.KEYWORD mindmanage
.FLYINGHEAD PRODUCT REVIEW
.TITLE Visualize and organize your thoughts with MindManager Mobile
.OTHER
.SUMMARY Palm OS handhelds are great places to record those random thoughts you have during the day, but how do you organize those thoughts? Bill Mann reviews MindManager Mobile Edition, a Palm OS application that allows you to do basic mind mapping on your handheld.
.AUTHOR Bill Mann
Palm OS handhelds are great places to record those random thoughts you have during the day. You have an idea. You whip out your handheld and scribble it down. You get back to what you were doing. So far, so good. But now what do you do with the mass of random notes you’ve scribbled down? How do you organize them? How do you visualize the relationships between them?
If you’re like me, you create a mind map.
.H1 What is a mind map?
A mind map is a visual representation of chunks of information and the relationships between those chunks.
Starting with a central topic, idea, or theme, say the idea for a magazine article, you would create a basic mind map by writing a phrase that identifies the central theme in the center of a piece of paper. Next, write phrases identifying key topics around the central theme. Then portray the relationships between the topics and the central theme (and perhaps between topics) by drawing lines connecting things that are related. A topic connected to the central theme or another topic is known as a branch. Repeat the process for each topic, creating branches containing more detailed information for that topic, until you have a map of all the important information. This is your mind map. Some of the benefits of creating a mind map include:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The visual representation of the information engages the visual part of your brain in understanding and organizing the information.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET The relationships between chunks of information (those random notes you’ve been scribbling down) are explicitly stated.
.END_LIST
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET By providing short phrases that represent larger chunks of information (and their relationships) a relatively simple mind map can allow the easy recall of a large amount of information.
.END_LIST
Mind maps can be created by hand, as in the example you just read, or by using specialized computer programs. Figure A shows a piece of a mind map I created to help me write this article. I created it using one of those specialized mind-mapping programs, MindManager, from Mindjet LLC (at http://www.mindjet.com).
.FIGPAIR A This figure shows part of this article’s mind map.
Figure A comes from MindManager Business Edition, a version of the product that resides on a Windows PC. But the version of MindManager you really want to hear about is MindManager Mobile Edition.
.H1 MindManager Mobile
MindManager Mobile Edition is a standard Palm OS application that lives on your Palm handheld and allows you to do basic mind mapping, although not in quite such a graphically-intensive way. MindManager Mobile allows you to attach notes to branches, so instead of continuing to fill your Palm handheld with random notes that you then need to organize and manage, you can add your thoughts right into the mind maps they apply to.
.H1 Installing MindManager Mobile
Installing MindManager Mobile is simple. Once you download the setup file from the Mindjet Web site, just double-click it. It automatically adds MindManager Mobile and a Welcome to MindManager Mobile mind map to the list of applications that will be installed on your Palm handheld the next time you perform a HotSync operation.
.H1 Using MindManager Mobile
Once MindManager Mobile is installed on your handheld, it appears on the Applications screen with all your other applications, as shown in Figure B. Tap the icon to start MindManager Mobile.
.FIG B Just tap the MindManager Mobile icon and start mind mapping.
The first thing you see when you start MindManager Mobile is the Map List View shown in Figure C.
.FIG C Use Map List View to open a particular mind map.
Use this view to select the mind map you want to work on. Welcome to MindManager Mobile is the introductory mind map that the setup program added to your handheld, while Visualize and organize is the mind map I used to design this article. You can tap the New Map button in the lower left corner of the screen to start a map from scratch.
Once you select a mind map, MindManager Mobile switches to Map View (shown in Figure D) to give you a graphic representation of the first-level branches of the map.
.FIG D In Map View you get an overview of your mind map.
In this view, you can edit the central theme of the map (Mindjet calls it the title of the map), or tap a branch to work on that branch.
.H1 Working on branches
The final view is Branch View. Branch View is where most of the work gets done in MindManager Mobile. In this view, you can do all these things with the branches:
.BEGIN_LIST
.BULLET Add and remove them;
.BULLET Expand, close, and lock them;
.BULLET Edit, copy, paste, and move them;
.BULLET Drag and drop them.
.END_LIST
Figure E shows Branch View for this article’s mind map.
.FIG E Branch View is where the work gets done.
You can also enhance your mind maps. You can highlight branches, make text bold, or mark tasks Done or Not Done by tapping the appropriate buttons on the Branch View. Consult the MindManager Mobile Help or the Welcome to MindManager Mobile mind map (see Getting Help) for explanations of the use of each button in each view.
More advanced is the ability to prioritize branches, add text notes to them, and include special codes that cause various useful icons to appear next to branches. To use these advanced features, you tap the Branch Properties button on the Branch View. This opens the Branch Properties dialog box shown in Figure F. Using the Branch, Codes, and Notes pages is self-explanatory.
.FIG F The Branch Properties dialog box helps you enhance your mind maps.
.H1 Synchronizing with your desktop PC
While MindManager Mobile is a useful product on its own, if you really get into mind mapping, you should consider buying MindManager Business Edition as well. This version of the product lives on your desktop PC. It has much more power and flexibility than MindManager Mobile and can synchronize mind maps with MindManager Mobile. This means you can take advantage of the video and processing power of your desktop machine when you’re working in the office, while carrying your mind maps with you when you’re on the move. Any changes you make (in either place) get merged into both mind maps when you next HotSync, with you being able to specify which side "wins" if there’s a conflict between desktop and handheld (like both trying to change the same branch).
While maps can’t move back and forth totally seamlessly (some features, like hyperlinks, can only exist on the desktop edition and don’t get synchronized to MindManager Mobile) and there are some documented issues if you’re working with large or fancy text notes, in the vast majority of cases you’ll find that synchronization between desktop and handheld works perfectly.
.H1 Getting help
During installation, the setup program also stores an MindManager Mobile help system on your desktop machine. To view it, go to the Mind Manager 2002 program group on the PC and select MindManager Mobile Help. Between this help system and the Welcome to MindManager Mobile mind map (itself a basic help system), you should be able to find the answers to most questions you might have. If those resources aren’t enough, you can also subscribe to the Mindjet newsletter or visit the Mindjet user forums on the Mindjet Web site.
.H1 Conclusion
The nature of the Palm handheld, in particular the size and resolution of the screen, impose some limitations on what MindManager Mobile can do, but within those limits, MindManager Mobile Edition is a powerful tool for visualizing and organizing your thoughts while on the go.
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on MindManager Mobile and Enterprise Editions, visit http://www.mindjet.com.
For more information on mind mapping, visit http://www.mind-map.com.
For more information on Palm handhelds, visit http://www.palm.com.
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.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO Bill Mann is a free agent writer with a particular interest in handheld PCs and wireless devices. He is co-author of "Wireless Devices End to End," which has just been published by Hungry Minds, Inc.
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