Welcome to the IdeaMason Weblog!

We recently got wind of a review posted about IdeaMason on “Becoming a Writer Seriously.com”. Tom Colvin, the author of this blog, states “IdeaMason is truly remarkable”. He gives a fantastic overview of the major features and a review which details IdeaMason’s usefulness in constructing long term term creative and research projects.

Here’s a link to the Review

There are no hard and fast rules on getting started with IdeaMason. And more importantly, there are no “correct” ways to organize your data. We recommend reviewing the tutorial videos on our webpage for information about the features and tools that are available to you. We also recommend reading a few of the usage tips on this blog for different ideas on getting organized. But once you have done that JUST JUMP RIGHT IN!.

If you have some books to log, start with opening a new Source. If you just want to get started writing, open a new Material and just start typing. As you transition between thoughts, open a new idea or create a new linked the idea directly.

Maybe you just want to jot down some thoughts and link them to online research you are doing. If you have some external files you want to organize, you can do that too.

And it is never too early to start a composition. (more…)

IdeaMason is lots of things, a library, a citation maker, an idea deposit, a composition builder, a categorizer, and a project organizer. It can be all those things to one person or only a few of those things. It really depends on the nature of your work.

All your work in IdeaMason is organized into portfolio. When you open IdeaMason for the first time, you find yourself working in your first portfolio “My Portfolio”. Think of a portfolio as a file or container of ideas, sources, links, notes. You can create as many portfolios as you like and name them whatever you like just like you would an ordinary file. Tip: Under File/Portfolio properties you can write a brief description to help you outline or describe the work you intend to do in the portfolio.

Use a single portfolio for a large project
If you are starting work on a big project you could create a single portfolio that will contain all the work, ideas, sources and compositions. You can divide your work into a number of different activities within this portfolio. You can also organize your materials and sources within the portfolio into different categories. The work you do in this portfolio might result in the creation of one major composition. Or you might choose to divide your work, chapter by chapter, creating a new composition per chapter. Inevitably, a large project always seems to break off into smaller subsets projects and even subset papers. This is where the advantages of IdeaMason come into play. If all your ideas and sources are in one portfolio, it will be easy to reuse ideas and/or sources, or even expand on a single idea or category of ideas creating a whole new project.

Create a home library
The work in a portfolio doesn’t always have to consist of ideas, sources and the compositions created with these materials. You might want to use a single portfolio focusing on only one of the features. For instance, if you have a home library or read a lot you could use a single portfolio as a library. This portfolio will grow (more…)

Usage Tips:
Browse the “Usage Tips” on this blog for helpful tips and information on the best ways to organize and manage the informaiton your store in IdeaMason.

Here are a few quick links to a few really good ones:

Do more with Saved Searches
The Matrix relationships between projects, activities and categories
Organizing your Library
Think differently about how you use a Composition

We would like to welcome on board all the new users and remind you of all the tools we have to help you get started working with IdeaMason.

Website and Tutorial Videos:
There is a lot of information on our website specifically targeted to helping you learn how to use IdeaMason and get the most out of the tools available to you throughout the application. The favorite area for most new comers is without a doubt the Tutorials page. Click on the Tutorials side link to get a top to bottom view of IdeaMason in easy to understand videos.

Built in Help File:
There is also a comprehensive help file built directly into the software and accessible from the help menu inside the application. For faster help just when you need it you can also hit F1 on a specific window or section of a window. This action will instantly pull up help information that pertains directly to the features within that window.

To take advantage of this one day, 24 hour sale type in the following
discount code - BIT2 - on the purchase page.

You will see the discounted price on the second page during the purchase process. This discount can be applied to any license type you are looking to buy - multi-pack or single license.

This sale is sponsored by Bitsdujour.com. Please visit www.BitsduJour.com for more details.

On Wednesday, May 21st IdeaMason.com will feature a one day blow out sale.

For 24 hours only - buy IdeaMason at 40% off.

Just log on after midnight [US Eastern Standard Time] on May 21st to get IdeaMason for the lowest prices of the year.

We will feature the discount code right here on our blog. Use the discount code during the purchase process to get 40% off any single or multi-pack purchase.

Download a copy of IdeaMason today and come back Wednesday, May 21st to buy at 40% off.

This sale is sponsored by Bitsdujour.com. Please visit www.bitsdujour.com for more details.