Using SSI with WordPress

Server Side Includes (SSI) are a very powerful tool that can be
used to update multiple pages on a site quickly and with minimum fuss.

e.g. Imagine you had a site and you wanted to include a list of
recommended merchants at the bottom of every page.  What happens if one
of the merchants changes their affiliate link, or drops you as an
affiliate, or simply does not convert?  If you site had 100 pages, you
would have to manually update 100 pages and re-upload all 100 pages. 

With SSI, you would have this list of merchants in a single text
file.  You would then “include” that text file in all of the pages on
your site.

If you need to change a link, you simply change the link in the text
file and re-upload that one file.  The merchant list will then be
updated on every single page of your site.

Typically I’ll have 4 or 5 of these “merchant files” for any site I
build.  The list of merchants and ads shown in these files will be
geared towards the section on my site in which they will appear.  e.g.
on a contact lens site, I would probably have one merchant file for the
pages advertising prescription lenses, and another merchant file for
cosmetic lenses (those lenses that are just for appearance).  I might
even have a separate file for “halloween lenses”, and include photos of
vampire eyes, or cats eyes – whatever is hot at the moment.

By keeping my merchant lists to a few separate files, I can quickly
and easily swap out merchants, add in new promotions (e.g. at Halloween
there are always special offers, and these can be added to all
“Halloween” related pages in a few seconds) and have total control over
what ads are showing on the various sections of my website.  If changes
need to be made, I don’t need to edit every page on my site, just my
include files.

Do you see the power of this?

To help with SSI in WordPress sites, there is a plugin I recommend.  I
have it working on a WordPress 2.7.1. installation so can confirm it is
compatible with this version of WordPress.

WordPress Plugin: Include
It

Download and install it.

Now, in an HTML editor (or text editor if you prefer), create the
file that you want included in your pages.   Construct it in standard
HTML.  It can include a table, headers, affiliate links, text, images
etc.  When you have finished the include file, save it to the root
folder of your site.  You can give it any name you want, e.g.
merchants.txt, merchants.html etc.

Now, with the plugin active, simply add the following code in the
position of your WordPress post that you want the merchant list to
appear:

[include file=merchant.txt]

Save your post, and you are finished.

The contents of the merchant.txt file should display in the post.

Add this line to every post you want the list to appear in.  When you
need to change the merchant list, simply edit the merchant.txt file,
and upload it.  The merchant list will be updated on every page that you
added it to.

Do you have any other uses of SSI that you think readers of this blog
would be interested in?  Please feel free to leave comments on this
article below.  You do not need to register to leave a comment.

Sky Drive Attachment WLW Plugin 1.0

Windows Live SkyDrive is a special service that is
provided by Microsoft
for free. It allows you to store and access your personal files from
anywhere online & it gives you an enormous 25GB space. If you are a
blogger and use Windows Live SkyDrive as your online storage then Sky Drive
Attachment WLW Plugin 1.0 is a must for you. As the name says this
plugin is compatible with all the versions of Windows
Live Writer and is supported on Microsoft Windows XP and Windows
Vista. This plugin is pretty simple to use. It allows you to access and
manage your Windows Live SkyDrive
account right from Windows Live Writer interface. You can use Windows
Live SkyDrive Attachment
Plugin to upload, and use your file within your blog posts as
attachments. All you have to do is insert your login details and all the
files are shown, now you can select the files which you want to use as
an attachment. For easier access this plugin can
also be used from the sidebar of Windows Live Writer. It is an essential
plugin for Windows
Live Skydrive user, go and download it now!

Using server-side includes (SSIs) to add content to your web pages

What is an SSI?

A server-side include is code in a web page that tells the
server to add some specified information at that point in the page. It's
a way to extend the content of your page in some useful ways.

Caution: SSIs don't work on every web
server, and the details vary from one to another. This page describes
features which I know work on Apache and Microsoft IIS servers, and are
probably applicable to others.

Ask your web hosting company if (a) you can use SSIs, (b) what file
naming conventions you have to use for them to work, and (c) where you
should keep the files that use them. Then, as long as the answer to (a)
is yes, you can get started.

How do they work?

Unless otherwise instructed, a web server just sends the content of a
web page to the client, your browser. But for an SSI to work, the
server must parse (read) the file, find all the SSIs, and process them
before sending the content to the browser.

