Forums / Tips & Tricks

I've never been tempted by online bookmarking like del.icio.us .... until Diigo. Diigo saves everything you HIGHLIGHT on pages, and lets you TAG the pages you bookmark, and also lets you write STICKY-NOTES about either the whole page, or individual highlights. It's so wholly amazing, I was almost beside myself! And no, I'm not associated with them or anything, I'm just a user who fell in love.

I'm definitely going to check out the program you suggested too, because I am keen on having a freeform diagramming tool too. I found FreeMind to be not quite what I need, and am currently doing a lot of my mind mapping on paper with pencil. But I am really starting to love mind mapping!!

Posted 5 years ago

Wow, I quickly checked Diigo's feature set and sandbox, and it looks great for researching and a powerful web2.0 tool. Does it make it easy for you to associate topics ?

The problem is I just get lost with tagging. I mean, I know it's there, and I know I can easily find it, but I also know I'll just forget to look for it again.

Haha, that's just how I felt about Cayra when I started using it. I hanged on my socks tight, otherwise they would have been ultra knocked off.

Posted 5 years ago

FYI, Cayra is Windows-only. If you don't use Windows, don't waste your time. There are already some good mind-mapping apps available on *nix-type systems.

Posted 5 years ago

You can always emulate to good effects.

Posted 5 years ago

So Cayra opened my mind to Mind Mapping (haha), and I ended up realizing that (much like my to do list) my mind maps were things I really wanted to access from any computer, not just from at home. Naturally, Web 2.0 has a zillion and a half options for mind mapping! And sites upon sites of reviews of them too.

I decided on Mindomo.com, because it was a lovely blend of power and formattability, and could pack a whole lot of information into notes that were easily reviewable and didn't clutter the interface.

I also really like http://bubbl.us because its interface is very clever, and I may indeed turn to this app if I just need to sit down and brainstorm something rather than collecting info for later review.

But I also like Cayra, it has a sort of mix between the good features of both of the above online apps, and I might find myself using it when I'm doing stuff that I should only be thinking about in my spare time ... times that I'm at home and relaxing on the PC where it is installed. :)

Posted 5 years ago

OH and to reply about Diigo....

Yes, it is very, very easy to associate topics (well, tags) with the webpages you are adding to it. I find the tags most useful if I use them minimally... undertag rather than overtag, but I make sure I always put at least one tag because I'd rather not have to review my NO_TAG bookmarks to make sure I'm not missing something I wanted to see again soon.

I have Diigo set up to automatically prompt me to tag a page when I first start highlighting, and all I do is toss on a very general tag (e.g. mindmapping, philosophy, teaching, blogging, GTD, RTM...). It is very easy to review the contents of a tag by going to my Diigo page, and I can browse all the bookmarks I've made, click on the tag names if I want to know what else I've tagged the same way... It's really so breathtakingly intuitive, I don't even have to think about it (except to marvel in how awesome it is).

I also have it set up to make a copy of the bookmark in my local bookmarks, which it conveniently places in a folder called Diigo-bookmarks, with sub-folders for each tag (so if something has two tags, it is bookmarked twice). I thought this would be my primary way of reviewing, but because deletions made at Diigo don't seem to delete the copies, I am thinking of just removing the local bookmarking option. (Other bookmarking options include sending the bookmarks to those online bookmarking network thingies that I know nothing about...)

Hope that helps! :D

Posted 5 years ago