The following is a paid review of the Info2MIS software.

Overview of MIS
Steve McGrath is the owner, operator, and creator of the Info2MIS software as well as his MIS Info Video. In my mind it is easy to tell that a programmer, and not a designer or user interface specialist created the applications because to be quite frank, they are ugly looking and remind me of the freeware we used to see with Windows 95.

Info2MIS is a piece of software that will allow you to generate files that contain meta data on other files. It will allow you extract information and images from various websites, including IMDB.com.

Info2MIS is in beta, and is currently freeware. You can download it from the McGrath Info Solution website.

Requirements

• Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Pentium 3/AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz or higher
• Up To 3GB of Free Hard Drive Space
• 800×600 Video
• Keyboard and Mouse

These are the real required specifications from their website. I don’t know why he would list that you need a keyboard and mouse as that should be expected, but if you want to download a bunch of information from IMDB, you are looking at a good gigabyte of space to be taken up by the program and the resulting files.

Testing
When I first launched the Info2MIS application, I was met with basically nothing, but an empty white box and some menu options. Not a very impressive start.

Under File, all I had as an option was Exit, so I guess I knew I wasn’t launching anything from there. Moving on to the Tools menu, I found four options, Create/update a .MIS, Create/update FOLDER.MIF, Import Movies, and Options…

I tried Import Movies, since that was what I thought I wanted to do. Again I was met with a not very user friendly interface with many buttons and no help or information on what I had stumbled upon.

I clicked some buttons, and after some messing around, I had crashed the program. A tip for you, don’t click Distribute if you don’t have anything in the Import Movies screen.

So I went back to their site to see how I can create .MIS files for my media. After looking around on their site, I noticed that they have some tutorials on how to use their software. The site could use better organization, and an updated design, but once I found what I was looking for, I was able to create an .MIS file quickly.

I had to right click on the file I wanted to generate an .MIS file for, and select Create an .MIS from IMDB. I don’t like when programs add options to my right click menu, but whatever, I will let it slide for now.

It generated two files, one that was a JPG of the movie poster, which I assume it downloaded from the IMDB website, and another the .MIS file.

I wanted to take a look at the .MIS file it had generated, so I dragged the file to the Info2MIS window, and it wouldn’t let me drop it in. How odd, that the program that helped generate the file wouldn’t allow me to open it via drag and drop.

I tried everything I could to get it to open the .MIS file, including selecting the Update option via right clicking on the original media file, which only crashed the program once again. So I had to head back to their site again.

I checked the demo video on their site once more and noticed a discrepancy. When I created the .MIS, the software did not also create a text file, like in the included flash video. I found that to be a little odd.

I finally found out how to get the program to see the .MIS file I created. I opened the application again, and went to Tools and then Create/Update a .MIS, and went to the Folders to search tab. Down at the bottom there is a plus and minus sign. I clicked the plus, and added in the folder where the .MIS file was. I am assuming you could add in folders higher up in the directory structure and it will look in sub-directories, but I didn’t want to mess with the program much longer.

Finally it found the movie’s file I had created. I was then able to go to View .MIS file to see what they had put in the file I had created. It had information like the original year the movie was created, the runtime, video codec, width and height of the video, audio information, description, and credits.

It was an interesting bit of information, all taken from the file itself and the IMDB website, but at the same time, it seemed to have little use.

Finding Support
After messing around for a while, and being less than impressed, I checked out the support page on the site. I assumed incorrectly, that like the link at the bottom, the link near the top of the site was just linked to an e-mail address. The support page is where you want to go to find out how to make Info2MIS work for you. It includes all the details from start to finish on how to operate the program.

I would have reworked this area of the website to be one of the first things that new users saw, even before downloading, as I was completely lost until I clicked on this page. Though even when I finally did find this page, and the answers I had been looking for, the organization of said answers was poor, and sometimes a bit confusing. It didn’t explain why I needed to do certain things, it just lead me through the steps to do it.

I would go back through the process using the instructions provided, but really, I doubt too many other users of the software would do much differently than I did and as such would have probably given up on the software.

Conclusion
Suffice to say the program has many flaws. I locked it up a few times, crashed it a few other times, and wasn’t all that impressed with what it can do. I am a big supporter of meta data file types and increasing the amount of information included with images, audio, and video, but this tool doesn’t seem to allow me to easily create such data. I think it needs a bit more time in the oven before it is ready for prime time. I really do want to see such a format become more common though, as I look for more and better ways to categorize my non-text data.