The web server can be set up to parse all files (not usual), in which
case, you can name your files with the usual .htm
or .html extensions. However, the usual case is
to have a specific extension set up for parsed files - usually .stm, .php or .asp.
If you use the wrong extension, the SSIs will just be ignored. The
folder that holds them must have appropriate execute or scripting
permissions too, or they will not work.

What can they do?

There are three main uses: to take standard text from another file
and insert it into the page (include files), to insert the value of a
variable quantity into the page, or to run a CGI script other than as
the action of a form.

I'm going to cover the basics here: include files, and some
variables. Many ISPs forbid the running of executables this way because
it can be a security risk, so I'm not going to discuss them here. If you
want detailed information on everything that can be done, a useful
starting point is the  Apache site, or if you have a commercial web
server, the manufacturer's site or the online help should have details
of which directives and variables are available for its product.

Including files

To include some standard text (for example, a disclaimer or
copyright), put one of these lines in your parsed web page where you
want it to appear:

<!--#include file="<em>filename.ext</em>" -->
<!--#include virtual="<em>/path/filename.ext</em>" -->

Note that although this looks like an HTML comment, you must put a
space before the closing -->. Use the first
form if the file is in the same directory or you are specifying a
relative pathname (e.g. ../../copy.inc); the
second for an absolute path (e.g. in another virtual directory - /includes/footer.inc), but never a full HTTP URL. The
file should contain either plain text or HTML markup (inbcluding scripts
of couurse), and can have any name you like, though a .inc
extension is conventional.

Example:

If the file copy.inc includes this text:

<p>The complete contents of this site are copyright <br />&copy; Lois Wakeman 1999-2008 except as expressly noted.</p>

then, if you have this code in your web page:

<!--#include file="copy.inc" -->

you will see this in the browser:

The complete contents of this site are
copyright © Lois Wakeman 1999-2008 except as expressly
noted.

Adding variables to the page

The web server has access to certain standard variables and file
information, which you can put in your page. The most useful for the web
page author are probably:

• <!--#flastmod virtual="/path/filename.ext"
  -->, and its file equivalent, which return the last modified
  date for the specified file.
• <!--#fsize virtual="/path/filename.ext"
  -->, and its file equivalent, which return the size of the
  specified file.
  

  For example, on a downloads page, it might be useful to have this
  code:

  
  

  <a href="/help/styles.zip">Download</a> this file,<br />size <span class="highlight"><!--#fsize virtual="/help/styles.zip" --></span><br />(last updated on <span class="highlight"><!--#flastmod virtual="/help/styles.zip" --></span>).

  
  

  which appears in the browser like:

  
  

  Download
  this file, size Kb
  (last updated on ).

  
  
• <!--#echo var="variable" -->,
  which returns one of a number of variables concerning the web server's
  environment, the current page, how it was fetched, by whom, etc. Some
  variables that may be useful for web pages are DOCUMENT_URI,
  DATE_GMT, DATE_LOCAL,
  and LAST_MODIFIED, for example:
  
  • This document can be found at http:/
    - variable DOCUMENT_URI
  • It's
    in Uplyme - variable DATE_LOCAL
  • The page was last modified on
    - variable LAST_MODIFIED
  
  

Pros and cons

If you have a large site with a lot of common page elements, include
files can make a big difference to how easy it is to maintain the site.
Instead of updating, say, 50 pages with the same menu or navigation bar,
you can just update the include file once.

Because all the processing is done at the server, you do not
introduce any browser compatibility problems using them. For example,
you can insert the last modified date using JavaScript, but that won't
work for everyone.

Because a page containing SSIs must be parsed, there is a small
processing overhead, but this is not generally significant in my
experience - though a very long page might be noticeably slower to load,
I guess. (But you don't have any of those, do you?)

If you have made a mistake on a parsed page (for example, an include
file cannot be found because the path is wrong), users will get a
message different from the familiar 404 error, which may confuse them
(for example, error processing test.asp file).
This is only a problem if you don't test your pages properly before
publishing them!

So, on balance, if you need the facilities offered by them, I'd say
they were worth the trouble of learning and using.

JavaScript "document.write"

One of the most basic JavaScript commands is document.write.
This simply prints the specified text to the page. To print text
literally, enter the text in single quote marks inside parentheses like
so:

	document.write('Hello World!');

The code above will cause the phrase "Hello World!" to appear on the
page.

