After a year and a half of work, I'm pleased to announce the Beta of Memex Trails and the Trails Network!
Memex Trails is a free desktop application for Macintosh computers that allows you to organise your stuff visually using a magic infinite timeline (a trail). As with Shared Space, you can store your notes and documents in a trail, but trails also support other types of information, such as URLs, events and tasks. You can even make your own data types, and store recipes, invoices, or whatever you like!
Trails Network is an subscription service that allows you to keep your trails online and get access to them from wherever you are. You can create, edit and share trails online using your web browser, or sync trails stored on your computer with Memex Trails.
We expect the beta to run for a couple of months. During this time, you'll be able to use Memex Trails and the Trails Network (with 2gb of storage space for your documents) for free, but we do ask that you help us by reporting problems that you find, and telling us what you think and what you'd like to see in future versions.
Without further ado, the Trails Network website is at:
http://trails-network.net
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, my users, for your loyal support, and I hope that with your help we can make Memex Trails and the Trails Network the next big thing!
Ben
Ps: I know some of you are keen to know about the future of Shared Space. We hope to be able to be able to bring you good news at some point this year, so stay tuned!
As some of you are aware, development of SS2 is currently on hold. I've been very busy with my day job over the last year, and I just haven't had the time to work on a new release.
I am involved in another project strongly related to SS2, when I can make information on this public, I'll do so here.
In the meantime, if you'd like a serial number for Shared Space 2.0, please drop me a line, and I'll send you one.
Thanks as ever for your continued support,
Ben
The lovely folks at REALsoftware have awarded Shared Space 2.0 with TWO REALbasic Design Awards: 'Most Innovative Software' and 'Best Overall'!
You can find the press release here.
I'd like to say a big thank you to all at RS for making such a great product, and to those on the RB betas list without whom I'd be stuck at alpha 1!
- Share spaces with other users over local networks and the Internet
- Rendezvous discovery
- Unicode support
- Expanded help
- Interface now 50% more lickable
- Loads more...
What is Shared Space 2.0?
A tool for visual thinking, group working and content management. It allows users to create visual maps of information using web-like structures.
Documents from any application can be imported into a space, and the software's built in version control allows users to keep track of earlier versions of documents easily.
Relationships between elements can be described using links. Unlike hypertext links, such as those found on web pages, links are presented in a visual fashion, allowing users to see both linked elements concurrently, and traverse the space in both directions.
Spaces and views can be shared over the Internet or a local network. SS2 also makes use of Rendezvous, allowing you to see other users on your local network.
Shared Space 2.0 was previously a free cross-platform application Mac OS and Windows. The current version of Shared Space 2.0 is only available for Mac OS X, though this may change in future. Developed on a Mac using Real Software's RealBasic, it is currently in Beta development. Future beta releases will be made available for download from this website.
Shared Space 2.0 is now shareware. If you download this software, you are allowed to use it free of charge for 30 days. At the end of this period, if you want to continue using this software, you need to register. Registration costs $35 (US). That's around €29 or £20 sterling. Read about the benefits of registration.
The current version (Beta 3) implements a fair amount of the proposed feature set, and incorporates many of the tools users need to get started creating information spaces.
The aim of open alpha and beta releases is to find bugs in the software, as well as garner users' comments about current features and their ideas for future features.