brainstorming posts

I wrote about Curio last year, and the past few months have brought quite a few additions to this creative brainstorming and productivity powerhouse. We already saw Evernote integration, and between the last two releases (6.0 and 6.1) Curio has added support for tables, "figure stencils," better copy-as-text, and a lot more.

The figure stencils are great, allowing you to create figures such as mind maps, tables, notes, lists, etc., and save them for re-use. For example, I have stencils for different styles of lists with skeleton headers already included, and "Approved" and "Rejected" labels to drag onto mockups. The tables and index cards allow for a lot of visual organization within a space, just in case you're not an entirely free-form kind of person.

The full release notes for the latest version (6.1) are available here. Curio is available in 2 versions, both with free trials. The Professional Edition is $149US and the Standard version is $99US (comparison), academic discounts available. Version 6 is a paid upgrade for 5.x users, and upgrade prices start at $49US, depending on what you're upgrading from and to. If you want to see Curio in action, check out the "Tutorinis" at the bottom of the Curio homepage.

I've been looking for a project management solution for a long, long time. I've tried everything from homemade systems -- based on folders and Spotlight tagging -- to attempting to bend applications such as Bento to do what I really want: collect my notes, work-in-progress files, communications and brainstorms in one place with a fluid way to associate them, organize and rearrange them, and find them quickly ... without forcing me into a single mode of thinking.

The first time I looked at Curio, I had what I've learned is a fairly common reaction to it: I balked at the apparent lack of structure. As every designer knows, a blank page is a scary thing. It was a few months later that I was reading an article about it which re-sparked my curiosity (no pun intended), and I dug back in. It was at that point that I realized that Curio was the project management, note-taking and brainstorming solution I'd been looking for, or at least as close as I've found so far. Read on for an in-depth look at Curio's possibilities ... and a 10% off coupon code!

VoodooPad got a major upgrade today; after an intense beta period, version 4.0 is live. For those of you not familiar, VoodooPad is a personal wiki, a brainstorming and note-taking tool and the ultimate "geek's notebook" (my term, not theirs). With the ability to import a variety of files and link others, it also makes a great project management hub. I use it in combination with one of my other previously-mentioned favorites, Curio. It's had a fair number of mentions here in the past, and the 4.0 update is certainly something to talk about.

Among the new features is the ability to sync using WebDAV. You can sync pages or entire documents in both directions, allowing for collaboration or just providing the ability to work on multiple machines. There are instructions available for setup on the Flying Meat wiki. I've been testing the sync feature for a while, and it works superbly. The web-publishing capabilities have been expanded, including iPhone-optimized output. There's also a new feature called "The Bucket" for gathering text -- via a system-wide hotkey -- from any application. PDF output, faster speeds, and a new layout for palette windows all add up to a great release.

Organizing notes and files is simple, and linking together pertinent pages, snippets, Address Book contacts and more is a breeze. For those of a scripting persuasion, the reason I call it the "geek's notebook" is VoodooPad's ability to execute pages as scripts (Python ... Lua is being deprecated), and also the ability to extend via a plugin API. This can be used to work in HTML, Markdown and Textile support, set up GTD systems, even publish a blog.

VoodooPad 4 is going for $29.95USD, and version 3 users can upgrade for $14.95USD. The Pro version is $49.95USD, upgrade for $19.95USD. There are free demos of each on their respective pages, and there's also a "Lite" version available for free, no strings attached. VoodooPad customers who purchased version 3 after August 1st, 2008 get a free upgrade. Check the full release notes for version 4 (and prior releases), as well as the features page for more information on VoodooPad and the 4.0 update.

I'm currently working on a piece detailing exactly why Zengobi's Curio has become a favorite of mine, especially in the area of project management and brainstorming, but also in general as a truly enjoyable-to-use application. In the meantime, though, I thought I'd better get an announcement out for version 5.3, released today. For those unfamiliar, Curio is a note-taking, brainstorming, to-do managing, file-gathering application which works in a (surprisingly productive) free-form manner. It's similar in concept to Circus Ponies Notebook, but I find it to be even more flexible and powerful.

Version 5.3 adds to an impressive feature list with customizable print headers and footers, the ability to convert lists to mind maps and vice versa, as well as an importer for AquaMinds NoteTaker. Detailed release notes are available here. Version 5.3 is a free upgrade for all Curio 5 users, and upgrade pricing is available at the Zengobi store. The regular version of Curio is $99USD, and a Pro version is available for $149USD (find out what the difference is here). Academic discounts are available, and a free 15-day trial can be downloaded on the Curio page.

If you're looking for a creative application to collect and organize notes, ideas and more, check out Curio. Curio provides a free-form interface for collecting pages which can contain notes, images, links to files, mind maps, sketches -- just about anything you'd need to get ideas and notes out of your head and into your computer.

Zengobi, the makers of Curio, are celebrating the "Back to School" season with TUAW and offering 20% off the academic price of the software. The Pro version retails at $149USD, but it's only $69USD in the academic store. With the discount, students can pick up a great app for about $55USD. Enter TUAWBTS at the academic store to take advantage of the offer, and hurry, it's only good for today (August 27th).

Mind mapping seems to be one of those things that you either get, or just don't. For those who do, there's a new player in town.

MindNode is a free Leopard-only mind mapping application from Markus Müller, based in Austria. The application is by no means feature-rich; in fact, it's so simple as to be a bit disarming at first. But what it lacks in features, it makes up for in elegance.

The interface is incredibly clean. To create a new node, simply double-click anywhere on the window, or press the Tab key when focused on a node to create a new child node. To create a node at the same level as the one that is currently in focus, press option-Tab.

As new nodes are added at the same level, they surround the previous nodes. For example, the second new node appears below the original one. The third appears above. Below, above, below, above. While this is an easy way to keep everything grouped together, it's not particularly useful if you're using MindNode to create a list with any sort of ordering. Some would argue that mind maps should not worry about ordering since it should be all about capturing ideas. But given that mind maps are useful in large part because they allow for graphical organization, this behavior is a bit unfortunate.

Other than that one small beef, MindNode is a nice, small, but useful tool that will be right at home in your Applications folder for the next time you find yourself needing to do some brainstorming.