You can also use document.write to print
variables. Enter the variable name without quotes, like so:

	var mytext = "Hello again";<br />	document.write(mytext);<br />

Note that if quote marks are placed around the variable name, the
variable name itself will be printed (instead of the variable value).
You can also combine variable values and text strings by using the +
sign:

	var colour1 = "purple";<br />	var colour2 = "pink";<br />	document.write('<p>colour1: ' + colour1 + '<br>colour2: ' + colour2 + '</p>');<br />

Notice the way the variable names are used literally as well as for
passing the values. This will print the following:

colour1: purple
colour2: pink

Remember, text inside quotes will be printed literally, text with no
quotes is assumed to be a variable.

colour1: purple
colour2: pink

How to Update Multiple Web Pages Using JavaScript

Using JavaScript, you can create a separate file which contains
content for your web page. To update all the pages simultaneously,
simply update the JavaScript file.

Pros:

• Easy to implement.
• Does not rely on any special HTML extension or server configuration.

Cons:

• Relies on the user having JavaScript enabled.
• Updates are more tricky than other methods.

---

Step 1: Create JavaScript File

Create a plain text document and name it with a .js
extension, for example masterscript.js.
Using the JavaScript document.write
method, enter the content you want to be displayed on every page
like so:

document.write("<div style='color:blue; font-size:12pt;'>");

document.write("© Copyright Myname 2004");

document.write("</div>");

Note: You don't need to include script tags in this file.

Step 2: Add JavaScript Code to Pages

On every page where you want the content to appear, insert the
following code:

<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript"
src="masterscript.js">

</script>

To change the content on every page, edit the contents of the masterscript.js file.

Metadata Elements - Robots META Tag

The Robots META Tag is meant to provide users who cannot upload or control the /robots.txt file at their websites, with a last chance to keep their content out of search engine indexes and services.

Examples of the Robots META Tag

The content="robots-terms" is a comma separated list used in the Robots META Tag that may contain one or more of the following keywords without regard to case: noindex, nofollow, all, index and follow.

noindex
Page may not be indexed by a search service.

nofollow
Robots are not to follow links from this page.

Admin Note: The robots directives of index, follow or all are not required as it is the default behavior of indexing spiders.




index
Robots are welcome to include this page in search services.

follow
Robots are welcome to follow links from this page to find other pages.

If this meta tag is missing, or if there is no content, or the robot terms are not specified, then the robot terms will be assumed to be "index, follow" (e.g. "all"). If the keyword all is found in the robots terms list it overrides all other values. That is, a robots terms that is "nofollow, all, noindex, nofollow", would effectively be "all".

If the robots terms contains contradictory information (e.g. "follow, nofollow, follow") then the robot is free to do whatever it wishes with regard to the behavior being addressed (in this case the follow behavior).

Common Usage for the Robots META Tag

The Robots META Tag is used for excluding content. We've included three (03) examples below of using the robots meta tag correctly to exclude information from search engine indexes and services.

1. A robots term of noindex allows the links on that page to be followed, even though the page is not to be indexed.
   
   
   
   
2. A robots term of nofollow allows the page to be indexed, but no links from the page are followed.
   
   
   
   
3. A robots terms of noindex, nofollow neither the page or the links on that page will be followed or indexed.
   
   
   
   
   


source: SEO Consultant Directory.

Menghubungkan Blog dengan Twitter

Saat ini, selain facebook kita mengenal twitter sebagai social networking yang banyak dipergunakan. Bila anda punya banyak follower twitter maka anda juga perlu mengarahkan mereka untuk membaca artikel di blog anda.

Untungnya WordPress memiliki plugin yang bermanfaat untuk itu. Namanya WP to Twitter. Dengan plugin ini, anda bisa menghubungkan artikel di blog anda dengan twitter. Sehingga setiap kali anda update artikel, maka plugin akan secara otomatis melakukan update terhadap twitter anda.

Ini tentunya akan sangat menyenangkan bukan?

Selain itu, anda juga bisa mengatur bagaimana tampilan di twitter anda. Misalnya anda menambahinya dengan kata-kata seperti Baru Update Blog… atau apa saja.

