The power of FreeMind and mind mapping software

Ever since the early days of my Macintosh usage (1984!) I’ve always appreciated a good visual idea outliner. I started off with programs like MORE, and ThinkTank. I moved to programs like Inspiration and OmniGraffle.

If you haven’t used mind-mapping software, you really should give it a try. How it will work for you will depend on what you do. But I have to say, it is really very powerful.

Something that is of increasing importance to me is open source software. As a piece of software goes through it’s life cycle and you in some ways become dependent on it, sometimes different things happen over time.
1. Lack of compatibility. Your computer can no longer run an old piece of software or it is buggy with your new operating system. Find an old machine and save your documents to some sort of common platform. I suggest text AND pdf.
2. Price. The company realizes they have a good product and the prices goes up.
3. Bloat. The company decides to add on some extra features, and eventually the screen and program and menus are full and the program is a hassle to use.

FreeMind is open source. You have the source code. It is written in Java. If you want to modify it (if you have the ability!) go ahead. Plus it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and I guess it would run on anything that could run Java.

But more importantly than anything - it’s a way to VISUALLY organize your ideas. It helps your to prioritize and organize things in a hierarchical fashion. Here’s something I was brainstorming for a local site.

Anyways… try it out at freeminds main site at sourceforge