one digital life

Elements, by Ntractive… Simply Beautiful!

Sunday, March 19th, 2006

Let’s face it, I’m a software whore. I look at a lot of software. I enjoy playing with new software. I appreciate software that is designed well, both from a functional and aesthetic standpoint.

I recently came across Elements, by Ntractive. I don’t want to over-sell it, but it’s quite possibly the most beautiful software I’ve ever seen! It is simply stunning!

What does Elements do? Well… the short answer would be, Small Business Management. For the in-depth answer you should browse through the pages of their site… it’s all laid out in simplistic beauty. Basically, Elements is a Personal Information Manager (PIM), A Customer Relations Manager (CRM), a communication / collaboration tool… and a whole lot of other things too. And, it’s all built on Web 2.0 technologies, so it’s flexible and scalable.

As a quick side-note, I would also like to take a moment to comment on Ntractive’s website… wow! It’s also a thing of beauty. I carefully went through it page-by-page. It had me glued to my seat (yes, I’m a dork). Everything from the graphic treatment, to the layout and flow, to the content is excellent. It’s a model of simplicity, usability, and beauty.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I am really impressed with what I’ve seen so far of Elements, and Ntractive. I should probably mention though, that I haven’t actually had the pleasure of using Elements. It’s currently in development (pre-beta). But, I can safely say that if the attention to detail that these guys have shown in the product interface, and the website are any indication of what the final product will be… it will rock!

9 Comments to Elements, by Ntractive… Simply Beautiful!

1. I visited their website - a shame that the menubar didn’t align properly in my browser (click my name)!! Other than that you were probably justified in calling it beautiful.
Philip on March 19th, 2006

2. What possible reason could they have for making their screenshots available *only* in ZIP, SIT, and TAR format? Seems absurd. Force me to click, download, save, switch to explorer, right click, extract, double click, view, close, select files, delete, switch back to my browser… all to view a screenshot i could’ve viewed with two clicks on their website…
SelfishGene on March 19th, 2006

3. Philip - Thanks for the screen-shot. Curious… what browser are you using?

   SelfishGene - Ya, I will agree with you about the compressed screen-shots. That was an odd choice. That was my only real compaint about the site.
paul on March 19th, 2006

4. I’m using Firefox 1.0.7, so was doubly surprised, although I get exactly the same with Explorer, whatever resolution I’m using. Weird, I don’t often get errors like that with reputable websites.
Philip on March 19th, 2006

5. Sorry to go spamming your comments, but thought I should clarify - I have just upgraded to 1.5.0.1 and the problem remains.

   (It’s been a while since I have used this computer and the Firefox version was outdated).
Philip on March 19th, 2006

6. hmmm… If I view the site in Firefox 1.5.0.1 on a Mac, it’s fine… but on a PC it has the allignment isuue, you pointed out. I would have guessed it would be more consistant with Firefox on both platforms.

   Although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. i just noticed that my site has an issue with the page footer in Firefox on the PC, but is fine on the Mac.
paul on March 19th, 2006

7. Thanks for the comments! If Justin has already seen the alignment bug, he’s probably already fixed it — he’s pretty anal about that stuff. I’ll be working on something for about 15 hours and I’ll ring him up to see what he’s been doing and he’ll say “Oh, I noticed that on [insert browser that probably six people in the world use] this page looks funny, so I’ve been fixing that.”

   On the screenshots thing, I whinged about that for a while too, but he explained it with an argument so pervasive I can’t remember it any more. But I’ll ding him on it again.

   Thanks again for the comments, feedback of any sort is greatly appreciated!
dale on March 21st, 2006

8. Dale, you guys do awesome work! I mean that. I was sooooo impressed. I think the two minor hiccups mentioned here are far overshadowed by the coolness. If this is the worst people can say… you’ve got it made. Keep up the good work.
paul on March 21st, 2006

9. I too am highly impressed by the design and concepts of Elements. However, the site has been down for a while. Anyone know what gives?
Michael on July 12th, 2006

Leave a comment