Well, silahkan anda coba-coba sendiri deh. Oh iya, plugin ini juga terintegrasi dengan Bit.ly danCli.gs. Untuk cli.gs sendiri, anda bisa melakukan pengecekan berapa banyak klik yang anda dapatkan melalui cli.gs. Oke, selamat mencoba yah

Mendaftarkan blog di 29 search engine

Supaya pengunjung blog kita semakin hari semakin ramai, maka selain link-exchange cara lain yang dapat kita lakukan adalah mendaftarkan blog kita pada search engine, seperti Google. Semakin banyak kita daftarkan maka semakin besar peluang blog kita untuk dilihat dan tentunya akan menarik pengunjung juga.

Untuk itu pada Belajar SEO kali ini kita akan mendaftarkan blog kita di 29 Search engine secara bersamaan dengan memanfaatkan fasilitas dari Mypagerank.net. Terlebih dahulu anda dapat mendaftar nya disini.

1. Setelah mendaftar maka Login lah dengan Username dan Password anda. Kemudian masuk ke menu "engine submit" seperti yang ditunjukan gambar berikut ini.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Masukan link Blog atau websites dan email anda, lalu centang tanda "Select", setelah itu tekan tombol "Submit my site"
   
   
   
   
   
3.  Tunggu beberapa saat, maka akan keluar hasil seperti berikut ini.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. "Submission Complate" artinya, Blog atau website anda berhasil didaftarkan.
   
   
   "Submission Failed" artinya, Blog atau website anda gagal didaftarkan, untuk itu anda dapat mendaftarkan secara manual dengan mengunjungi situs search engine tersebut.
   
   Semoga bermanfaat
   
   

Setting up BlogRolling.com

BlogRolling is a Blogroll webservice that helps people manage the linklists on their blogs. It is easily set up and allows the user to add, delete, or reives links. You can also change the theme of your linklist to match the theme of your site. It helps to order links alphabetically, randomly, or by date. It is helpful for professional bloggers.

Up until now I'd been maintaining this list in various different ways through the years: hand-updated, various small link directory scripts, and finally Movable Type. However, I usually have around 50 links on my list, and it was getting tiresome to have to click on each link every single day to see if the site had been updated. And this, boys and girls, is the main reason I switched to BlogRolling: it keeps track of when blogs are updated, and newly updated blogs can be distinguished in your list, by adding an image or some HTML to that link automatically. Even better, you can sort the links by last updated date, having the most recently updated site at the top.

Sound good? Read on, because I'll explain in full detail how to use this and customize it to only show the last 10 (or any other random) in your sidebar, and the full list on a separate links page.
And if you're not interested in using blogrolling on your own site, read the tutorial on Pings instead. It will explain how you can make your blogging system notify blogrolling.com whenever your blog has been updated, so that you'll appear at the top of other people's link lists and get more hits. 

This is all quite easy to do, I promise. 

What is a Blogroll?

How Bloggers Use Blogrolls to Boost Traffic to Their Blogs

A blogroll is a list of links to blogs that the blogger likes. A blogroll is usually included in the blog's sidebar. Some bloggers divide their blogrolls into categories. For example, a blogger who writes about cars could divide his blogroll up into categories for links to other blogs he writes, other blogs about cars and other blogs he likes about unrelated topics. The blogroll can be set up based on each blogger's personal preferences, and it can be updated at any time.

Blogroll Etiquette
It's an unwritten rule in the blogosphere that if a blogger puts a link to your blog in his or her blogroll, you should reciprocate and add that blog's link in your own blogroll. Of course, each blogger approaches this with their own blogging goals in mind. Sometimes you may not like a blog that links to you through its blogroll. There are many reasons why you may decide not to reciprocate a blogroll link, but it's good blogging etiquette to at least review each blog that links to you through its blogroll to determine if you'd like to add that blog to your own blogroll or not.

Blogrolls as Blog Traffic Boosters
Blogrolls are great traffic driving tools. With each blogroll that your blog is listed on comes the possibility that readers of that blog will click on your link and visit your blog. Blogrolls equate to publicity and exposure across the blogosphere. Additionally, blogs with many incoming links (particularly those from high quality blogs as rated by Google page rank or Technorati authority), are usually ranked higher by search engines, which can bring additional traffic to your blog.

Compendium Review

Compendium is a slightly different kettle of fish to the other products reviewed here, both practically and philosophically. Dealing with the philosophical side first, many of the mainstream mind mapping products like NovaMind, MindManager and ConceptDraw's MINDMAP are commercial while others are open source and free, like Freeplane, Freemind and Labyrinth.

