What is alpha testing?

"Alpha" is a step before "beta" testing - beta is where everything has been implemented, and has to be comprehensively exercised in order to smoke out any hidden problems. In alpha, some of the problems are known beforehand, and usually result from the fact that parts of the "roadmap" have not even been implemented yet.

What is the current status of SyneMind?

The goal of SyneMind is to be "your life dashboard" - a place where you keep all you knowledge, and you share it with others. At the time of writing, you can:

• Create "notes" - rich text in which you can also upload documents or media. Or, you can think of them as "nodes" - as they can branch down into sub-notes, then sub-sub-notes etc. These are zones of knowledge that you can expand and refine over time.

• Add tasks. These are currently very much like notes and can also branch out into sub-task. Significantly, they can also be attached to notes.

• Upload documents or media. These live in "collections" which, like everything else in SyneMind, can be branched out into sub-collection by topic. You can upload a document to a collection, and you can also move it to another one as your library evolves. Documents and media can be "included" in notes or tasks; or, it is probably more correct to say that they can be "referenced from" notes or tasks - you only need to upload a document once and you can then reference it from many places.

• Add "quick notes" and "tasklets" - lightweight versions of a note or task, these can be attached to any note or task and can be used as comments or reminders - for example, a one-off "cancel X service subscription" that is not worth the trouble of creating and managing a full-blown task.

• Create groups. This is a "premium" feature which allows you to create and manage groups, invite people to them and then share content. Think of sharing documents about house maintenance within the family, or making a family photo album, or a business having onboarding documentation for new team members in one place, or a building manager having a shared content zone for renters, another one for owners, another one for maintenance people... The possibilities are endless.

What exactly was the result of the alpha testing then?

First, a big thank you to the volunteer testers who provided their feedback.

It resulted in:

• improved search functionality in notes and tasks

• better file management, including calculating the percentage of used upload quota

• the account security panel now shows your recent activity so you can flag suspicious usage

• password reset now works correctly

• many user-facing texts were improved

Not all has been done yet!

The testing raised many "tasklets" and we are still going through them - if you raised a problem and it has not been addressed yet, this is not because it was ignored but because we have just not done it yet!

Specifically, help texts both in the public and "private" zones need to be improved - or created in the first place... Some "fakes" need to be removed from the interface - they are placeholders for future functionality, but are now confusing so will be removed until the functionality is developed.

Search within uploaded documents does not work yet. We know it, and will develop it, but it is not a trivial task and will take some time.

We'll keep you posted!

Expect new updates as the service develops.