I think it could be convenient if we have a topic to gather all the software tools that we are using for research. That way we have a neat reference of the available toolkit.

I’ll start with a few links to the tools that I use during my research (it’s all Open Source so download freely):

http://www.wordpress.org - I’m running a local wordpress on my laptop that I use as notebook. I use a Firefox-plugin (ScribeFire) to be able to quickly dump stuff I find online into my ‘notebook’.

http://www.xmind.net/ - Mind-maps and a host of other diagrams to support brainstorming and other processes.

http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html - Great for context-maps, process-charts, etc. Has ‘intelligent’ node re-routing so just dump everything into a diagram and let yEd clean up the mess for you.

http://www.argunet.org/ - A tool for argument-mapping. I’m still figuring out what this can do for me, but maybe someone else can already use it for something.

http://cmap.ihmc.us/ - Very capable tool for concept-mapping. Used it for a short while but now I use yEd for concept-maps.

http://www.thebrain.com/ - TheBrain is not Open Source but they have a freeware version. Very nice tool for mapping out information-spaces (it’s actually a ‘cognitive browser’). Don’t use it myself any more (switched to wordpress for that) but it might be useful to someone here.

Great idea for a thread Hans !!

I was just thinking how insanely complex both my code and data model are getting and that I *HAVE TO* start diagramming things, Or i’ll go bonkers.

Victor, you’re welcome

Just a few more diagrammers to pick from:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page - I used Freemind before I came across X-mind. However, Freemind might be a bit simpler to use for some (it has only the mind-map model, no other diagrams).

http://xebece.sourceforge.net/ - Similar to mind-maps, but capable of handling VERY big hierarchical information spaces. You can traverse the diagram and it will zoom and focus to where you are. I don’t use it very often but sometimes it’s just what the doctor ordered. Can also be used for presentations (full-screen mode).

Not actual software, but hopefully useful: Some online research sources.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thought_processes

- http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/

For those of us who wish to use AIML bots for web presentation, I recommend the following resources:

Chatbot hosting:
Pandorabots
Personality Forge
Ysalaya

AIML Interpreters:
Program O (PHP)
Program D (Java)
Program Y (Python)

Utilities:
Gaito-bot AIML Editor

Of the above listed, I’m most familiar with Pandorabots (hosting) and Program O (platform). I have a “version” of Morti at Pandorabots, but he’s only for testing and development of the AIML files, and for future entry into the Loebner Competition.

While the platform that I use is (loosely) based on Program O, it’s now so significantly different that it actually qualifies as a separate platform. Liz Perreau, the creator of Program O, promises a new version (2.0) some time around the end of March. I’m looking forward to it’s release.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_thought_processes is really nice—thanks Hans.

I got a tip that lead me to find this one: Nasa Taxonomy.

The NASA taxonomy provides first steps towards the unification of the NASA information space by documenting a high level set of terms that can be used for mapping together varying data structures. Reconciliation of terms and topics is essential to understanding NASA discoveries in a larger context.

http://nasataxonomy.jpl.nasa.gov/

Hmmm… Do I want Morti to be a NASA expert? It may prove somewhat interesting, but how entertaining would it be?

Dave Morton - Feb 16, 2011:

Hmmm… Do I want Morti to be a NASA expert? It may prove somewhat interesting, but how entertaining would it be?

Dave, browse the model just a little bit; there’s much more to it than that

Just a joke, Hans Just a joke.

I actually did give it a quick peek, and what I saw was somewhat fascinating. When I have more leisure, I’ll go back through it in a more thorough manner.

OK, this one is only useful for those that use a lot of research papers, manuals and other stored and/or located information in their project (so I think many here can use it):

http://www.mendeley.com/download-mendeley-desktop/

It’s a documentation and citation manager, something I was looking for to handle my academic research. This one seems easy to use and has a lot of functionality. The most important features for me are:

- Drop a PDF into it and it will extract bibliographic information from it.
- Option to add notes to a document.
- Options to tag document for maintaining overlapping categories.
- BIG ONE: options to annotate inside the PDF; highlight sections and put sticky-notes into them.

This one might be useful for AIML-coders: http://makeaiml.aihub.org/manual.php