Downloading and Initial Impressions 


The download process is slightly different to the norm, requiring a valid email address before a download link is emailed to you. This might put off casual observers but that is unlikely to be considered a problem for the Compendium Institute, the organization behind the research project and the tool that has emerged from it. Fifteen years of research have lead to the concepts enshrined in Compendium. The heart of the project is the Knowledge Media Institute of the UK's Open University and collaborators include other academic institutions around the world and commercial partners such as Verizon. Compendium has been used in many projects at the Open University and over fifty projects at NYNEX, Verizon and Bell Atlantic so it has been comprehensively road tested and its use and effectiveness closely studied.


Once downloaded installation is straightforward. The installer for the Windows package warns that is has only been comprehensively tested on Windows 2000 and XP and that it may work correctly on other versions (or not, presumably). Our testing was conducted on a Windows XP machine. A Java runtime environment is installed along with the Compendium package but it is relatively old and caused our system to download a Java update the next time it was rebooted. Everything still worked fine though.


The builders of Compendium have provided a number of screencast movies on their website which take you thorough the initial concepts contained within the program. They are well worth viewing as a quick way to get to know the software. In the Windows version the layout is easily recognizable and although some of the buttons are non-standard their functions are easy to figure out. The tool tips that pop up on mouseover are a real help when starting out and much appreciated as they are often never implemented in open source programs.

click for large image

Database Driven


The program starts up with an invitation to create a user account and then an initial mind map. This is the first sign that Compendium is built from the ground up using a database to provide a multi-faceted collaborative tool. Most mind mapping software has had collaboration capability bolted on as the internet has become faster and more reliable but this is not the case with Compendium. Starting the program takes a little while as database elements are registered and built, then a window is presented with a hierarchical outline view window on the left and a map window on the right. This second window, called a visual view, is populated with an Inbox, Trash and a couple of map icons the first time the application is started up.

click for large image

Another disconcerting side effect of the use of a database instead of files, although it proves beneficial once the panic is over, is that you are not prompted to save changes as you exit. The sudden fear of all that lost work turns into relief as soon as the program is restarted. The File Open dialogue box presents a choice of maps, including the one you were working on. So changes are made in realtime to the database and there's no concept of opening, saving or closing files. The data represented by your maps is referred to as a 'Project' and there are tools to backup, copy and delete those projects.


Map Creation


After following the initial screencasts you will be able to create maps. These are completely freeform and there are a number of different types of nodes (node appears to be the chosen term for an item in most mind mapping programs). As Compendium is a tool for mapping ideas, discussions and problems the nodes are more specialist than in pure mind mapping tools. You can add a node that asks a question, answers it or ascribes positive or negative attributes to another node. There are also decision and argument nodes.


A lot of attention has been paid to keyboard shortcuts, so simply hitting the 'M' key while in the view window will create a new node, opening its text box for you to immediately type the node's title. Nodes can also be created by dragging the icon for the relevant node type from the toolbar onto the map. The keyboard method works well and is preferred because mouse clicks sometimes don't quite work the way you intend them too.


Context Click Consistency


There is some inconsistency as to when an area or a node is in focus (in terms of the mouse) This means you sometimes don't get a response to a mouse click and have to repeat it after waiting to realize that nothing's going to happen. This is the sort of minor irritation that open source users have to live with which wouldn't happen with a commercial product like MindMindManager. Having said that there is a full and comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts for almost any task and they are all listed in sections in the Help file.


Once you have mastered the basics of using Compendium it is well worth going back to the screencasts on the Institute's website. Not only do they explain some of the features but, crucially, there are walkthroughs of mind map creation for specific subjects. For example there are three screencast describing different ways of representing and capturing strategy and one that shows how to capture and categorize a collection of useful web pages about a particular subject. This latter one could catch on; it makes lists of favorites in a browser look positively primeval.


Connecting Links


One difference with Compendium over other mind mapping products is that lines connecting the nodes aren't drawn in automatically as nodes are created. They are dragged into place with a right-click (ALT+mouse button for Mac users) once the nodes are in place. This makes map creation slightly slower than with a package likeXMind, which connects nodes at creation, but allows complete and absolute freedom as to where lines should go, with multiple end and starting points no problem at all.


