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social, health, political imagery through the lens of G J Huba PhD © 2012-2021

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Since the beginning of this blog in 2012, I have consistently — with each new version — concluded (from dozens of comparisons with other programs) that iMindMap is the single best program for developing mind maps. Period.

With version 8.0, iMindMap is no longer the world’s best mind mapping program. Rather, it is the world’s best mind mapping program PLUS additional features that make it the world’s best visual thinking environment (or VITHEN using my coined term). Period.

What makes iMindMap 8.0 so valuable as an overall mind mapping and visual thinking tool is that it encourages you to use iterative, hierarchical, nonlinear, big-picture, creative ways of generating ideas, communicating those ideas, and integrating the ideas with the data of images and statistics. There is no tool I know of that is better for these overall tasks and the building of creative models.

I use iMindMap between 3 and 10 hours per day on the Mac, iPad, and iPhone 6 Plus.

Version 8 exceeds Version 7 in that the program has been significantly speeded up both for computer processing and in general usability of all of its advanced formatting features. The increased speed with which advanced formatting can be done encourages more precise and creative visual thinking.

Did I mention it has a very good (becoming excellent) 3 dimensional display mode and provides a much better presentation tool than the PowerPoint standard? The new Brainstorming Mode (file cards on a corkboard metaphor) allows those who like to see words rather than images to brainstorm in the mode most natural to them. I’ll never use the mode but I project many will embrace it.

The iMindMap program has been the best tool I have had to allow me deal with a neurocognitive neurodegenerative disorder and continue to be productive over the past five years. The program permits me to think at a very high level which I cannot do nearly as well with other techniques or other mind mapping programs.

All seven maps shown here are identical except for their format.

[I intentionally did not use any clipart because I did not want distract from the basic creative thinking and model development-presentation functions of iMindMap that are the real core of the program. With any of the variations of this map, if you spend 10 minutes adding selected included clipart or icons, the map will be even more visual.]

The remainder of my review is — appropriately — presented as a mind map.

Click images to expand.

Three styles provided with the iMindMap program.

1iMindMap 8.02iMindMap 8.03iMindMap 8.0



4 Custom Styles I Use in My Own Work and 4 Variations on the Same 3D Mind Map

gh1Imindmap 8.0gh2Imindmap 8.0gh3Imindmap 8.0gh4Imindmap 8.0

Imindmap 8.0 3D4Imindmap 8.0 3D3Imindmap 8.0 3d2Imindmap 8.0 3D

 


bolero cover 3 parts FINAL

 

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I use my Mac, and its software, primarily as an aid to thinking about everything from what to buy at the grocery store to how to develop large healthcare systems (after all, nobody working for Secretary Sebelius is doing any thinking so …).

I do not need a word processor or a spreadsheet or a statistical program. Rather I need a thinking environment, a writing environment, and a visualization environment. And a bunch of utilities to enhance the “big programs” that never come with all of the bells and whistles I need.

This is what I like for the computing needs I have. Remember … the computing needs I have.

If I only could choose four of these programs, in order these would be …

  1. iMindMap7
  2. Ulysses III
  3. Aperture
  4. Scapple

Click on images to expand.

G HUBA'S TOP MAC APPS OF 2013

or in 3D rendering …

G HUBA'S TOP MAC APPS OF 2013 3d

I love to read end of year lists each December. I love to make them too.

I worked on a PC exclusively for 25 years. Two years ago in retirement I tossed the PCs and bought a Macbook Pro. The consequence of having this cool new machine with an operating system that actually worked was that I had to rethink how to use current creative software to replace all of the (Microsoft) bloat on a PC.

This is my list of my favorite apps. Note that I use my Macbook for “professional” activities like writing and surfing the web and blogging and social media and my digital photographs. I do not do games nor software that looks like it was designed for five-year-olds.

You can zoom by clicking on the image.

I use the paid or pro versions because the extra features are useful to me. You might be able to get by just fine with a free or minimal features version.

Huba Mac Recommendations 2012

Day One is a small Mac-iPad-iPhone for journaling. It is a very simple app that elegantly reminds you to make journal entries at time intervals you select throughout the day. It handles pictures very well (taking pictures with an iPhone/iPad or using images from the camera roll). I have tried dozens of these kinds of apps over the years including just adapting standard word processing programs.

This is the only journaling app that I have ever been able to motivate myself to use on a regular basis.

It strikes me that this could also be a very good program as a lab notebook or data analysis notebook in that major issues can be typed in with automatic timelines, pictures, etc. While it does not have a built in sketching routine, you can always do a rough sketch on a piece of paper and photograph it as part of the entry with an iPhone or iPad camera.

UPDATE: In December, Apple chose Day One as their app of the year for 2012.

UPDATE 2: February 6, 2013. I like this app more than ever. I frequently use the synching between Mac and iDevices and it works very well and seamlessly. It is possible to import old photographs and (if the photo has a standard date entry) the photograph will automatically land on the correct date page of the journal.

One of the very best apps on my Mac is Fantastical. You use it conjunction with the default Apple calendar. Want to make a calendar entry in the future? Just type “Bob next Thursday at 4pm.” Or type “Bob every Thursday at 4pm until 4:20pm.” Or “Bob every 25th day of month at 2pm.” Or Bob “On the Thursday after President’s Day in 2015 from 4pm until 7pm.” Mac, a couple of bucks. If you synch your calendars via iCloud, the appointment will be on your iPhone and iPad before you can open the calendar. Got it? Get it. Saves huge amounts of time and also removes an obstacle to calendaring. I’ve been using it for months and would never take it off my MacBook.

When I retired about a year ago, I bought a MacBook Pro (the now-extinct 17-inch one) and gradually built the memory up to the max of 16B. I attached my three external hard drives (Larry, Curly, and Mo). I love my Mac.

From my previous pre-retirement life there are a few PC programs I used for years that have never been converted to the Mac. These are mainly technical programs as well as some data visualization apps that have special feelings for as I have used them so long, I know how to make comparisons to patterns I have seen in the past. I have also found some mind mapping programs that are only available for the PC that I would like to try.

What to do? Due to advances in technology, my Mac stays as the machine I use all day for fun, running my life, communicating. After 20+ life years in the PC world, I converted and life is good. There are many Macs for me in the future. And so I will get an inexpensive toaster only to run a few programs not available on the Mac. Pretty good toasters now come in small walk-away boxes for $299. Toasters are sold in the computer devices areas of most Big Box Stores. These toasters have more gigabytes and better screens than the Lenovos and Toshibas I used for two decades. I can even get a toaster in red, black, blue, silver, blue, pink, green. And the price means that if one gets broken you just throw it in the (recyclable) trash and buy another one. It’s worth it to have a little continuity. And I can put the thing away when I get tired of watching blue screens.

Why doesn’t every school child have a toaster (or even better an Apple version of the same or an iPad)? Toasters are the traditional present that folks give to the kids moving out, the bride and groom, and aging Aunt Tildie. The public school system should be buying every school child a toaster. The kids would learn more thus ensuring that our race survives, it would be cost effective to dump paper textbooks for computer versions, the toasters would warm the school room in winter, thousands of Chinese workers will keep their jobs while providing extra work for environmental clean-up companies, and world-wide peace will ensue. George Carlin and Bill and Ted understood this; why don’t schools? Be excellent to each other.

Click here for more about the names of my three hard drives.