tasks and if an idea or an action items comes into my mind I can quickly open GyroQ and add the idea to the queue without breaking my stride. GyroQ has a number of built in tags that lets you categorize your entry as you quickly type it in. Some of the tags included are: Idea, Information with Clipboard, Action Item, I Owe, and I'm Waiting for. When using GyroQ you simply press the Control-Q to bring up the GyroQ window, select your tag and then press enter. Now you can return to your work and not be distracted by looking for just the right MindManager map to place the information into. At the end of the day you simply open up your GyroQ Daily Capture Map and click on Send Queue and all of your ideas, actions and entries are automatically consolidated and added to your mind map. GyroQ is a wonderful addition to MindManager and its power is in the simplicity of the application. You can download a trial version of GyroQ at the Gyronix website.
For those of you that read Jonathan Sapir's Blog, MindMapping 2.0 today he announced in a post that he has been working closely with BOSSdev in bringing Spinscape, a mindmapping 2.0 product to market. This is a description that I found on the Spinscape Blog about the product.Spinscape™ is a collaboration tool that introduces a completely new way of gathering and managing information. This tool provides a compelling solution to the problem of finding, visualizing, organizing, and sharing information by enabling individuals to collaborate and navigate over the web.
With an easy-to-use interface, users have the ability to auto-discover information from multiple digital sources, create meaningful relationships between nodes of information, and then securely share and collaborate over those nodes with selected users.
Spinscape is in private beta at this time but if you are interested in an invitation to the beta, please send an email at jasapir@gmail.com.
I received this email today from CS Odessa about some new features in ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 that I thought would be of interest to you. You can upgrade your copy of ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.X for free at the Odessa website.CS Odessa’s ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 Creates Visual eBooks
Odessa, Ukraine, January 29, 2008 – CS Odessa today announces the release of ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3, a new version of CS Odessa’s mind mapping business productivity software. The 5.3 update adds a new unique capability of creating visual eBooks based on mind maps and several other important additions.
Visual eBook is an electronic book where all the information is presented as a mind map rather than text paragraphs. Each page of a Visual eBook is a mind map that is grouped by chapters and paragraphs like in a text book. Visual eBook is a great solution for preparing learning materials within academic and business environments.
ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 has everything that users need to create Visual eBooks. The software features a comprehensive visual mapping toolset that gives customers the ability to create multi-page maps with hyperlinks to other mind maps as well as a PDF export that creates multi-page documents and preserves all of the links between maps and topics. Visual eBook creation guide can be found at
http://www.conceptdraw.com/pg?id=mm_5.3_press-ebook
Yury Varbanets, Product Manager of ConceptDraw MINDMAP notes, “The ability to easily make multi-page PDF documents from the mind maps with all the hyperlinks and interrelationships preserved is essential for many coaches and educators. We’ve developed ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3 to help to convey information in a format that is easy to learn from by creating a visual book.”
There were other additions introduced in ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5.3. These are the ability to send a map via email from inside the application and the option to turn off the background from printing. Map style presets were also redesigned and now they look more professional. All the enhancements can be found in both the Macintosh and the Windows versions of the software.
ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 is an easy-to-use tool that supports mind mapping and brainstorming techniques, as well as many other personal productivity methodologies. It is supposed to provide businesses and individuals with creative way to increase the efficiency and productivity when organizing ideas and projects, or when communicating with people.
More information about the ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 can be found at:
http://www.conceptdraw.com/pg?id=mm_5.3_press-about
The update to ConceptDraw MIDNMAP 5.3 is free for all registered users of ConceptDraw MIDNMAP 5.x. ConceptDraw MINDMAP 5 is available at the price of $199 USD for the Professional edition and of $119 USD for Personal edition at:
http://www.conceptdraw.com/pg?id=mm_5.3_press-buy
For those of us who are moving toward more collaborative tools on the Internet then you should take a look at Buzzword, a collaborative word processor from Adobe. I had a post earlier last year about the features and my first impressions but now it looks like with the support of Adobe that it is really becoming a unique product to take a look at. Once you are in the Buzzword environment you will find that the application is both fast and very visually attractive. I just received and email today about some feature enhancements which I thought you would be interested in knowing about.New features in Buzzword Preview 7
Remember to clear your browser cache
before you try out the new version. If you would like instructions on clearing
your cache, go to: http://about.buzzword.com/support/emptycache.html
Colors in Tables
You can now add color to tables in
Buzzword - the background color can be set cell-by-cell or for the entire table.
You can create the look you want using both border colors and table cell colors
to enhance the contents.
Text Highlighter
Highlighting
text is one of the new features many of you have requested. Select the highlight
color from the font menu - for any color in our palette. It's a useful way to
draw attention to words, phrases or sections either for you, for others
co-authoring or reviewing a document.
User Information on Shared
Documents
When you're sharing documents, it's sometimes important to
know who has opened the document, which version they read, and so on. You can
now find that information by hovering over each user icon on the collaborator
bar. The new information tells you whether the person has opened the document
and, if so, whether he/she opened the current document or an earlier version. If
you want to send out a quick reminder, copy the document URL and email or IM
your team to remind them to read the document or review changes.
Sharing Invitation Links
Sometimes email inviting
colleagues to share a document can be delayed, or even worse, caught in a spam
filter. There is now a quick, direct way to invite people who are new to your
sharing list. On the collaborator bar, you'll see the option to copy the link
when you hover over the user's icon. Once you've shared a document, any new
documents you share appear in their Document Organizers automatically.
More Import and Export File Formats
Great news -
Buzzword now imports and exports .docx file formats for Microsoft Word 2007.
We've also added import/export plain text (txt), and export to HTML so that you
can use Buzzword to create documents that can be used with Wikis, web pages and
other applications.
Some Small Features and Tune Ups We Hope
You'll Like
Buzzword is a work in progress. We've made a number of
improvements based on user feedback. For example, the Font menu shows a sample
of the font; we've added strike-through; and Buzzword remembers the sort order
in the Document Organizer from the last time you used Buzzword.
And, there's a very cool new list type - check boxes. The list
gives you empty check boxes when you first create the list. You can check things
off just by clicking on the check box!
And, please, keep the
feedback coming!
We're very interested in your feedback - not just the
good news, but also any areas you think we need to improve. Please let us know
what you think! (http://forum.buzzword.com or feedback@buzzword.com.)
The Buzzword Team
Today Inspiration, Inc. announced that Kidspiration 3 will be released on February 6th. Kidspiration 3 adds lot of new features which really make this a very substantial upgrade. Kidspiration 3 will now allow students to use the expanded Symbol Library with over 3000 pictures as well as searching the symbol library for pictures when connected to the web. Kidspiration 3 now included Word Guide which is an online dictionary and thesaurus which is great for language development. Kidspiration 3 now includes an extensive visual math tools which makes it an ideal tool for interactive white boards. Teachers will have access to color tiles, pattern blocks, base ten blocks, fraction tiles and fraction boxes. Once I have had a chance to use Kidspiration 3, I will give my thoughts