This morning Microsoft changed some formatting in its Live Search results. This resulted in missing information from that engine in TopicCrunch results.
This has been fixed already, and you can download the update to TopicCrunch, the deep searcher now <<< Please click the link just given. This update is free to all past purchasers of TopicCrunch and those who have not yet completed a free trial.
Roy
Note: TopicCrunch is the web search utility that searches on up to four search phrases, and then consolidates the results from the three main search engines, producing a list with no duplicate entries.
This is invaluable in getting a clickable list of all the companies on the web who are in a market you are interested in, locating all the web sites handling a specific product or just finding, say, all the cookery sites out there.
It has an additional function that helps you track your own web sites’ positions for chosen keywords, day by day. For more information, please click the image on the right.
The Internet’s best mindmaps library just uploaded 11 more links and thumbnails to superb mindmaps and concept maps, taking it past the 1,000 entries mark.
We think it’s the best mind maps library out there, with maps selected for their originality, creativity and usefulness, as an inspiration to everyone in the mindmapping community. Every map is classified by type (true mindmaps, spidergrams, concept maps, bubble diagrams and more), and tagged by topic, so you can do a filtered search to narrow down your view to, for example, just concept maps about science, or just true mindmaps about creativity.
Every thumbnail image is linked to the map’s original website where in most cases you can find the full-sized map, and often an article built around it.
1. 3D Topicscape Pro v1.60 now runs with Vista Aero Theme if the PC is Aero-capable. If you are using a computer with Vista, you will no longer see a message that Vista is switching to Vista Basic Theme when starting Topicscape.
Topicscape has run on Vista with certain types of graphics adapters for more than a year - we have several development and testing PCs running Vista, so it had to. But computers with Intel graphics had a problem until Intel released a corrected driver at the beginning of last month. If your PC has Intel graphics, please make sure you get the latest driver from here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/default.aspx and install it.
Did you try Topicscape previously on an Intel graphics Vista PC more than 30 days ago? In that case, your Topicscape will have expired. Especially for you, we made a one-off fixed expiry-date version (expires 31st July) which you can get from this link. This Vista Special release of Topicscape Pro functions just like the previous live version on our main download page but it is installed separately. If you later decide to buy Topicscape, we shall send you a license. Then, you would need to download the usual installer and run it.
2. This new version operates faster and has smoother flying.
3. It has an improved Home position setting (the view seen on pressing the Home key).
4. There are three new skins in the base installer - Pearl; Smoked Glass; and Hyperglo. You need to download the Skins installer, as before, to get the other 17 skins but if you have them already, there’s no need.
5. You can get a reminder of the structure (relationship names of all topics to the Current Topic) when Ctrl+A is pressed once. This changes back after 5 seconds, or you can press Ctrl+A again to show your own topic names. Beginners will find this useful.
6. The toolbar button icons have been sharpened up.
7. 3D Topicscape Pro now has the capability to import data from the latest PersonalBrain Beta (4.5.0.5) so it can handle live-version Brains, as well as recent Beta versions using four different database engines in all.
IMPORTANT: If you have already imported a PersonalBrain into Topicscape, you will know that the first time you did that, a special download started with software for the import. That software has been updated. Please download and install the revised version.
Why do we remember urban myths like “Criminal gangs are drugging people and then stealing their kidneys” but forget details like the recommended daily alowance of iron for an adult? (It’s 14 mg, by the way.)
Chip and Dan Heath set it all out in “Made to Stick”, with tested convincing evidence, as well as recommendations and summaries you can act on.
We’ve been publishing a directory of mindmaps from all over the web … stay with me, I’m not wandering off topic … for a couple of years now, but I’ve never included any of my own maps before. Well, with books I value and intend to go back to again and again, I make detailed mindmaps. “Made to Stick” spurred me to that, and I decided to publish it on InformationTamers.com, and have an entry for it in the directory.
I hope this spurs you to read the book - I believe anyone who communicates with others in writing or in presentations can benefit. The mindmap is no substitute for reading the stories, examples, ideas and suggestions in the book itself. But already I’ve found that it gives a quick reminder when I’m contemplating something new to write or speak about.
Anyone who follows the Mind Mapping Software Weblog (and more than twenty thousand readers do!) will need to move across to its new home, because Chuck Frey, a.k.a. electroman, has made a definitive move to MindMappingSoftwareBlog.com.
For all the latest on mindmapping techniques, software and industry news, it’s the place to be. But I had just a tinge of nostalgia that “weblog” in the moniker had to come out.
A couple of weeks back, I gave a talk about how Topicscape began and how it became what it is now. That was the spur to writing the article that I blogged about in the previous post.
Something that came out of the direct, on-the-spot feedback, was that it would be a good idea to encapsulate what Topicscape’s scenes mean, in one simple web page. Even though we’re moving 2D mind maps into a 3D space, most users ‘get it’ pretty quickly, but it can’t do any harm to speed the process along.
At our sister site InformationTamers.com, there’s the story of how Topicscape came to be built - the journey through various tools, ideas (even involving ‘programming’ in clay, would you believe?) and realization of the ideas.
Paul Foreman and Adam Sicinski are two of the finest hand-drawn mind mappers active on the web recently. Now they seem to be in competition to see who can produce the most maps and the best maps aimed at helping their readers achieve personal-development, self-improvement and study.
The Topicscape Mindmaps Directory is panting along behind, just to find out what comes next. Today’s update has 4 new mind maps with a score of Sicinski 3, Foreman 1. Since I started following these two, the overall score has totalled Sicinski 20, Foreman 37.
But it’s not all about numbers, trust me! The imagination, artistry, breadth of concept and the depth of their accompanying articles puts them both in the top class. Here are two examples closer up than the Directory shows them, though to see them full size you’ll have to click through to the original sites.
A useful new version of 3D Topicscape Pro, the information organizer and 3D mind mapper, is now available that implements four specific requests from our users. As usual this update is free to all who have licenses or are still in their free trial period.
1. Topicscape is noted for the visibility it gives of tasks and information. Now you can see even more at one time: Choose the number of columns for Current Topic’s children - previously four, now you can show five or six as well. This stays at four columns until you change it in the Options panel (User Preferences).
2. Reduce distraction: Minimize the Topicscape window to an icon while you work on other tasks. This is a customizable option that defaults to Not Hidden, so you need to take action to see it.
3. Get more of your information when importing from PersonalBrain: For PB4 users, we have enhanced PB import to Topicscape beyond the limits of the data exported by PersonalBrain itself. Importing from the .pba file exported by PB is still an option.
4. Navigate large Topicscapes even more quickly: The programming for “Make Current” has been optimized to provide a faster re-calculation of the scene when the user selects a different topic to be the Current Topic. This is particularly noticeable with large Topicscapes (several thousand topics).
And you can download the new 3D Topicscape Pro installer from the usual place.
We hope you like the new version, 1.59. Within the next month, we hope to release an exciting new Beta version those who have registered with our Beta program.
Anyone who follows the Mind Mapping Software Weblog (and more than twenty thousand readers do!) will need to move across to its new home, because Chuck Frey, a.k.a. electroman, has made a definitive move to 
2. Reduce distraction: Minimize the Topicscape window to an icon while you work on other tasks. This is a customizable option that defaults to Not Hidden, so you need to take action to see it.
And there’s a rather special bubble diagram by Michael Petiford about the development of art through print making.