I had really high hopes for MIT’s Haystack project when I first came across it a couple of years ago, and firmly believed that it had the potential to meet all my organisational needs. See the screenshot available on the homepage and you’ll probably see why I thought it would be a good match for GTD-style organisational methodologies.
Basically, Haystack is a semantically-driven (i.e., based on perceived connections of meaning) personal information manager that incorporates tasks, memos, email, news feeds, calendar, sharing and more. All these can be associated through categories, content cues and (as yet) rudimentary Artificial Intelligence algorithms. Unfortunately, the project either seems to have stalled, or the focus is changing somewhat (perhaps to the Eclipse-based projects such as Hayloft).
There is an OS X version, but I only tried it on an old Pismo last year, and it was rather painful. It was fairly slow (it runs using Java, if I recall correctly), bloated, and needlessly complex. It’s essentially still at the “computer scientist” stage, so I wouldn’t exactly recommend it to my mother.
If it manages to keep going, I can certainly see it being an important organisational hub for my digital activities. Its future, however, seems to be in doubt at the moment, at least in its all-in-one Java incarnation. Does anyone out there know anything about its status?
Yeah, haystack looks great. But I think it suffers from geek syndrome. I’m involved in a somewhat similar project, and it’s always difficult to keep the focus narrow, because all those features would be so cool. And confusing, and a real barrier to usability.
Looks like Hayloft is a collection of extensions to Haystack that fills in some of the gaps. Haven’t tried any of them but it looks like something is happening, anyway.
Checkout Chandler (http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Chandler/CommunityHome)
It is slowly progressing towards a useful app. They are GTD aware and are thinking about what is required to support us.
I have a lot of respect for Kapor and the Chandler project. However, for all the fanfare at the beginning, and the constant posturing in the media, I’ve yet to see much interesting come out of the project. (I do download and install new versions as they release them.) However, I’m still watching it with interest….
Sweet Jesus. I just looked at Haystack (you linked to it on one of MerlinMann’s posts), and while it looks great, I have never, ever seen a more involved set of installation procedures, or commands neccesary to start it. I am darn neared frightened away from trying it! Maybe once they come out with a flat (OS) installer.