Comments on: Too much of a good thing – the rebuttal http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/ Surfulater, the journey continues... Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:22:49 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: barabbas45 http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-86903 barabbas45 Sun, 10 May 2009 09:18:06 +0000 http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-86903 This might be what Mr. T is looking for: http://www.infoaxe.com/ Saves every page you visit to an online repository. This might be what Mr. T is looking for:
http://www.infoaxe.com/

Saves every page you visit to an online repository.

]]> By: barabbas45 http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-85308 barabbas45 Tue, 21 Apr 2009 07:14:57 +0000 http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-85308 On one level I can understand the obession with 'complete recording' of one's activity; on the other hand, I also have trouble understanding it, for all the reasons that have already been brought up -- most of our daily experience is in fact discarded for good reasons; there are privacy and security issues; there are practical issues of storage space; and etc. At any rate, I'm not sure SUL is the product that should be addressing the 'complete archive' question, even though it is indeed an interesting question. However, the point I wanted to make in passing here, is that I think the exchange/discussion above once again demonstrates how useful SUL is to academics (A point that I specifically made way back when I started using SUL, and a point I intermittently keep making from time to time). I do continue to think SUL needs to explode out of its 'bookmarker' origins and evolve into a much more generic database/research aid program (and I continue to think it hasnt fully done that yet -- and I continue to have my own ideas, as an academic myself, of how it can do that. :) For me, I've wrestled with various ways of using SUL and incorporating it into research/writing workflows. For me SUL is a difficult piece of software because as an archiver it is extremely handy in some respects and in other respects it needs improvements desperately (bookmark bar, smart folders, text importers, things I've brough up in the customer forums from time to time); I've also tried to use SUL as an outliner (which is kind of a different function from a database/archiver) and there I've had less success with SUL and the limits of SUL's UI as an outliner. (In particular, custom templates need to become much easier to make and deploy easily and quickly and efficiently; and basic outliner features (like being able to drag/move/copy an entry from the content pane to the knowledge tree) need to be implemented for SUL to begin competing as a textual outliner with programs like omnioutliner, scrivener, or even treepad or 'The Guide' (both being dual pane outliners) on the PC side. Anyway, so as an academic myself, my wishes and dreams for SUL are different. I keep trying to push it into becoming a combined database/outliner product -- something that would indeed be a 'killer app' for academics/researchers, and which doesnt exist at the moment as far as I know. (I should add, even as a bookmarker, not being able to capture all open tabs, seems like a major lacuna to me in the feature set). But aside from the database/outliner improvements on my wishlist, SUL remains indispensible to my work even as it currently is; there is simply no better, or more convenient, way to archive thousands of notes/webpages/snippets that I come across in my daily research, and retrieve those snippets easily and efficiently, than SUL. But its because we love it so much that we keep wishing it could do more. On one level I can understand the obession with ‘complete recording’ of one’s activity; on the other hand, I also have trouble understanding it, for all the reasons that have already been brought up — most of our daily experience is in fact discarded for good reasons; there are privacy and security issues; there are practical issues of storage space; and etc. At any rate, I’m not sure SUL is the product that should be addressing the ‘complete archive’ question, even though it is indeed an interesting question.

However, the point I wanted to make in passing here, is that I think the exchange/discussion above once again demonstrates how useful SUL is to academics (A point that I specifically made way back when I started using SUL, and a point I intermittently keep making from time to time). I do continue to think SUL needs to explode out of its ‘bookmarker’ origins and evolve into a much more generic database/research aid program (and I continue to think it hasnt fully done that yet — and I continue to have my own ideas, as an academic myself, of how it can do that. :)

For me, I’ve wrestled with various ways of using SUL and incorporating it into research/writing workflows. For me SUL is a difficult piece of software because as an archiver it is extremely handy in some respects and in other respects it needs improvements desperately (bookmark bar, smart folders, text importers, things I’ve brough up in the customer forums from time to time); I’ve also tried to use SUL as an outliner (which is kind of a different function from a database/archiver) and there I’ve had less success with SUL and the limits of SUL’s UI as an outliner. (In particular, custom templates need to become much easier to make and deploy easily and quickly and efficiently; and basic outliner features (like being able to drag/move/copy an entry from the content pane to the knowledge tree) need to be implemented for SUL to begin competing as a textual outliner with programs like omnioutliner, scrivener, or even treepad or ‘The Guide’ (both being dual pane outliners) on the PC side.

Anyway, so as an academic myself, my wishes and dreams for SUL are different. I keep trying to push it into becoming a combined database/outliner product — something that would indeed be a ‘killer app’ for academics/researchers, and which doesnt exist at the moment as far as I know.

(I should add, even as a bookmarker, not being able to capture all open tabs, seems like a major lacuna to me in the feature set). But aside from the database/outliner improvements on my wishlist, SUL remains indispensible to my work even as it currently is; there is simply no better, or more convenient, way to archive thousands of notes/webpages/snippets that I come across in my daily research, and retrieve those snippets easily and efficiently, than SUL.

But its because we love it so much that we keep wishing it could do more.

]]> By: Leigh Wardle http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-84176 Leigh Wardle Thu, 09 Apr 2009 05:20:23 +0000 http://blog.surfulater.com/2009/04/08/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-rebuttal/#comment-84176 Many months ago I tried out a product, Webmynd (http://www.webmynd.com) that claims "Record and search a visual history of your web surfing. You’ll never lose track of what you find on the internet." I tried it for 3 days and it generated about 1 GB of space that I couldn't afford to give up. But what the hell, if that was cached to a 1 TB drive there would have been room for 8 years of browsing! Good luck, Leigh Many months ago I tried out a product, Webmynd (http://www.webmynd.com) that claims “Record and search a visual history of your web surfing. You’ll never lose track of what you find on the internet.”

I tried it for 3 days and it generated about 1 GB of space that I couldn’t afford to give up.
But what the hell, if that was cached to a 1 TB drive there would have been room for 8 years of browsing!

Good luck,

Leigh

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