A Bicycle for the Mind

Amid the chaos of a world in crisis, I’ve found hope in an unexpected place: coding. With tools like Claude.ai and MCP, I’ve been building a web app to help food pantries serve their communities better—automating inventory, breaking language barriers, and streamlining processes. This isn’t just about code; it’s about turning anxiety into action, using technology to create something meaningful. If you’ve ever wondered how AI can amplify human effort, this is a story for you.

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Evaluating Tools for Information Architecture

OmniGraffle for Mac

From the website:

OmniGraffle is a comprehensive, yet easy to use diagramming and drawing application. Drag and drop to create wireframes, flow charts, network diagrams, UI mockups, family trees, office layouts, and more. OmniGraffle 7 comes with plenty of features to get started in Standard. OmniGraffle Pro has everything in Standard, plus features suited specifically for folks that make a living designing or working with graphics—things like Shared Layers, Artboard Layers, Non-Destructive Shape Combinations, Blending Modes and Fill Effects, Visio support, SVG export, and more.

Weaknesses:

  • Price - even their educational license for students costs $89.99. They do offer a free trial, but it only works for 14 days

  • Compatibility - not easy to transfer projects to other platforms (i.e., Visio)

  • Learning curve - many reviews complain that it is difficult to learn how to use

xSort for Mac

From the website:

  • Visual environment simulating a table with cards (and outline view).

  • Supports open, semi-open and closed exercises.

  • Supports sub-groups (participants can put groups inside groups).

  • Control every aspect of the exercise(sorting type, cards placement, etc.).

  • Statistical results (cluster tree, distance table, etc.) updated in real time.

  • Displays individually all the info related to an individual session.

  • Easily select the sessions you want to use based on different criterias.

  • Create, read, print and export reports with a single click.

  • Lock the document so that a participant may do only one session.

  • Fully integrated with Mac (Intel and PowerPC-based Macs).

  • Price - Free

Weaknesses:

  • 32-bit only (does not work with latest version of MacOS

  • No support

  • Has not been updated in years

PowerMapper Desktop

From the website:

  • Platforms - Macintosh and Windows

  • Webcrawl - Automatically maps websites

  • Agnostic - Works in-browser and on the cloud

  • Light system requirements - works well on older computers

Weaknesses:

  • Price - $150 per license and no educational license is offered, updates require annual subscription of $37.25

  • Limited use - primarily designed for website analytics