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Together 2.0 - organize your stuff easily
Earlier this week we previewed Bento, the new personal database application by FileMaker. Today we take a look at another Leopard-only Mac application aimed at keeping your files organized and easy to find: Together 2.0. Together, previously known as Keep it Together (KIT), is a pretty slick application from Reinvented Software that promises an easy way to keep all kinds of files in one place, making it easy to find them again later. Using a drag-and-drop interface and taking advantage of both Spotlight and Quick Look in Leopard, Together shows a lot of promise as an easy to use data organizer.Together works, essentially, by dragging and dropping files and folders into either the application itself, or to a designated group or folder in the Shelf, a side menu that can be quickly accessed from the desktop, regardless of what program you are using. You can then label or tag those items and add notations or make small edits. Parts of the program reminded us of the Google Notebook, but without being exclusively web-based. For instance, we were able to drag and drop graphics from a web page directly into Together 2.0, without first saving or opening the file in a separate window. Likewise, selected text is copied (sans markup) to a new text file. Web archives can be created from within Together 2.0, either from existing bookmarks or a manual URL - and the text on those pages can be edited instantly.
The shelf sidebar in Together 2.0
While there is a lot to like in Together 2.0, there are some aspects of the program that might make using it for a length of time, or to try to organize important data problematic. By default, any file or folder that is dragged or manually imported into Together 2.0 is physically copied into Together 2.0's folder (which is in ~/Documents/Together/x). We didn't discover this until we tried to import our entire Documents folder (thinking it would just link to the files, not actually copy them) and were found 17 gigs of data actually copied over, ironically in a sub-folder of its original location). Even after we changed the setting to "link to files" (a move option also exists), dragging a music folder into Together 2.0 still resulted in an actual copy of the files created in Together. This is problematic, both from a space issue (who really wants to have an identical copy of all of their most used files, in a folder designated by a separate program?) and because it sort of defeats what we thought the purpose was - to index files from various sources in one easy to access area, regardless of their actual location.
Together 2.0's Main Window
Furthermore, the program did a few weird things with the shelf GUI, which were only resolved by restarting the program. Also, if you start to play a music or video file in Together 2, and then click on a different element, playback stops on that file. This is probably because Together uses Quick Look to preview its files and Quick Look doesn't allow for more than one instance to "run" at the same time (at least playing two video or music files), but it's still kind of annoying.
Still, if you want an easy way to organize different file types or projects in one easy to access space, you should download Together 2.0. There is a full-functioning 15-day free trial, and the program is $39 for new users, $14.95 for users upgrading from previous Keep It Together.
Together 2.0's Main Window
Furthermore, the program did a few weird things with the shelf GUI, which were only resolved by restarting the program. Also, if you start to play a music or video file in Together 2, and then click on a different element, playback stops on that file. This is probably because Together uses Quick Look to preview its files and Quick Look doesn't allow for more than one instance to "run" at the same time (at least playing two video or music files), but it's still kind of annoying.
Still, if you want an easy way to organize different file types or projects in one easy to access space, you should download Together 2.0. There is a full-functioning 15-day free trial, and the program is $39 for new users, $14.95 for users upgrading from previous Keep It Together.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsLupeNov 17th 2007 5:32AM
Great articel about how to organize your files faster and easier. Thanks.
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yelohbirdNov 17th 2007 11:59AM
That logo looks like the T from T-mobile
michaelNov 18th 2007 12:33AM
Anything similar for Windows?
David ChartierNov 18th 2007 11:02AM
#2: I'm pretty sure the Ts look similar because both are using a fairly similar typeface. Something around the Times New Roman family.
#3: I'm not a Windows user, but I've spoken with a few friends who are who have been after apps like this, and they only thing they've been able to find is Microsoft OneNote. While OneNote does similar stuff though, it might be a bit overkill as it's designed for businesses, collaboration, sharing documents with other users across a network, etc. It's also pretty pricey by itself, or of course bundled in an Office version or two.
michaelNov 18th 2007 2:43PM
@David Chartier:
Thanks, I already have OneNote.
I was just looking for something with more features like Together 2.0.
I guess I'll have to search for add-ons.
Chris S HendrickNov 18th 2007 7:34PM
This looks like an exact copy of what Yojimbo already does better. You really need to work on the importing of web-clips since I had to restart the program a few times in order to get it to work. Its nice but its painful to see the almost exact copy of Yojimbo's features.
ZakDec 30th 2007 1:36AM
No, it's different than Yojimbo, and much better, I think, in it's very thorough implementation of tagging, which I don't think Yojimbo supports.