Alex Boxall
Downloads: 0
Posts: 4
Smile Score: +18 
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Member Since: 30 Jul 2007
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I am a Free member Visit Stats
Last Visit: 2 years ago
Member Since: 30 Jul 2007
Profile Views: 119
Alex Boxall's Posts
Average Rating from Alex:
(3)
(3) 
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+16
MoneyWell
zenrain reviewed on 14 Feb 2009
The original switch was a bit of a shock. At the time I started using it, MoneyWell wasn't exactly the best looking financial application on the block. Also, getting started with the allocation and bucket system took me the better part of a day to figure it out, and then another day to undo my previous days mistakes. :) Honestly, the only reason I stuck with it at that time was the developers amazing responsiveness on the forums.
It took me a week to start appreciating it's design. To enter a transaction date for this month just enter the day. Or if it's not in the month, enter the month and the day. Any delimiter. This kind of attention to detail is throughout the application.
Well, it's 11 months later. The interface has had some significant changes to make it easier to use and read. Kevin has added direct connect for a lot of Banks. There are improvements to reports, you can link to receipts. All this is nice. Actually, compared to other apps in the same period of time, it's really impressive.
But the best part of this application is my finances are now in order. I now have money set aside in advance for bills. I'm not overspending. In fact, my spending habits have completely changed. There are very few applications that have changed my life. This is one of them.
Together
zenrain reviewed on 18 Dec 2007
Now, I've been using Together since the upgrade from KIT, and have moved most of my documents from DevonThink to Together. Since I'm not a heavy researcher, Together fits my needs much better, and has far more flexibility for Tagging and filing.
The shelf is fantastic, and allows quick filing and also searching and quick notes. Also, I'm really appreciating that all the files stored in Together are accessible using Spotlight (I really didn't think much about all the fuss about this not being available in DT, but now I have the option, I can't imagine going back).
I also am starting to understand the difference between groups and folders. The fact that I can delete documents from a group without changing their actual folder location makes it perfect for quickly mark documents I want to read later on. I also have another group set as an inbox for filing later. This seems to me to be a much cleaner implementation of duplicates or replicants, at least as far as my usage goes. Other users mileage may of course vary.
Prior to the 2.0.3 release I would have given stability a 2, as I was experiencing lockups when searching. However, the latest update resolved this and I haven't had any issues since then.
Highly recommended.
+1
PersonalBrain
I think of it more as a note or file browser. It allows me to link seemingly unrelated things to each other, and store them in a manner that is relevant to me.
There are multiple views available, the Normal view is what I consider the "micro view" which allows me to only see items related to the active though (be it pictures, files, text, hyperlinks). For brains with hundreds of thoughts, this keeps the information overload to a minimum, and you can't really customize it's layout, just the notes and other tools around it.
The Distant Thoughts view allows you to see thoughts one more link away, and the Expanded view allows you to move thoughts around, collapse, or expand some to really get an idea of the relations and your brain layout.
There's rumors on the forums that we may be able to save expanded views somtime in the future, which will open up new avenues of viewing your brain.
As PersonalBrain is so "out of the box" it's really hard to describe effecively how to use it.
Here's a link to a website using the Brain interface to hopefully explain it better than I.
http://sociate.thebrain.com/brainekp/
+1
PersonalBrain
zenrain reviewed on 17 Aug 2007
Some of the more useful features are only available after upgrading to core or pro (like a calendar, file attachments).
What makes PersonalBrain so powerful to me is it provides context to tasks, files etc. For example, if I have a "Thought" for a project, I have related thoughts for files, resources, websites attached to the original thought as parent or children links immediately available. Searching is also easy as it indexes the content from websites, yuour notes, .pdf's etc. Hard to explain, but easy to use.
Currently it's missing some of the OS integration I've come to expect from Mac programs, but the developer is very responsive and the software has improved in leaps and bounds since the beta realease.