|
|
|
Posted: Mon, January 19, 2004
Accelerated planning with BrainStormBy Basheera Khan BrainStorm is a small and deceptively simple looking application marketed as "the multi-purpose thought
assistant". At its most basic level, it's an efficient way to
keep track of ideas, notes, to-do lists, case studies - pretty much anything that you might want to have an electronic copy of in a quick and easily accessible format. Start digging deeper, and you'll find a complex information management engine capable of keeping up with the most lateral-minded thinkers around. In an industry where the threat of obsolescence is always just around the corner, BrainStorm has also managed to survive a whopping 20 years in continuous development without losing a jot of popularity. BrainStorm For Windows was launched in 2001; the latest version was released toward the end of 2003, and includes a free automatic diary generator. Based on the mind-mapping techniques made famous by Tony Buzan in the 1960s, BrainStorm lets you capture information from any source. You can just start typing, or copy information from any other application - either tabbing between applications if you want to maintain control over your clipboard, or using the 'Magic Paste' function which will automatically deliver the textual content to BrainStorm. Once you've got something to work with, you can rearrange it into a more logical structure, using either keyboard, mouse or both. The final result is a highly organised hierarchy with multiple levels, all automatically cross-linked to related items. These can then be navigated up, down and across, with simple one-stroke keyboard navigation to move into or out of an entry, or move sideways to a related entry. The search engine, aerial view and jump functions ensure that you'll always know exactly where you are in this three-dimensional model of your information. 
In addition to being able to print your BrainStorm model to a text file, the software includes the 'Publish HTML' option, which does exactly what it says on the icon. BrainStorm models in this format can
be viewed through a browser; all hierarchical and contextual links are preserved, so that others can navigate your ideas and information in the three dimensional form in which they were stored.There is loads more functionality built-in, making BrainStorm a flexible, powerful tool to do almost anything with your information. The BrainStorm website features feedback from satisfied customers across a number of industries, and the usage ranges from planning academic research papers to creating and managing genealogy charts, or as a freeform database to keep everything related to anything in one place. As with any software that boosts creativity and productivity, the best way to get to know BrainStorm is just to play with it and see what you can do. It took me a few hours of using it to familiarise myself with the basic features, and once the foundation understanding of how the programme treats information had been achieved, the more complex functionality slipped into place very easily. The Tutorial and Help files cover every conceivable stumbling block, so troubleshooting should be painless. If you have an unresolved issue, there's a customer mailing list to discuss usage and support topics. For all its usefulness, BrainStorm has a few limitations; for example, entries can only be made in plain text. While this has the benefit of keeping file sizes small, the BrainStorm development team has said that it will be re-engineering the heart of BrainStorm to allow formatting within entries and embedded hypertext links to internal and external information. It's also only available for Windows platforms at the moment, although the company has said it will consider writing a version for Linux if the demand is demonstrated. The software can be downloaded for a free 30-day trial. A single user licence costs £40 excluding VAT. As the BrainStorm application is under constant refinement, upgrades are provided free of charge. ContactsBrainStormTel: 0208 866 4400 (answerphone) E-mail: info@brainstormsw.com Web: http://www.brainstormsw.com |
|
|
Subscribe to ITWales Updates Click Here! |