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The Mind Mapping Software Weblog

By Chuck Frey This blog is THE definitive source for news, trends and resources related to mind mapping software, including its applications, its benefits, and how you can use it to increase your productivity and creativity.

A new home for the Mind Mapping Software BlogJune 20

During the past month or so, I have been working with a developer and designer to create a new home for this blog, built on the popular WordPress platform. The new design resembles a news magazine, and is designed to expose more of this blog's content to you, the reader. It also gives me capabilities that just weren't possible on the TypePad blogging platform:

• Track the most popular posts
• Feature key posts on the home page
• Enable you to search the blog's full contents
• Add various resources to this blog
• Get posts noticed and favorably ranked in Google (which is almost impossible when your blog is a sub-domain of TypePad)

The new blog is at this URL: http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com.

Please update your browser bookmarks or favorites.

The new RSS feed is: http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/feed/

If you've been tracking the posts on this blog using an RSS feed reader, you must update to the new URL, because this blog will no longer be updated.

I hope you enjoy the new blog!

New online mind mapping course to launch on June 16June 13

Paul Urban, CEO of Essential Mind Mapping, has created a multimedia educational course on mind mapping that will officially launch on Monday, June 16, 2008. In the meantime, he has created a sneak preview page that provides an overview of the materials that will be included in this course. the full 5-day will include a printed book, videos and podcast interviews with leading mind mapping experts, an online forum, webinars and more.

The course will be restricted to the first 100 people who register; Urban anticipates that the course will cost US$147-197. He says in his blog that he's finalizing a special bonus that may affect the final price. To hear about this course as soon as it's released on Monday, scroll to the bottom of the page and fill out the sign up form.

Search for the ultimate information management tool leads to visual mapping solutionJune 13

InformationTamers.com, a web site created by the developers of Topicscape, a 3-D mind mapping software program, walks the reader through concise and engaging analysis of different information management solutions, and their strengths and weaknesses. Here are a few highlights:

Indexing software: This genre of programs indexes the contents of your computer's hard drive and then enables you to conduct keyword searches it. This type of software was of limited use to the author because it was hard to come up with a precise search term that would deliver the results he was looking for. Like using a web search engine, these indexing programs often returned too many irrelevant results.

Mind mapping/concept mapping software: These tools moved information management into the realm of a “visual road map,” which made it easier to “see” pieces of information and how they fit into the larger whole. But he found this model of visual mapping to be somewhat limiting for two reasons: First, the strict adherence to hierarchy – in other words, a node in a map could be the child of one other node. The other short

Add content to your MindMeister maps - via e-mail!June 12

One feature of the enhanced MindMeister Geistesblitz enhancements that I missed during the last upgrade is the ability to send topics to your default map, or create an entirely new map, via e-mail. The process is very simple: First, you must enable your MindMeister account to utilize these e-mail tools. When you do so, the application automatically generates 2 e-mail addresses. One is used to add topics to your default MindMeister map. The other is used to create entirely new maps.

To use this intriguing new service, you simply compose an e-mail, placing each topic on a new line. Child topics are designated by preceding topic text with an indent or tab. In the example above, I wrote an e-mail to create a new map that explains the process of setting up Geistesblitz E-mail.

Note the topics that contain indented sub-topics below them. MindMeister parses your message and creates a new map, shown at right.

New MindMapper 2008 USB Edition lets you take your maps everywhereJune 12

SimTech, the developers of MindMapper, will release a new USB Edition of their flagship mind mapping program later this week. I've had a chance to play around with it for the last month, and I'm mighty impressed with how well it works.

The entire MindMapper 2008 Professional program - not a stripped down version - comes on a 4 GB USB key, which is partitioned to allow you to store your mind maps and other key files on it. When you plug it into a Windows PC, MindMapper starts up automatically, and displays a dialog box with the following choices:

• Start MindMapper
• Open USB folder
• Browse tips (opens a web page on the USB key, with tutorials for the program's many features)
• Minimize (to Windows' system tray)

Patrick Koh from SimTech says the USB Edition contains a few extra capabilities that enable it to work better from the USB key, such as being able recover from accidental formatting or file deletion from the USB drive. Also, the first time you insert the storage device into your computer, you can select from localized versions of MindMapper in English, German and Dutch. The USB version of MindMapper is protected; it cannot copied or loaded onto your computer. It must alw