There is a public beta available now of Flow, which is sort of Mind Map for files.

I’m not a design professional, and while I don’t produce projects with hundreds of files, I do indeed produce projects which take up, say, tens of files such as grant applications, Keynote and PowerPoint applications, html files, etc, and Flow looks like it would provide a terrific way of managing the files. Software developers have had applications like this for years…they are called source code control applications.

My tactic now is to create a mind map using Mindjet’s Mind Manager, and link in all the files on the map. Of course this doesn’t address versioning, and only addresses the top level file names; I can’t expect to keep track of graphic files, for example which are inserted in a iWork Pages file. Also, all my “mind mapped” files usually get converted to .PDFs, or Windows files at some point, and so the number of physical files on disk doubles or triples as soon as I start working with other people on a project because of all of the conversions, and then the real version problems start.

After playing with FLOW for an hour so far, I submitted the following issues to the beta forum.

1. Support for iWork 08 is stated as a supported application list, is ’09 supported?

2. In opening a Keynote ’09 file, I didn’t see that Flow found the component files for the project.

3. Wondering how this will work with multiple users on a network, and/or over the web. I”ve got my iDisk indexed in Flow, and this seems to be working Ok, but I don’t know how it will manage a sync between my Macbook and my iMac.

4. Would like support for Microsoft Visio Files. I haven’t found an equivalent drawing program on the Mac…. if I had I could dump Microsoft Window and Parallels.

5. Would like to be able to start a “new project” in Flow.

6. How do we delete obsolete files? For example, my map shows a .pages temp file that was downloaded from my mail program. This then got saved to a folder, and became my starting point….but the temp file stays in the map, and I don’t know how to delete it.

The beta is currently available only for the Mac, but the Windows version is on the way. Pricing looks very reasonable. While the beta doesn’t pass the five minute test, it bears further investigation; in the long term this could become an essential, “how did I get along without it” tool to your document work flow.

From David Pogue’s recent post about iMovie ’09:

The killer app, though, is image stabilization. It takes a long time to apply to a clip–several minutes each–but it winds up making jerky footage smooth, even if you were filming while hiccuping on a camel ride during an earthquake. You control the degree of smoothness; that’s lucky, since 100 percent steady looks almost freakishly unnatural.

He also has an interesting take on Twitter.

iWork ’09
Apple has updated iWork from ’08 to ’09, and after working with it for a couple days, it appears to have been a terrific balance between new features and minor fixes. Here is a succinct description of iWork ’09 from CNET

Always Connected, Seldom Communicating
Why is it, that will all the cellphones, blackberries, eMail, Twitter, chat rooms, VoIP, Wifi, satphones, batphones, and saxaphones it is so difficult to get ahold of people these days? You’d think that people would be easier to reach. Here are my rules:

• If somebody is paying me money, usually as a consulting or project client, then I will return calls within two hours, or eMail back within the business day.
• If somebody is taking my money during a project, i.e. if they are a vendor or contractor or employee, then I would like to feel that I’m on their radar screen as a courtesy during the project. I’m not sure what the frequency of contact should be exactly, but at least once a day if there are issues. Is that too much to ask?

There is a Ph.D. thesis in here somewhere. Inverse Proportionality: The Damping Effect of Hand-Held Electronic Connectivity on Communication Efficacy.

Welcome to Tech for Non-Profits, and the pending Tech for Home Health Care. This is the unplugged version of Microdesign Consulting. Part lab-notebook, part brain-extension, it is a repository for new and evolving ideas and projects that we stumble across as we move our former exclusively database development and network support company into startup mode for a technology-based home health-care delivery service provider. Being grant funded ourselves, we’re very much looking over the the grant landscape.

Upcoming: I will be giving presentations at the Freedom to Connect conference March 30 and 31 in Washington D.C. and at the American Telemedicine Association annual meeting in Las Vegas at the end of April. Both presentations will focus around the technical (boxes and wires), aspects, rather than medical aspects of one variation of home tele-health; two-way interactive, multipoint videoconferencing, with examples from our ongoing pilot studies delivering supervised exercise classes with senior patients who have fallen or have a fear of falling.

We are located in the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologiesa technology incubator affiliated with the University of Vermont. Our major extracurricular activity is the Vermont Software Developer’s Alliance, a non-profit trade group which promotes economic development in our area, primarily for software development companies. Both organizations, by the way, are looking to encourage high-tech businesses to start up and/or relocate in our state. As software developers, we are pleased to be working in one of the few areas of economic growth.

Ok, so the title sounds like an ad from Popular Mechanics. Just about the one thing left from my first (and only) marriage…apart from the spouse, is a pair of “Smaller Advent” bookshelf loudspeakers, ca. 1972. At the time they cost about 75.00 each, and I bought the smaller version because I didn’t feel at the time that I could afford the larger version at $90.00, each. The speakers have been in constant use since I purchased them. Eventually, however, the sound was so fuzzy and weird that I figured that something had to have gone seriously wrong. Popping off the front grill, I found that the foam ring that surrounds the paper cone had deteriorated.

Enter Simply Speakers. These folks specialize in parts and assistance for repairing and restoring older loudspeakers. They seem to be particularly helpful with brands from the 70’s. For example, the Boston area provided a New England sound with KLH, Acoustic Research (AR), Advent, JBL, and Bose. Simply Speakers has parts for fixing any of these brands. A brief telephone call, and I had ordered a re-foaming kit, which consists of two foam rings, and some cement, similar to model airplane glue. Complete instructions were included, and they are also available on the Simply Speakers web site, so you can see what you are getting into. Here’s what it looks like after the repair.

The results were spectacular. The original foam had been deteriorating for years, which resulted in gaps between the speaker cone and the enclosure. This contributed to a gradual loss of bass response. Now that both speakers are completely tight again, they sound terrific with a tight bass and a smooth midrange. My favorite instrument to compare speakers is a ‘cello. The speakers sound warm and mellow.

The one tricky part of the repair was unsoldering and resoldering the wires that connect to the speakers themselves. This probably could have been avoided by simply leaving some slack, and cutting the wires, so that they could be wound back together and covered with electrical tape.

Cost for the kit was about $27.00. I probably spent a total of four hours total taking things apart, doing the actual repair and reassembling everything. Because I noticed the problem just before Christmas, I was eager to have a backup in place, so I went out and bought a pair of Boston Acoustics HS60s for about $320. While these sound Ok, they don’t compare with the Advents at all.

This is my favorite Mind Map. I think I may have first seen it on David Pollard’s site.