‘Reviews’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life

DEVONthink, our favourite information manager for Mac OS X, and arguably the most powerful software of its kind on any platform, has reached version 2.0. With new features and significant usability improvements, this is a solid update. So why am I feeling a bit pessimistic about the market for software of this type?

I’d like to say that it is an essential part of psychotherapy to contribute to making the world a better place.

Many mental health professionals, particularly those in individual or small group practices with a strong web presence, often wear a technologist’s hat at least part of the time. If you’re one of those folks who sometimes needs to get their hands dirty under the hood of a website — maybe even do a bit of hand coding in PHP, Javascript and the like — the latest upgrade to the venerable BBEdit text processor has several new features to offer.

I had long been averse to the idea of charging directly for my time by the hour, in part because I dreaded the idea of some timer ticking away on my screen. Having recently evaluated literally dozens of different software packages for tracking project time, I can honestly say that most of them are just as dreadful as I’d imagined. But at least one is not dreadful at all. If you’re looking for an easy and unobtrusive way of tracking your time, check out our review of OfficeTime.

Mac-using mental health practitioners now have more choice than ever before when it comes to office software. Our review covers the high points of Microsoft’s latest suite, the changing competitive landscape, and a few gotchas with the 2008 update.