maintain a civil tone. To put it more plainly, I don't mind if you disagree with me, but don't act like a jerk.

I want to thank you for visiting Tech Landscape, and I hope I can keep the content interesting enough for you to continue to visit.

If you would like to hear more from me, you can:

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Hope you'll be back soon, Seth
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