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| Info Select 8 | |
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Does the world need another personal information manager? Besides all the smaller players in this crowded field (Best Software’s ACT, FrontPage’s GoldMine, Eudora Planner), there is Microsoft Outlook and IBM’s Lotus Organizer, which are found on more than a few desktops. Most likely, Outlook is part of the standard software environment in your office, but I will guess many of its features go unused. The problem with both Outlook and Organizer is they are not user-friendly. Outlook is a depersonalized information manager, which also can be hard to tame. From my experience, it takes a lot of effort to organize data in Outlook using its existing templates. Micro Logic’s Info Select 8 PIM is adaptable, usable and doesn’t require a system administrator to set up databases, forms or reports for common business procedures or other on-the-fly needs. All versions are available by download. After a quick read of its online help files, I organized a simple database in which I could search specific fields. Not bad. The same application in Office would have required the efforts of the office software professional. Besides the core PIM features — calendar, contacts, tasks and notes — Info Select 8 includes e-mail, word processing, mail merge, outlining and spreadsheet functions. I questioned all the extras in this package. I don’t need to go to a separate PIM to outline a few ideas or to send out an e-mail. One key advantage of Info Select 8’s all-in-one-place approach, however, is your information is organized into a single, searchable navigation or “Selector” tree, parked on the left side of its graphic interface. Don’t underestimate the power of being able to find a word across your entire collection of PIM data — e-mail, tasks, phone notes and the rest. Even with my established working habits, I found myself using Info Select 8 rather than Microsoft Outlook and freeware office software I downloaded from the Web — at least for basic note taking and scheduling. The searching function is the most addictive part. When you scribble down phone numbers and notes across different applications, you quickly see the advantages of letting a search function scan through disparate data, rather than relying on your own less-than-computer-like memory to locate the data. Info Select 8 also can search through your cache of Web pages, and then store the matches in its “Selector” window. The browsers I use, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, also have this function embedded in their history panes. Again, the advantage is having the search triggered from a single application and the results stored in a single place. While Info Select 8 makes it easy to enter and store data, how it displays information is less than illuminating. I missed Outlook’s familiar (and well thought out) “Contact” window, with its alphabetical directory buttons to bring you to the right spot. Info Select 8’s graphics are a little raw, and can’t match what is possible with Outlook’s full blown Visual Basic environment. Don’t look to Info Select 8 for features found in more sophisticated PIMs such as data collaboration or groupware. Micro Logic didn’t build the better PIM, but it certainly has created a useful personal information manager you readily can become comfortable with. It also includes the one feature any PIM must have: the ability to import contacts from Outlook. |
Micro Logic Price: $249.95, upgrades $99.99. An annual subscription is $49.99. Windows 95 and higher. Reviewed by Andy Green, a telecommunications consultant and technology writer and researcher based in New Jersey. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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