The colors of the lines linking the nodes have different interpretations. A line can mean that a node 'Responds To' another node, or 'Expands On' the node pointed to, or any one of around eight relationships. There are over half a dozen of these, daunting for the novice user, but the lines can be labeled with their type, or in fact with any other text. This complete freedom with line placement and type can be daunting for some people but for those well-versed in mind mapping as a concept it is very welcome.


Node Properties


The nodes can all have properties ascribed to them, comments, tags and others. Tags show some of the power that Compendium has behind the maps that can be drawn. There is a group of pre-assigned tags provided with the package but also the ability to add your own. Once items have been assigned relevant tags, or perhaps updated after a project meeting, you can search on those tags (as well as other properties) to find all nodes with that tag, not only in the current mind map but across however many maps you can get access to.


Compendium nodes can be maps themselves and there is no practical limit to the number of maps that can be nested or the levels where they can be linked. There is a 'weight' icon which, if turned on, will indicate the number of nodes contained within a map node. This is a useful if crude measure of the importance of the map.

click for large image

Collaboration Connections


The academic roots of Compendium show in the extra features, particularly those that enable collaboration. Compendium can make links to servers such as ClaimMaker and IX Panel. ClaimMaker is a client server system for modeling interpretations of academic papers and IX Panel is an experimental server-based technology based at the University of Edinburgh for coordinating activities and shared document. Connections can also be made to any service using the Jabber IM protocol, and in fact the IX Panel link uses this protocol.


Another collaboration enhancement is the ability to link to Access Grid meetings via a set of tools under the 'memetic' umbrella. Again memetic and Access Grid are technical academic projects that support the sharing of learning. In this case it is the ability to record, store and replay meetings whether they are in person or virtual. Compendium also has a defined XML schema which can be used to tie mind maps into other sources with XML interfaces and technically minded people should have no difficulty setting these links up.


Bells and Whistles


Compendium has some neat tricks up its sleeve. You can overlay a map on top of an image to add notes and graphics to it. This allows you to, for example, annotate satellite maps or highlight items on a picture of a circuit board. These task normally need knowledge of a complex graphics program but with Compendium it is straightforward. Setting Text on mouseover is very useful too. If care is taken over the text chosen this can be used so that people looking at a mind map can get the overall picture before delving down into the layers that will specifically interest them.

click for large image

A scribble pad can be used to literally scribble on a mind map. This is a transparent layer which is usually hidden but can be brought to the front of a map and drawn on using a simple graphics tool. This is useful in live teaching or presentation situations because lines, arrows and circles can be drawn freehand on the scribble pad to highlight particular areas of the mind map. The graphic editing capability is very rudimentary though.

click for large image

Transcluding Nodes


Transcluding is another facility that is unique to Compendium (as far as we know at the moment) and it keeps track of ideas or documents when they might fit into multiple categories rather than just one. You can make a copy of a node, using CTRL-C or the Copy option under the Edit menu. This does not create an actual copy of the document. As all the content nodes are links to the real item, the copy command creates another link.


Each node icon is annotated to indicate that there are a number of instances of it in other maps and if you change the text label on one the other will all be updated. However, you can assign different tags and other properties to each of the different icons. For example an item could be an opportunity in one context but a problem in another. However, if you do actually need to make a real copy of a node, separate from the original, instead of a duplicate link, use the Clone option instead of Copy.

click for large image

Compendium Conclusions


What is Compendium all about then? While it has the mind mapping concept at its heart it is much more than a tool to draw and update mind maps. Many people use Compendium as an organizer for research projects or even their lives and its ability to link to almost any object certainly lends itself to this. The downside is that you have to use Compendium as the glue between all your activities. This is fine unless you are working with people who don't use it, because you will keep having to go back to the tools that your colleagues use, then update Compendium separately.


Is it good software? Undoubtedly it is, but is using Compendium to draw mind maps a bit like using a brick to crack an egg? Perhaps so; it will do the job brilliantly but then you'll find yourself working around it more than if you'd picked a simpler tool. If all you want to do is draw mind maps to help you fix concepts in your mind then perhaps a simpler product like MindMeister or will do the job for you. On the other hand, if you are looking at mind maps as the first step in trying to encapsulate and analyze tricky, nebulous problems, then Compendium won't let you down.