This week I'm going to write about software you actually have to pay for.
So that may put some of you off.
But how about I told you that if you pay up, your money will go, not into the bottomless bank account of some big corporation, but into the bank account of some, well, somewhat smaller corporation, called Milenix.
Which is basically one guy. Called Petko. He's Bulgarian and, by now, he should be 27.
(I say that because the last time I interviewed him was in 2004 and he was 22 then.)
The software, by the way, is called MyInfo. No, you're right, not a great name.
No reason you might have heard of it.
But last March was MyInfo's 10th anniversary. So I thought it time to try to introduce it to a new generation of readers.
Because of all the software I rush to install when I buy a new computer (rare) or have to reinstall the operating system on an old one (frequent) it's one of two or three I really, really, really cannot live without.
(Sorry, Mac dudes, this one's Windows only.)
So what does it do and why do I think you should be spending US$50 of your hard-earned cash on a piece of software?
Well, it doesn't do much, actually. Which may be its strength.
It's what is called an outliner. A misnomer really, because it doesn't really do outlines.
Think of it more as a place to put everything, but in order.
Alert readers will, at this point be nudged out of their reverie and shout "Ooo! Evernote!" And they'd be right.
But Evernote - the free program I tried to get you excited about a few months back - doesn't really try to make order from your chaos. It just makes it easier to find stuff.
MyInfo - or pretty much any outliner - divides your screen into two. The left-hand third is a list of titles: it looks a bit like your folder listing in Windows Explorer if you know what I mean.
But the right hand two-thirds contains, not lists of files, but text (and pictures and stuff, if you want.)
Click on a title on the left and the text connected to that title appears in the right. It's like opening a file by clicking on the file name, only you don't have to wait for the file to actually open.
That's basically all an outliner is. The outline, I suppose, is on the left - you can have titles nested under other titles, as subtitles, or branches.
So I guess that's where the outline thing fits in. But calling a program like MyInfo an outliner is like calling an iPhone a phone.
It's more like a database that's more organized than your usual Microsoft Word document, but without the fuss of a real database.
Indeed, the beauty of MyInfo is that you can drag more or less any pile of text into it and the first line will become the title - in the left pane - and the rest will slot into the right hand side. Bingo, you've got your first entry.
MyInfo also comes with some buttons you can plug into your browser to make this process even simpler.
I guess you could argue that Evernote does this too.
And it lets you add tags to your stuff; and it lets you build up separate files for each subject, which you can then search quickly.
Both programs do that.
But what I like about MyInfo, and why I find myself using it more than Evernote, is that I can then whip the stuff I've collected into some sort of shape.
An outline, if you will.
Grab a title in the left pane and drag it around so it moves above, below, to the left or to the right of another title.
Pretty soon you have a hierarchy - a tree, lots of branches and sub-branches - and some idea of the shape of the topic you're grappling with.
I've been using MyInfo for more than five years now, and I've got into the habit of starting a new file for each project I'm working on.
Some are long-term ones - all the columns I've ever written, for example, in case I need to get rid of dinner guests.
Or a cross-referenced database of elections laws (also good to get rid of dinner guests).
Some are short: Like notes from a conference I was at the other day.
My list of 500+ MyInfo files runs from Advance Loan Fee Fraud (don't ask) to Zoomable Interfaces (also don't ask).
A lot of the files never really take off, but I know where I can find them.
Now it may not be as fancy as Evernote. And it actually costs money.
And it doesn't have a fancy online interface.
But it does have a portable version - install it on your USB keydrive and you can have your databases in your pocket. I'm not suggesting you run out and buy it.
I'm suggesting that - if you've ever wondered how you're going to keep all the data coming at you in one place - you download the trial (www.milenix.com) and give it a go.
Let me know how it goes.
And I'll pass it on to Petko.
(c) 2009 Loose Wire Pte Ltd
This story cannot be reproduced without written permission from the writer. Jeremy Wagstaff is a commentator on technology and appears regularly on the BBC World Service. He can be found online at jeremywagstaff.com or via email at jeremy@loose-wire.com
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