A software comes around once in a while that wen originally viewed is looked at as nothing more then a toy, but when fully used and utilized after some time becomes the best software ever.
The Brain Personal (http://www.thebrain.com) is just that kind of software. I have been using it for at least 6 years now and have gone through the whole evolution of the software.
While looking like a fancy toy this software lets you create links and thoughts for the way you think and work. No it is not a gimmick if you actually take the time to learn the software that is exactly what it does (A little more on that later).
While the software has been around on the Windows platform for ages now and has evolved through out its life, it is now available cross platform due to the company porting it to java. The Beta version of the 4.0 software is available for download. The software is free for the basic version, but the advance version which gives you a ton of exporting options and other things does cost money.
Now more on some examples to make you understand, and some of the uses that I find for the software.
- Link Manager - The software provides the ability to create links for various categories and interlink them together as needed. If you look at standard link managers or at the browsers bookmarks they are linear, meaning that for each “category” it can only exist in one. The Brain does not suffer with this limitation giving you the ability to link Yahoo to Finance, Search Engine, Blog, News, etc,. So that you can find this page from multiple locations when you are looking for something particular.
- Address Book – I use Linked-In Software and other to keep my extensive work and home contacts in place. But once again, Outlook and other contact managers only keep a linear thought process (although with Outlook categories, you can assign multiple categories). But this software by using multicolored links (Known as Link Types) lets you truly link the categories together so if Bob is a Friend of Jim, but is the brother of Samantha you can see it visually within seconds. Using it with Linked-In also provides the ability to keep track of the linking process with my business associates as well.
- To Do List – The new version with its calendaring feature also acts like an amazing To Do Manager. I use a system called Getting Things Done for my To Do activities. With The Brain software I can interlink my To-Do Lists not only by categories, but by projects and create hierarchies as well as assign due dates with the calendar feature. This is probably the best implementation of the principles possible, and when I have time I just have to write about it.
I do more things with the software including keeping track of software installed on each of my systems, and marking things for upgrades easily. I keep track of all my work presentations and files, and easily export it to my PDA from the software.
I also use it on the Mac and the PC at the same time, while the new licensing is a bit prohibitive, because they make you buy two versions of the software to use. The company does give a discount for secondary software and if you do not want the full functionality you can always use the free version.
More on this software and its use later.
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Posted by blu3knight 
Posted by blu3knight 
Posted by blu3knight 